External Representation urges West not to forget rights abuses in USSR (11/09/86)

10th ANNIVERSARY OF THE UKRAINIAN HELSINKI GROUP

External Representation urges West not to forget rights abuses in USSR

by Natalia A. Feduschak

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - Since its inception in 1978, the External Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Watch Group has acted as an ever-present reminder to the Western public and government officials of the persistent violations of human rights in the Soviet Union. In the past eight years, members of organization have traveled worldwide to discuss the issue of human rights, and the need to pressure the Soviets to adhere to the Helsinki Accords, and to rally for the release of political prisoners who dared voice opposition to the Soviet regime.

The group has been most visible, however, through its participation in every review conference since the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. This year in Vienna, the group is represented by Nadia Svitlychna, its leader, and Leonid Plyushch.

Four of the six dissidents who have belonged to the External Representation at one time or another, also belonged to the Ukrainian Helsinki Group: Ms. Svitlychna, Nina Strokata, Gen. Petro Grigorenko and Volodymyr Malynkovych. Mr. Plyushch had been expelled in 1976, before its formation, and Aishe Seitmuratova was a Crimean Tatar rights activist.

The idea of an External Representation was born when Mykola Rudenko, leader of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, wrote his friend Mr. Plyushch in France and asked him to become a representative. Not long after, in 1977, Gen. Grigorenko was refused re-entry to the Soviet Union after a visit with his son in the United States and stripped of his citizenship. He announced that he, too, would become an external representative. In October 1978, Ms. Svitlychna emigrated to the West and also announced her membership. The External Representation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group was formally established at the Third World Congress of Free Ukrainians (WCFU) in New York in November 1978.

During a telephone interview on November 3 from Vienna, Ms. Svitlychna outlined the members' basic goals and activities.

"Principally, they are to further the ideas of the Helsinki Accords and human rights, document violations, inform the press and heads of state of violations and use forums to have the problems (of the Ukrainian monitors) known." The foreign representatives over the past several years have issued statements at international conferences on a variety of subjects and have personally met with international leaders.

Ms. Svitlychna stated that because of his former high rank within the Soviet army, Gen. Grigorenko had been most active in this capacity and spoke to a number of European leaders, discussing repressions within the USSR and human-rights violations. Because of his continuing illness, he has had to discontinue such meetings, however.

Between 1980 and 1985, the External Representation also published a bulletin titled Herald of Repression in Ukraine, both in English and Ukrainian, which collected and organized current information about political, national and religious persecution in Ukraine. The information was compiled and edited by Ms. Svitlychna. This was one of the most important undertakings of the External Representation, she said, because it provided the West with news about prisoners, an index of persecuted persons, a samvydav archive, a chronicle of repression and other information.

Unfortunately, organization had to discontinue publishing the bulletin because of lack of funds and other technical problems, Ms. Svitlychna stated.

Ms. Svitlychna said members also regularly publish articles not only related to the Helsinki process but on other problems within the Soviet Union as well. Dr. Strokata, who now lives in Maryland, has been one of the most active members in this capacity, she said.

Another goal of the organization is to promote samvydav publications of dissidents abroad and, in general, see more publications about "the repressed people" of the Soviet Union.

The organization has been most successful, however, in international political circles, Ms. Svitlychna stated. The past 10 years have spelled a greater interest by governments pertaining to the problem of human-rights violations within the Soviet bloc.

"The issues are taken more seriously," Ms. Svitlychna stated. Heads of state are beginning to see that in order to successfully end violations of the Helsinki Accords, human rights and arms control must be linked.

"Today, they are increasingly not seen as separate issues," Ms. Svitlychna commented.

Members of the External Representation have also been visible in Washington, testifying before Congress on a variety of issues related to human rights.

The foreign representatives of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group now also have the luxury of commenting on a broader range of Soviet problems, which is something the Helsinki monitors in Ukraine had not done, Ms. Svitlychna stated. The watch group in Ukraine tended to focus on the national question because "it is our most burning problem," she stated. But because the members of the External Representation are more informed about the USSR through research they have done in the West, they are more resolved to comment on problems affecting the USSR as a whole.

But there are problems, the biggest being the lack of resources, Svitlychna said.

"It is evident in many ways, not only in the lack of physical help, but lack of financial and technical assistance. To do this kind of work, one needs help," she stated. Despite the tremendous progress that has been made within political circles, there is still "too little interest in what is happening there (in Ukraine)," she said. And, while Americans for Human Rights in Ukraine (AHRU) and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians have been some of the most ardent supporters of the External Representation, this has still not been enough.

"Don't misunderstand me," she stressed. "We have a lot of sympathy" from individuals and organizations as a whole, but "it is too little, we must do more," she stressed, to ensure the survival of the principles the Helsinki monitors are willing to die for.

"We must concentrate on the contemporary problems in Ukraine. Ukrainians spend too much energy on the past," she said, adding she didn't want today's problems to be dealt with "40 or 50 years from now." The community should become so knowledgable about human-rights violations that when those violations are discussed in political circles Ukrainians can produce concrete evidence when violations occurred and to whom. This will encourage a "constant interest" in human rights.

"We can't wait for someone to organize us," she stated. Once Ukrainians are pressuring government officials that this be a constant topic of discussion between U.S. and Soviet officials, and demand that human rights and arms control be linked, then others, and not just politicians, will be sincerely interested in the plight of those thousands who are demanding the Helsinki Accords are adhered to in the Soviet Union.

Ms. Svitlychna also observed that more books such as "Soviet Dissent," written by Ludmilla Alexeyeva, a founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group and now a Western representative, need to be published in the West. In her book, Ms. Alexeyeva writes about the persecuted national movements of Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia and Armenia; the movements of deported peoples like the Crimean Tatars; the movements for religious liberty and other dissident movements within the Soviet bloc.

Books such as these educate the public in general, and also aid Ukrainians in seeing where their problems are similar to and different from others', Ms. Svitlychna affirmed.

"We can't see our own national problems only. We must compare them (to others), see them in a wider spectrum," she stated.

While the continued existence of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group is a testament to the strength of the members' beliefs, this 10th anniversary of the group's inception has left Ms. Svitlychna with a feeling of sadness.

"The biggest sadness is for those people who have died, have unnaturally died, died because of (their incarceration)." And, she is sad because 16 members and many who support the Helsinki group are imprisoned and exposed to the harshest of circumstances. She said it pains her to think of these prisoners, many of whom continue to receive new sentences even before their previous ones have expired.

"Many of those in the camps are dangerously sick. They have no great hope of getting out at all. It is a wonder, really, that they could live through all that."

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