Since 1974 this became a self-fulfilling prophecy in the life

of the Jews of Ethiopia.

Ever since, they have been treated as

outcast exiles in their native land.

Discrimination against the Ethiopian Jews under the Communist regime became daily more vicious. Incarceration and beatings became routine. Families were torn apart by the use of conscription of young men into the armed services, never to be heard of again. Other appalling reports have included the selling of Ethiopian Jews into slavery, the destruction of entire villages, as well as continual forced and systematic assimilation aimed at annihilating them of their identity, thus preventing them to instruct their children into their unique and almost legendary traditions.

History has shown the tragic outcome and outrageous injustice which occurs when religious and social oppression and persecution is allowed to go unchecked by a blind and indifferent world. It is the recent memory of such unimaginable cruelties perpetrated against innocent millions which makes it imperative for all of us to speak out against the cultural and physical annihilation of this very unique and legendary branch of the Jewish people.

Mr. BONKER. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

I certainly appreciate the commitment and the contribution both you and Barney Frank are making with respect to human rights in general and religious persecution in particular. There just seems to be an absence of any reference or attention to religious persecution in our development of a human rights policy.

I was looking through the document that is required by the Congress from the State Department that gives a country-by-country report on human rights conditions in particular countries. Very often this document is the basis for information from which we develop our policies with respect to various countries. The State Department report to breaks down the human rights question by listing section by section certain aspects of violations of human rights. One section deals with torture, another cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment or punishment. Thanks to the work of this subcommittee in the past, we have identified disappearances and have placed that sad phenomenon into the description as to what constitutes a violation of human rights. There is also a section on freedom to participate in the political process and one on economic and social circumstances.

We have attempted to develop a broad description of human rights violations.

Yet there is no reference to religious persecution. Indeed, when I look through the section on Ethiopia I find no reference to the Falashas. When I look through the section on Egypt, there is no reference to the Coptics.

So this is an area that Congress and the administration have neglected. The reason we are having these hearings is to, first identify the problem and, second through testimony and subcommittee work, find a basis to develop religious persecution as another aspect of violation of human rights.

Would you recommend that we incorporate religious persecution into our overall description of on human rights?

Mr. LANTOS. I most certainly would, Mr. Chairman, because it is unfortunately one of the most frequent and one of the most incomprehensible aspects of human rights violations and I would strongly urge that we do so.

Mr. BONKER. Well, I appreciate hearing that and since you are an influential member of the Foreign Affairs Committee when we reach that point I hope you will support our efforts to do just that.

Do you know, Mr. Lantos, if there is any reference to religious persecution in the Helsinki accords? In the various baskets where we get into freedom of movement and other rights for signatory countries?

Mr. LANTOS. I cannot recall any, Mr. Chairman, and maybe there is room there for inclusion of this item.

Mr. BONKER. Staff informs me that there is a strong reference in the Helsinki accords. On another matter, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights convenes in Geneva annually and takes up all human rights issues, or at least attempts to deal with some of them. It was really through their work that we were able to set up a special working group to study the problem of disappearances. I think they succeeded to a great extent in focusing attention on that particular issue.

There has been a working group in Geneva on drafting a U.N. declaration on religious freedom which was recently adopted and is now before the General Assembly. I am wondering if we should not take a similar approach to religious persecution as we did with disappearances. That is to have our delegation now headed by Michael Novak to recommend the formation of a special working group to consider cases of religious persecution.

Mr. LANTOS. I would strongly support that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BONKER. I really appreciate your testimony and also the considerable work that you and Mrs. Lantos have done in this important area.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I leave, if you will allow me just one more sentence, I think it is often said that the measure of a Member's congressional service is really the answer to the question has this world been made somewhat better because of his service. I must say that by this measure your congressional service stands out as a milestone among all of us.

Mr. BONKER. I am humbled by your statement. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

I would like to call to the witness table the three witnesses who are with us today-the president of the American Coptic Association, Mr. Karas; the vice president of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews, Henry Rosenberg; and Rachamin Yitzack who is from Israel. My English is no better than that of Barney Frank's, so if I stumble on the names, please correct me. [Laughter.]

Since we have been discussing the Falashas we will continue and hear from Henry Rosenberg, who is the vice president of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews.

STATEMENT OF HENRY ROSENBERG, VICE PRESIDENT,
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR ETHIOPIAN JEWS

Mr. ROSENBERG. Sir, I am going to dispense with reading my biography because I think you have that up there and I will say a little about the American Association for Ethiopian Jews.

We are an organization we hoped would dissolve itself very quickly. We thought once the problem was brought to the attention of the world that it would be that-the conditions were so singular and the problems and the people and what they suffered would move the world to act, but it has not happened that way.

So we are an association. We are voluntary, nonprofit, and we have no paid professional clerical staff and all the duties are assumed by volunteer members of the board, no rented quarters. We use our own homes.

Several of our board members have been to Ethiopia. We have about 10,000 financial supporters that provide us with funds that we need to carry out our function. In Ethiopia we have helped with education and various programs, as we have done in Israel. We have tried to help Falashas to leave.

I just came here from Israel yesterday. My American friends always ask me why you American Jews are so concerned with people so far away and it is interesting. I left my wife there with my daughter and her children-2 and 1. Her husband had just

been stabbed to death by a gang of six terrorists in Israel and yesterday was the unveiling. I am here today and I think it somewhat ties in with the terror under which our friends in Ethiopia, our coreligionists, live.

I have been there twice in the last few years since the revolution. I spent about 8 weeks there, part of the time with my wife. I visited many, many of the Falasha villages-I think more than probably any other American surely. I have come to admire the people. Now what is the present situation of the Falashas? Hundreds of Falashas have been imprisoned and tortured and killed. They are called Zionists and CIA agents. Since they are rural people, most of them are illiterate. I do not think most of them know what CIA agents are.

But this is for crimes ranging from distributing matzos to teaching Hebrew and the ultimate crime, trying to emigrate. I have seen and interviewed these people and it is not something that is academic. I have seen the physical evidences of this torture. Most of these Falashas are illiterate, so what happened was they took their leaders, the teachers who have been educated-this handful-and used them as an example.

It had the desired effect of frightening or intimidating the teachers and the people. One of these teachers I will never forget. It was a guy who would go anywhere. He had many chances to leave because of his position, but he has got a family there and he has got his people. His eyes used to sparkle. He used to bounce and when I saw him just recently I was in shock. I was there in November.

He had this haunted stare in his eye. After months of torture it left him crippled and at first he was just invalid. Now he walks by dragging his foot after him and it is just painful to watch.

Another teacher my wife and I tried a number of years to get out. He had severely shattered his leg and we thought we could get him out. He could not get treatment there. But in torturing him-a lovely young man-they rebroke the same leg. So this is constant. It is not just an isolated thing. It is not just somebody whacking away at somebody in prison or something.

This is a constant. Torture is a way of life and the fear it inspires in the rest of the population has a way of dehumanizing them.

Now as to the other Falashas persecuted. Well, it is interesting. As an American-as I said, I was just there-I was allowed to go into any Christian or Moslem village. I was not allowed into a Falasha village. I know foreigners who have been arrested, and Americans, for merely stopping in a Falasha village. They are officially closed and one gets in clandestinely, with a government guide, not unlike the Russians.

You cannot get in. You know, the Falashas are absolutely out. When I was there before, of course, it was a little different. At that time Addis Ababa was where the terror was going on and in the villages-it was after the revolution-it was a little easier. My wife and I-my wife especially-befriended as a medical person a local person who was a friend of the police colonel in charge, and so I was able to get to areas where no other white person was allowed. As I said, I have been in these villages and I have seen these people and seen the deterioration in their situation. Despite talk of land reform, the Falashas do not own land. The synagogues are

closed. Now you do not see the Coptic churches closed. You do not see the Moslem mosques closed, but the Falasha synagogues are closed. In the past, they have tortured and imprisoned Kohenim, the priests. The Falashas go by the biblical term. They do not have rabbis in Ethiopia. The Jewish schools are closed, yet the Christian and Moslem schools in the area are still open.

Now this is all part of a practice of intimidating these people or, as was referred to by Congressman Frank, an international organization backed by money from Canada and several European countries was expelled from the Gondar region where most of the Falashas live. They had given some help to the Falashas as well as to provide some jobs for the Falashas, because the Falashas are the poorest of the poor in Ethiopia.

They are not allowed to own land historically, and this goes way back. The provincial governor, Major Melaku, or his agents, summoned the Falashas. They round them up in each village and he tells them what their life is going to be like under him. And if a member of the family escapes and they do not notify the officials within 24 hours, they themselves will suffer-be arrested and tortured a little more from Major Melaku.

Well, how does the Falasha past affect the present? They have a written history of more than 800 years-a 3,000-year history. As Congressman Frank said, they are Falashas, meaning aliens or strangers in their own country. They were once proud rulers of a substantial part of the country. They were more than 1 million and they are reduced to a handful at this point.

After they lost a war in the 17th century, when the cannon of the Amhars overcame them, large numbers were killed, forcibly converted and enslaved and carried to the capital of Gondar. They were forbidden to own land, forced to work as tenant farmers in a country where landownership is everything. Also, all of one's social-economic status in Ethiopia historically has come out of owning land.

These people do not own land. They are looked down upon. They are forced to work as artisans. They are the blacksmiths and potterymakers. In the country, artisans are feared as sorcerers and they call them Kyler and Buda and they feel that they put a spell on you. It is like they are subhuman. It is not unlike many Jews in small places were viewed in Eastern Europe.

It is like in cities, you can kill a Falasha historically. That is nothing new. With the modern drift to the cities, Falashas have entered there. They are forced to become Christians or non-Jews because they are frightened to be Jews. This is an act of government persecution. I do not care what anybody says. I have seen it-that haunting look of fear that comes into their eyes when they are questioned.

Recently, a number of them were questioned. They were trying to emigrate. The questions were almost totally about being Jewish. Even when they escape to neighboring countries, the whole thing is involved. They are frightened because they are Jews. They are separate.

This Major Melaku-it just happened that the remaining Jews are left in this one province under this man's authority. They feel he is a sociopath. He delights in torture and murder. He personally