June 25, 1985 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 17239 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS A TRIBUTE TO AMNESTY INTER­ are rotting away, anonymous and largely that people knew what was being done but NATIONAL, HELSINKI WATCH, forgotten, in the prisons of perhaps half the didn't care, didn't act to try to help. When AND AMERICAS WATCH countries of the world. They are not terror­ we needed help, nobody came. This must ists who sought change by violence but ac­ not happen today." tivists whose only "crimes" were peaceful Amnesty International, headquartered in HON. MICHAEL D. BARNES dissent, complaining of injustice, voicing op­ London, is the largest, best known and most OF MARYLAND position, demanding reform or seeking rec­ influential of the groups, with 150,000 mem­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ognition for their cause-rights that are bers in the United States and 500,000 world­ guaranteed and protected in the United wide. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in Tuesday, June 25, 1985 States and other democratic nations. 1977. Amnesty enjoys a reputation for scru­ •Mr. BARNES. Mr. Spe.aker, an arti­ Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov and his pulous research and strict impartiality as it cle in the May 12, 1985, Parade maga­ wife, Yelena Bonner, are the most widely catalogs abuses and uses its membership to zine described the important work of known human rights victims: A critically ac­ pressure offending governments. claimed HBO television special last year The organization is structured to allow Amnesty International, Helsinki starring Jason Robards and Glenda Jackson Watch, and Americas Watch on behalf anyone to channel his or her energy and brought their poignant story into the homes concerns directly toward helping victims. of human rights around the world. As of millions of Americans. Last January, The membership is broken down into small chairman of the Subcommittee on during his tour of South Africa, Sen. "adoption" groups scattered throughout Western Hemisphere Affairs, I have Edward M. Kennedy's visit with Winnie some 50 nations, with the groups formed had the opportunity to work closely Mandela helped focus media attention on around a church, a club, a neighborhood, a with both Amnesty International and the 21-year imprisonment of her husband, factory or an office. Americas Watch, and I can say that Nelson Mandela, Africa's best-known politi­ Each group is assigned two so-called "pris­ both the subcommittee and the vic­ cal prisoner. oners of conscience" -victims from other The vast majority of human rights vic­ countries who have been imprisoned for tims of oppression in Latin America tims, unfortunately, enjoy no such atten­ and the Caribbean have benefited nonviolent activities. Group members send tion-or the protection that such publicity material aid to the victims and their fami­ greatly from their efforts. I am very can bring. They are ordinary people like lies-money, food, clothing, medicine-and pleased to include the article for the Pasa Uzun and Ricardo Bofill, far removed also launch a mail campaign. Letters of en­ information of my colleagues. from America's consciousness and little couragement are sent to the victims; polite, [From the Parade Magazine, May 12, 19851 known even in their own countries. Their carefully worded appeals for freedom are greatest hope lies with human rights groups THE GREATEST EVIL Is INDIFFERENCE sent to anyone of influence-prison officials, who work to expose abuses, end torture and a minister of security, an ambassador or the <By Michael Satchell) executions, speed trials, improve conditions In Diyarbakir Military prison in eastern country's political leader. for prisoners and, hopefully, to engineer Often there is no way of knowing if the Turkey, 32-year-old Pasa Uzun struggles to their freedom. It is a dauntingly difficult survive in a world of cruelty that is beyond prisoner receives the letters or if the ap­ task. It is also one in which anyone can play peals contribute to his welfare. Many times, the darkest imagination of most people. a vital role. Five years of systematic torture, miserable There are three principal groups in the though, this polite pressure through the food and brutal discipline have reduced him United States dedicated to ending human simple tactic of writing letters can have a to something akin to a living corpse. He feet rights abuses: .Amnesty International, Hel­ powerful effect. are blackened from falaka-the beating of sinki Watch and Americas Watch. Augment­ A Dominican Republic trade union leader the soles of the feet-and he walks with dif­ ing their efforts are professional groups­ named Julio de Pena Valdez, for example, ficulty. His family and friends, permitted doctors, lawyers, educators-and emigre or­ was seized in a police raid and held naked in only rare visits, dare not complain of his ganizations that focus on abuses within a an underground cell. Amnesty launched an condition, for they are not anxious to join specific country or region. extensive letter campaign that prodded Do­ him. "Every American should be concerned minican President Joaquin Balaguer to re­ Pasa Uzun is guilty of nothing more than about human rights, because every Ameri­ lease him. being born a Kurd, a despised and savagely can has a vested interest in the issue," says "When the first 200 letters came, the persecuted ethnic minority in Turkey. He Robert L. Bernstein, president of Random guards gave me back my clothes," the grate­ faces 16 more years in Diyarbakir. Without House publishers. Long an activist for ful prisoner later wrote. "Then the next 200 help or intervention, his chance of surviving human rights, he is also the chairman of came, and the prison director came to see is slim. He is as alone, and probably as Helsinki Watch. me. When the next pile of letters arrived, afraid, as man can be. "It's a powerful tool to get people of other the director got in touch with his superior. Half a world away, in Cuba's Combinado nations to believe in our way of life," adds The letters kept coming and coming, 3,000 del Este Prison, Ricardo Bofill, 41, once a Bernstein. "Violating basic human rights of them. The president was informed. The professor of philosophy and the vice rector often promotes communism. It creates letters still kept arriving, and the president of the University of Havana, spends day unrest and instability in a country, and this called the prison and told them to let me go. after day alone in dark, windowless cell or can lead to conflict. Conflict in turn may in­ "After I was released, the president called lying on a cot in the prison infirmary. His volve the United States. It may be your tax me to his office. He said: 'How is it that a health is precarious-he suffers from a seri­ dollar that have to pay for American aid. It trade union leader like you has so many ous heart ailment. He has served more than may be your son who is drafted to fight this friends from all over the world?' He showed eight years in Cuban prisons for publicly war. Human rights is a far more important me an enormous box full of letters he had complaining about the government's human issue than many people realize." received and, when we parted, he gave them rights violations. Fidel Castro, taking a cue The author, scholar and humanist Elie tome." from the Soviet Union, once had him locked Wiesel says. "The greatest evil today is in­ Karel Kyncl, an imprisoned Czechoslovak up in a mental hospital. difference. To know and not to act is a way journalist, said after his release: "A political Bofill is held incommunicado-he receives of consenting to these injustices. The planet prisoner comes to know about Amnesty's and sends no mail, is allowed no visitors. His has become a very small place. what hap­ work on his behalf usually only indirectly, wife, Maria Elena, and 18-year-old son, Al­ pens in other countries affects us." from the sarcastic remarks of his jailers or berto, live in Miami and depend upon re­ Wiesel, who survived the Nazis' Buchen­ from pieces of information communicated leased prisoners for scraps of news about his wald and Auschwitz concentration camps, to him by members of his family in their worsening condition. They worry about shares a particular empathy with today's strictly censored letters. But it is enough to whether he can survive the 11 years his sen­ forgotten human rights victims. give him a wonderful feeling that he is not tence still has to run. "I felt during the war that what was being completely forgotten after all, that some­ Pasa Uzun and Ricardo Bofill are political done was a secret." he says. "Later, I found body cares." prisoners, typical of uncounted tens of thou­ out that it wasn't. Absolutely the greatest Amnesty also has become synonymous sands of similar human rights victims who despair we Jews felt was when we realized with the effort to expose nations that prac- • This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by the Member on the floor. 17240 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS June 25, 1985 tice torture-an issue steeped in both horror an important intelligence listening post into 45-year-old auto mechanic named Jesus Bar­ and hypocrisy. The United Nations' Univer­ the Soviet Union <with whom it shares a rios is serving four years in Combinado del sal Declaration of Human Rights, to which border) and operates bases for vast amounts Este for publicly uttering, "Viva Reagan.") all U.N. members subscribe, prohibits tor­ of military equipment, including nuclear After Bofill's release in 1982, he was sub­ ture, and few nations are willing to admit weapons.