The government has yet to act on the Medical Association's

recommendations.

There are other important organizations which have assisted, monitored or reported on the plight of detainees include the Dependants Conference of the South African Council of Churches; the South African Institute of Race Relations and the Catholic Bishops' Conference. The General Secretary of the

Bishops' Conference has recently been released following five months of detention in the Ciskei, one of the regional areas of South Africa which the government claims is independent.

Time does not permit me to go into great detail regarding detention and torture in the various homelands of South Africa, nor to discuss the situation in Namibia which South Africa continues to occupy in defiance of internationalė law. Suffice ti to say that with South Africa's domestic policies

increasingly under the microscope of public scrutiny, very little attention has been paid to what South Africa is doing under the guise of its homeland policy or its occupation of Namibia.

It is rather unfortunate, because some of the most flagrant abuses of human rights are now occuring in the homelands and specifically the Ciskei and Venda. Last year there was a dramatic increase in the number of detentions without trial in South Africa largely as a consequence of the detentions in the homelands. The figure rose from 264 detentions in 1982 to 453 last year. The Ciskei alone accounted for 180 of the detentions, over 40 percent of the total. Of the people detained last year more than 70 percent were released

without being charged. Needless to say, the situation in the Ciskei has become alarming.

The officials appointed by the South African governement to govern the Ciskei have enacted the Ciskeian National Security Act which is even more egregious then the South African security legislation after which it is patterned. Numerous former detainees have made allegations of torture in detention by methods commonly used by the South African police. For a more complete summation of the human rights situation in the Ciskei, I would recommend two excellent studies which discuss in detail the pernicious conditions that currently exist in the homelands. One is entitled Ruling with the Whip, written by Nicholas Haysom, a South African lawyer and published by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of Witwatersrand.

The other is Human Rights in the "Homelands": South Africa's Delegation of Repression, written by Miriam Lacob, a South African Journalist which is soon to be published by the Fund for Free Expression in New York. If it would please the subcommittee, I will gladly make both available for the record.

I have been asked to give some recommendation about what might be done in South Africa. I am not at all certain that much can be done that will have a positive, beneficial impact on torture in that troubled country.

At the same time I recognize that efforts are underway in Congress to, among other things, limit new investments in South Africa. I support that effort. But in addition to those steps, I do offer these modest, additional recommendations aimed specifically at torture:

1. The Congress should publicize the work of the Congressional Ad Hoc Monitoring Committee on South Africa and seek other means by which the Committee or Congress can take a strong public stance against torture and the maltreatment of detainees;

2. Our embassy in South Africa should be instructed to send observers to political trials in South Africa and to speak out forcefully against torture when it is exposed during court hearings;

3. We should provide moral and material support for the families of detainees, and

4. Reinforce and expand the ban on exports of items that may be used for torture.

There are other steps that might be taken, but these are at least the minimum. To some extent, it is difficult to address the question of torture in South Africa because torture is, in part, an attitude.

The problem is that the Government of South Africa considers itself to be under seige both internally and externally. As a minority government lacking the popular support of the vast majority of its people, South Africa exhibits a seige mentality which gives rise to, and supports the possibility

of torture.

The Administration has argued that it has limited influence in South Africa and that what influence it has, must be exercised through quiet diplomacy. The policy of constructive engagement was suppose to accomplish this. However, the record for the first three years is not good. There have been eight deaths in detention, and torture is as widespread as ever. It is perhaps not fair to make comparisions, but with respect to human rights improvements, the situation was far better three years ago. If ever a time

exist for the Administration to demonstrate that constructive engagement is a viable alternative to public condemnation, that time is rapidly running out.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we should note that South Africa is a tortured society. I have spoken here this morning regarding a rather narrow definition of torture. But, I think it is important to note that there are other kinds of torture that take place in South Africa. The torture that occurs when communities are uprooted and dumped in areas that barely support life. The torture that occurs when human beings are forced to conduct their lives according to laws that deny human rights and denigrate human dignity. The torture that occurs when families are torn apart by laws insensitive to human values.

These are not the questions that can be answered today. But because they are important to black South Africa, and because black South Africans are determined to bring about a change in their country, there will continue to be torture in South Africa.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, despite our diverse geographical interest;

despite our differences in experiences; despite the fact that it may have been only this hearing that brought us together, we share, all of us here, an abiding, if often unstated concern for the basic dignity of all human beings. Torture is a basic affront; a fundamental assault on the very integrity of each and every one of us. Our efforts must be devoted to suppressing and eradicating this essential weakness, this essential evil which would permit those with power to abuse and ahhihlate something that is not theirs to harm, nor theirs to destroy. One of us is all of us. To torture one is to torture humanity. What small things we do here today may be the important steps that ensures our future as a people, a nation, a planet. That is why we are here. I am please to have had this opportunity to offer my views on this extremely important question of torture in the eighties.

Mr. YATRON. Thank you, Mr. Arnold, for your statement and also your recommendations.

Our next witness is Dr. Alexander Voloshanovich.

Dr. Voloshanovich, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF DR. ALEXANDER VOLOSHANOVICH, FORMER SOVIET PSYCHIATRIST

Dr. VOLOSHANOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The reason I am here is on behalf of my friends and colleagues in the Soviet Union. I want to tell you about my experiences as a former citizen of the Soviet Union and practitioner in psychiatry there.

In the Soviet Union, psychiatry is a branch of medicine but psychiatric facilities are used in a rather unique way for torture, routinely by Government with the full support of the psychiatric establishment and the authorities.

Ordinary rank and file doctors, in fact, have no opportunity to protest against such practices and very limited indeed opportunities to avoid participation in such practices.

I left the Soviet Union in 1980. It had been known for quite awhile that psychiatry in the Soviet Union was used rather controversially, and the evidence for this reached the west long, long before.

Actually, as a routine practice, it began to be used in such a way for oppression during Khrushchev's time, the beginning of 1960's. During the 1960's and the beginning of 1970's, there was collected quite convincing evidence about the use of Soviet psychiatry for oppression of its citizens.

I am talking about my own experiences there. My first case of abuse of psychiatry for repression against citizens, a clear-cut case, happened at my job, routine job, in a state hospital. Medical help is all governmental in the Soviet Union, I described this case in the submitted paper.

It was a case of a worker who was punished unjustly at his work, used as a scapegoat, in fact for the mistakes of his superiors. And, in his struggle for restoration of his name and reputation he lost his job and because he was very disturbing for authorities at work and local authorities, KGB took him to our hospital.

The first attempt failed, as the doctor in charge of emergency unit refused to accept him in the hospital on the grounds of his absolute sanity.

Pretty soon, he was detained in another psychiatric hospital, and treated very harshly with neuroleptic drugs there which were used actually not for medical treatment, but in attempt to break his determination, his attempts to defend his own rights.

And, later on, he was transported back to our hospital, which served his catchment area. It was a reasonably fortunate case. The doctor who saw him previously and myself, managed to organize an authoritative psychiatric commission, which reviewed his diagnosis and they immediately discharged him.

And, actually, this case made me think about my role in this system. It was a clear cut case of abuse. I had come across less convincing cases before, but exactly this case made me decide. And,