Helsinki Watch Committee commends U.S. delegation to Madrid Conference (12/28/80)

Helsinki Watch Committee commends U.S. delegation to Madrid Conference

NEW YORK - Speaking on behalf of the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, Chairman Robert L. Bernstein expressed his "high regard for the work of Ambassadors Griffin Bell and Max Kampelman who have forcefully demonstrated within a diplomatic framework that the Helsinki Act's commitment to 'the right of the individual to know and act upon his rights' will not be compromised by the Western democracies."

Mr. Bernstein went on to point out that "the names of more than 65 Soviet and Czecho-Slovak citizens imprisoned or banished for monitoring the Helsinki Accords and for exercising their human rights have been raised in the open and closed deliberations of the Madrid Review Conference which opened on November 11. At least 60 of them have been raised by members of the U.S. delegation."

This preliminary tally reflects a dramatic change in atmosphere since the first Helsinki Review Conference in Belgrade in 1977, where U.S. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg stood alone in publicly mentioning the names of five Soviet political prisoners. According to Orville Schell, vice-chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee who just returned from Madrid where he served as a public member of the U.S. delegation, "the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and the sharp increase in repression within the USSR since the Belgrade Conference have brought about a new unity among the Western nations displayed in firm forthright appeals for actions and not words from the Soviet bloc."

The banishment of Dr. Andrei Sakharov has been strongly condemned by several delegates, including Dr. Philip Handler, president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, who spoke of the deterioration of Soviet-American scientific exchanges, calling it a direct result of the infringement of the rights and freedoms of Soviet scientists. He called the exile of Dr. Sakharov "a profound shock, deeply offensive to our most precious beliefs."

Dr. Handler also referred to imprisoned scientists Yuri Orlov, founder of the international citizens' Helsinki movement, Anatoly Shcharansky, a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group and a Jewish activist and refusenik, and Sergei Kovalev, a biologist and rights activist serving a lengthy prison term. Dr. Handler went on to cite the persecution of lesser-known Soviet scientists: Bakhmin, Kukk, Marynovych, Nazarian, Skuodis, Velikanova and Zisels, as well as Viktor Brailovsky who was arrested on November 13, two days after the opening of the Madrid conference.

Several West European delegates - from Denmark, Canada, Ireland, Holland and Belgium - specifically deplored the practice of imprisoning individuals for monitoring the Helsinki Accords, with Great Britain and Sweden citing specific names. Helsinki monitors Mykola Rudenko, Oleksa Tykhy, Viktoras Petkus, Viktor Nekipelov, Malva Landa, Vytautas Skuodis and Eduard Arutyunian were cited; Charter 77 members Vaclav Havel, Jiri Dienstbier, Petr Uhl and Albert Cerney were among the Czecho-Slovak citizens mentioned.

Sharply criticizing Soviet violations of the freedom of religious belief, the U.S. delegation raised the names of the Rev. Vasyl Romaniuk and the Rev. Gleb Yakunin, while also pointing out the tragic situation of the Vashchenko and Chykailov families who have been living in the basement of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow awaiting permission to leave the country.

Several Western delegations pointed out this year's 50 percent decrease in emigration from the USSR. Certain long-standing refuseniks were named, and the continuing arbitrariness of emigration procedures was criticized. The name of Brailovsky was again raised in this context, as were those of Alexander Lerner, Vladimir Slepak, Ida Nudel, and Daniel Fradkin, among others.

U.S. Representative to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights Jerome Shestack went beyond the issue of Jewish emigration, stating how "extraordinarily difficult, even in cases of first-degree kinship," it was for Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Russians to emigrate, among them the "50,000 Pentecostals, Baptists, and other Christians" who have expressed their desire to leave the Soviet Union.

The systematic repression of the national rights of minorities, discussed under Principles VII and VII, was also condemned by the U.S. delegation with specific mention of the Crimean Tatars and their long-time activist Mustafa Dzhemilev.

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