U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

65–719 CC WASHINGTON : 2000

COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

PRACTICES FOR 1999

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2000

Serial No. 106–124

Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international relations

(II)

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

DANA ROHRABACHER, California

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California

PETER T. KING, New York

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

MATT SALMON, Arizona

AMO HOUGHTON, New York

TOM CAMPBELL, California

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

RICHARD BURR, North Carolina

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

SAM GEJDENSON, Connecticut

TOM LANTOS, California

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

MATTHEW G. MARTINEZ, California

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida

PAT DANNER, Missouri

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

BARBARA LEE, California

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania

RICHARD J. GARON, Chief of Staff

KATHLEEN BERTELSEN MOAZED, Democratic Chief of Staff

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman

WILLIAM F. GOODLING, Pennsylvania

HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina

PETER T. KING, New York

MATT SALMON, Arizona

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

CYNTHIA A. MCKINNEY, Georgia

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama

BRAD SHERMAN, California

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York

GROVER JOSEPH REES, Subcommittee Staff Director

DOUGLAS C. ANDERSON, Counsel

PETER HICKEY, Democratic Staff Director

NICOLLE A. SESTRIC, Staff Associate

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C O N T E N T S

Page

WITNESSES

The Honorable Harold Hongju Koh, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State ............................. 9

Ms. Elisa Massimino, Director of Washington, DC Office, Lawyers Committee

for Human Rights ................................................................................................ 52

Carlos Salinas, Advocacy Director for Latin America, Amnesty International

USA ....................................................................................................................... 60

Nina Shea, Director, Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House ................. 67

Alison DesForges, Consultant, Human Rights Watch/Africa ............................... 72

APPENDIX

Prepared statements:

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, a U.S. Representative in Congress from the

State of New Jersey, Chairman, Subcommittee on International Operations

and Human Rights ............................................................................................... 82

Hon. Harold Hongju Koh ........................................................................................ 86

Ms. Elisa Massimino ............................................................................................... 96

Mr. Carlos M. Salinas ............................................................................................. 109

Ms. Nina Shea .......................................................................................................... 127

Dr. Alison DesForges ............................................................................................... 135

Additional material submitted for the record:

Prepared statement of the Hon. George Radanovich, a U.S. Representative

in Congress from the State of California ........................................................... 140

Insert from Amnesty International USA ............................................................... 141

(1)

COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS

PRACTICES FOR 1999

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2000

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL, OPERATIONS AND

HUMAN RIGHTS

COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

Washington, D.C.,

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in

room 2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.

Smith, (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. Mr. SMITH. The

Subcommittee will come to order. Good morning.

I am very pleased to convene this hearing of the Subcommittee

on International Operations and Human Rights for the purpose of

reviewing the country reports on human rights practices for 1999.

Our distinguished witnesses this year include Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Harold Koh, and

the representatives of four leading human rights organizations.

Secretary Koh, I am particularly pleased to welcome you back to

the Subcommittee, now that we have been successful in our effort

to enact legislation requiring the State Department to spend at

least $12 million per year more on the Bureau of Democracy,

Human Rights and Labor.

As you know, this almost doubles the Bureau’s budget, but it is

still less than one-half of 1 percent of the Department’s salaries

and expenses and just a little more than what the Department

spends on its Public Relations Bureau. I know that as a State Department official, you strongly disapprove of such Congressional

micro management, but I believe Congress occasionally needs to

help the executive branch get its priorities right.

One such occasion is when Congress finds out that the State Department is spending more on PR than on human rights. So this

reordering of priorities was a long overdue step and we believe a

necessary step, although certainly not a sufficient one, toward giving the protection of human rights the leading role it deserves in

the foreign policy of the United States.

This year’s country reports have already been the subject of well

deserved praise. Last year’s reports were quite strong and this

year’s contain even more information and pull even fewer punches.

I know this takes not only hard work, but also courage on the part

of the people who work on the reports, especially when an honest

and unvarnished statement of the facts might create difficulty for

the Department or the Administration.

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For instance, the China report does not attempt to conceal the

deterioration of the human rights situation in that country. More

arrests of political and religious dissenters, more bad news for the

people of Tibet and East Turkestan, more evidence of forced labor

and complicity of government officials in sex trafficking, more

forced abortions and forced sterilizations. All this cannot help but

lend support to those of us who believe that 6 years of the Administration’s constructive engagement policy have harmed rather than

helped the long-suffering people of China.

This pattern of honest reporting extended even to some of our

strongest allies. For instance, the treatment of Northern Ireland is

fair and even-handed, even when the approach requires scrutiny of

our friend and ally, the British Government.

In addition to describing acts of violence by the republican and

loyalist paramilitary groups, the report also asserts that, ‘‘members

of the Royal Ulster Constabulary police force committed human

rights abuses’’ during this year. Similarly, when discussing the

case of murdered defense attorney Rosemary Nelson, the text reports ‘‘doubts about the RUC’s impartiality’’ in the investigation of

Ms. Nelson’s original harassment charges against the police.

Unfortunately, there are still a few holdovers from the pattern

of a few years ago, in which the country reports often appeared to

be the product of guerrilla warfare between human rights advocates within the State Department and their colleagues whose primary interest was to avoid ‘‘damaging the relationship’’ between

the U.S. and some horrible dictatorship. This old pattern is still

strongly evident in this year’s reports on Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Although a careful reading of the Cambodia report makes

clear that the government’s human rights violations during 1999

were numerous and severe, the first few paragraphs of the report

contain a number of positive statements about the government,

most of them having little or nothing to do with human rights,

which tend to deflect the reader’s attention from the government’s

egregious human rights record.

For instance, the report begins by saying that the new government headed by serial murderer Hun Sen has brought political stability to the country. Hun Sen and others like him around the

world will be encouraged by the implication that there is an internationally recognized human right to political stability, but the object of the country reports on human rights practices should not be

to encourage the likes of Hun Sen.

The report then goes on to take the controversial position that

despite numerous electoral irregularities and systematic harassment of opposition parties, up to and including murder, the formation of the new government reflected the will of the electorate, the

report says.

Finally, we are still in the first three paragraphs of the report.

It states that Cambodia is an impoverished country and that the

stagnant economy began to improve following the formation of the

coalition government.

Why does this statement about the government’s economic accomplishments belong in a human rights report? Surely, the

Human Rights Bureau does not intend it to excuse or perhaps mitigate the government’s human rights record. At best it is distracting

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and irrelevant, and at worst it suggests that while the government

of Cambodia may be breaking some eggs, it may also be making

some tasty omelets.

The Laos report is noteworthy not for what it says, but for what

it omits. Among the most disturbing events in that troubled country during 1999 was the disappearance of two United States citizens, both members of the Hmong ethnic minority, near the border

between Thailand and Laos. An eyewitness reported that he saw

the two men cross into Laos in the company of a Lao government

official, and there was another report that the Lao government had

captured both men and executed one of them.

Yet, the country report states only that there were conflicting accounts of the incident, without providing any further detail.

Assistant Secretary Koh, I know you will agree that whenever a

tyrannical government captures or kills an innocent person, it is

absolutely predictable that there will be conflicting accounts of

what has happened, because such governments tend to lie. Yet a

human rights report issued by the U.S. cannot simply take the

word of the alleged killers at face value and close the books with

the case permanently unsolved.

At the very least, the report should have given the details of the

eyewitness accounts, along with the denial by the government of

Laos.

This year’s Vietnam report reads a lot like the China report used

to read back in the bad old days. It honestly states the facts about

a wide range of human rights violations, but it follows each terrible

fact with a gratuitous and exculpatory editorial comment, such as

‘‘there have been improvements in some areas.’’ If you slice your

areas thin enough and have an optimistic outlook on life, you can

always find improvement in some areas.

The report also pays the government of Vietnam backhanded

compliments such as that it exhibited greater freedom for different

views on nonpolitical subjects than for political ones. Unfortunately, the Vietnam report also puts a spin on issues in which the

Department or the Administration has a strong interest. For instance, as in prior years, this year’s Vietnam country report repeats the conclusion of the UNHCR monitors that none of the thousands of people returned to Vietnam from refugee camps under the

comprehensive plan of action were persecuted upon their return.

In reaching this conclusion, UNHCR monitors had to decide what

to do among thousands of returnees who were subjected to extensive interrogation by security police about their anti-Communist activities before and after leaving Vietnam, who were threatened

with severe retribution if they engaged in similar activities after

their return, and who were denied the household registration

which we all know is necessary to receive basic necessities of life.

Some of these people were imprisoned on return, allegedly for

crimes they committed before they left, and at least one was executed. In every single case, the monitors decided either that such

ill treatment did not constitute persecution or that it was inflicted

for some nonpolitical reason.

The State Department has been given information on a number

of these cases, both by human rights organizations and by Members of Congress. Rather than uncritically repeating the UNHCR

4

conclusions in future reports, I strongly urge the bureau to investigate these cases and decide whether these people are telling the

truth about suffering serious harm upon return to Vietnam.

In another particularly unfortunate mischaracterization, the report cites the creation by the Vietnamese government of a committee to govern the Hoa Hao Buddhist Church, as evidence of the

improvement in religious freedom, although the report also notes

that some Hoa Hao do not accept the committee as legitimate.

I met with members of this denomination on a recent trip to

Vietnam and I am informed that nearly all of the Hoa Hao believers reject the new committee. Its leader is a prominent communist

cadre and its first acts were to prohibit various Hoa Hao ceremonies.

If the U.S. Government were to organize an 11-member committee to govern the Catholic Church or the Methodist Church or

any Buddhist Church, nobody would claim this enhanced freedom

of religion for Catholics or for Methodists or for Buddhists. We

should not make the same mistake in the case of the Hoa Hao.

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are small countries in which U.S.

diplomats are keen to build a better relationship with an egregious

government. Because the United States business interests do not

have the same economic stake in these countries as they do in

China, severe and well publicized human rights violations may

present a serious obstacle to the U.S. trade concessions, foreign assistance and other diplomatic building blocks.

The argument that has worked in the case of China that the government consists largely of thugs, but that they will eventually

stop being thugs if we only trade with them and trade some more,

does not work for these countries and it doesn’t work for China.

We should send the same message day in and day out to every

human rights violator in the world. If you abide by certain minimum standards of decency, then you will be welcomed by the

United States as an equal member of the community of free and

civilized nations, and good things will flow to you from the U.S. If

you do not abide by these minimum standards, you will not receive

these benefits.

I have often quoted the remarks of a witness who represented

Amnesty International at our first hearing of this Subcommittee

under my chairmanship. He stated, ‘‘Human rights is a island off

the mainland of U.S. foreign policy,’’ unconnected to anything else.

Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go in order to integrate human rights into the mainstream of our foreign policy. We

should start by denying Permanent Most Favored Nation status to

China or to any other government that systematically brutalizes its

own people.

I’d like to yield to my good friend and colleague from Georgia, the

Ranking Member of our Subcommittee, Cynthia McKinney.

[The statement of Mr. Smith appears in the appendix.]

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank

you for convening this panel, as well as your strong leadership on

the issue of human rights, particularly human rights practices in

China.

5

I am very pleased to welcome back our Assistant Secretary Harold Koh and I look forward to your presentation of this year’s State

Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

I also look forward to hearing from the representatives of the distinguished human rights organizations from whom we will also be

hearing.

I’d like to express my appreciation to those people not here today

who contributed to the production of this report. In Secretary Koh’s

February 25th statement regarding the release of the 1999 country

reports on human rights practices, he correctly points out that the

simple act of human rights reporting is difficult and sometimes

even dangerous work.

Last year, this Subcommittee, under the leadership of Chairman

Smith, reported out the Embassy Security Enhancement Act of

1999. I want to assure you that, working with the Chairman, we

will continue to do our part to provide a safe and effective environment for your colleagues who are working on our behalf in embassies and consulates around the world.

The issues with which the country reports deal are among the

most important that our government faces in the conduct of its foreign policy. We have come to realize that governments that mistreat their own people are not likely to treat foreigners much better

and, therefore, that it’s both easier and safer to work with governments that respect human rights.

We have also discovered that countries that respect labor rights

tend to have effective, satisfied and productive workers. Observance of human rights has thus become not merely a lofty ideal for

us to urge on others, but a very practical consideration in the way

we do business.

I want to begin my discussion of the particular reports by first

drawing attention to the record on China and the report with respect to an issue that’s before Congress, national normal trade relations status. I have seen administration after administration use

the tired old excuse of constructive engagement for rewarding brutal and repressive regimes with everything from diplomatic recognition, taxpayer finance largess, arms sales, or as is now the

case, Most Favored Nation trading status, based on the false promise of social change through engagement.

Not once from the old apartheid regime of South Africa to the

killing fields of Guatemala and El Salvador, to the burned ruins of

East Timor, not once has engagement ever been constructive in

bringing about anything other than more repression, a more entrenched oligarchy, more death, and more despair.

Social change comes from the dedicated, persistent and often

dangerous work of activists, working for social change, many of

whom are in this room—never once from arms dealers and bankers

who tout engagement as a sale for the public conscience over doing

business with butchers.

In addition, I would like to turn to the situation in Iraq and recognize two activists who have worked and sacrificed in the face of

overwhelming odds for the lives and dignity of others. They are

Hans von Sponik, the former humanitarian coordinator in Iraq,

and Juta Burkhardt, the former Chief of the U.N.’s World Food

Programme in Baghdad.

6

Both resigned in protest over the continued sanctions on Iraq.

Von Sponik’s resignation follows his predecessor, Dennis Halladay,

who also resigned in protest and has become one of the outspoken

critics of the sanctions regime.

To put the issue in perspective, the total number of Americans

killed in war during the last century is less than the number of

Iraqis that have died due to the sanctions regime. The sanctions

themselves have become a weapon of mass destruction. I applaud

and honor Mr. Von Sponik and Ms. Burkhardt for their courage,

their conviction, and their humanity.

It is time to bring an end to this dreadful episode in American

foreign policy. I am also deeply disappointed by the situation in the

Great Lakes Region. The territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of Congo must be protected. The U.S. must become an honest broker in this war and should begin by severing any covert

military relationships with the armed groups and factions that are

committing crimes against humanity.

The United States and its allies must be examples of transparency, democracy, respect for human rights, and sustainable development. Instead, Rwanda and Uganda continue to raid the

Democratic Republic of Congo, occupying large amounts of that

country’s territory and stealing its resources.

Has the United States condemned these actions? Will you condemn these actions today? Will you call for an immediate withdrawal of Uganda and Rwanda from the DRC?

If not, then we are doing nothing more than hiding behind a policy that condones the partition of the Democratic Republic of Congo

by African allies of the United States.

In her opening statement to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary

of State Albright cited an incident of 12 women who were buried

alive in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. Special

Rapporteur on Human Rights in the DRC reported that these massacres perpetrated by Rwandan Rebels in 1998 and 1999, where

more than 800 were killed, are the cruelest and most violent incidents of the war.

These sorts of massacres are taking place in rebel-held areas of

the DRC, as the U.S. lamely asserts that it doesn’t support the

rebels.

In Rwanda, we know the Clinton Administration actively worked

to prevent anyone from responding to pleas from the U.N. forces

on the ground attempting to prevent or contain the 1994 Rwandan

genocide. Both France and Belgium have taken an introspective

look at what went wrong and why and the United States needs to

do the same.

This summer, Ugandans will vote on whether to establish democracy or continue the present arrangement, which your own human

rights report in 1997 called a one-party state.

The position of the Administration has been that it will support

any result if the election process is fair. Human Rights Watch

strongly argued that the one-party system violates basic human

rights, such as freedom of expression and political association, principles to which the U.S. is rhetorically committed.

However, Human Rights Watch made very clear that since mid

1997, the U.S. has been nearly silent on the issue. Shouldn’t we

7

care if Ugandans get to practice democratic freedoms and is it not

true that the security problems of Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda

won’t be solved until they develop democratic institutions?

In addition, I want to call particular attention to the close collaboration of the Colombian military with paramilitary groups that

are responsible for massacres and widespread human rights violations against the civilian population.

I question the Administration’s plan to put more guns into the

hands of known killers. Based on the State Department report on

Colombia, it is clear that a massive influx of weapons will do nothing to quell the Colombian government’s thirst for violence.

I emphatically agree with the new universal sentiment of the

NGO community on the generally high quality of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s work. Although the Department has increased DRL’s resources over the last few years, it is

still inadequately funded.

The budget should reflect the importance of the issues with

which it deals, and I will continue to work with the Chairman until

it does.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, an aside. We all treasure the role and

importance of the United Nations in the international community.

It was created to rid the world of suffering, to prevent armed conflict, and, most important of all, to guarantee that never again

would the world permit rogue states and mass murderers to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.

But unfortunately, I regret to say that in the last 6 years, the

United Nations has repeatedly failed the world. In April 1994, the

U.N. turned a blind eye to genocide in Rwanda and allowed an estimated one million men, women and children to be exterminated in

100 days. Just 1 year later, in July 1995, the U.N. surrendered its

own U.N. declared safe haven of Srebrenica to the Serbian Army

and in the following week, an estimated 7,400 men and young boys

perished.

Then last year, in August-September 1999, the U.N. completely

was ill-prepared to deal with violence in East Timor and the destruction of Dehli.

With respect to each of these tragedies and only after considerable complaint from concerned people, the U.N. apologized for its

abject failure. But weakly worded statements of regret are not

enough for these grave injustices and violations of fundamental

human rights.

Just last December, in 1999, I facilitated a meeting between two

Rwandan families in the U.N.’s independent inquiry into its handling of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At that meeting, I heard the

most extraordinary accounts from two families, for the first time in

history, that U.N. troops themselves were accused of complicity and

genocide.

In one instance, U.N. troops remained at one of the houses and

drank stolen beer while Rwandan Presidential Guard troops tortured a woman and her children. In each of these instances in

Rwanda, Srebrenica and East Timor, the victims of the U.N. have

been left to piece their lives back together again. Certainly, little

that we discuss today will rival the colossal failures experienced in

Rwanda, Srebrenica and East Timor.

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Just as we listen today about human rights conditions around

the world, we should know that some of the greatest international

crimes of the century are not to be found within these U.S. human

rights documents. We still have a long way to go.

Once again, I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Koh, to his

staff and DRL, and to all the embassy officers whose consistent attention to human rights issues has made these reports possible. We

are the only government that does this thing and in so doing, we

make a strong statement about what we as a country are about.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you for your statement. Before I yield to Mr.

Tancredo, I want to associate myself with your remarks, because

we have examined those issues in this Subcommittee over the last

several years, and you have been right there in every one of those

hearings and fact-finding trips and efforts to make a difference,

whether it be in the former Yugoslavia or in Rwanda.

As we all know, there was an early warning heads-up that the

killing fields were about to erupt in Rwanda. Regrettably, the General who was in charge of peace keeping faxed Kofi Annan and his

admonitions that action be taken were unheeded, and we held a

hearing, heard from people, actually had the fax in front of us and

read it, and it was another black mark in opportunity missed and,

as a result, as you pointed out so well, the killing fields ensued.

So I want to thank you for your very, very strong statement.

Mr. Tancredo.

Mr. TANCREDO. I have no opening.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome Mr. Koh

here today. Your appearance here is timely, particularly given the

context that this body will shortly be considering a rather large

package of assistance to Colombia.

There’s been a lot of discussion during the course of the past several weeks about the package and recently there was an article

that appeared in the Washington Post, written by Karen DeYoung,

and I’m going to quote from that article, because my line of questioning would pursue the concerns that have been articulated by

the human rights community regarding the package. It’s quoting a

Miguel Vivanco, who is Executive Director of the Latin American

Division of Human Rights Watch.

He is quoted as saying that ‘‘Human Rights Watch is not calling

for Congressional rejection of the $1.6 billion 2-year Colombian aid

package.’’ Rather, the report urges that strict new conditions be

placed on all U.S. security assistance to Colombia, including the civilian prosecution of all military personnel implicated in human

rights abuses and restrictions, and restrictions on intelligence sharing with Colombia Army units.

My first question, and I would give you an opportunity to reflect

on this, is your department, your division’s, your bureau’s involvement in the development of the package put forth by the Administration. I will ask you a series of questions regarding amendments

that myself and other Members intend to offer during the course

of the process as this package comes forward.

I would also just ask one other question, and it was brought to

my attention just recently by a member of my staff, who noted that

9

while the FARC, the major guerrilla group within Colombia and

the second major guerrilla group in surgency was in Colombia, the

ELN, are both listed on the foreign terrorist organization list.

The AUC, which is an umbrella group for paramilitary units

within Colombia, headed by one Carlos Castanyo, is not listed and

I would be interested in hearing why Mr. Castanyo and the AUC

has failed to be listed on the foreign terrorist organization list.

It would appear to me, upon reading the statute, that this particular organization meets all of the criteria.

I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt. Mr. Ballenger.

Mr. BALLENGER. I have no opening statement.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I would like to now present to the Subcommittee Harold Koh, who serves as Assistant Secretary of State

for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Before his appointment, Mr. Koh served both as Professor of

International Law and the Director of the Center for International

Human Rights at Yale Law School. Assistant Secretary Koh, who

earned both his BA and law degrees from Harvard University, has

authored numerous articles on international law and human

rights, and he is most welcome before the Committee.

Please proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HAROLD HONGJU KOH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN

RIGHTS AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. KOH. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Members of the Subcommittee, for holding this valuable hearing regarding the 1999

country reports on human rights practices.

I have a written statement, which I offer for the record, which

I would like to summarize.

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, your full statement will be made

a part of the record.

Mr. KOH. Thank you. Mr. Chair, over the course of my 15 month

tenure as Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and

Labor, I have traveled to some 35 countries, some of them several

times. I have testified before you regarding numerous human

rights issues and I have developed a great respect for this Committee’s bipartisan support for human rights.

I hope that in the months ahead, we can continue to work together to promote freedom and human rights, wherever they are at

risk.

Simply put, the goal of these annual reports remains unchanged

to tell the truth about human rights conditions around the world.

We believe that these reports create a comprehensive, permanent

and accurate record of human rights conditions worldwide in calendar year 1999. I recognize that these reports have been read very

carefully, but we continue to believe that they are the most comprehensive, permanent, and accurate record of human rights conditions around the world, obtainable from any single source.

These reports represent a massive official monitoring effort that

involves hundreds of individuals, including human rights officers

from each of our embassies, country desk officers from our regional

and functional bureaus, officials from other U.S. Government agenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
10

cies, and a wide range of foreign sources, including foreign government officials, opposition figures, journalists, nongovernmental organizations, dissidents, religious groups, and labor leaders.

Let me pay special tribute to Secretary Albright, under whose

leadership the coverage of the reports has greatly expanded, to include broader coverage of such key issues as religious freedom,

trafficking in persons, women’s rights, worker rights, violence

against gays and lesbians, and the rights of the disabled.

You have said that human rights are not in the mainstream of

our foreign policy. I would question that and point directly to the

personal commitments of Secretary Albright, who I think stands in

everything she does and in every statement she makes with the

centrality of democracy, human rights and labor as her core commitments. Let me also give very special thanks to the dedicated

and splendid country reports team in my own bureau, a number of

whom are here in the audience to back me up, and especially to

thank the talented and committed director of that bureau, Mark

Susser, and his deputy director, Jeanette DuBrow, for bringing this

year’s report to fruition with such care and integrity.

Mr. Chair, you and the other Members of the Committee have

highlighted some of the grim news in the report, but the news is

not all grim. Because 1999 saw no defining human rights moment,

like the fall of the Berlin Wall, few analysts noticed that 1999 saw

as profound positive trend toward freedom as in 1989.

Thanks to democratic elections in two of the world’s most populous states, Indonesia and Nigeria, more people came under democratic rule in 1999 than in any other recent year.

In addition, the NATO intervention in Kosovo and international

intervention in East Timor demonstrated that the international

community has the will and the capacity to act against the most

profound violations of human rights.

Yet, these significant gains in democracy and human rights cannot overshadow a number of profound challenges to human rights

that arose last year. Serbia’s expulsion of 850,000-plus Albanians,

the Indonesian military’s complicity in the military rampage

through East Timor, and the horrors perpetuated by rebels in Sierra Leone all show the world still has a long way to go before it

fully adheres to the precepts of the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights.

Too many authoritarian governments continue to deny basic

human rights to their citizens, including the all important right to

democracy. Throughout these reports, we continue to resist requests to rank order countries, but because time is short, let me

touch on a handful of the country reports in which Committee

Members have expressed special interest.

In China, authorities broadened and intensified their efforts to

suppress those perceived to threaten governmental power or national stability. Citizens who sought to express openly dissenting

political and religious views faced widespread repression. In the

weeks leading up to both the tenth anniversary of Tienanman

Square massacre and the 50th anniversary of the founding of the

People’s Republic, the government moved against political dissidents across the country, detaining and formally arresting scores

of activists nationwide. Beginning in May, dozens of members of

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the China democratic party were arrested in a crack down and

both leaders and followers of the Falun Gong movement faced harassment, beatings, arrest, detention and sentences to prison terms

for protesting the government’s decision to outlaw their practice.

China continued to restrict freedom of religion and intensified

controls on some unregistered churches, and for that reason, Mr.

Chairman, last October, Secretary Albright designated China as

one of five countries of particular concern under the new International Religious Freedom Act.

Unapproved religious groups, including Protestant and Catholic

groups, continue to experience varying degrees of official interference, repression and persecution. Some minority groups, particularly Tibetan Buddhists and Muslim Uighurs, were subjected to increased restriction of fundamental freedoms. Other segments of

Chinese society also faced abuse. Coercive family planning practices sometimes included forced abortion and forced sterilization.

Many women contended with domestic violence. The government

continued to restrict tightly worker rights, and forced labor, particularly in penal institutions, remained a serious problem.

Our report also sites instances of extra judicial killings, torture,

forced confessions, arbitrary detention, lengthy incommunicado detention, and denial of due process.

In many cases, particularly in political cases, the judicial system

denied criminal defendants basic legal safeguards and due process.

For these and other reasons, the Administration announced in

January, earlier than ever before, it’s intention later this month to

pursue a resolution against China before the U.N. Human Rights

Commission in Geneva.

Similarly, Cuba’s human rights record also deteriorated sharply

over the past year. The Castro regime continued to suppress opposition and criticism and denied citizens freedom of speech, press,

assembly and association. Cuban authorities routinely harassed,

threatened, arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned human rights advocates.

The government denied political dissidents due process and subjected them to unfair trials. Many remained imprisoned and after

our report was released last week, one prominent dissident, Oscar

Bissette, was sentenced to an unjust sentence of 3 years.

Independent journalists faced internal travel bans, brief detentions, acts of repudiation, harassment, seizures of office equipment

and repeated threats of prolonged imprisonment. As you know, Mr.

Chair, in Russia, the seizure by armed insurgent groups from

Chechnya of villages in the neighboring Republic of Dagestan escalated by years and into a full-fledged attack by Russian forces on

Chechen separatists, including the Chechen Capitol of Groznyy.

The Russian attack included air strikes and the indiscriminate

shelling of cities predominantly inhabited by civilians.

These attacks, which, in turn, led to house to house fighting, led

to the death of numerous civilians and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more. There are credible reports of Russian

military forces carrying out summary executions of civilians in

Alkhan-Yurt, and in the course of the Groznyy offensive. Credible

reports persist that Russian forces are rounding up Chechen men

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of military age and sending them to so-called filtration camps,

where they are allegedly tortured.

Chechen separatists also reportedly committed abuses, including

the killing of civilians. We acknowledge that the Russian government has a duty to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks, but

at the same time, the Russian Federation must comply with its

international commitments and obligations to protect civilians and

must not engage in extra judicial killing, the blocking of borders to

prevent civilians from fleeing, and other violations in the name of

internal security.

As Congresswoman McKinney also pointed out, defenders and

dissidents in Africa also faced severe challenges. In Sudan, the government continues to restrict most civil liberties, including freedom

of assembly, association, religion and movement.

Government security forces regularly tortured, murdered, disappeared, harassed, arbitrarily arrested and detained deponents or

suspected government opponents.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, government forces lost control of more than half of the country’s territory to rebels supported

by troops from Rwanda and Uganda.

Government security forces increasingly used arbitrary arrest

and detention throughout the year and were responsible for numerous extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture, beatings, rapes

and other abuses.

Anti-government forces also committed serious abuses, including

murder, robbery, harassment of human rights workers and journalists, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

Mr. Chair, let me also discuss the human rights record of two allies that have received significant media attention these last few

weeks. In Colombia, despite the Pastrana administration’s efforts

to negotiate and end hostilities, widespread internal armed conflict

and the rampant political and criminal violence persisted. Government security forces, paramilitary groups, guerrillas and narcotics

traffickers all continued to commit numerous serious abuses, including extra judicial killings and torture.

Although overall human rights conditions remain poor, the government took important steps toward ending collaboration by some

security force members with the paramilitaries. President Andre

Pastrana and Vice President Gustavo Bell, who I met with twice

in the last 2 months and again yesterday, have assured me that

they will not tolerate active or passive collaboration by members of

the security force or paramilitary groups.

Last year, the President removed from service four generals and

numerous mid level officers and noncommissioned officers for collaboration, for failing to confront paramilitaries aggressively, or for

failing to protect the local population.

In Turkey, which has an active and growing civil society movement, the government still continued to limit freedom of assembly

and association and the police harassed, beat, abused and detained

large numbers of demonstrators.

In general, the government continued to intimidate, indict, and

imprison individuals for ideas they had expressed in public forums.

The Ecevit government did adopt a series of initiatives during the

year designed to improve human rights conditions, including reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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moving military judges from state security courts, increasing maximum sentences for torture or for falsifying medical records to hide

torture, and passing legislation making it more difficult to close political parties.

But only 2 weeks ago, a new cause for concern arose when three

Kurdish mayors were arrested, charged and briefly removed from

office, although they have recently been reinstated pending trial.

These are only a few of the country situations of concern to the

human rights community. I would be happy to answer any specific

questions you might have about these and other country situations.

But, Mr. Chairman, I cannot conclude without noting two points.

First, today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. While we

honor the past and recognize the progress that’s been made, we

must also look toward the future and acknowledge how much needs

to be done.

In Afghanistan, for example, women continue to face the most serious women’s human rights crisis in the world. Elsewhere, women

daily face violence, abuse, rape and other forms of degradation. Female genital mutilation continues to be practiced in much of subSaharan Africa and to varying degrees in some countries in the

Middle East.

In Kuwait and elsewhere, women continue to be denied the right

to vote and to seek election to the legislative bodies.

Today, let me also reaffirm, Mr. Chairman, the Administration’s

unequivocal support for ratification of CEDAW, the Convention for

the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Ratification of CEDAW is central to maintaining our position as a

leading advocate for human rights. It would strengthen our global

efforts to advance the status of women and we have proposed a

number of reservations and declarations to ensure that the ratification complies with all U.S. Constitutional requirements.

One hundred sixty-five countries have now ratified or acceded to

the convention and the United States is the only country in this

hemisphere, the world’s only democracy and the only NATO nation

that has not ratified the convention.

Mr. Chair, it is now 5 years sine the Beijing Women’s Conference. For the Senate to hold hearings on ratification and move

swiftly to advise and consent to the ratification of CEDAW would

be no more than simple justice.

Second, International Women’s Day reminds us of the deeply related problem of trafficking and persons. Trafficking, as Secretary

Albright recently said, is a growing, ‘‘global problem that each year

robs millions of their rights, their loved ones, and often their very

lives.’’

It affects people from all walks of life, of every age, religion and

culture, and nearly every country in the world is either a source,

transit or destination country. As I have testified before this Committee, trafficking represents the anthesisis of universal declaration of human rights, where, by treating its victims as objects, it

denies their very humanity.

To highlight the U.S. Government’s intensified focus on this

problem, this year, for the first, the State Department established

a separate section in each of the 194 country reports to highlight

this pressing issue and to bring about efforts for reform.

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Mr. Chairman, let me close by saying that as the introduction to

our report explains, the global right for human rights is a team effort in which the U.S. Government is only one player. The struggle

requires creative partnerships that cross partisan religious, ethnic

and public/private lines. I know that you and other Members of the

Subcommittee share this Administration’s deep commitment to promoting democracy, human rights, labor, and religious freedom

worldwide.

In the months that remain in my tenure, I pledge again to give

my all to work with you and your Committee to continue strengthening these vitally important human rights partnerships.

Thank you. I now am ready to answer any questions you might

have. Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary, for your

fine testimony and for the good work that you do and your staff.

There’s a great deal of respect for that on this Subcommittee on

both sides of the aisle.

I would like to raise a couple of questions on very specific countries, beginning with the People’s Republic of China. In reading

this voluminous report, which continually uses the word ‘‘intensifies’’ and words like that to indicate that the bad is actually getting

worse in China, and it leads some of us who are concerned about

the upcoming battle to make MFN permanent, which would take

away all economic leverage that we might have, that the trend line

is seriously going in the wrong direction, whether it be the issue

of religious persecution, which is on the rise, as you pointed out.

Falun Gong have been rounded up, they’ve been beaten, their noses

have been broken, their legs have been kicked out, and they’ve actually killed a few of their practitioners. We know that there has

been a roundup of Catholic believers, including Bishops and Priests

and the Evangelical Church continues under siege. Tibetans, Buddhists, the iron fist continues to hurt them in a very, very serious

way. Of course, the Uighurs, we had a hearing on this just a few

days ago, spoke of the rising tide of repression against the Muslim

Uighurs.

In looking at the report, there was one thing that—a reference

that I had not seen before, perhaps it was in another, talking about

the high female suicide rate and points out that it’s a serious problem.

According to the World Bank, Harvard University and the World

Health Organization, some 56 percent of the world’s female suicides occur in China, about 500 per day, 500 Chinese women die

from suicide a day, according to the country reports on human

rights practices.

That’s outrageous, that’s astonishing. The World Bank estimated

the suicide rate in the country to be three times the global average

among women and it’s estimated to be nearly five times the global

average overall.

Research indicates that the low status of women, the rapid shift

to a market economy, and the availability of highly toxic pesticides

in rural areas are among the leading causes.

Frankly, Mr. Secretary, what’s missing from this, which I find to

be a crass omission, is what many of us believe to be the real reason—or at least a major contributing reason—and that is the one

child per couple policy in the People’s Republic of China.

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I’d like to read you something that was in the New York Times

on April 25, 1993. It was by Nicholas Kristoff. He states, ‘‘She

should be taking her 2-month-old baby out around the village now

proudly nursing him and teaching him about life. Instead, her baby

is buried under a mound of dirt and Li spends her time lying in

bed, emotionally crushed and physically crippled. The baby died because under China’s complex quota system for births, local family

planning officials wanted Ms. Li to give birth in 1992 rather than

in 1993, so then on December 30, when she was 7 months pregnant, they took her to an unsanitary first aid station and ordered

the doctor to do the abortion.’’

There at least ten million abortions per year, some say the number is even higher, 90 percent of which are coerced in some way,

not unlike that woman who has been hurt by the government.

The article goes on to say, ‘‘Ms. Li’s family pleaded, the doctor

protested, but the family planning workers insisted. The result, the

baby died, and the 23-year-old Ms. Li is incapacitated,’’ and it talks

about how emotionally she is totally distraught.

I’ve had hearings at my Subcommittee, Mr. Secretary, where we

have heard from women who were forcibly aborted, some of whom

had the great fortune of making their way to the U.S., only to be

incarcerated in Bakersfield because they came in on the Golden

Venture or came in in some other way. They finally did get out,

thankfully, but they told of the emotional trauma, the absolutely

debilitating emotional trauma, and yet in the country reports, it

notes ‘‘highly toxic pesticides.’’ And you would think that if it affects women, it would also affect men, and you would see a great

increase in men killing themselves from pesticides.

‘‘A rapid shift to a market economy.’’ We’re being told, especially

with the upcoming Most Favored Nation status debate, that this is

the greatest thing since sliced bread, that somehow China is going

to matriculate into a market-oriented economy and that everybody

will benefit, and yet that’s being cited as a reason for the suicide

rate.

Then ‘‘the low status of women.’’ In China, as we all know,

women have had an incredibly low status for a millennium, for several millennia. This is nothing new. Bound feet and all of the other

terrible things that have been done against women over the years.

Now we have something new. Ever since 1979, with the full complicity of the population and family planning community, including

the United Nations Population Fund, you’re only allowed one child,

and women are fined, they have children on the run, there is a

gross disparity between the births of boys versus girls, as we know,

and that’s pointed out in this document as well, and yet we see this

alarming rise of female suicides.

Obviously, there is a great emotional pain being felt by the

women of China. Why was that left out? I would respectfully submit that there needs to be more research done on the real reasons,

since one witness after another that we’ve had—and, again, let me

just go back to that Nicholas Kristoff article. I raised that in 1994

with the head of the family planning program in Beijing and that

family planning group with whom I met to run the program said

Kristoff had made it all up, the New York Times was simply lying.

Yet the evidence that we have gotten from one person after anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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other—we had a woman who used to run a family planning program in Fujian Province, you might recall, Bill and Tom, last year,

who testified she ran the program in Fujian, in one of their areas,

for a dozen years. She self-described herself as a mother by night,

a monster by the day, and talked about the emotional pain and suffering, not to mention this theft of children and the killing of children by way of forced abortion, but she talked about the emotional

pain.

I suggest that what’s missing here is the fact that women are

crying out, so much so that they’re taking their lives, and this is

glossed over in the report, it’s glossed over by the population control community, who want to ascribe it to pesticides or some other

situation like that.

If you could respond to that, I’d appreciate it.

Mr. KOH. Mr. Chairman, I think you’ve accurately painted the

overall picture. As we said, the human rights situation deteriorated

markedly throughout the year, and we highlighted in the report

many of the points that you made, the increasing crack down on

political dissent, the China democratic party, some 35,000 incidents

against the Falun Gong, restrictions on religious freedom, not just

with regard to Tibetan Buddhists, Muslim Uighurs, also Christians

and, as you pointed out, the well publicized case involving the investiture of Catholic Bishops.

We also pointed to forced and prison labor situations, arbitrary

detention and internet restrictions.

The issue of the status of women and the devaluation of women

in Chinese society is something that we’ve reported on consistently

over the years and the very issue that you mentioned, which is the

coercive family policy, is one on which we have reported with great

detail and indeed in which we’ve engaged the Chinese directly in

our human rights dialogue

Let me just read to you from pages 33 through 37 of the report,

which address it. We say the government continued to implement

comprehensive and often intrusive family planning policies—jumping ahead to page 34—these population control policies rely on education propaganda, economic incentives, as well as on more coercive

measures, including psychological pressure and economic penalties.

On the next page, we describe the policies in a number of the different provinces and then say intense pressure to meet family planning targets set by the government has resulted in documented instances in which family planning officials have used coercion, including forced abortion and sterilization, to meet government goals,

and we go on and discuss this matter at considerable length in the

remainder of the report.

As you know, Congressman, when Gao Shoa Dwan, who has been

testifying before this Committee about these practices and how

they function, we have ourselves, in our bureau, taken a special interest in trying to reunite Gao with family members and to bring

about a reunification of this issue.

So this has not been something on which we believe there to be

an omission in the report.

The specific point that you raise, which is with regard to suicide

rates, let me point out that we tried to put this in the context of

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a range of different factors which have created pressure and problems for women in Chinese society.

I should also point out that the suicide rate among men has been

very high this year, disturbingly high, but that in particular, challenges from economic restructuring have contributed to this problem and have created a situation in which the low status of women

has been translated into them being particular victims of societal

dislocation as the society starts to change.

So my point would be that I have read the Kristoff article, that

we understand the concerns that you raise. These are ones that we

report on in considerable detail in our report.

We believe that your overall statement of the human rights

record rings true and indeed the statements you made both at the

recent testimony on Tibet and your other recent hearing in the past

few weeks on the relationship between human rights issues and

other issues are ones which we think accurately reflect our report.

But we would disagree that we have made some omission here.

I think we have tried to put the grievous status of women 5 years

after the Beijing women’s conference into the context of a range of

factors that have caused this, and those are outlined in considerable detail in the report.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, again, Mr. Secretary, 500 women per

day commit suicide in China, an absolutely staggering number, if

these figures are accurate. Even if it’s half of that, even if it’s a

third of that, it’s a staggering number of lost lives due to incredibly

emotional stress that has to be coming from somewhere.

Forced abortion is absolutely pervasive in China—I’ve been fighting this for 20 years. I’ve been in Congress for 20 years, found

about it in the first couple of years of my tenure in office, and I

have been sickened by the international community’s pooh-poohing

of the issue, glossing it over, saying that that was yesterday, not

today.

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel, even though the

internal documents that we keep copies of, and the evidence that

we see in the field shows that women are being dealt with so cruelly.

A woman wants to protect her own baby. We also have heard

from men who testified about the agony of seeing their sons or

daughters killed by the family planning cadres and they couldn’t

do anything to stop it. When you can’t protect your own family

members that might lead one to commit suicide or to take some

other drastic action.

I think it is a serious omission when the only things that are

mentioned are toxic pesticides, low status, and a shift to a market

economy. That’s missing the mark by a mile, it would seem to me.

I’ve had close to 15 hearings, maybe even more, on the issue, focused exclusively or in part on the forced abortion issue. I think it’s

an outrage to women that they are so mistreated. That’s why I argued against the Beijing venue for the Beijing women’s conference.

It could have been held somewhere else. Because I saw what happened there. They were touted in their own press as being somehow enlightened with regard to women. That is like having a civil

rights conclave in South Africa during the height of Apartheid, and

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somehow suggesting that they were the beacon of hope for racial

harmony.

The same thing goes for China with regard to women and forced

abortion and forced sterilization, breaking up families the way they

do. To not look into this as a factor contributing to the suicide rate

is a serious oversight. We’ve had so many people recount the terrible, deleterious, emotional consequences of this forced abortion

policy and its impact on women. Its nowhere to be found.

I would hope and I ask you, plead with you, to go back and check

this. If the people that do the investigating are part of the population control community, forget it, you’ll get a tainted report. They

have been whitewashing the crimes against China for so long, I’ve

lost count. I go back and I look at the hearings and—the floor

statements—I do have a long memory when it come to this and

whether it be Dr. Sadik of the UNFPA who said the Chinese Program is totally voluntary, or someone else. Wei Jingsheng, when he

testified before us immediately after his release, said he was outraged when he saw the U.N. workers were working side by side

with the family planning cadres in going after their families and

forcibly aborting these women.

Children are precious. Abortion is violence against children and

it’s also violence against women and when it’s forced abortion, the

emotional consequences are devastating.

Please, this has to be fixed. Fixed with the facts, I would respectfully submit, because this doesn’t tell the story of why those suicides occur. These women are the walking wounded and we need

to at least accurately tell the world why they’re wounded and

there’s ample evidence out there and we can put you contact with

sources—and I’m sure you have your own.

There is also something in the report dealing with——

Mr. KOH. If I can respond.

Mr. SMITH. Yes.

Mr. KOH. Mr. Chairman, we admire your passion and commitment on this issue, which I think has done an important job in

highlighting this issue and it’s one on which we have devoted a lot

of energy in our own bureau and in the department to investigating.

I think the facts, as you say, are depressing. This is a very, very

large country in which there is a very, very high suicide rate on

the part of both men and women and we’ve tried to identify a number of the facts throughout the report. As we said, all of the population of China is living under a markedly deteriorating human

rights condition.

But I do think that when the question comes as to why 500

women commit suicide in an average day in the largest country in

the world, as a lawyer and as someone who has to be very careful

with the facts, I have to take care to make sure that I fully understand the causes before I assign causation to it.

China is a closed society. We do not have as much information

as we would like and I——

Mr. SMITH. With all due respect, you have assigned causes here

such as the low status of women in China. There has been a low

status for women, like I said, for thousands of years, as women in

other nations around the world have suffered from low status,

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which did not lead to mega suicides like we’re seeing in China

today.

There is a reason to be found if an honest investigation is instigated, I believe, based on tons of anecdotal evidence that we have,

including from victims. We had a woman testify who was being

held, regrettably, by the administration in Bakersfield, we had to

subpoena her to come and speak. She was a passenger on the Golden Venture, who said she found a baby girl who had been abandoned and that she was told by the family planning cadres that her

time was up, that now she would be forcibly aborted and sterilized,

because she had her one child.

She broke down crying. She couldn’t even finish her testimony,

she was in such agony. Yet this goes unreported. You have ascribed

reasons and I believe that they have missed the mark by a mile.

We had a hearing just a few days on China, again, one in a long

series. One of our witnesses took issue with the assertion. In direct

answer to a question right out of the country reports that I quoted,

that ethnic minorities, such as the Muslim Uighurs and the Tibetans, are subject to less stringent population controls. Those who

testified, both on behalf of the Tibetans and the Muslim Uighurs,

said that was absolutely false. What is the evidence to back that

up?

Mr. KOH. That’s based on the best evidence we have. If it’s something which is subject to challenge by your witnesses, we’d welcome

more information.

I would point out that the factors that you noted are ones that

we said were among the leading causes and we obviously have to

be careful, in my case, lawyerly, about what we assign as causes.

I take your point, Congressman. We will endeavor to investigate

the issue further and if we think that we can make an objective

statement about both of these issues, the issue with regard to the

Uighurs and the one that you have raised, then we will do so and

correct it for the future report.

Mr. SMITH. Before I move on to another question, let meask—as

a lawyer, do you find it obvious or somehow proven that, ‘‘pesticides, toxic pesticides’’ are more likely to cause suicide than forced

abortion?

Mr. KOH. The statement says research indicates that the low status of women, the rapid shift to a market economy and the availability of highly toxic pesticides are among the leading causes. I

think that can mean that there are other causes as well, but that’s

what we have encountered as the leading examples and that’s what

we relied upon.

Mr. SMITH. But, again, who are the researchers? This is why we

need an absolutely unbiased group of researchers to interview

these women, and there are several in our own country. We’ve had

many at our hearings, although that’s anecdotal, but it’s certainly

very suggestive.

Over the years, I’ve been in contact with many women who have

had forced abortions. They break down and say that it’s an agony

that is almost unbearable when the state says the baby you’re carrying must be destroyed because it doesn’t fit into the quota system.

20

The weakness, the sense of vulnerability that they couldn’t even

protect their own child and the state has stolen and killed their

child is a major contributing cause to this, I believe, based on 20

years of dealing with the issue.

Mr. KOH. I understand your point and with the help of the Committee and with the sources that you have, we’ll try to move toward as full accuracy as we can obtain in these reports.

Mr. SMITH. My Chief Counsel makes a good point. We’d like to

see the studies that led to that and see what was omitted and part

of coming to that conclusion.

I have, and you have it, as well, I’m sure, volumes of evidence

to show the forced abortion policy is central policy. They say one

thing to the public, for the crowd, so to speak, and for the international community, but the internal documents clearly say you

have your one child, sometimes two, and that’s it.

Let me ask you another question, and then I’ll yield to my colleagues and go to a second round. On Chechnya, in Russia, we’ve

had some hearings in the Helsinki Commission, which I Chair. You

are a distinguished commissioner on that, as well.

Obviously, to many of us, it seems like de ́ja`vu all over again, as

Yogi Berra said. Here it goes again. The United States has at least

spoken out this time. We didn’t do it last time with any real conviction. As a matter of fact, Al Gore, at a crucial time—and we actually convened a hearing on this—said that it was an internal affair

during that first Chechen war. Many people, including Elena

Bonner, wife of Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize winner, said at one

of our Helsinki Commission hearings that that gave the green light

to the Russians to commit the terrible crimes which led to about

80,000 people dead in Chechnya.

There are many people in Russia, and this came out in our most

recent hearings, who see a moral equivalence to what we did in

Kosovo or in Serbia and actually don’t feel they need to listen to

the U.S., that our moral standing or stature has been at least

tainted by the fact that when we bomb, it’s OK, when they bomb,

it’s not.

But right now, as you know, the atrocities the number of people

killed, the number of displaced people are sickening.

My question, bottom line, is do you think there needs to be a war

crimes tribunal investigation to hold the Russians and the

Chechens, anyone who has committed atrocities in that war, accountable?

Mr. KOH. We think that there needs to be a full transparent and

objective investigation leading to the punishment to those individuals who are responsible. Secretary Albright, today, in the Washington Post, on page A–31, says ‘‘we have called for a full and

transparent investigation with international observers and punishment for those responsible’’ and has recounted her own discussions

about this issue with acting President Putan and an issue that she

raised directly with Foreign Minister Igor Ivinov in Lisbon last Friday. It has been the subject of intense discussion within our own

bureau and, again, with the goal of trying to get to the bottom of

these reports, particularly the reports of summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilians, massacres that have been recounted in Alkhan-Yurt.

21

Last week, as you know, there was a videotape, whose authenticity is still under discussion, which purported to show mass grave

sites and then, of course, the conditions in the filtration camps.

The point, I think, is will the Russians themselves open up the

situation and permit a full, transparent and fair investigation to go

on. Acting President Putan has pointed Vladimir Kolomonov as his

human rights ombudsman. He has invited Council of Europe observers, including the new Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Mr. Alvaro Hill Robles.

I met with Mr. Hill Robles last Friday and we discussed this

issue. They have now invited Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and also OSCE representatives to

come to visit the region. Human Rights Watch Executive Director

Ken Roth is on his way and I spoke to him last night.

So my own view is that what is gradually happening is a shift

in the Russian policy from a total exclusion of international observation and a statement that’s only an internal affair, to a recognition that they do need to get to the bottom of the question.

We have said repeatedly that we believe that this raises very

fundamental questions of international humanitarian law and we

believe that those investigations need to get to get to the bottom

of those questions.

Once those investigations get underway, only then will we have

a sense of whether what has been unearthed is an example of a

war crime or a crime against humanity. As you know, those are

legal terms of art and we have to see where the evidence leads.

Mr. SMITH. I’d like to yield—thank you, Secretary Koh—to Cynthia McKinney.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Assistant Secretary

Koh, you lucked out, because my voice is giving out on me. I will

be very brief. I’m just concerned about balance in the reporting.

For instance, I have perused the Democratic Republic of Congo

report and unfortunately, the situation in Eastern Congo I don’t believe is given enough attention, where most recently Robert

Geraton has actually used the words ‘‘crimes against humanity’’ as

having been committed there.

I understand that the United States has allied with Uganda and

Rwanda, but it seems to me that in these reports, at least, we

ought to be calling a spade a spade.

In the Uganda report, you mention concerns about regional security causing the country’s intervention in DROC. Why did you use

the word ‘‘intervention’’ and not ‘‘invasion?’’

Mr. KOH. Let me say, Congresswoman McKinney, that we have

struggled in all these reports to do exactly what you say, to call a

human rights abuse a human rights abuse. I think we have made

it clear in our own report on the Democratic Republic of Congo that

rebel forces and their Rwandan backers have committed extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture, rape, and illegal detention,

the point that I made in my opening statement.

We’ve also pointed out that in rebel areas, observance of civil

rights are often nonexistent. As I know you know from briefings

that members of my office and bureau have given to your office, we

have pressed on these with great detail, particularly in the case of

22

the Moinga burials, the women who were buried alive, and also in

relation to issues with regard to the Hema and Lindu fighting.

The U.S. Government in this situation is committed, as you

know, to trying to bring peace to what is really a genuinely volatile

situation. In January, as you know, numerous Members of Congress were present when Ambassador Holbrooke held, in his Month

of Africa, the Month of the U.S. Security Council leadership, an entire week that was devoted to discussion of issues in the DROC.

President Kabila came and participated in those meetings and the

question was how to move to enhance the Lusaka process to bring

about real peace in this extremely troubled region.

Now, I think we have made the point repeatedly that we will not

tolerate human rights abuses by any side. We have publicly and

privately denounced abuses. The situation on the ground is extremely difficult to determine because, as you know, many parts of

the country are in open warfare. We’ve called for investigation of

massacres, accountabilities for abuses in security and access for

both humanitarian workers and for human rights monitors, where

they occur. We work closely with human right NGO’s, particularly

Silomon Baldo of Human Rights Watch Africa, and Alison

DesForges who will be appearing here later.

I think our goal is not to make statements with regard to political actions, but simply to call human rights abuses human rights

abuses, and that that is what we do in all of the reports, the DROC

report, the Uganda report and the Rwanda report. I don’t think we

let anybody off the hook.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Have we called for an investigation of the plane

crash in 1994 that set off the Rwandan genocide?

Mr. KOH. I think that has been the subject of extensive examination and inquiry and still a lot of answers that have yet to be obtained.

But I do think with regard to the DROC situation——

Ms. MCKINNEY. Has it been the subject of substantive inquiry in

the United States?

Mr. KOH. I’m the human rights officer and this is a little bit out

of my rubric. It was both before the time I came and it regards a

situation in which I have not personally been engaged, but I do

want to say that with regard to the Great Lakes Region and the

entire set of human rights issues, we have been extraordinarily energetic on the question.

I know that in your opening statement, Congresswoman, you

said that our statements with regard to Rwanda were—I forget

how you put it—but I remember quite a strenuous criticism of

what we have done.

But I do think that in this region, we recognize how volatile that

situation is and we have devoted extraordinary energies in my time

in office to what we have called atrocities prevention. Indeed, that

was the entire purpose of the Month of Africa and the focus that

was given by Ambassador Holbrooke on this issue with regard to

Angola, Burundi, Sudan, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

There was an effort to bring together those key political players

to try to head off these disputes and prevent them from erupting

into another genocide.

23

I think particularly the case of Burundi, in which Nelson

Mandela made an extraordinary appearance before the Security

Council, where, in the URUSHA process, President Mandela has

brought his huge moral authority to bear, where President Clinton

participated by video link in an effort to try to bring the parties

to the table and head off another round of killings.

This is an area in which we are really trying to put our resources

to prevent atrocities from breaking out. I went to Africa with Secretary Albright in November and the entire discussion was on

these two issues. First, how to build democracy in the region, in

countries such as Nigeria, support democracy in Mali, to hold peace

together in fragile countries such as Sierra Leone, at the same

time, how to prevent there from being future outbreaks of violence

of this nature.

Sometimes it’s hard to prove an atrocity that’s been averted, but

I will say that this Administration has really given Africa, I think,

unprecedented attention in an effort to really try to make Rwanda

and similar kinds of events not happen again.

Ms. MCKINNEY. There have been recent revelations from a Canadian newspaper, Steven Edwards, of the National Post, about the

goings on of the U.N. Rwanda tribunal. One of the things that was

mentioned was the fact that there is currently an investigation underway to investigate the leaders, the current leadership of the

government of Rwanda for having committed human rights abuses

in the past, that there also is an investigation of the plane crash

as well. Now, in the area of atrocities prevention, we know that

Vice President Kagame was trained in the United States and we

also understand that current members of the Rwandan military are

receiving training in the United States.

Do we know the extent to which they have subscribed to atrocities prevention curricula and whether or not our students have

been involved in human rights abuses in Democratic Republic of

Congo or in Rwanda?

Mr. KOH. Congresswoman, I am a professor and have been a professor for the last 15 years. Many of my students have gone on to

do things that I don’t approve of and, frankly, I don’t take the

blame for all of that. I think I teach them well, and then they go

off and do what they’re going to do with the training we give them.

Ms. MCKINNEY. But, now, the question was are we making an

effort to understand just exactly what it is that our students and

former students are doing in Rwanda or Uganda, and for that matter, the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Mr. KOH. We not only make it a point to know. We consider it

to be a critical part of our legal duties in this regard. I know Congressman Delahunt has already signaled to me some of his questions with regard to all of our security assistance. We work as hard

as we can on the question to try to make sure that human rights

training is done, that those people who train in the United States

have rigorous human rights training and understand those issues.

What they go off to do, that is sometimes beyond our control. I

understand the concerns that you have about the Rwanda tribunal.

It has not functioned perfectly and on numerous occasions, we have

pointed out the difficulties both in setting up the operation and for

24

it to move into an effective tribunal for investigations and prosecutions.

We’re happy to get back to you on the specifics of the questions

that you asked, but I will say that on this issue, we acknowledge

the concerns that you have about the tribunal itself. We simply

point to the fact that there is no alternative to a well functioning

Rwanda tribunal, and we have to move as hard as we can to try

to beef it up.

There’s a new prosecutor there, Carla Del Ponte, who has committed herself to make new commitments on the issues. There are

new judges on the tribunal, including a new Sri Lankan judge, Justice Osaka Gunarwahduna, who is a person of considerable reputation. Our hope is that the Rwanda tribunal can move forward and

start to deliver real justice in important cases.

Ms. MCKINNEY. It’s my understanding that there are some people who are very fearful for their personal security as they conduct

these investigations of events surrounding the plane crash and

what happened in 1996 in Democratic Republic of Congo.

What are we doing to make—to assure the protection of those investigators as they go about the important business of letting us

know, letting the world know just exactly what indeed did happen

there?

Also, I have a question about the Gersoni report and I would like

to know if you’ve read the Gersoni report and if you have, would

you please make sure that I could get a copy of it?

Mr. KOH. In fact, I do think the Gersoni report was something

that we provided to your office through our legislative——

Ms. MCKINNEY. I requested it, but we have not yet received it.

Mr. KOH. I’m sorry. After the meeting that we had in your office

with the members of my bureau, they were not able to get a copy

of it because it has not yet been published. We will continue our

effort to try to get that report and make it available to you.

Ms. MCKINNEY. And what is it that we’re doing to protect those

people who are conducting these investigations of very sensitive

issues concerning the events in 1994 and 1996?

Mr. KOH. I don’t have the current information, so let me get back

to you on that one.

Ms. MCKINNEY. I guess I’m done, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. McKinney. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes. Mr. Secretary, my first question is, in terms

of the assistance package that will be shortly considered by Congress relative to Colombia, could you describe your involvement?

Not necessarily your personal involvement, but the engagement of

your bureau in terms of the development of the package?

Mr. KOH. Yes. It’s consumed a very large part of my personal

time and also the time of many members of my bureau. I think this

is illustrated by the fact that yesterday, when we got together with

Vice President Gustavo Bell, who is the point person for the Colombian human rights program. We probably had 15 members of my

bureau in the room, each of whom had worked on some aspect of

this.

Let me go back. As you know, Congressman, I went to Colombia

last April and spoke at a conference in Medellin, in which we outlined the five human rights concerns that the Administration has;

25

first, the need to bring about peace; second, the need to end impunity, which I know has been a great concern of yours; third, the

need to reestablish the rule of law; next, to protect human rights

defenders; and then, critically important, to end paramilitary/military ties. At that conference, which was in April 1998, I called for

the arrest of Carlos Castanyo, which, given that he was in

Medellin, I don’t think made me very popular and made the ride

to the airport a very enjoyable one.

Since then, the government of Colombia has come forward with

Plan Colombia and it is a Colombian plan, but it is one on which

they sought input from both the U.S. Government and from other

foreign donors.

As you know from hearings that Under Secretary Pickering has

given up here, it’s a massive plan. It’s some seven billion plus of

which the Colombian contribution is four billion and the U.S. contribution, depending how it would be measured and which is before

this body on the aid packages, between 1.3 and 1.6 billion.

Now, early on, identified was the need for both social and economic development to be part of this plan, which means nationwide; namely, building human rights institutions and the rule of

law. The Fiscalea, the prosecutor’s office, the Procuradorea, the creation of houses of justice, so-called cases judicias, and it was our

bureau, particularly our office of democracy promotion, working together with the Agency for International Development, that developed what could be called the nationwide elements of the human

rights, building of the human rights rule of law infrastructure and

discussing this and relating it to the Plan Colombia Program.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Now, let me interrupt, because there are aspects

of the plan clearly that I think are very positive in nature, and

your reference to them, the funding for alternative crop substitution, or I think a better way to describe it is economic development in rural areas, infrastructure needs, the funding for judicial

reform, support for the attorney general’s office, as well as the chief

prosecutor.

These are all very favorable. From my perspective and my opinion, they are very attractive.

Mr. KOH. Right.

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I think it’s important to understand, too,

that they, in many cases, are new to Colombia, because historically

Colombian governments have not invested in the more rural areas.

Only recently has the concept of alternative crop substitution been

embraced by the government and that’s under the leadership of

President Pastrana. It has not existed. So we find these very attractive.

But you are clearly aware of many of the concerns that have

been articulated by the human rights community regarding the

military, the security assistance package, and that’s what I want

you to address.

I’m sure you’re as familiar with those reports as I am.

Mr. KOH. I may even be more familiar with them than you are,

Congressman.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I’m sure you are.

Mr. KOH. Let me say this. The separate issue that you raise is

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fort in the south part of Colombia, particularly the Putumayo and

the Kakaita regions, will itself create or enhance human rights

problems because of concerns that we have about the human rights

record of the Colombian government, and that has been a primary

concern for me, because, Congressman, I’m not going to be in this

job for the rest of my life and for me, I am not going to participate

in anything which I think makes the human rights situation in the

country worse.

Now, I think——

Mr. DELAHUNT. But don’t we have—let me interrupt you again,

Mr. Secretary, because I would suggest that if we strengthen, if

you will, the conditions or we amend—if we subject the military,

the security assistant to certain conditions, in fact, there is the potential to improve the record of the Colombian military.

I have a variety of amendments that myself and other colleagues

will be proposing, but I think there is an opportunity here to do

something in terms of the military as an institution within the society, to strengthen it in terms of its record on human rights,

which, until recently, has been poor, and that very well might be

an overstatmenet.

Some would describe it, I think appropriately, as abysmal. While

I’m speaking here, I think it’s important to know that really it has

been the government of President Pastrana, as well as the leadership of General Tapias and General Mora and other certain selected members of the military that have made an effort, and I

think it would be remiss of us not to know that they—that some

progress has been made.

But I think and I believe that we have an opportunity here, in

fact, to move that agenda, the agenda of the respect for human

rights by the military further if we strengthen, by a series of conditions, the proposal when it comes to security assistance.

Mr. KOH. The first part of your statement, which is that we

ought to work with the Pastrana government to try to promote

their structural efforts to improve what we acknowledge is a poor

human rights record, I couldn’t agree with more.

The question is whether the imposition of human rights conditions on aid is the best way to achieve that, and then there I think

we may have differences.

Let me go back, because, Congressman, I went with Secretary

Albright to Carahania in January. I went with Under Secretary

Pickering to Bogatah in February, just a few days before you got

there. I met with the Plan Colombia team and the human rights

elements of it, both when they came up here in mid February and

I met again with Vice President Bell yesterday to go over a range

of issues.

I think the key is the extent to which the civilian leadership in

Colombia, which has a demonstrated commitment to trying to address what they recognize is a problem, which is the persistent ties

between the paramilitary and the military, and how they can move

forward with a credible, practical program for severing those ties.

Now, on February 25, Vice President Bell announced the creation

of an interagency coordinating commission that would try to receive inputs about pending paramilitary activities and to try to

head them off. Defense Minister Ramirez announced that there

27

would be an effort to give to General Tapias, who I think we all

agree is a man of great credibility in this effort, authority to clean

house that would be parallel to that given to General Serrano, the

head of the national police.

Mr. DELAHUNT. May I interrupt? Because that happens to be exactly one of the amendments that I intend to offer in terms of this

particular package is that the authority that was conferred upon

General Serrano, which I suggest and submit has had a very positive impact as far as the Colombian national police, also be conferred on General Tapias.

Mr. KOH. Congressman——

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I think that’s an important condition prior

to the delivery of any security assistance, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. KOH. The question is, does that need to be an external condition, when I believe that that is an internal condition that will be

imposed by Colombian law. The Colombian government has passed

a military justice reform act and is moving to the passage of implementing legislation and decree authority has already been given,

and I think the critical——

Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, I think you and I are on the same page,

Mr. Secretary, but that hasn’t been passed by the Congress. It’s

still pending and it has been pending for some time.

Mr. KOH. I agree.

Mr. DELAHUNT. And I, for one, am not ready to support a military assistance until that occurs, until that is done.

Mr. KOH. You are——

Mr. DELAHUNT. You call it an external condition. These are

American taxpayers’ dollars and we need reassurance.

Mr. KOH. I think the key condition is the one which is already

there, which is the Leahy amendment, and which I think is designed to make sure that U.S. security assistance does not flow to

forces that have not taken effective measures to prevent human

rights abuse. I think that’s been a salutary condition, it’s been one

that my office is devoted to monitoring and it’s one that we continue to think is hugely important.

My own view is that you don’t have to sugar-coat the human

rights record of the government, because our report does not do

that. We call a human rights abuse a human rights abuse.

But I think you can still conclude that the current conditionality

regime, which is the Leahy amendment, coupled with the government’s own stated commitments and efforts to modify and change

domestic Colombian law, which include we are pressing them very

strongly on the enactment of law enforced disappearances, implementing legislation to the code of military justice, we then create

the internal conditions that make the imposition of these external

conditions unnecessary.

I think President Pastrana put it well when he said that the key

condition is the condition within his own government, namely, his

own no tolerance policy for human rights abuses, and my view is

you can recognize that he has only gotten a certain amount of traction on these issues in his time in office and still say that our best

hope of bringing real human rights change to Colombia is to support the Pastrana administration in bringing about a genuine

28

human rights action plan to address these issues, and that’s where

I stand on the question.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Again, I would just note for the record that in

Colombia, we have an administration that merely has a little more

than 2 years at this point in terms of its existence.

What I’m concerned about, not so much as what the Pastrana

government may do or not do, but after the Pastrana administration is concluded and legislation that cannot be changed by decree,

I would suggest and submit to you, is absolutely essential.

Mr. KOH. I happen to believe, Congressman, that most change of

human rights has to come from within the country, driven by the

domestic democratic process, and a commitment to this which is

then embodied in the constitution and laws of that government.

That’s the way human rights change comes about here and that

means both strengthening internal structures—namely, structures

of internal military discipline—and external structures—namely,

structures of prosecution and judicial independence and also rule

of law questions, and I think that’s where our resources need to go.

My own view is that that will be the key. The point I think that

you made very well, Congressman, is there is a problem with democracy in Colombia and it’s not elections. They have elections regularly. It’s that they simply do not have the kind of legal infrastructure and institutional infrastructure that we see in countries

that have more well developed systems of checks and balances, judicial independence, the rule of law, and that’s what they need to

build.

I think it’s a very daunting challenge for the Pastrana government. I think they have a credible action plan as part of Plan Colombia to deal with it, both on a nationwide level and in regard to

the particular concerns in the Putumayo and Kakaita and I think

we ought to support them in that effort.

I think that the conditionality of the Leahy amendment, coupled

with the internal conditions that they are imposing on themselves

through law, are, in our judgment, sufficient to meet the concerns

that you and I share.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I’m sure we’ll be talking, and I’ll yield back.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. Mr. Tancredo.

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My concerns go back

to, I think, some comments or reflect the kind of comments that

have been made earlier in terms of not a concern about what is in

the reports, the country report, but in this case, specifically Sudan,

what is not there.

I think that there is an absolutely egregious lack of information,

an egregious fault here that has been characterized by a lack of attention to some of the most pressing, most incredible human rights

violations that the world has ever seen. I know that that’s a fairly

dramatic statement and some might even call it bombastic, but the

fact is that we are reaching proportions now with two million dead,

over four million dispossessed people, and I think you can characterize the situation in Sudan in the kinds of terms that I have

used.

Certainly you could characterize the situation in Sudan in terms

far more severe than were used in your country report.

29

For instance, there is no mention of genocide. That term is often

thrown around far too loosely, I believe, and in using it incorrectly,

it tends to actually demean its real effect. In reality, this can be

absolutely and accurately applied to what has been happening in

Sudan, yet it does not appear in your report.

Nothing in your report reflects the government, the Khartoum

government attempt and successful attempts at blocking food aid.

The fact is that this is perhaps one of the most significant parts

of the problem there, causing more deaths than many other things

in Sudan at the present time. Yet there is no mention of it, at least

certainly not enough to actually bring it to the attention necessary,

I think, for our Committee to reflect on it. There is no mention of

the effect of the oil money that is now falling to Khartoum as a result of the pipeline that has been opened and the scorched earth

policy that has been implemented by Khartoum around the pipeline. They are attempting, of course, to prevent attacks on the pipeline, but the money that is now coming into Khartoum, we see the

effects of that.

We have observed an increase in the number of incidents and in

their severity. Not that bombings are new, but some of the characteristics here of the bombings in Sudan would indicate that there

is a greater level of severity and a greater level of technological application here that could only come about as a result of the money

that the Khartoum government is obtaining as a result of the pipeline. There is no condemnation of the companies running the pipeline, no condemnation of Talisman, no condemnation of the China

National Petroleum Corporation for what they are doing there and

what is happening as a result of the money that’s flowing in to

Khartoum.

There is no mention, to the extent that I was able to review here,

no mention of Joseph Coney and his Lord’s Resistance Army, which

has been responsible for large-scale abductions of children. The

Khartoum regime has been harboring and supporting Mr. Coney.

Children are forced to serve in his, ‘‘army’’ either as child soldiers,

laborers or sex slaves.

In the past, Coney has promised mass release of children, which

never materialized.

Is there anything that the United States can do to help secure

the release of those children or help slow the pace of these awful

kidnappings?

I’m not surprised that this certainly wasn’t mentioned in the report, but am I to gather that because you have chosen not to emphasize these things, not to accurately reflect the situation in

Sudan, not to reflect the egregious outrages being perpetrated by

Khartoum on the south, this is a reflection of Madeleine Albright’s

statement of September 15, 1999, where she said ‘‘the human

rights situation in Sudan is not marketable to the American people.’’

Now, if that is the case, if that’s the reason, then I would suggest

to you that it is not proper and it is a flagrant admission of this

Administration’s policy of heating polls rather than facts.

I would suggest to you that whether or not the human rights situation in Sudan is marketable to the American public should not

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dresses the situation there. It should address the situation in

Sudan on the basis of the fact that we know genocide is actually

going on and all of the other things that I have mentioned.

So I am very, very concerned, of course, about first, the lack of

emphasis that I think should have been placed on the situation

there, and also maybe the reason for that lack of emphasis. I’d like

you to comment.

Mr. KOH. Congressman Tancreda, we share your deep concern

about the human rights situation in Sudan. Secretary Albright and

I have talked about it on many occasions and spent a particular

amount of time in November, when we traveled to Nairobi, Kenya,

met with members of Sudanese civil society, also met with members of the EGAD process, which is an effort to try to bring about

this issue.

Your former colleague, Congressman Harry Johnston, who I

think we would all agree is a man of tremendous integrity and as

the former chair of the Africa Subcommittee, extraordinarily

knowledgeable about this, has come back to try to bring about

peace in Sudan to end this 16-year civil war, which we acknowledge is one of the world’s greatest humanitarian tragedies. It’s

claimed the lives, as you said, of some two million Sudanese civilians and internally displaced four million others.

Where I would differ with you, Congressman, is about the statements that you say that we have not made. Blocking of food aid

is something that we have discussed at tremendous length, as mentioned in Section 1G of our report. The scorched earth policy is discussed in Sections 1A, 1C and 1G of the report. Bombing of innocent civilians in Part 1A, 1C, 1G and 2C of the report.

Joseph Coney and the Lord’s Resistance Army, that whole situation came to light because of a Human Rights Watch report which

was authored by the person who is now my special assistant. It’s

covered not only in Section 5, 6C, 6F, 6D and 1G of the report, but

also at great length in the Uganda report, where we point out that

the Lord’s Resistance Army operates in the north from bases in

southern Sudan, viciously abusing human rights, continuing to kill,

torture, maim and rape, et cetera.

Secretary Albright has herself—I think the context in which she

made the statement, it is not marketable, was followed by the

statement, but nevertheless, she will continue to mention it every

turn.

On February 16, after her meeting with Bishop Max Gossis, who

I think many of you up here have met, who is the charismatic and

courageous Bishop from the Nuba Mountains, we issued a statement in which the Secretary expressed her outrage at the Khartoum government’s bombing of a school on February 8 and called

on them to cease the aerial bombardment of civilian targets, pointing out that 14 young children and one teacher had been killed,

and again committing ourselves to reenergize the EGAD process

and to carry on the work of Harry Johnston.

On these issues, the particular issues, slavery, religious persecution, blocking of humanitarian life lines, indiscriminate bombing of

civilians, we have mentioned this at every turn.

Now, the two points that you mentioned, the effect of oil money.

We have read the Harker report from Canada, which just came out

31

in February, and, therefore, is not discussed in our report for the

simple reason that our report ends in December. It will be discussed in next year’s report.

It’s also the subject of discussion by the special Rapporteur. We

are very concerned about the extent to which U.N.—I’m sorry—

that oil money will continue to fuel the conflict and it’s something

on which we have engaged with the Canadians already with regard

to the Talisman energy issue.

When we were in Cartahana, Secretary Albright met Foreign

Minister Axworthy and discussed this issue with him. Foreign Minister Axworthy was here last week and she discussed it with him

again.

Obviously, the Chinese have not been as responsive to us on this

question as they have on other human rights concerns, but it’s nevertheless an issue that we raise with them.

I think in the end, the one point on which you point is the question of genocide. Should we use the term genocide? And I think you

yourself made the good point that it’s a term that has both a legal

and a political connotation. The legal connotation flows from the

1949 genocide convention, which the Senate ratified. As a Justice

Department attorney, I worked on the ratification process.

It’s a standard which is met by any number of situations around

the world. It’s the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a race or

ethnic group.

But I think what we also understand is that the political understanding of the term genocide is something that we reserve for extremely grave and egregious situations and the question is what

does this mean, how should we respond, if we’re going to use a

term like genocide. I think that’s something that we have been extremely concerned about.

I think the question in the State Department is are we taking

a hard tough look at our Sudan strategy and try to make it work

better, recognizing the difficulties we have had up until now in

having a real impact on the situation.

I would say that I have been in meeting after meeting on the

Sudan policy, some of them have been extremely difficult, but I

think that Secretary Albright has made it clear that this is really

one of her top human rights priorities and not because of welcome

political and public attention to the question, not because it’s marketable, but because it’s something on which we as an Administration would really like to get some traction before the end of our

time in office.

Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, you

mentioned you would like to get some traction on it and, of course,

the Congress gave you an option in that regard. It gave you an opportunity, which you chose not to use, in terms of the ability to use

food aid to support the south.

I assume that you still believe that that is a correct path to follow, but I guess I wonder under what conditions do you consider.

Would you consider that a change in your policy vis-a-vis the food

aid to the south should be considered?

Mr. KOH. As you said, this was an opportunity that was given

to us that we are still contemplating how to act on and that I do

32

think the question of how food aid can or should be used in an ongoing conflict is a subject of very extensive disagreement.

I think that if you call humanitarian NGO’s here and ask them

about the impact of this and whether it would potentially have an

impact on Operation Life Line in Sudan, they might give you questions that would raise concern for you as to whether this is the best

way to go. I think in the end, our focus is on revitalizing the EGAD

process and trying to bring the relevant parties to the table, trying

to use special envoy Harry Johnston, who is a person of tremendous integrity, to try to deal with all sides of the issue, to try to

call the SPLA on human rights abuses when they occur, and we’ve

just had an incident with regard to John Gurang, where Secretary

Albright called him last weekend to encourage him to relent from

the signing of a memorandum of understanding which led a number of leading humanitarian organizations, including CARE and

World Vision, to withdraw from the process, and to keep the public

focus on the very issues that you’ve mentioned, slavery, religious

persecution, interference with humanitarian aid, and the indiscriminate shelling of civilians.

This is something that we’re trying to do at the U.N. Human

Rights Commission in Geneva, we’re trying to do in all of our bilateral discussions, and it’s an issue that we will not let drop.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Tancredo. I just have a few followup

questions and my colleagues may want to pose a few more, and we

do thank you for your generosity of time, Mr. Secretary.

Last year, as you may know, the House of Representatives

passed my resolution H. Res. 128, which condemned the murder of

human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson and specifically called on

the British Government to launch an independent investigation

into her murder, as well as a public judicial inquiry into the possibility of state collusion in the murder of defense attorney Patrick

Finucane in 1989.

Similarly, in Section 405 of our bill H.R. 3427, which the President signed, the State Department authorization bill, the full Congress expressed its concern about the violence or threat of violence

against defense attorneys in Northern Ireland and, again, highlighted the murders of Rosemary Nelson and Patrick Finucane.

Rosemary Nelson herself testified, as you know, before our Subcommittee in September 1998 and asked the U.S. Government to

do more on behalf of attorneys like herself who continued to receive

death threats for discharging their duties on behalf of those clients

charged with political offenses.

She said, and I remember she said this very clearly on the

record, ‘‘No lawyer can forget what happened to Patrick Finucane,’’

and explained further that allegations of official collusion in his

murder, which U.N. Special Rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy

found credible, are particularly disturbing.

Rosemary Nelson asked us to communicate to the British Government how important a public inquiry into the Finucane case

would be to the peace process and for the rule of law in Northern

Ireland.

In response, several members joined me in writing Tony Blair,

urging an independent public inquiry. We passed legislation calling

on the British to do more for defense attorneys in the north and

33

mandated a reform FBI/RUC police training exchange program, a

vetting process.

I see in the report much discussion about the Nelson and

Finucane cases, especially the new developments in the Finucane

case, which seem to substantiate the charges of RUC collusion in

this murder.

My question is, is the Administration now prepared to join the

House and, in fact, the Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern who just

2 weeks ago called for an independent judicial inquiry into the

murder of Patrick Finucane and, I would add, as well, Rosemary

Nelson.

Mr. KOH. Congressman, as you know, this has been something

of great concern to me. We discussed it last time I was here for the

country reports. This past week, and I was in Dublin at a gathering of human rights lawyers, in which this was very much the

subject of discussion, I discussed it with Mr. Martin O’Brien, a

leading human rights attorney there, Jane Winter of the Irish

Human Rights Center has been here and has raised this issue with

both of us.

The Finucane and Rosemary Nelson killings were, in our view,

a savage assault on the independence of lawyers and it was very

clear that the Rosemary Nelson murder following 10 years on the

death of Mr. Finucane, a still unsolved case, has only made the

point again.

I understand next week, Mr. Chairman, you’re holding a hearing

at the Helsinki Commission to hear from Mr. Finucane’s widow on

the range of issues that are raised by this.

I think we believe that there must be an objective and independent investigation to the question. I think we have called on—

we have identified in the human rights report our concerns about

the independence of these issues in the past.

Obviously, the peace process continues to be a prime concern.

Jim Steinberg, the Deputy National Security Advisor, and Mr.

Norland, are there now in Ireland on this question and as you

know, Bertie Ahern and the other leading players in the peace

process will be coming here on St. Patrick’s Day for a major meeting at the White House.

In our view, the range of issues to be implemented have to be

folded into the peace process. You had a hearing before this Committee in which Chris Patton, who is now the Foreign Relations

Commissioner of the European Union, appeared and he was discussing the results of his own report on policing. I know you will

be hearing later this afternoon from Elisa Massimino from the

Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, which has played a leading

role on the question.

I think our belief is in this process, we have to move toward getting to the bottom of these two cases, which are not only egregious

cases in themselves, but have a broader significance, and to use the

peace process in a way to energize the human rights process in

Northern Ireland that will prevent such cases from happening

again.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for that and, hopefully, as a

Commissioner, you will join us at that hearing.

34

As I think we have had five hearings on human rights in the

north of Ireland. We had, as you pointed out, Patten himself.

Frankly, while he’s a very clever and articulate diplomat, having

read the report twice and made a number of notations in reading

it, and then, more importantly, having asked him a number of

questions, I was very, very disappointed in the fact that there will

be no vetting whatsoever of those who may have committed atrocities, may have been a part of the collusion.

Just for the record, our hearing will be held on Tuesday, March

14th. The Committee on the Administration of Justice, Martin

O’Brien’s group, will be part of that, Geraldine Finucane, as you

pointed out, Rosemary’s brother will also be here.

So it should hopefully bring additional focus and we hope that

the Administration will be very bold, as it has been on other Irish

issues, in asking for that independent inquiry.

There seems to be a cover-up, an unseemly cover-up, if you will,

and the suggestion of that, we don’t know for sure, came out during

our hearing with Patten. Just why not, why not go wherever the

evidence takes us on these cases. To think that people who may be

very high in the RUC may have been complicity in these crimes

and other crimes makes for justice denied, as well a perhaps other

acts which could be committed in the future.

Let me just turn our attention briefly to Peru. Although it

doesn’t reach a firm conclusion, the country report for Peru lays

out the strong case for the unconstitutionality of President

Fujimori’s effort to win a third term.

A recent report by the highly respected ombudsman, Jorge

Santistevan, also suggests evidence of massive fraud and manipulation by the government officials on behalf of the Fujimori candidacy.

In light of the Administration’s frequently stated commitment to

democracy in the western hemisphere, and it’s a commitment we

all share, what specifically is the U.S. Government doing to ensure

free and fair elections, with the media being very heavily put upon?

We know that the government controlled news media has attacked the ombudsman. There have been attacks on El Commercio,

the newspaper that broke the story on the election fraud, and I

know there are probably some people who think the opposition

party shouldn’t even participate rather than participate in a fraudulent election.

What are we doing to ensure that this does not happen? We

know that there was a Fuji coup before. Now, in daylight, we may

be seeing something that is parallel to that by rigging the process.

Mr. KOH. One of the themes of our introduction to our human

rights report is about threats to Latin democracy that occurred in

1999 and efforts to deal with those. In Ecuador, in Paraguay, concerns that we have in Venezuela, and, of course, the issue of Peru.

I think that we have said in our report that we’re in a situation

in which the separation of powers has been dramatically undermined. The executive branch dominates the legislature in the judiciary. Congress removed three judges so that the constitutional tribunal there is unable to function, and questions remain about

openness and fairness of electoral process and about due process,

the well known Lori Berenson case.

35

We have also seen inhibitions of media freedom, continuing impunity, torture and poor prison conditions, and issues of arbitrary

arrest and detention.

In November, I went to Costa Rica for the 30th anniversary of

the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and there we engaged

with the Vice Foreign Minister of Peru about the questions of the

relationship between Peru and the Inter-American human rights

system. As you might know, they have withdrawn from the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights and we believe that this is an

extremely negative trend.

Recently I met with both the Vice Minister and the Foreign Minister—I’m sorry—the Justice Minister and the Foreign Minister,

Mr. Bustamonte, and raised again our concern about these issues,

and he actually commented about the meeting later in criticizing

our human rights report.

Now, we have been trying to deal with this by funding programs

for electoral and democracy building in Peru and particularly we’ve

funded pre-electoral observation missions that are run by the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center and the funding

of local observation and voter NGO education programs through

approving NGO called Transparencia.

We’ve also tried to build approving civil society organizations by

funding them to promote voter education and turnout, especially in

the rural areas, to build political participation among women and

young people and promote greater debate about the issue of democratic reforms.

U.S. programs have also been used to strengthen the program of

the human rights ombudsman and to support the work of human

rights NGO’s.

I think it’s fair to say that Latin democracy, in many cases, is

a fragile institution, as we’ve seen. Many times, the people prefer

the strong leader to the strong democratic institutions, and it’s a

long-term struggle on which I think we need to unite hands and

work on a bipartisan basis over the years to come.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Hopefully,

those organizations that you mentioned, the Transparencia and the

Carter group and the Democratic Institute, will be very proactive,

because it’s not just—as we all know—the day of election. We’ve

seen a growing theft, the growing evidence at least that there may

be a theft of the presidency by President Fujimori.

So hopefully more can be done. It’s only a month away or so.

April 8th, I believe is the date for the election. So that there is a

real honest to goodness lead-up to and then actual casting of ballots.

Mr. KOH. One of our most skilled Ambassadors, John Hamilton,

a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has been posted to Lima and has been working these issues

extremely aggressively.

I spoke to him about this, about 2 weeks ago, and the embassy

is deeply committed to pressing and working on the issue, as is everybody in the department.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that, and thank you for your statement.

Let me ask, again, with regard to Peru, the country reports noted

that there were serious charges of involuntary sterilizations in the

36

Peruvian government’s family planning program in 1997 and 1998,

but it lists only cases involving offers of food or other benefits or

which people were sterilized without being fully informed of the nature of the operation.

Why does the report fail to mention even more serious charges,

such as sterilization of women after caesarian sections without any

attempt at all to get the woman’s consent?

You might recall, we had a hearing, at which time we heard from

two women who had been sterilized against their will and at great

risk to themselves, flew up here and spoke out, and also a doctor

who was a whistleblower, who also made very strong statements

with regard to Fujimori’s war on poverty, which was to sterilize the

poor, using denial of benefits and other—and then more coercive

means of doing so.

The report notes that the ombudsman has received numerous

complaints of instances that are said to have occurred after March

1998, when the government stated that it was changing its policies

to eliminate coercion. The country report notes that the ombudsman has continued to investigate these complaints. In light of the

substantial U.S. cooperation with and support of the Peruvian government program, have we conducted our own investigation of

these complaints? What have we concluded? What changes will result in our policy of cooperation with the Peruvian government if

we discover that coercive practices are continuing in the program?

Mr. KOH. Congressman, these were of concern to me at the time

of my confirmation. You and I discussed this in your office when

I first came up to meet you and it’s something on which we’ve

asked for special examination.

On the specifics of this particular question, I prefer to take the

question and give you a written answer.

Mr. SMITH. I would appreciate that. Let me ask you with regard

to Mexico, again, and just staying with this issue of forced sterilization, which in our hemisphere, the southern hemisphere, in such

close proximity.

The report says, building on the reports of last year, that the

largest number of complaints against health care institutions involved forced sterilization. This year’s Mexico report states that

there continue to be credible allegations of forced sterilization in

the country.

Has the United States taken any independent steps to investigate the extent of the forced sterilization problem in Mexico? On

one fact-finding trip that I took, I asked the human rights groups,

and, frankly, all of the human rights groups, while my words are

being translated into Spanish, as they were being translated, were

shaking their heads ‘‘yes’’ and then one right after another spoke

of it.

Yet our person from AID dismissed the whole thing and said,

‘‘no, that’s not a problem.’’ I have raised that before with you. Last

year’s report did note that several NGO’s monitored the family

planning practices, and yet that’s absent this year.

Who are the groups that are monitoring? Are they the family

planning groups themselves who always seem to deny that there

is any coercion, or was it an independent, nonbiased, nongovernmental organization, like one of the human rights groups? And in

37

light of this, especially since Mexico was a major recipient of U.S.

Government population control money, what are we doing as a

major donor to see that these practices end completely and no

woman is sterilized against her will?

Mr. KOH. Again, on the specifics and which groups are doing the

monitoring, I would prefer to submit an answer, along with the Peruvian answer.

I will say that we have an extremely robust bilateral human

rights dialogue with the government of Mexico. It’s been conducted

over the last couple of years by my principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Leslie Gerson, who, unlike myself, is a Spanish speaker. It

happens at the Deputy Assistant Secretary level, it happened last

year in Washington. She went then to Mexico for a period of about

5 days, including trips to Chiapas and dealing with her opposite

numbers there.

I had discussions with Foreign Minister Rosario Green when I

was in Costa Rica and saw her again at the Guatemalan Presidential inauguration in February and Secretary Albright met with

Rosario Green and raised human rights issues, among others, in

Wauhauka, in early January.

Our Ambassador in Mexico, Jeff Davidow, is a former Assistant

Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs and has made sure that

these bilateral dialogues at the high departmental, inter-departmental level are carried forward on a day to day basis.

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate that. Let me ask you with regard to

Cuba: There have been reports that there has been a crack down,

especially with Elian’s case being so high profile, on dissidents,

using the cover of Castro’s professed concern about family reunification, which would be very novel. But there’s this crack down that

we’ve had some evidence of.

If you could speak to that, what do we know about that, of dissidents being rounded up? And, second, the Cuban report notes

that under the terms of the May 2, 1995 U.S.-Cuba migration accord, the government agreed not to prosecute or retaliate against

migrants returned from international or U.S. waters or from the

U.S. Naval base as a consequence of their attempt to immigrate illegally.

However, it does not say whether the Castro regime did, in fact,

prosecute or retaliate against any of those returnees.

Specifically, has there been any retaliation? I’ve seen reports that

there has been. What is your finding? How many people did the

U.S. return to Cuba during 1999 under that agreement? How many

of the total number of returnees since 1995 are now in prison and

how do we go about monitoring their treatment or mistreatment if

they are indeed in prison?

Mr. KOH. We’ll be happy to supply you with the specific numbers. I think as you and your senior counsel know, I had represented Cuban refugees in litigation as a private attorney and this

is an issue on which I feel very concerned because of the human

rights conditions to which they are being returned.

On the Ilion Gonzalez case, because of my responsibilities as the

asylum—in our asylum office and dealing with asylum questions,

there is a possibility that that case may come before me in a form

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fore, I would prefer not to address it. I do think that the broader

issue of Cuban human rights abuses is one that we discuss in great

detail in the report, the continuing crack down on political dissent,

the continuing detention of the four dissidents, of the dissident

working group, including Marta Beatrice Roques, who is now very

ill, Vladimir Roka, who is the son of the famous Mr. Roka, the

leader of the—the original leader of the communist party and as

I mentioned in my own original testimony, the sentencing of Oscar

Bissette.

There was a hope that the Ibero-American summit might give an

opportunity for the Castro regime to let up and indeed during that

summit, which was held in Havana, some nine delegations met

with dissidents, including three heads of state, and I think it’s telling that in the aftermath of that, the Cuban government, as opposed to letting up, has, in fact, continued its crack down, bans on

journalists, as I recounted in my oral statement, new restrictions,

harassment efforts, and that it is for that reason that we supported

the Czech and Polish government in their introduction last year of

a resolution on the human rights conditions in Cuba that passed

and we believe that there will be another resolution this year.

U.S. interest section personnel do visit returnees to monitor their

condition. Vicky Huddleston, who is the principal officer in that interest section, is someone with whom I’ve worked closely. She has

a deep commitment on these issues, as well as the head of our

Cuba desk, Mr. Charles Shapiro. So we will be happy to get back

to you on specific numbers.

Mr. SMITH. In that answer, could you say why the report doesn’t

say whether any harm has come to those returnees? Is it because

there hasn’t been any harm? Unless I missed something in the report, I didn’t see any mention of that.

Mr. KOH. We’ll clarify that in our answer.

Mr. SMITH. Appreciate that. You mentioned Dr. Biscet. There

was an Associated Press article on February 25, just a few days

ago, talking about his recent arrest. The AP points out that he became an activist after protesting late term abortions at a government hospital where he worked and that he was eventually fired.

There was a staff delegation that went down from the Senate

and House about a year ago and one of their bottom line findings

was that Cuban doctors say that the regime employs a policy of coercive abortion to eliminate social risk pregnancies and that some

of the criteria include hypertension and even diabetes, and that accounts, according to the staff delegation report, why they seem to

have a low rate of death among newborns, because they kill children who manifest any of these problems, like diabetes or the

mother might have diabetes or some other problem.

What can you tell us about the issue of coercive abortion and

sterilization in Cuba? Because it has not gotten much attention in

the past and yet there are people like Dr. Biscet, who is well

known, very credible, who is very much of an activist against the

policies of his Cuban government because of that very thing.

Mr. KOH. I’m restricted in the sense that I cannot visit Cuba.

That’s something that we do not do at the Assistant Secretary

level. I’ve been, of course, to Guantonamo Bay in my refugee capacity on numerous occasions, but I have not been to Havana.

39

However, the head of our Office of Country Reports, in fact, the

master editor of the entire volume, Mr. Mark Susser, and Susan

Kovalich, who one of the officers in our country reports section, did

visit Havana and have been looking into these issues and discussing the whole set of issues.

Now, I know that they have the—I think—I’m not sure that they

went down until after the staff delegation report was produced and

so I’m not sure they have a chance to actually test and check the

particular information that you have provided, but let me check

with them and ask them to give me some information so I can give

you an answer to that specific question.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask briefly, and then I’ll yield to my distinguished friend from Georgia, with regard to Burma. A recent editorial by Fred Hyatt in the Washington Post summarized this

year’s country reports on Burma as follows; ‘‘Soldiers kill and rape,

forced child labor, trafficking women and girls from China for prostitution, 1,300 political prisoners, universities closed since 1996,’’

and it goes on and on and on and the report goes on and on as well

in chronicling those abuses.

Although we don’t supply direct assistance, we do so, as we all

know, through NGO’s and through organizations like the UNDP,

and we are concerned that there may be a new program that

UNDP would like to undertake that would build roads, bridges,

other kinds of infrastructure which would probably be of very great

benefit to the military.

Now, my question is whether or not that is something that is in

the offing, whether or not that is under consideration, as far as you

know? Will the U.S. use its influence to ensure that U.N. organizations and international financial institutions limit their activities to

activities in Burma, that address the needs of the poor and do not

assist the military or government in Burma, and will they work

with the National League for Democracy and the National Coalition of Government of the Union of Burma, which all of us know

ought to be the ruling government in that country?

Mr. KOH. I think we have expressed on many occasions over the

last 5 to 10 years our unqualified support for Onsunsu Shi and her

efforts to bring democracy to Burma in the face of what is now the

SPDC. My own engagement on the issue came from the fact that

before I was in this position, I knew Onsunsu Shi’s husband, Mr.

Michael Aris, and the outrageous conduct of the Burmese government last year as he attempted to be reunited with her during the

period when he was dying with something, I think, again shows the

really appalling human rights insensibility of the regime.

I think on this point, our strategy has been one of multi-lateral

sanctions, working closely with our allies. We have suspended economic aid, we’ve ended GSP, and overseas private investment, we

have blocked lending by international financial institutions, we

banned new investment by U.S. persons, and we’ve worked to build

a broad multi-lateral coalition.

At the same time, I think we all understand that Burmese refugees, and particularly students, are the future of Burma and that

it’s important that when this all ends, that there be a cadre of civil

society that’s capable of supporting democracy, and for that reason

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racy and humanitarian activities for Burmese refugees along the

Thai border for scholarships for Burmese students and to support

democracy-based activities inside Burma.

When I traveled with Secretary Albright last March to Bangkok,

I met there with a group of Burmese students who have been focused on this issue, were deeply supportive of Onsunsu Shi.

Now, I know that there is a continuing concern about the question of humanitarian aid. One of my own students from Yale, who

now works inside of Burma, has been talking to me about this

question and raised the particular set of concerns that at what

point should the multi-lateral sanctions regime need to be adjusted

because of concerns about humanitarian impacts.

I think this is obviously something that a multi-lateral sanctions

regime has to adjust to try to make sure that they are smart sanctions, that they’re not impacting negatively on the people, but at

the same time, that they’re actually affecting the regime that’s the

cause of the problem.

Mr. SMITH. But the specific concern is that the UNDP will be

ratcheting up its support and there may not be the adequate checkoffs by the people who care most intimately about what happens

there. They have not had a stellar record in the past and there are

concerns by myself and many of us that this will be aiding and

abetting the military dictatorship.

Mr. KOH. We have worked closely with them and I met with the

Director, Mr. Mark Mallick Brown, in September. I think he has

done an outstanding job with UNDP and is very focused on these

questions. I can try to find out more about the specifics of the program and get back to you on that.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you about Indonesia. We have had a

number of hearings, again, in this Committee. I have gone over

there. My staff director, Joseph Rees, has also visited, just recently

got back from East Timor. But one of the issues that we focused

on was the government or military-to-military collaboration in the

past and we understand that there may be a step in that direction

again under the Wahid Administration. Could we get your feeling

about the Wahid Administration’s human rights record, whether or

not the military to military is about to be resumed. We heard from

Pius Lustrilanang one of the people who was tortured. He believes

and we believe, although we can’t prove it absolutely, he was tortured by the military. Under the JCET’s Program, we were training members of the Kopassus in sniper training and urban guerrilla warfare at a time when ultimately there were people being

killed in the street using those very tactics.

There are deep concerns about, again, a vetting process and

whether or not people we may be training again could be human

rights abusers.

Is there something that is going to be announced anytime soon,

do you know, and is your bureau involved in the decision with

DOD?

Mr. KOH. Yes. I went to Indonesia actually the day that I took

office in November 1998. I returned with Secretary Albright in

March and then I returned again to both Jakarta, West Timor and

East Timor in early October, both to look into the situation in

Delhi and also to look into the plight of refugees in West Timor,

41

and I know that you and your chief counsel Mr. Reese have played

an important role in highlighting those issues and getting Congressional attention paid to them.

I think everybody understands and acknowledges the role that

the TNI had played in paramilitary abuses and the need for thorough military reform and for accountability.

Indeed, our new Ambassador Bob Gelbard has been a leader on

this issue, as has Assistant Secretary Stanley Roth, and Secretary

Albright herself has designated Indonesia as one of her key priority

countries for democracy issues for this year.

In September 1999, the President suspended mil-mil relations or

military to military relations, which were already restricted, including initiating new training under the expanded IMET Program.

As was reported in the paper, there were some very small number

of former IMET students are here, I think seven of them. They are

allowed to continue and finish their training with non-IMET funds.

Then the Leahy amendment conditions resumption of IMET on

an important set of conditions which have been the guideposts for

the executive branch’s actions on this.

I would say the U.S. has not initiated any IMET, EIMET Programs in fiscal year 2000, nor have we conducted DOD JSEP Programs with Indonesia, since they were frozen in 1998. I think the

best thing we can say at this point is the Administration is going

to continue to consult with Congress to determine when it would

be appropriate to resume any kind of training and any plan for reengagement would be developed in response to concrete changes. I

the government of President Wahid has faced huge challenges. This

is the fourth largest country in the world. They have very little tradition of civilian government. They have a new cabinet, many of

whom are new to government. Nevertheless—and they’re facing not

just East Timor, but also situations in Ochi, Ambonne, the

Malucas, as well as domestic accountability issues, as now presented by both the international commission of inquiry report on

East Timor and the domestic commission report. So they have their

hands full.

Only a few weeks ago, three of the ministers of Indonesia, the

new attorney general, Marzuki Daruzmon, the new human rights

minister, Mr. Hasbal Asad, and the minister for legislation, came

over and we talked to them about how to address and deal with

these human rights issues.

In our bureau, we’re trying to find ways to support the new

human rights ministry under Mr. Asad’s leadership and we’re also

looking for ways in which we can support the human rights monitoring effort of the U.N. transitional authority in East Timor, headed by Sergio Veradamela.

So we are very focused on the challenges both in Indonesia and

in its regions and our committed to keeping this country in the

democratic column.

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you briefly about Egypt. Nina Shea, in

her testimony, makes a very important point with regard to the

Coptic Church, and I have myself met with President Mubasak,

raised the issue of Al Kosheh and we’ve recently had a number of

Members who actually went to Egypt and raised the issue with

high government officials.

42

There seems to be a very serious deterioration of respect for the

Coptic Church. It is a very, very large minority of Christians in the

Middle East, and yet the violence is growing.

There is not a prosecution strategy that we can see to get the

perpetrators of these crimes, and the human rights report, as Nina

Shea points out, asserts that the government’s human rights

record, we’re talking about Egypt, again, improved somewhat over

the previous year. This assessment carries great weight.

She testifies or will testify, ‘‘to our knowledge, it has been cited

by asylum officials in two recent cases to deny Copts petitions. It

is misleading in that it fails to take into consideration the fundamental fact that government-sponsored intolerance against a religious minority in the context of religious extremism.’’

I have met with a number of Copts myself. I spoke to BhoutrosGhali, who was giving the opposite view, on behalf of the government, who made it sound like for the Coptic Church, everything

was just dandy, and yet the evidence clearly points in the other direction in a profound way.

What is your response to her testimony and those assertions,

which are shared by this Chairman?

Mr. KOH. We have concerns about the government of Egypt’s

treatment of Coptic Christians, and that has been a special subject

for Ambassador Robert Seiple, our Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, whose office is in our bureau.

He’s given it a lot of attention and has visited Egypt to discuss

these issues.

I have myself raised the issue with Ambassador Fami here. I

know Secretary Albright has raised it with Foreign Minister Musa,

and the Alkoush case obviously is, in both of its manifestations, one

in 1998 and the more recent incident, a particularly troubling

event.

There is a particular issue with regard to this year’s report,

which is, again, we have to cutoff the report on December 1999.

Some of the violence which started Alkoush two started on New

Year’s Eve, and it continued into the next year, and, therefore, we

report on it in our introduction.

It will be reported at great length, I’m sure, in this year’s international religious freedom report, which will issue in September.

In the meantime, Ambassador Dan Kirtzer and our embassy in

Cairo continued to press on the issue and this is something on

which the Commission for International Religious Freedom, on

which Nina Shea sits, has done a good job in highlighting. We

think that that issue will continue to receive a lot of well deserved

attention.

Mr. SMITH. Can that information also be gotten to asylum officers, I’m not sure what your mechanism is, so they’re not making

decisions based on guidance that is either outdated or wrong?

Mr. KOH. As we say, Mr. Chairman, I’m glad you mentioned that

issue. We have a valiant staff of 12 who do human rights reporting.

They now do a country report which, as you know, is, this year,

6,000 pages. They finished it at the end of February. They have to

then move quickly to the international religious freedom report,

which is then due in September.

43

We have expanded reporting requirements on a number of

issues. They also bear the burden of revising asylum profiles and,

frankly, many of them are so exhausted that it’s something that we

really don’t have a chance to update these profiles as much as we’d

like.

This is not for lack of commitment on the issue, and we do appreciate the enhanced resources that we have this year, but I think

it’s a continuing concern to us as to how we can keep handling new

Congressionally mandated reports which really tax our resources

and keep doing the job that we’re supposed to do in so many different areas.

Mr. SMITH. I do have other questions, but I will yield. Congressman Radanovich has asked that his statement be made part of the

record and he does ask about a constituent. He says, just briefly,

‘‘I am primarily concerned with statements made by the State Department that ’there are no reports of politically motivated disappearance,’’ and he’s talking about Laos.

‘‘You may be aware of the case of my constituent, Michael Vang,

and his co-traveler.’’ I wonder—and I raised this in my opening

comments, Mr. Secretary—if you might touch on that, and then I’ll

yield to Cynthia McKinney.

Mr. KOH. Yes. The case of the two Americans, Woa Li and Michael Vang, has been a great concern to us. When we first learned

of the disappearances, our embassies in Laos and Thailand worked

closely with the FBI to try and pursue all credible leads. We sent

a joint fact-finding team to the border area twice, first in November

1999, then in November 1998 and July 1999, and were unable to

reach conclusions.

You mentioned this in your opening statement. There were conflicting reports and it was difficult to resolve them and the inconsistencies between them. We tried to get to the bottom of it. Our

embassy raised the issue. Ambassador Seiple visited Laos and

again raised the issue. Assistant Secretary Roth has pursued the

question here in D.C., and Neil Silver, who is the head, the Office

Director for our Laotian Affairs Bureau, has been pursuing this.

The lead on this has been taken by our consular affairs bureau,

which, of course, has responsibility for the whereabouts of all

American citizens.

The fact remains that the reported disappearances occurred in

the Golden Triangle area, which is very rugged terrain. We have

incomplete reports, which complicate the investigation. But it continues to be a very high priority for us in terms of resolving the

issue. Secretary Albright has met with both the Lao Ambassador

and also the Lao foreign minister to underscore the concern and

our charge in Vientiane has repeatedly pressed on the question. We

know that staff from this Committee and also from the Foreign Relations Committee went and have been trying to get to the bottom

of the question.

I’m happy to say that we are hoping that the next deputy chief

of mission in Vientiane will be an alumnus of our own office and

will, I’m sure, be taking this question on board.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Cynthia McKinney.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a few

questions. First of all, what is the position of the State Department

44

with respect to a tribunal to investigate the crimes against humanity that have been committed in East Timor?

Mr. KOH. I think we don’t always move first to the question of

international tribunal, if a credible domestic process can function.

As you well know, Congresswoman, it was so difficult to create

both the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for

Rwanda——

Ms. MCKINNEY. Are you suggesting that a credible domestic opportunity exists to bring the Indonesian military to justice for the

crimes that they have committed in East Timor?

Mr. KOH. When the International Commission of Inquiry issued

their report, which they did on January 31, on the same day, KPP

Hahm, or so-called Komnisom, the National Human Rights Commission issued a report which was in many senses reaffirming and

confirming the same information. That national report has now

gone to the Attorney General’s office, under Marzuki Darizmon,

who as I mentioned, was here a few weeks ago.

He is a former leader of the National Human Rights Commission

and that office is currently exploring the question of whether prosecutions can be brought against some of these individuals. As I understand it, there are three issues at stake now; one is the extent

to which these can be brought under existing Indonesian law, a

second question about the new human rights law, which the Wahid

government is attempting to enact. My understanding is that that

law is in its eighth reading at the moment. Then there is the question of how to work together closely with the U.N. transitional authority to gather evidence and information.

We have a number of staff people, including my own special assistant, who are in Jakarta and East Timor now working on the

issue, and I think it’s too early to say where all this evidence will

lead.

What I will say is that the new government is attempting to take

the National Commission report, and use the information from that

report to try to move to a credible process of prosecution, investigation and conviction. I think we ought to support them in that effort.

Ms. MCKINNEY. I’m interested in the attitude in the department

as it relates to corporate behavior, U.S. corporate behavior. You

very well know the activities of Chevron Oil Company in the Niger

Delta and their complicity in massacres and in torture.

What is the attitude of the department in the inclusion of corporate behavior in its human rights report?

Mr. KOH. Ours is principally a report on the activities of governments. Also, we do mention behavior of corporate actors. You will

see mention of this throughout the reports.

I will say that our own view is that corporate actors are an important transmission belt for human rights values, the fact of the

matter is that in many countries around the world, it is the corporations that have the lead and many corporate executives are

committed on these issues. This was something that Kofi Annan

raised in Dovos last year, and what we have done at the Department is to try to forge closer ties with corporations to try to bring

their best practices to bear.

One thing that was mentioned by Secretary of State Albright in

Dovos on January 28 is an effort that we’re trying to do to work

45

with corporations, particularly U.S. corporations, on promoting

higher standards and highlighting best practices in the extractive

industries.

I know my deputy Bennett Freeman came up and briefed you on

this issue. There are three countries that we have identified, Colombia, Indonesia and Nigeria, on which we’re going to be doing

substantial work.

Obviously, the situation in the Niger Delta is of grave concern

and we have also met with members of Mosup, the Algoni people

and particularly Owen Zwila, the brother of the martyr Ken

Sarowiwa, to discuss those continuing concerns.

But this is something in which we are trying to get corporations

to agree to make a commitment on promoting the basic principals

of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, in particular,

practices in the extractive industries, particularly with regard to

their security arrangements, to make sure that they are part of the

solution and not part of the problem.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Delahunt.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I mentioned in my opening remarks that I was

going to ask you about the fact that both of the guerrilla groups,

the ELN and the FARC, are listed on or named on the list of foreign terrorist organizations, and the AUC is not.

Can you give me a response to that question?

Mr. KOH. I think we’re going to have to get back to you with the

specifics about the terrorist list. I don’t do terrorism, I do human

rights, so that’s really another part of the program, of the Department.

I will say that with regard to paramilitary abuses, I think they’re

chronicled at great length in the report.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yes, and I applaud you on that and it’s clear that

the vast, the majority of human rights abuses are, in fact, committed by paramilitaries. They far exceed those committed by the

insurgent groups and I think in the 1998 report, I don’t know what

the statistic is this year, but there was 3 percent was claimed that

was committed by security forces.

I presume those percentages haven’t changed much, Mr. Koh.

Mr. KOH. This is something in our report. We’ve looked at both

reports of the NGO’s, particularly the NGO Sinap. We’ve looked at

the report of the Ministry of Defense and there are some discrepancies in the numbers. Where they all agreed is that extra judicial

killings by paramilitaries last year were in the range of 700 to 850.

Both the NGO’s and the Ministry of Defense agree on those numbers, and those are higher than either abuses—extra judicial

killings that were committed by the guerrillas or by the security

forces.

The number of killings were in the zero to 24 range, depending

on who you believed.

Mr. DELAHUNT. But you haven’t incorporated within the report

a specific percentage, I take it. I haven’t had a chance to peruse

the report.

Mr. KOH. Again, it’s a question of how we——

Mr. DELAHUNT. I’m sure these are estimates, also. I mean, I understand that.

Mr. KOH. Sometimes——

46

Mr. DELAHUNT. But what I find disturbing, and I presume that

there is a sound basis for not listing the AUC, but our own General

McAfree has indicated that the flow of drugs into the United States

is a threat to our national security and if it comes to the definition

of definitions within that language, I presume that if, in fact, we

consider the flow of cocaine and heroin into the United States to

be in our national interest, that the reality is that the AUC, which

has been described by DEA, INL and other agencies, as to be more

implicated into the drug trade than even the guerrillas, that appropriately they ought to be listed, with the consequences that ensue

by that listing.

So I know that’s not within your particular province, but I would

ask that you take it back to the appropriate official and provide us

with an answer, and, at the same time, encourage them to look at

it with a liberal interpretation.

Mr. KOH. We agree.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Of the statutory language.

Mr. KOH. We agree, Congressman, that both the paramilitaries

and the guerrillas commit large-scale abuses of international

human rights and humanitarian law and that they ought to be outlawed.

I think they do have a difference in tactics. Paramilitaries more

frequently engage in massacres of civilian groups, whereas the

guerrillas have engaged in a variety of tactics, including

kidnappings, massacres, extra judicial killings, recruitment of child

soldiers and other kinds of abuses.

I do think that both engage in profit from the drug trade and

they’re both part of the problem that the Pastrana government has

to get on top of if they’re going to bring this country into a new

period in terms of human rights.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I thank you, Mr. Secretary. I would ask, at this

point in time, the Chairman, and I applaud him for having a hearing next week in terms of the situation in Northern Ireland, but

I think it’s particularly timely if we would consider to have—consider having a full hearing on the situation as it exists in Colombia.

This is a—clearly, this package has multiple aspects of it, some

of which I find very attractive, others concern me.

But in particular, the area of human rights, I think it would be

most timely to have a full hearing. I think it’s important and I

think it would assist a lot of Members to have the ability to ask

some questions, not just from the Secretary, but from a variety of

groups, both here in the United States and from Colombia.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. We will look into that, but I

understand that the Appropriations Committee is moving fast in

terms of a markup. So it’s something we ought to, as soon as we’re

done here today, talk about.

There is another issue I’d just like to raise, and you’ve been very,

very generous, Mr. Secretary, unlike some people who come down

and speak before the House and always have to be somewhere else,

so they’re running out the door. You have been very generous and

we deeply respect and appreciate that.

Mr. KOH. It’s my job and that’s why I get the big bucks.

47

Mr. SMITH. You are a person who cares so much about it, as evidenced by your previous work and the fact that you are so

infatigable in your efforts on behalf of human rights.

Amnesty International, in their testimony, Carlos Salinas will be

testifying momentarily, makes the point again. He calls you a good

friend and has nothing but respect for you, as we all do, but the

problem, as I said in my opening statement, is this idea of a compartmentalized approach—separating policy from the issue of reporting. He points out that when you scratch beneath the rhetorical surface, you find a complex substratum where human rights

concerns are compartmentalized and rationalized out of key decisions. You might want to comment on that again, because I think

that’s our main problem.

If you were running the show, I think we’d have very few questions about human rights being integrated with our overall foreign

policy, which brings us to Turkey. I know I wanted to join you at

the OSCE meeting. We unfortunately had a session of Congress

and much work on our plate here and I couldn’t join you. I know

you did a good job there.

But Amnesty points out and many of us have concerns about the

Administration’s apparent gearing up to provide an export license

for four billion dollars for attack helicopters. We all know the incredible carnage that has been committed against the Kurdish minority. There were some human rights benchmarks that were laid

out by the Turkish Prime Minister and our President in December

1997, and if you look at those benchmarks, it looks like they have

not been realized and are not in the process of being realized, and

maybe you have other information that you could provide to us on

that.

But what is the situation in Turkey in general and your view on

this proposal to sell attack helicopters? Have those benchmarks

been realized?

Mr. KOH. As I understand it, the government of Turkey has narrowed the field in terms of the manufacturers who are still competing on that bid and so we’re not at the point yet where they’ve

selected an American bidder or an export license is actually being

requested.

I think it’s pretty clear that if Turkey does choose a U.S. manufacturer, our export license decision is going to be based on the full

range of considerations that are required by law, our arms export

control policy, as well as a thorough review and evaluation of Turkey’s progress on improving human rights.

This has been one of the prime areas in which I have devoted

my time. In August 1999, I went to Turkey for 10 days. I think

that’s the longest trip I’ve spent in any single country, including a

number of days in the southeast. I went to Komlerfa, Diarbakur,

the whole region in which the set of human rights concerns have

been raised.

I returned for the review conference in Istanbul and I returned

with the President and Secretary Albright at the end of November.

During that period, I opened up a human rights dialogue with the

state human rights minister, Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, with the justice minister, Mr. Sami Turk. I visited Layla Zana, Akin Birdal,

and have continued to focus on these questions.

48

You had a hearing of the Helsinki Commission on the road to

Istanbul in which Mark Grossman, the Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, and I both testified in which I reviewed the human

rights situation.

You are correct that in 1997, in December, President Clinton and

then President Ilmas did discuss the issue of attack helicopters and

identified a number of important benchmarks with regard to decriminalization of freedom of expression, the release of journalists,

prevention of future prosecution of journalists, addressing of the

problem of torture and impunity, reopening of human rights

NGO’s, the implementation of the 1995 constitutional amendments

regarding political participation, meaningfully ending the state of

emergency in the southeast and allowing refugees of evacuated villages to go home.

Now, I discussed a number of these in March 1999 when I testified before the Helsinki Commission and we have tried in our country reports to give the basis on which an assessment can be made

in these areas.

I think it’s fair to say that with regard to torture, the government has announced some important polices, a no tolerance circular, but that, in fact, on the ground, there are serious continuing

problems with regard to torture. President Demirel said, when

President Clinton was there, we do have a torture problem, and

just last week the parliamentarian in charge of the human rights

commission there, Mrs. Selma Piskins, reported that there were, in

a raid on a local police station, torture instruments discovered.

In the area of freedom of expression, this continues to be a serious problem. There have been efforts to bring about legislative reform, particularly the lifting of Article 8 and 312, but, in fact, the

net result has been two new laws with continuing restrictions.

There have been raids on newspapers, harassment of journalists

and a number of high profile journalists, particularly Andrew

Finkel of Time Magazine and Nadira Mater, who is the author of

a well known book about the plight of the southeast, have continued to be subject to continuing restrictions.

With regard to NGO’s, there have been a number of NGO’s that

have been reopened, but a number which continues to be closed,

particularly branches of the human rights association in Malatya.

The Mersin Migrants Association was, however, recently allowed to

open. Mr. Birdal, who I met in Istanbul and I think we were helpful in securing his release, had been released on medical grounds,

but he continues to face supervision.

On the political participation question, I think the question of

whether the government will seize the opportunity presented by

the arrest of Mr. Ochelon remains very much up for grabs. Three

of the Kurdish mayors from the Hadab party, particularly Mr.

Ferdin Chellick, with whom I spent time in August, were arrested,

and as I mentioned in my oral statement, were released, but are

still pending trial.

As I said when we released the country reports, we find this to

be a very puzzling, very disturbing set of events. There are allegations that they were tortured while in detention. When there were

protests about their detention, there were restrictions on freedom

of expression.

49

I think the general issue of the Kurdish question and the conditions in the southeast remain a very serious concern. We think that

the government needs to move forward on this question, to recognize Kurdish language rights and cultural rights. The state of

emergency has been lifted in the Province of Sert, but continues in

five other provinces, and although a number of people have been

evacuated forcibly, only a small percentage have been resettled.

So I think we do have continuing concerns about these issues. I

will say, as I said in my oral testimony, that the Ecevit government

has had a number of important statements and recognitions of the

need to address these questions. Foreign Minister Jihm, Ismael

Jihm said that he was firmly of the belief that the Kurdish issue

ought to be addressed. Sami Turk and the human rights minister

have spoken out aggressively on the torture issue.

I met with Prime Minister Ecevit in August and he is himself a

former journalist who I think is committed to progress on this

issue. I think the Helsinki, of which I and you are Commissioners,

will continue to look into the question and make sure that the

human rights record remains under careful review.

Mr. SMITH. The Chair recognizes Joseph Rees, the Staff Director,

and Chief Counsel.

Mr. REES. I have what I hope will just be a couple of very brief

questions. Assistant Secretary Koh, you mentioned the asylum advisory opinions, the asylum profiles that your office produces, and

I think we’ve talked about these before.

The last I checked—and I hope that things have changed since

shortly after last year’s hearing, when we looked into this—some

of those profiles contained information that was years old.

The quality of the profiles is not nearly as high as the quality

of the country reports. Often, there is boilerplate that tends to talk

about how many fraudulent cases there are. They really look, in

some cases, like a recipe for denial in asylum cases.

Specifically on the forced abortion cases from China, although

these comments are not limited to that, there was information

which has long since been discredited about how there aren’t many

forced abortions and so forth. If you could only do one thing in a

timely way to eliminate the lag time between information that

might tend to help asylum applicants that your office has—and I

know you appreciate with this, with your own background—getting

it into the hands of asylum officers and immigration judges should

be a top priority, because it’s not like nothing is happening while

you’re waiting to eliminate that lag time.

People are being denied and it is of course, wrong for them to be

denied on the basis of information which is not correct.

I know that I speak for the Chairman in asking that you put in

place, if you haven’t already and maybe you already have, a system

to ensure that outdated information will not be used to deny asylum claims if subsequent information in the possession of the bureau would tend to support those claims.

Mr. KOH. Mr. Reese, you and I have both spent most of our careers representing asylum seekers, and so I completely share your

sentiments. I do think that we, in our bureau and particularly the

office of country reports and asylum, are struggling to deal with a

massive workload, much of which is imposed on us by bills that

50

have been passed by Congress, salutary bills, in many respects.

But without a full awareness of the kinds of burdens that it imposes on us, and there are other bills that are pending which would

impose new reporting requirements and, frankly, which make it

difficult for us even to spend the enhanced resources that we have

to do all the things that we need to do.

On the China asylum profile, your point is something we completely accept, it’s one that we have discussed in the past. We are

sending one of our officers from the country reports and asylum

team to China to make sure that all the information there reflects

not just the country report, but also the most current information.

But frankly, to be able to do this, with all of our asylum profiles

and the tiny staff that we have, is extremely difficult.

So we’re really struggling to do everything we have to do. I don’t

exaggerate to say that this is the hardest working group of people

I’ve ever worked with, the most committed, upon whom new mandates fall every day.

When this bureau started in 1977, we had two mandates and we

now have 55 mandates. Without a significant expansion of resources, I do think Secretary Albright has really committed herself

to try to give us more resources, but as you know, the entire pie

has been restricted and every day there is a fight for new resources.

It’s something that I didn’t appreciate outside of the executive

branch and now that I am here, it’s, for me, one of the greatest

challenges as to how to address this question.

Mr. REES. You ought to try working in the Legislative Branch.

We’re not trying to gainsay that, but frankly, as between sending

out a wrong report and not just sending out a report at all, it would

be better if you didn’t send out a report at all.

You mentioned the ratification of CEDAW. One of the concerns

that the Chairman and other Members, primarily on the Republican side, and Senators have had is that some of the language in

CEDAW might be used to create an international right to abortion.

The Administration, although it supports abortion rights in domestic U.S. policy, has said that it does not favor the creation of

an international human right to abortion. Yet, recently, this fear

has become more than a fear, it’s become a growing reality.

When CEDAW commissions in country after country have been

recommending, as part of their mandated recommendations, to

countries, that in order to comply with CEDAW, those countries

have to legalize abortion.

Is that one of the reservations that the Administration has prepared to make sure, to make clear, that in order to comply with

CEDAW, a country does not have to provide legal abortion?

Mr. KOH. As you know, Mr. Rees, this is an issue that’s addressed under our own constitutional law. I think it’s the CEDAW

issue and the package of reservations, understandings and declarations, under which it would be ratified, were really settled in 1994,

when the Foreign Relations Committee reported the convention favorably to the whole Senate. At the time, Senator Helms proposed

an additional understanding to clarify his concerns.

At that moment, some 68 Senators, which is more than twothirds, had written a letter to President Clinton, urging him to

51

take the necessary steps to ratify the convention, but then later,

because of a parliamentary motion, a hold was put on it and since

1994, the Senate has taken no additional steps toward ratification.

Indeed, if the concerns that you have are ones that are widely

shared, the best solution would be to hold hearings and let those

concerns be vetted. But the fact of the matter is that there have

been no further hearings on this question before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

As I pointed out, 165 countries have ratified or exceeded to this

convention and it’s one I think that the UNICEF has issued a report in which they have chronicled all of the different countries in

which it has been passed and the tremendously salutary impact

that ratification of CEDAW has had.

Let me put it bluntly. With regard to countries who have ratified,

we look bad, because frankly we have better records on equality of

rights, but we don’t get the credit. With regard to the countries

that don’t ratify, we look bad because then we’re put in their company.

I think it’s, something on which the Senate obviously has the

lead because of its treaty ratification power. But on today, International Women’s Day, it’s a good day to say this is a treaty that

ought to move, ought to be ratified, that we ought to be a part of.

Frankly, it’s embarrassing for me, as the executive branch representative, to go to meetings around the world and be asked why

we haven’t ratified it and to have no good explanation, other than

the fact that people have concerns about it that have not been

aired in new hearings in the last 6 years.

I think if the concerns that you raise are legitimate, they ought

to be aired by having hearings before the end of this Senate session

and then to try to get this ratified, so we can join the vast majority

of other countries who have ratified this convention and benefited

by it.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your testimony. You’ve been here slightly in excess of 3 hours. We do appreciate it. I do hope you will join us on Tuesday at the Northern Ireland hearing as a Commissioner of the Helsinki Commission.

Mr. KOH. Thank you very much and thanks for staying through

the whole thing.

Mr. SMITH. I would like to ask our second panel, and I thank you

in advance for your patience. Elisa Massimino, is the Director of

the Washington, DC Office of the Lawyers Committee for Human

Rights. Ms. Massimino, who earned her law degree from the University of Michigan, directs the Lawyers Committee’s National Advocacy Program, with special focus on refugee issues.

Next, we will hear from Carlos Salinas, who is the Advocacy Director for Latin America for Amnesty International USA. Mr. Salinas who has worked with Amnesty since 1986, earned his Master’s

degree in Latin American studies from Georgetown University.

Next we will hear from Nina Shea, who is a Member of the

United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, as

well as the Director of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House. A lawyer specializing in international human rights

issues, for the past 12 years she has focused exclusively on the

issue of religious persecution.

52

Finally, we will also hear from Dr. Alison DesForges, who is a

consultant to Human Rights Watch, who has undertaken some two

dozen missions to the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. She

has provided expert testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, as well as to judicial authorities in Canada, Belgium, and the United States. Trained as an historian at Harvard

and Yale Universities, Dr. DesForges is the author of ‘‘Leave None

to Tell the Story,’’ the definitive account of the Rwanda genocide,

published last year by Human Rights Watch.

Elisa, if you would begin.

STATEMENTS OF ELISA MASSIMINO, DIRECTOR OF WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE, LAWYERS COMMITTEE FOR HUMAN

RIGHTS

Ms. MASSIMINO. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Smith and

Members of the Committee, for convening this hearing and for asking us to share our perspective on this year’s State Department

country reports.

We are deeply appreciative to you, your staff, and all of the

Members of the Committee for your steadfast concern for these

issues and your continued efforts to highlight human rights in the

Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I have a written statement which I would like to

summarize for the record.

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, yours and all the other full statements will be made a part of the record.

Ms. MASSIMINO. Thank you. The Lawyers Committee for Human

Rights works to protect and promote fundamental human rights,

holding all governments, including our own, accountable to standards contained in the universal declaration of human rights and related international human rights instruments.

We focus our work on how best to protect human rights in a lasting way, by advancing international law and legal institutions, by

working to build structural guarantees for human rights in national legal systems, and by assisting and cooperating with lawyers

and other human rights advocates who are the front line defenders

of human rights at the local level.

As Secretary Koh pointed out, it’s especially fitting to hold these

hearings today, Mr. Chairman, on International Women’s Rights

Day.

Five years ago, women from around the world gathered together

to affirm what to many might seem a truism: that women’s rights

are human rights. Yet today, as detailed in many of the reports before us, we are witnessing an increase in extreme violations of

women’s human rights—in political life, in the workplace, and in

the home.

As documented in the pages of these reports, women are beaten

by their husbands, raped with impunity, denied the right to vote,

denied basic health care and education, forcibly sterilized, driven,

in China, as you pointed out, to suicide at an astonishing rate, sold

into sexual slavery, and killed by their relatives to uphold family

honor.

These abuses are truly horrific. The State Department, under

Secretary Albright’s leadership, is to be commended for having

53

given a much higher profile to defending the rights of women. But

it is disturbing to us that the United States, which has exercised

such leadership in advocating for the rights of women around the

world, remains outside international consensus by failing to ratify

the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination

Against Women.

Ratification of CEDAW will strengthen U.S. efforts to advance

the rights of women throughout the world and will give the United

States a greater voice in shaping national and international policies, as you pointed out, Mr. Rees, that affect the lives of women.

The United States should not let another March 8th go by without becoming a party to this important human rights treaty.

The State Department’s reports cover 194 countries, but there is

one country whose record is not analyzed in that document, and it’s

the United States. A couple of years ago, when we held this hearing, Congressman Houghton asked the question ‘‘I wonder how

other countries view our human rights performance?’’

Since that time, the U.S. has conducted its own analysis of U.S.

performance under the Convention Against Torture, and Secretary

Koh is to be commended for his role in helping to produce that report.

We have many problems of our own, and I didn’t want today to

go by without us talking a little bit about that. One of the pieces

of legislation that this body will soon consider is an effort to address some of those problems; in particular, the problem of torture

in this country.

You see in the reports before us page after page after page of serious violations. We are rightly proud in the United States of our

own human rights record in many, many areas, but there are some

areas in which we fall short, and, regrettably, there are instances

of torture in the United States. This legislation which is soon to be

introduced would make torture, per se, a crime and prosecutable as

a crime in the United States.

Mr. Chairman, as you know, the quality and accuracy of the

country reports have been of great concern to the Lawyers Committee since the Department of State was first mandated to present

these reports to Congress almost 25 years ago. Beginning in 1979

and until 2 years ago, the Lawyers Committee published an extensive annual critique of the reports, and we continue to believe that

they require and benefit from critical input by the nongovernmental human rights community.

In recent years, we have witnessed a steady improvement in the

objectivity and comprehensiveness of the reports and we commend

Secretary Koh and his very able State Department colleagues for

their professionalism and diligence in the production of these reports.

One of the distinguishing marks of a good country report is the

degree to which it reflects extensive consultation by U.S. embassies

with local human rights advocates and NGO’s. Today’s hearing is

an important forum in which U.S.-based NGO’s can critique our

own government’s reporting and highlight needed changes in next

year’s edition of the country reports. We welcome this opportunity.

I would like to single out three countries for special notice in my

oral comments today. In doing so, I recognize that my very distinVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00057 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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guished colleagues with whom I share this panel will cover many

of the other countries. I am quite humbled being on a panel with

such distinguished human rights experts as we have here before us

today.

China, Turkey and Mexico are the three countries which I would

like to focus on. In each of these countries, widespread and persistent human rights violations continued throughout 1999. The

conduct of each of these three states presents a serious challenge

to the integrity of the international human rights treaty regime

and of the institutions that the international community has established to enforce compliance with human rights norms, and, in

each instance, the nature of the response by U.S. policy makers

will have profound bilateral, regional and even global ramifications.

With respect to China, the report includes an extremely thorough

and generally accurate description of the downward spiral in China’s human rights performance during 1999. The report properly

focuses on the crack down on China democracy party leaders and

highlights the fact that by year’s end, ‘‘only a handful of dissidents

nationwide dared to remain publicly active.’’

In addition, the report contains extensive information on government repression directed against religious practice. Chinese law

and practice reveals a deep hostility toward ‘‘unofficial’’ religious

belief, and those who seek to exercise their right to freedom of religion are frequently punished, in some cases severely.

As China struggles with extraordinary economic, social and environmental challenges, nothing is more important to its future stability than the expansion of the right to freedom of association and

the free development of critical voices in the nongovernmental sector.

As such, an area of the State Department’s report which continues to be disappointing is its discussion of regulations on the

NGO sector in China. As the report notes, these impose a variety

of new obligations on those seeking to register as nongovernmental

organizations. The conclusion of this section of the report, ‘‘preexisting groups report little or no additional interference by the

government since the new regulations came into effect,’’ is misleading.

Indeed, in light of the statement later in the China report that

‘‘there are no independent domestic NGO’s that publicly monitor or

comment on human rights conditions,’’ it is astonishing that the

discussion of NGO regulations fails to reach any opinion on the degree to which these restrictions impose unreasonable burdens on

civil society in China or contravene existing international norms on

freedom of association.

Unfortunately, the superficial treatment of freedom of association, especially for domestic human rights advocates, remains a

persistent weakness of many of the country reports.

This is particularly disappointing in light of the adoption by the

U.N. General Assembly recently of the Declaration on Human

Rights Defenders, which breaks new ground in defining an international consensus on the content of the right to freedom of association. Future reports we hope will rectify this weakness.

The report contains a detailed analysis of China’s efforts to block

the flow of information over the internet. China is trying to sustain

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expansion of the internet and other communications infrastructure,

while also expanding restrictions on its content and use, a balancing act that seems destined ultimately to fail.

Internet expansion may prove to be an arena where the line between an opening economy and political liberalization becomes

blurred, and the United States should be doing all it can to promote this trend. In light of the detailed information contained in

the report about widespread restrictions on internet use, the report

misses an important opportunity by failing to describe how these

restrictions, which include special internet police units, not only

interfere with the right to private correspondence, the section in

the report under which these restrictions are described, but have

a negative impact on the exercise of many other core rights.

The report devotes considerably more attention than in past reports to an analysis of numerous legal reforms, including the criminal law, the criminal procedure law, the administrative litigation

law, the state compensation law, and the lawyers law, and makes

an initial assessment of whether these reforms are leading to better human rights protections for Chinese people.

Future reports should maintain their focus on the range of legal

reforms, all of which, to the degree they are implemented, have the

potential to enhance the rights of Chinese citizens vis-a ́-vis the

state.

This emphasis on systemic legal problems should serve as a

model for all of the country reports.

As China grapples with its ongoing legal reform process and as

Chinese citizens acquire greater consciousness of their rights, a

central question before the U.S. Government is how outsiders can

best contribute to moving that process in the direction of greater

compliance with international human rights standards.

The report notes that China has had human rights dialogues

with a large number of countries, but admits, frankly, that these

dialogues ‘‘have not produced significant improvements in the government’s human rights practices.’’

In light of this failure and in the face of serious violations, such

as those that took place in 1999, these dialogues certainly cannot

substitute for the traditional measures of external pressure, such

as a resolution at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights.

Despite the comprehensive nature of the report on China, it is

marred in places by language that seems designed to blunt criticism of government practices. Particularly disturbing is what

seems to be an increased use this year of reference to the motivations of the government in perpetrating abuses, as if somehow to

excuse or minimize the violations.

For example, after stating that ‘‘the government continued to

commit widespread and well documented human rights abuses in

violation of internationally accepted norms,’’ the report cites the

government’s ‘‘fear of unrest’’ as one of the reasons for these

abuses. When ‘‘communist party leaders moved quickly to suppress’’ political dissidents, it was because ‘‘they believed them to be

organized challenges that threatened national stability.’’

Finally, in a recitation of the ‘‘positive trends in China,’’ the report implies that the government suppresses only ‘‘those perceived

to be a threat to the government power or to national stability.’’

56

Yet, as the report outlines, who are these people that are threats

to national stability? They are a man who sought, in accordance

with tradition, to sweep the graves of some students killed in

Tiananmen Square, a man who seeks to worship as he pleases or

a couple who longs for a second child.

In her remarks on the release of the country reports, Secretary

Albright noted that ‘‘China is perhaps the most prominent example

of a country with which we have substantial and well known differences on human rights, but with which we are also engaged on

a wide variety of other issues.’’

Now, this may be a simple and straightforward statement of fact

or policy, but this oft-repeated refrain of the Administration reflects, I think, a fundamental and persistent error in U.S. policy toward China. The litany of abuses detailed in this year’s report are

not and should not be portrayed as merely differences in one aspect

of a multi-faceted bilateral relationship.

This year’s report details profound and widespread violations by

China of internationally recognized human rights norms, and these

violations must—and must be seen by China to—affect every aspect of its relationship with the United States.

This is not to say that promotion of human rights is necessarily

served by disengagement with China. Quite the contrary. Further

engaging China in the web of international agreements and norms

could hold the potential to catalyze change in the long term. Legal

reforms have new resonance in China in the context of an opening

economy, and attempts to reform China’s commercial legal system

could provide a foundation for an independent judiciary and other

essential elements of an accountable justice system. But this must

be combined with consistent pressure for improvements from outside China.

That is why the pursuit of a resolution condemning China’s dismal human rights record at the Human Rights Commission is so

important. We commend the Administration for pursuing this, as

well as those in Congress who have consistently called for such a

resolution.

Although engagement may provide a framework in which to foster human rights improvements, engagement must be toward a

purpose and will not of itself necessarily lead to any changes in

China’s human rights performance.

Human rights concerns must permeate our interactions with

China in all of the areas with which we engage the Chinese government. China should not be able to cutoff dialogue or avoid criticism

by the United States about its human rights violations simply by

refusing to meet with U.S. officials who carry a human rights portfolio.

Human rights violations in China undermine U.S. strategic and

economic interests there, and that judgment should be reflected in

every high level meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials.

Human rights should not be portrayed to the Chinese as an area

where we will agree to disagree.

The report on Turkey is comprehensive and well informed. This

extremely thorough analysis reflects a serious commitment on the

part of U.S. diplomats in Turkey and in the DRL bureau to follow

human rights developments there. Detailed information, such as

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that found in the extensive section regarding torture, is in part

available because U.S. representatives have been present at many

high profile trials with a human rights dimension throughout Turkey.

Torture, unfair trial and restrictions on nonviolent freedom of expression remain widespread problems, as the State Department report recognizes. These problems must be remedied, and this message has been delivered at the highest levels of the bilateral relationship, notably during President Clinton’s visit to Turkey last November, including in his address to the Turkish Parliament.

As the report rightly emphasizes, a climate of impunity for

human rights abuse in the security forces is an enormous obstacle

to improving Turkey’s human rights record, particularly in the area

of torture. In the few cases where prosecutions and convictions of

police officers have occurred, such convictions were reversed on appeal. The report makes note of the directive issued by Prime Minster Ecevit on June 26, 1999, authorizing prosecutors to carry out

unannounced inspections of detention facilities to monitor the well

being of criminal suspects in detention.

Although the report outlines the preliminary results of these inspections, it fails to note the remaining obstacles to resolving this

serious problem.

The June directive alone will not be sufficient to resolve the

problem of torture in detention. We have looked at this problem

quite extensively and have recently published a report entitled

‘‘Obstacles to Reform,’’ which I would like to share with you later,

which details the steps we think need to be taken in order to remedy this situation.

The report asserts, in its opening paragraph, and I think this is

probably the most distressing part of the Turkey report, that ‘‘the

government generally respects the constitution’s provision for an

independent judiciary.’’

Last year, in our testimony, we criticized the report for stating

that ‘‘the government respects the constitution’s provisions for an

independent judiciary.’’ This year the report states that ‘‘the government generally respects the constitution’s provisions for an independent judiciary,’’ and, again, this assertion is simply not borne

out by the facts.

State security courts try civilians accused of crimes against the

state, including individuals accused of nonviolent actions. Many

prosecutions in such courts appear to be politically motivated, such

as those brought against leaders from the political Islamic movement, the mayor of Istanbul, and nonviolent political leaders associated with the Kurdish issue. Advocates such as Mr. Birdal, who

you heard Secretary Koh mention he had met with, have been

brought to trial before state security courts as a result of statements or publications criticizing the government’s human rights

practices.

After miraculously surviving an assassination attempt, Mr.

Birdal faces trial yet again this month, in just a couple of weeks,

for speech the government found offensive. These prosecutions are

not ‘‘independent.’’

Despite these obvious examples demonstrating the lack of independence in the judiciary, the State Department report fails to proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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vide a forthright critique of the problem. Instead, we get confusing

assertions, such as ‘‘the constitution provides for an independent

judiciary and, in practice, the general law courts generally act independently of the executive and legislative branches. However, various officials acknowledge the need for legislative changes to

strengthen the judiciary’s independence.’’

In commenting on the NSC—that’s the Turkish NSC—directives

identifying threats to the state, the report merely concludes that

such communique ́s ‘‘could be interpreted’’ as instructions to the judiciary. As for the dominant role of the high judicial council and

the appointment of judges, the report fails to speak in its own voice

or even to take a position, reporting only that ‘‘some observers assert’’ that this arrangement might undermine judicial independence.

Many sectors of Turkish society are now sending a clear message

to the government that the mistakes of the past should not be repeated. For example, the chairman of the high advisory council of

the Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association,

TUSIAD, said, on September 10, 1999, that ‘‘the democratic transition can be delayed no more. We are telling our politicians to listen

to society’s voice.’’ He noted in particular that in Turkey, ‘‘we are

way behind in matters of freedom of thought and expression, to the

extent that it has become a threat to our national progress.’’

A strong, clear and unwavering U.S. human rights policy toward

Turkey is particularly essential now to ensure that the Turkish

government capitalizes on this current climate of potential change.

The State Department report on Mexico includes an extensive

section on the prevalence of torture in the context of the criminal

justice system. This section is quite forceful and accurately identifies many of the most serious issues relating to this problem, using

clear, straightforward language.

The report notes, ‘‘the police regularly obtain information

through torture, prosecutors use this evidence in courts and the

courts continue to admit as evidence confessions extracted under

torture.’’ It doesn’t get much clearer than that. We’d like to see

that kind of language in many of the reports on countries where

torture is a problem.

The report also notes that this problem derives in part from the

fact that police and prosecutors do not have proper training and

equipment and so often rely on torture as an investigative tactic,

and in this way the report highlights the fact that reliance on torture in criminal investigations not only constitutes serious human

rights abuse, but is also not an effective crime-fighting technique.

The report notes that ‘‘police officers often attempt to solve

crimes by rounding up likely suspects and then extracting confessions from them by force.’’

In contrast to the section dealing with torture, however, in some

other areas the report resorts to formulaic statements in order to

avoid a more profound analysis regarding human rights problems

in Mexico.

For example, the report states that the judiciary is independent,

while noting that it has, on occasion, been influenced by the executive branch. Yet the laws regarding appointments to the bench,

which allow for heavy executive branch influence over this process,

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and the lack of lifetime tenure for judges, present real problems for

the independence of the judiciary in both law and practice.

The report also states that court hearings are open to the public,

but this is misleading and does not reflect an understanding of the

actual practice of hearings in Mexico. There are no courtrooms in

Mexico. Generally, four or five hearings are conducted simultaneously before the same judge at several tables in a busy room.

There is no opportunity for the public or press to actually hear

what transpires in any of those hearings, nor is the judge generally

present.

In several cases, the report addresses serious human rights problems by stating, without taking a position of its own, that human

rights organizations have criticized certain measures adopted by

the Mexican government. For example, the report notes that the

new Federal Preventive Police includes approximately 5,000 transferred military personnel. The report then notes that the inclusion

of former military personnel led to criticism from some human

rights NGO’s. Yet the report makes no independent comment on

this point.

The report’s reluctance to fully address this issue may have to

do with the fact that the United States has encouraged military involvement in civilian law enforcement activities in Mexico as a

strategy in the fight against drug trafficking. Similarly, the report

notes that the military continues to handle cases of civil and

human rights matters involving soldiers.

The report then notes that calls for reform of the military justice

system and criticism of it have increased. However, the report

makes no comment about the need for these reforms.

Similarly, the report states that the government respects the

rights of assembly and association and that a wide variety of

human rights groups operate largely without government restriction. This assertion is not borne out by the facts, even those set out

in the report itself.

As the report states, the government has been accused of

harassing NGO’s, especially in the state of Chiapas. The report also

notes that PRODH, a noted human rights reporting and action center, members of which recently visited the United States, and other

organizations are receiving death threats, and the investigations

into these threats have not yet yielded any concrete results.

Mexican law and practice, in fact, creates a disabling environment in which human rights defenders are frequently harassed and

intimidated.

The Lawyers Committee has recently published a briefing paper

analyzing restrictions on Mexican NGO’s and laying out a detailed

plan for improvements by the Mexican government.

United States policy toward Mexico, which tends to be driven

largely by concerns about immigration and drug trafficking, should

focus on pressuring the government of Mexico to adopt these reforms.

In conclusion, these comments represent our initial reaction to

the country reports, and we look forward eagerly to a more substantive discussion of the reports with Administration officials and

interested Members of Congress once we have had the opportunity

to carry out a more extensive review of their content.

60

Nonetheless, even a brief examination of a few key countries

makes apparent the general accuracy and professionalism of the

country reports and their enormous contribution to our knowledge

of human rights conditions around the world.

The challenge remains, as always, to close the sometimes striking gap between human rights reporting and the realities of foreign

policy decision making.

Thank you. Mr. SMITH. Ms. Massimino, thank you very much for

your testimony. I think so much of what you said bears repeating,

but the point that you made about ‘‘abuses should not be passed

off as differences,’’ that’s a very good spin that is used by the Administration and it certainly doesn’t serve the cause of human

rights, to just say that could be put over in this compartment.

So I appreciate you underscoring that in your testimony.

I’d like to ask Mr. Salinas to begin.

STATEMENT OF CARLOS SALINAS, ADVOCACY DIRECTOR FOR

LATIN AMERICA, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA

Mr. SALINAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. It is our distinct pleasure to accompany you to help you assess the State Department’s 1999 country reports. I think Ms.

Massimino has really laid the challenge that we would like to address, which is that wide gap, that yawning gap, between foreign

policy decision making and the information that the U.S. Government holds and knows to be true.

Before I get to that, though, I would like to extend some words

of thanks to all three of you for specific human rights actions you

have taken in this past year. It’s good to look at the reports, but

it’s also good to look at specific actions that have been taken. The

information without action is essentially a tome that gathers dust

on the shelf.

Mr. Chairman, from your multiple hearings to what we consider

to be a significant achievement that you deserve a great deal of

credit for: the increase in the budget for the human rights bureau,

although we know that we have to monitor that very closely to ensure that certain paper games aren’t played and the budget really

is increased, to your fight last year to add additional expertise to

the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Human Rights.

We disagreed with the voices that opposed that effort. We believe

that it would have added something very valuable to your continued vigilance with these hearings. You provide an important forum

for the human rights community, but also for Congress, to zero in

and focus on this important issue.

So we would like to thank you publicly for that.

Congresswoman McKinney, you were and are an important leader in the issue of arms transfers. We supported the code of conduct,

your version that you had here in the House of Representatives.

You not only have been a leader also in the systemic issues, but

also in the specific country regional issues, whether it be the Great

Lakes in Africa, to, from what I understand from our human rights

and the environment program folks, even contemplating some important work with the indigenous communities in Ecuador, and we

thank you for that.

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Congressman Delahunt, you are the proverbial voice crying in

the drug war wilderness of election year politics. Your leadership

has been significant and it’s particularly important as we are on

the eve of what could be, in our opinion, a very disastrous choice

by the U.S. House of Representatives. We thank you for being that

voice for raising the issues that need to be raised and for trying

to provide some balance to the discussions on Colombia.

Of course, my own pet project that I would personally like to

thank all three of you for is for your co-sponsorship of the Human

Rights Information Act.

With that, I would like to first introduce you all to our legislative

priorities. The Human Rights Information Act, H.R. 1625, a bill to

establish an orderly declassification process for human rights information, now enjoys 110 Members of the House as Co-sponsors and

we are hoping for markup in the Subcommittee on Government

Management, Information and Technology fairly soon, from what

we understand from Chairman Horn and his staff.

Five of the Members of this Subcommittee, in fact, are co-sponsors. We will continue to work to make sure that all the Members

of the Subcommittee become co-sponsors.

We are also pushing for the ratification of the Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. In the

House, what we have called for is support for House Resolution

107, which tries to express the sense of the House that CEDAW is

worthy of support, and I think it is an important topic for us to engage, for us to try to understand where the potential pitfalls may

lay, so that we can achieve clarity and ratify this important human

rights treaty.

We also would like to achieve a simple majority in the House of

Representatives for the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. We

think that this is a no-brainer. We think that everyone should be,

like you all, very active Members of the Congressional Human

Rights Caucus.

Finally, we would like to get continued Congressional work on

our Special Focus Cases of prisoners of conscience, people that we

are calling for their immediate and unconditional release. These include the Mexican Brigadier General Jose Gallardo, whose crime

was to call for the creation of a human rights ombudsman in the

Mexican armed forces.

We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Turkish

human rights activist Eber Yagmurdereli, whose crime has been to

advocate for Kurdish human rights in Turkey.

We call for the unconditional and immediate release of Peruvian

student Mirtha Bueno Hidalgo, whose crime was to have class

notes that the security forces misinterpreted as being subversive

literature.

We call for the immediate and unconditional release of the Chinese student Chen Yanbin, who was arrested at the age of 23 for

protesting against the crack down that followed Tiananmen Square

massacre and for being a pro-democracy activist.

As we look at the specific action agendas, we have to come back

to the country report, to the information the U.S. Government

knows to be true, and ask why is there a gap between the knowledge and the action.

62

As we look at that, we have to focus on some specific issues, and

I think Ms. Massimino always does an incredible job in pointing

out very important details that are actually quite relevant to the

bigger macro picture that at first might seem not as important, but

are very relevant.

In general, we would say that one of the persistent, maybe even

a chronic failure in the State Department’s country reports is its

failure to use its own voice.

We believe that it’s important to engage with NGO’s on the

ground, but we also believe that it’s important that the U.S. Government make its own determinations about the allegations and

issue some real determinations.

I would meet the challenge Mr. Koh laid out in his opening remarks. We do believe that human rights is still an island off the

foreign policy mainland. There is a gap between rhetoric and policy

reality. Where could it be more clear than where I would like to

focus: the failed Administration policy toward China, the incoherency of the foreign policy toward Colombia that’s being proposed,

and the possible irresponsibility of the Turkey policy.

With regards to China, we welcome the fact that the Assistant

Secretary announced early on the intention to introduce a resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and we

believe that the general accuracy of the report will give him leverage.

But not to be necessarily nitpicky, there was one omission that

we found quite troubling. The report noted that business woman

Rebiya Kadeer, her son, and her secretary, were detained in the

Xinjiang region. It went on to state that Kadeer was detained on

her way to meet a visiting foreign delegation and was charged in

September for passing state secrets to foreigners.

[Statement of Mr. SALINAS APPEARS IN THE APPENDIX.]

The report for some reason fails to mention the origin of this

mysterious visiting foreign delegation. Mr. Chairman, Members of

the Subcommittee, the foreign delegation was from the United

States Congressional Research Service! This woman is in jail for

meeting with Members of the Congressional Research Service. We

cannot understand why a detail like that would be left off this report. One would assume that if U.S. Embassy officials would know

anything, they would know about who U.S. officials are meeting

with or failing to meet with.

I would like to include for the record an Amnesty International

report on this case and ask you all to ask the State Department

for an explanation of this omission.

Talking a little bit more about the gap between the information

and policy, in about 20 minutes, we understand that President

Clinton will be giving a speech on his China policy at Johns Hopkins University. We have a few questions that we would like to put

forth.

Will President Clinton’s speech highlight the report’s information

or will this report lie dormant? Will President Clinton reflect the

report’s findings that China’s poor human rights record deteriorated markedly throughout the year, as the government intensified

efforts to suppress dissent?

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Will President Clinton demand that Ms. Rebiya Kadeer, who was

arrested for meeting with Congressional Research Service, be released and thus call on Congress to endorse and pass the concurrent resolution calling for the same?

Will President Clinton demand that the Panchan Lama be released? Will President Clinton demand that the crackdown on underground churches and ongoing religious persecution be stopped?

Will President Clinton demand that forced abortions and sterilizations be stopped?

Will President Clinton announce that he’ll re-link human rights

benchmarks to the normal trade relations debate that we’ll engage

in within Congress?

These are some questions to consider as we try to understand

what is the role of this information into policy.

With Colombia, first, I’d like to say that I urge you all to consider the proposal that Mr. Delahunt has just made that a hearing

be held. We do realize that the House is moving on a very fast

track and, in fact, on Monday, Amnesty International and several

other organizations following developments in Colombia issued a

letter to House and Senate leadership asking that given the ramifications of this aid package, given the enormity, given the potential for a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, that ample

consideration and ample time be given to address all the many

issues that have been raised in the context of this proposal.

We have been going to the hearings, we have been observing the

hearings. We’ve been amazed by the amount of questions that are

remaining unanswered and these questions are coming from all

sides, not just those who, like you, have an expressed interest in

the human rights dimension, but from all different sides. We don’t

see clear answers coming from either the Clinton Administration or

the Pastrana Administration.

While the report is very forthright about paramilitary/military

links, there are important omissions. One key omission is a July

counter-attack in Puerto Lleras by the Colombian army and the air

force against an attack from the FARC. The counter-attack had a

devastating impact on the civilian population and this is not discussed in the country report.

The civilian population was subjected to what are probably violations of international humanitarian law by the Colombian security

forces. Not only is this troubling, but the human rights report does,

in fact, refer to this very same attack by pointing out the very real

problem of child soldier recruits by the FARC. So they point out

the dead children who were members of the FARC, that resulted

from this attack, but for some reason, there is no mention of the

civilian casualties that took place during this counter-attack at the

hands of the government forces.

Furthermore, there is a very troubling news account that U.S.

personnel may have participated in the counter-attack in a support

capacity.

I would like to ask you all to followup on the report that was

issued by the Dallas Morning News in August and I’d like to offer

that for the record. I just talked to the journalist, who is a bureau

chief for the Dallas Morning News for South America, and was formerly foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a perVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:32 Aug 04, 2000 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 65719.TXT HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1
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son with very high standards, certainly it’s never easy for me to

pitch him a story.

When I spoke with him, he made it very clear that he stood by

his story 100 percent. So I think this is very troubling and needs

to be followed up.

Unfortunately, this is not the only troubling allegation involving

the U.S. Government in Colombia policy. Just last week, Amnesty

International called on the Department of Defense to explain a

1997 special forces training of Colombian personnel that took place

at a location very close to a massacre cite, and we understand from

Defense Department records and from Defense Department correspondence that there were special forces deployments both right

before and right after the massacre that took place.

We also understand from Defense Department correspondence

that the Colombian unit trained immediately after the massacre

was, the one whose personnel was implicated in this massacre and

we would ask you all to please look into this. Senator Leahy and

Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. have been making inquiries, but

I think they could certainly use more support.

Among the many issues, it can be raised that the correspondence

that was sent to Senator Leahy listing the special forces deployments doesn’t quite correspond to the information that was reported to Congress by the Defense Department on special forces deployment. So there is a discrepancy in what the Defense Department is conveying to Congress and somehow we have to get to the

bottom of which dates are the correct dates and what did take

place and what did not take place.

But in the meantime, we continue to document one paramilitary

massacre after another in Colombia. You may wonder what’s the

connection here and the connection is simply this: that you all will

be asked to vote on an aid package with many unresolved questions, more than likely. We hear a lot about the creation of new

rapid response mechanisms by the Colombian government.

However, we would just like to see a response. In the San Jose

de Apartado massacre on February 19, it was a massacre that took

place over 25 minutes. The Colombian 17th Brigade was called

within 6 minutes of the first killings or the first shots. They took

three and a half hours to arrive there.

What’s further disturbing are credible allegations that it may

have been members of the 17th Brigade itself that committed this

atrocity.

On the 29th of February, paramilitary members entered a community, finding that all the inhabitants had been wise enough and

had fled, and proceeded to burn the village to the ground. What’s

telling is that the paramilitary presence had been denounced repeatedly to the Colombian authorities and the paramilitaries

camped out for a full month about two miles from the Colombian

army detachment, Heroes of Saraguro Battalion.

So it’s very hard to understand how a new layer of bureaucracy

will help when the basics aren’t being met.

You will more than likely encounter or have probably encountered Vice President Bell from Colombia. He is certainly a very

pleasant and articulate diplomat and he will try to convince you

65

that the Pastrana government has the political will to tackle effectively the human rights situation.

I would like to say to you what you would probably hear from

many other human rights organizations that follow Colombia closely. The question of Colombia is not a question of a lack of resources, it is not a question of a lack of information, it’s not even

a question of a lack of credible information. It’s a question of political will.

I would venture to say that what the Pastrana government needs

to do is fulfill its unimplemented mandates and its promises.

I will tell you about four of these. For instance, he should establish the search block. President Pastrana first promised this in October 1998. He decreed the creation of this to go after

paramilitaries. This search block wasn’t an invention unique to the

Pastrana administration. It was first announced by the Barco administration in 1989 and each successive administration, has when

pressed about the paramilitary groups, stated, ‘‘oh, we’re going to

create the search block to go after the paramilitaries.’’

If you ask Vice President Bell about this, you may get an involved treatise on the importance of nation building, as we did

when we met with him on Monday.

The Pastrana government needs to enforce the close to 400 outstanding arrest warrants and detention orders issued by the attorney general’s human rights unit. The majority of these arrest orders are on paramilitary members. However, if you ask Vice President Bell about this, you may yet vague numbers about new detentions, you may get one or two real concrete cases. But if you happen to ask for a time table and benchmarks on the enforcing of

these arrest warrants, you may get, as I did, a blank stare.

The Pastrana government also needs to pass a law for ‘‘disappearances,’’ a law which has been repeatedly vetoed, President

Pastrana no exception, since the administration of President

Gaviria when it was first introduced. If you ask Vice President Bell

about this, you may get contradictory excuses, as a large group of

human rights organizations did on Monday. You may perhaps get

fumbled attempts to explain legislative failings that did not happen, or principles that were not flagged early enough. You may

even ask about what the government’s strategy is to pass the legislation and he may tell you that they will be calling the legislators

as soon as they return to session.

One could go on. The key is that the problem is one of political

will. We are now being told that a new layer of bureaucracy is

being created. A very good example of how resources upon resources won’t necessarily lead you to effective human rights protection is not only this Colombian case, which has a very vast and

complex and well funded human rights bureaucracy, but the Mexican case and its National Commission on Human Rights.

Because of the clear failings of the Colombian administration of

President Pastrana and of the Clinton Administration, we call on

you to stop the rush into what will probably turn out to be a humanitarian and human rights catastrophe, with a not so desired,

but clearly visible ‘‘made in USA’’ label.

We ask that you please do what you can to make sure that these

unanswered questions are addressed.

66

Finally, on Turkey, I think Mr. Koh was every eloquent when he

went through the list of the benchmarks. I think it is very clear

that the benchmarks have not been met and we hope that you ensure that the Administration vetoes or rejects the four billion dollar

export license for further attack helicopters for essentially what

will be further carnage.

Thank you all very, very much. Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Salinas. Mr. Delahunt has to leave, but asked if he could pose a question to you.

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Salinas, for your generous

words. In the Human Rights Watch, there is language that—let me

quote it. It says ‘‘Colombia’s civilian investigative agencies, in particular the attorney general’s office, are capable of sophisticated

and hard-hitting investigations.’’

That’s from their language. Do you agree with that statement?

Mr. SALINAS. Absolutely.

Mr. DELAHUNT. You have confidence in that.

Mr. SALINAS. Yes. In fact, the problem is not so much their investigations. The problem is that when they do issue a detention

order, they’re not enforced. The security forces are not enforcing

them.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I had an opportunity in my last visit to have an

extended conversation with Hami Bronow. I have yet to have had

an opportunity to have a conversation with Mr. Gomez. It was a

very good conversation. He is not a member of the president’s

party. Am I correct in that particular statement?

Mr. SALINAS. I’m not sure, sir.

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think he’s a liberal as opposed to a conservative. He is also, I understand, very much involved in the peace

process, specifically as it relates to the ELN, and has taken a leadership role there.

I ask these questions because earlier I had asked—requested a

hearing and you alluded to it in your remarks, by this Subcommittee, because as we know and as the Chair and my friend

and colleague and Ranking Member from Georgia know, any legislation is a process. It’s static at times and it’s very dynamic at

other times.

I would anticipate that this will be a process that will, despite

the fact the reality that it is scheduled to be in a fast track, hearings still are important to inform and to educate. I would think

that if we extended an invitation, Mr. Chairman, to the attorney

general, that he would be a very credible witness for us to hear and

possibly we could encourage him to come to Washington and give

us his perspective, because I found it very informative.

Much of what he had to say about the Pastrana administration

was positive, I think I should note that for the record, but the reason that I did specifically seek to have a conversation with him was

based upon a statement by a Colombian General, Mestor Ramirez,

in Miami, relative to the attorney general and Mr. Gomez being an

enemy of the state. That caused me great concern, but I think it’s

best if I yield back my time, and since I have another appointment.

But I would ask you again to consider that request. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Delahunt. Ms. Shea.

67

STATEMENT OF NINA SHEA, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, FREEDOM HOUSE

Ms. SHEA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, for holding these important human rights hearings and for

inviting me to testify.

I am appearing today on behalf of Freedom House and I’m also

a Member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent panel created by Congress to review U.S.

Government policies regarding religious persecutors, and will be

commenting for them, as well as Freedom House, on the countries

of China, Russia and Sudan. These were the three countries that

are the primary focus of the Commission during its first year. Before beginning, Mr. Chairman, I also want to express our deep appreciation for your personal dedication to ensuring that human

rights concerns remain a force in U.S. foreign policy.

This year’s country reports reflect a monumental effort on the

part of Assistant Secretary Harold Koh and his Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, they and all the American foreign

service officers who contributed to the reports deserve to be commended.

As the reports have become comprehensive, they have come to be

relied on by many policy makers, immigration officials and judges,

the media and human rights defenders, precisely because the reports are viewed by many as authoritative, this exercise of providing critiques to continuously fine-tune and improve the reports

is essential and not a matter of mere quibbling.

Many of the reports, those on Pakistan, India, Burma, Afghanistan and North Korea, for example, provide excellent summaries of

the status of religious freedom. Others need revision.

As my colleagues who have already spoken have pointed out, the

biggest problem with the reports is that their findings do not always correspond to American policy action.

While there are various underlying explanations, part of the

problem is attributable to the reports themselves. The reports contain an overwhelming and unselective compilation of facts and information, without reaching definitive conclusions or conveying a

sense of priority.

Fundamental human rights problems are lost sight of in a welter

of detail. Severe violators are hidden in an avalanche of information. In some cases, this may be an attempt to downplay abuses

and avoid making embarrassing conclusions about the conduct of

valued allies and trading partners, reporting that might lead to

calls for sanctions.

I regret that Mr. Koh, in his remarks this morning, said that

they will continue to resist attempts to rank or order these country

reports. There is a real need to give focus and priority designation

in a report of this magnitude and type and it’s the best way of ensuring that appropriate focus and concerted attention is given.

The world should know who is carrying out genocide and who are

committing crimes against humanity.

I’m not suggesting that the State Department undertake anything as elaborate as Freedom House’s own systematic ranking of

countries in its Freedom in the World Survey and our forthcoming

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ing of the most egregious human rights violators and violations is

needed somewhere in this report. A model for this might be provided by the International Religious Freedom Act, which called for

an annual report, as well, and also a designation of egregious religious persecutors as ‘‘countries of particular concern’’ and articulation of policy regarding those ‘‘countries of particular concern.’’

The country critiques that I’m going to talk about today are examples of where critically important religious freedom problems

are cited in the reports, but are swamped by a bewildering mass

of unselective and unprioritized data. In a number of country reports, a consequence of obscuring important points of focus is that

the wrong conclusion is reached about the overall status of religious freedom.

Now, I turn to the reports of the three countries with respect to

which I speak on behalf of both the Commission and Freedom

House.

Regarding China, a crucial point that the report fails to emphasize is that control of religion is manifestly a policy of the central

authorities. Exercise of religion is tolerated only insofar as it serves

the purposes of the state.

Since the passage of the State Council regulations in 1994, requiring registration of all religious groups, China has shown a determination to ‘‘manage’’ exercise of religion according to law.

In compliance with that policy, local authorities throughout the

country have drafted restrictive regulations pertaining to the exercise of religion, while the degree of zeal with which the policy is

implemented varies from province to province. The principle that

religion must serve the state inherent in the Chinese communist

party’s Marxist ideology is promulgated through law and propaganda by the communist party.

This fundamental fact should be highlighted, not mentioned,

only—and not only mentioned on passing as one among hundreds

of other facts in the 67-page China report.

Similarly, it bears emphasizing in the 77-page report on Russia

that the largest pending issue there is the status of the significant

number of religion organizations that were not able to re-register

before the December 31 deadline.

Up to half of Russia’s religious groups remain unregistered and

according to the 1997 law, are now subject to liquidation. This

month, for the first time to our knowledge, a local court has used

the liquidation procedures to terminate a church and is now threatening to liquidate up to 13 others.

Though this information became available only after the State

Department report was published, many of the religion organizations have been and continue to be in an insecure legal situation

that probably will not be resolved until after the Presidential elections in late April.

The registration problem is fundamental to understanding religion freedom in Russia, for it points to the lack of legal and institutional security for religion in Russia.

In addition, conspicuous in its absence is any discussion of the

clearest harbinger of future religion persecution, the government’s

use of anti-Muslim language in its propaganda campaign to stir up

69

support for its conflict in Chechnya. These facts merit priority

treatment and analysis in the report.

Essential facts are lost in the report on Sudan, to such a degree

that it possibly qualifies as the weakest of the reports in the whole

compilation, and this is—this country of Sudan is probably the

worst human rights hell on earth, from my perspective.

While the report mentions that two million people have died in

the conflict, it fails to give a real sense of the scale and intensity

of the government’s prosecution of the war. At times, the report is

erratic and unclear, even about the basic fact that religious persecution is at the core of the conflict.

Tucked into the middle of a paragraph about press freedom is

the critical finding, ‘‘in the context of the Islamization and

Arabization drive, pressure, including forced Islamization—on nonMuslims remained strong. Fears of Arabization and Islamization

and the imposition of the Shari’a fueled support for the civil war

throughout the country.’’

I was disappointed to see that Secretary Koh, in his remarks this

morning, only devoted one sentence in his testimony, in his written

testimony, to this situation, the conflict in southern Sudan. His remarks address extra judicial killings and disappearance, but

doesn’t scratch the surface of what is actually happening there and

certainly doesn’t sound any alarms about the scale of what’s happening.

As you know, the House of Representatives passed a resolution

last June which characterized the Sudanese regime of ‘‘deliberately

and systematically committing genocide.’’ The Catholic bishops of

East Africa made a similar assessment last August. The Nobel

Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, after reviewing the

facts in many human rights reports, wrote to President Clinton in

a letter, which is published in the current issue of the Jewish intellectual journal Sh’ma, that ‘‘I am haunted by what I know of

Sudan,’’ also calling it a genocide. So Congressman Tancreda was

not the only one to call it a genocide this morning. He’s in very

good company.

The Commission met with the Ambassador at Large for War

Crimes, Mr. David Scheffer, just last week and he said that the—

he told them that he has never looked into whether there is genocide occurring in Sudan because no one in the State Department

has ever requested it, which seems to belie Secretary’s Koh’s comments that they were concerned about it and had so many meetings about it.

The Commission on International Religion Freedom is apparently

the sole genesis for such an overdue inquiry and we are at this

point eagerly waiting for the state’s determination or work product

on this investigation.

The report neglects to underscore the significance of the government’s routine blocking of international, including American food

aid to south Sudan, though they mention it. In what Senator Bill

Frist calls ‘‘calculated starvation.’’ This strategy has killed hundreds of thousands Sudanese civilians in 1998 alone and is unquestionably the most lethal weapon of war in this conflict.

The report also fails to make the critical connection between new

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edy. Recent assessments by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,

the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Sudan, and the Canadian Government have all found an inextricable link between the actions of the

Khartoum regime and the Greater Nile oil project.

Since the oil pipeline revenues began flowing several months ago,

the Khartoum regime has escalated its ruthless assaults on southern civilian populations. Targeted with particular savagery are

those areas immediately surrounding the pipeline itself, where, as

the report finds, the Sudanese military is now carrying out a

scorched earth devastation.

The international press, late last year, as well as a recent report

commissioned by the Canadian Government, have reported that

the resources of the Greater Nile partners, including their roads,

airstrips and aircraft, are being used directly for military purposes.

Helicopter gun ships and Antonov bombers, key elements of the

Khartoum regime’s war on civilians, had access to the extraordinarily well positioned airstrip of the partners.

Two days ago, the compound of the Irish aid group, CONCERN,

was bombed by the Sudanese air force, and on March 1, the Khartoum regime bombed the Samaritan’s Purse hospital, run by the

family of Rev. Billy Graham, in Lui, near Juba in southern Sudan,

where four American doctors have treated over 100,000 patients

since 1998, and at least two patients we know of were killed in that

attack.

Then last month, the government had deliberately bombed a

Catholic primary school in the Nuba mountains, killing 19 children. Without a doubt these planes, these Antonov bombers, are

being fueled by oil from the Greater Nile project.

In addition to facilitating the Khartoum regime’s war effort

through direct enrichment and resources, as Secretary of State

Albright made clear several months ago, it is the prospect of new

unimpeded oil revenues that convinces the otherwise bankrupt

Khartoum regime that it can acquire the military means to win the

war outright. A war that the Congress has declared to be genocidal,

will continue unless oil development and revenues are removed as

the means for the regime to insulate itself economically.

This was precisely Secretary Albright’s point in Nairobi back in

October, when she criticized the involvement of Talisman Energy,

a 25 percent partner in the Greater Nile oil project.

The Sudanese government’s oil joint venture was itself especially

designated as a sanctioned entity by the U.S. Treasury Department

on February 16, though the individual partners, such as Talisman,

the Chinese oil company, were not sanctioned.

The Petro China, a front company for the Chinese oil company

involved in Greater Nile, which, at 40 percent partnership, is the

largest shareholder, has already applied to enter the U.S. equity

markets and is soon expected to be approved by the SEC.

So why doesn’t the report draw the link between the oil and the

escalating conflict—the genocidal conflict? Why is the Administration permitting this IPO to go through?

This concludes my joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Commission on International Religion Freedom and the Freedom House.

Now, on behalf of the latter, I wish to briefly comment on several

other countries.

71

As you pointed out earlier today, Mr. Chairman, that lost in the

Egypt’s report myriad of detail is the fact that the Coptic Christian

minority, the largest Christian minority in the Middle East, is relegated to second class status by official policy which fosters an atmosphere of intolerance that has given way to patterns of violence,

both by the militants and government security forces.

This fundamental fact is epitomized in the continuing Al Kosheh

crisis of the past 2 years, a tragedy that is only given sketchy

treatment in the report and a tragedy that continued throughout

1999 by virtue of the fact that there was a failure of justice in the

case, no one was ever convicted.

In fact, a government press report says that those who were implicated were exonerated and given cash awards. That the NGO’s

have been restricted across the board and that the head of the largest human rights group, the EOHR, was charged, after he brought

forward facts about the Al Kosheh incident, and is now in exile, as

far as we know.

As I point out in my written testimony, this assessment by the

State Department that somehow the human rights record in Egypt

has again improved somewhat over the past year, is being used by

asylum officers to deny Coptic Christians asylum.

The Vietnam report is also deeply flawed in its assertion that in

some respects, conditions for religion freedom improved during the

year. In view of the extensive April 1999 decree on religion, which

is barely acknowledged in the report, as well as other developments, it can be more persuasively argued that in important respects, religious freedom saw setbacks in 1999.

Under this new decree, all religious properties confiscated by the

communist authorities after 1975 have become the permanent

property of the state and government agencies are empowered to

determine which religions are authorized in the appointment of religious dignitaries and publication of religious matter are subject to

the prime minister’s approval.

So the key to understanding the status of religious freedom in

Vietnam is the fact that the regime claims the right to control religion, that a government-created Hoa Hao committee directed by

the well known communist cadre Mudi Ton was given official recognition and was able to hold a festival, is consistent with this fundamental fact of government control and is not a sign that religious

freedom is expanding.

The independent Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam remains

severely persecuted with its organization and legal activities

banned and top leaders in detention under close police surveillance.

Throughout July and August, police and religious official broke

into pagodas throughout the country and conducted midnight raids.

Unlike the government-controlled Hoa Hao, the independent Buddhists had to hold their Congress last May overseas in California.

Christians in the Hmong region and tribal areas were the most severely prosecuted of the Christian groups, as the report states.

This, too, can be explained by the fact that government bloc committees and surveillance agents can and do more readily intimidate

and harass Christians in developed regions within the government’s reach, whereas far-flung rural villages are largely outside

the government’s ability to control on a regular basis.

72

Finally, regarding Saudi Arabia, the report gives credence to misleading government claims that private non-Muslim worship is permitted. Public worship by Christian Jews and other non-Muslims

is, in principle, a capital offense and the religious police have in the

past year, as in previous years, entered private homes searching

for evidence of private worship by non-Muslims.

In recent years, non-Muslims have been flogged, imprisoned and

reportedly killed for private worship.

Last October and again in January of this year, private homes

have been raided and the Filipino Christians conducting worship

services inside, including children, were thrown in jail for up to 40

days without consular access, some of whom were threatened and

abused by police before being deported.

That concludes my statement. Thank you.

Ms. MCKINNEY [PRESIDING]. Thank you.

Ms. SHEA. Madam Chairman, I’d like to mention that I’m going

to have to be leaving in 10 minutes to pick up my children from

school.

Ms. MCKINNEY. All of us will, as well. So I would really like to

hear Ms. DesForges.

STATEMENT OF ALISON DESFORGES, CONSULTANT, HUMAN

RIGHTS WATCH/AFRICA

Ms. DESFORGES. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think the persistence and endurance of this particular Subcommittee in the intensity of its examination of this issue is indeed one of the reasons

why we have seen such steady improvement in the country reports.

The Congressional oversight and insistence upon the importance

of human rights has obviously played a large role in focusing the

attention of the State Department on this central issue.

I would like to address quickly some important points about the

reports dealing with the Great Lakes Region of Africa, before moving on to what is essentially the most important part of my testimony, some concrete recommendations about how exactly we can

move to integrate better those concepts which we all honor into an

effective foreign policy.

Several speakers this morning and members of the panel, as well

as Members of Congress, have indicated important omissions in

various country reports. Nowhere is this more glaring than in the

treatment of the Great Lakes of Africa, where, for example, the role

of Ugandan troops in the DRC is barely mentioned.

There is no discussion whatsoever of possible human rights violations by these troops. The conflict between the Hema and the

Lindu, for example, is examined, but nowhere is there any mention

of the role of Uganda in politicizing and militarizing this conflict.

This is all the stranger given the underlying context of much of

U.S. policy in the Great Lakes and, in fact, of much of human

rights focus in the Great Lakes, which is exactly what Mr. Koh described this morning as atrocity prevention. The prevention of

atrocities is increasingly narrowly defined as atrocities which could

potentially happen to those people who are Tutsi or Tutsi-related.

So that in the section dealing with the DRC, for example, there is

extensive and absolutely justified discussion of anti-Tutsi sentiment on the part of the Kabila government, but in those scanty

73

sections dealing with rebel factions and their backers, there is no

mention whatsoever of anti-Hutu sentiment.

So it’s important to recognize that the distortions which we see

here are a result not simply of questions of political alliance, which

are, of course, important, but of this continuing fundamental sentiment of overwhelming guilt which results from the failed U.S. policy at the time of the Rwanda genocide.

We’re always trying to prevent that horrible past from happening

again and until we come to terms with that, as Congresswoman

McKinney has suggested, through an open investigation of our own

role, we are going to continue chasing our tail in an attempt to

make not happen what has, in fact, already happened.

In addition to important omissions in dealing with Uganda and

Rwanda in particular, there is another spin given to the material,

similar to the spin that other panelists have also mentioned in

other parts of the world: an attempt to minimize, soften in some

way the presentation of data. Yes, they put it out there, but they

then qualify it in one way or another to attempt to reduce its impact.

So that when dealing with reports of killings by Rwandan troops

in the DRC, for example, it is several times these reports are cushioned with statements questioning the credibility of these reports?

Yes, of course, when you’re assessing reports of human rights

abuses, you must look for confirmation, but once you have the confirmation, you report what is, in fact, confirmed and you let the

rest drop. There is no need to keep reminding us that many reports

are not credible. Of course, that is true everywhere. In addition,

the killings of Rwandan troops and their attacks on civilian populations are put very much in the context of self-defense.

The chapter on the DRC, for example, states that Congolese

Tutsi, as well as the governments of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, all relied on the Rwandan military presence for protection

against hostile armed groups operating out of the eastern part of

the country. That’s putting a tremendous burden on the Rwandan

military establishment and it does, in fact, seem to serve as a justification for whatever abuses it might then be accused of committing.

In a similar vein, whenever Rwandan attacks and massacres are

mentioned, they are also preceded by the information that this was

a response to what somebody else did. So here, again, the attempt

to give it a spin, to make it less awful than it really is.

Let me point out, too, some very interesting comparisons between

the chapters on Rwanda and the chapters on Burundi, where the

difference in language clearly reflects the degree of closeness to the

current government.

So that when discussing ethnic discrimination in Rwanda, the

chapter says at the start that yes, there is ethnic discrimination,

but later in the chapter it softens this by saying that some Hutu

accuse the government of discrimination, again without taking a

position. Whereas the chapter on Burundi, where you have a very

similar situation, but where we have not the same closeness to the

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larly higher education and certain branches of government, such as

the armed services and the judicial system.

Similarly, in discussing the judicial system, in the Rwandan

chapter, we’re told that there are no reports of political prisoners

in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch has delivered a number of cases

directly to the door of the embassy, but here we’re told there are

no cases of political prisoners in Rwanda, while in the Burundi

chapter, we’re told that there are some clearly identifiable political

prisoners.

In talking about the Rwandan judicial system, as well, the Rwanda report concludes that the ‘‘vast majority of trials met international standards,’’ yet earlier in the chapter it says 50 percent

or fewer than 50 percent of the accused had access to legal counsel.

In what way then does this meet international standards?

Similarly, when discussing the proposed reform of the judicial

system to create popular justice, the popular justice system of

gacaca, the report says that lawyers will not be permitted to ‘‘participate officially.’’ That’s not so. Lawyers will not be permitted to

participate in any form whatsoever.

So these details indicate a spin on the report which is a very important one.

Another case: the mention of villagization is passed over very

quickly in the context of the report, simply saying that some observers believe that residents were compelled to move to these government designated villages. This gives no sense of the fact that

thousands of people have been forced to destroy their own homes

and to move to government designated sites, where they are now

living in shelters made out of sticks and grass and banana leaves,

some of them for 2 years, because the government has imposed this

policy of forced villagization.

The reports on the DRC and on Rwanda make the point many

times that it is difficult to get information, and in fact, this is a

problem. But if embassy personnel were more open to receiving information from local human rights organizations, they would find

themselves relatively well supplied with what they need.

Of course, this information would need to be critically assessed,

but the point is the information is there. All we need to do is make

adequate use of it.

Let me go on to some concrete recommendations which could perhaps help to bridge the gap between that island of human rights

and the mainland of general policy.

First of all, as the reports indicate, the allegations of massive

crimes against humanity in the DRC have never been investigated.

The U.S. initially supported the idea of a U.N. investigation, but

backed off when the Kabila government and the Rwandan authorities said no.

In the recent U.N. Security Council resolution establishing the

peace keeping operation in the Congo, the U.S. has once again endorsed the prospect of an investigation of these massacres. We

would urge the Subcommittee to keep that on its agenda and to ensure that the Administration understands the vital importance that

this time that investigation be done, be done well, promptly and

thoroughly.

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Uncovering the truth of crimes is not enough. We also have to

have accountability and——

Mr. SMITH [PRESIDING]. Ms. DesForges, would you mind yielding

just for a minute? The gentle lady from Georgia had a question.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Yes. I do need to go vote. But, Dr. DesForges,

I would just like to request that I can call you and we can discuss

some issues later, since I’ve got your number here.

But you were about to go into the issue of accountability, and you

might even answer my question. I will just say that I have concerns for all of you about the accountability of the United Nations,

the accountability of the United States itself, and about U.S. corporations and U.S. corporate behavior and their accountability.

So why don’t you go ahead and finish on the accountability and

then I will pose my question, because I want to hear what you have

to say.

Ms. DESFORGES. Just as a side light, let me mention that the

OAU report on responsibility for external actors during the Rwandan genocide will be published shortly and should provide an opportunity to call once again for a United States investigation into

its own behavior.

If the pattern of impunity is to be broken, these kinds of crimes

must be dealt with in something other than simply a truth-telling

kind of mechanism. The international criminal tribunal for Rwanda, which is a very, very flawed structure in many ways, is perhaps

the best we’re going to get in the short term. We need to exploit

it to its maximum, including insisting that its mandate be extended, so that it parallels the mandate of the tribunal for former

Yugoslavia. That is, it becomes an open ended mandate, which allows it to deal with events that happened after the end of 1994,

and which would allow it to deal with events that happened also

by all parties in the DRC.

Similarly, the establishment of a separate chamber to deal with

Burundi would allow it for the first time to deal with the unresolved issue of accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity in Burundi. Those charges were made by a U.N. Security Council commission of investigation and they were let drop completely.

The connections in this region are too complex to permit partial

justice; that is, justice for one party and not another, justice in one

country and not another.

Even with the best possible functioning of international justice,

we also need to support development of judicial systems within

these various nations. The United States is now well placed to do

this, with the Great Lakes justice initiative, and I would encourage

you to support the efficient administration of that fund so that, for

example, in Burundi, money can be directed to helping to redress

the gross ethnic imbalance there by providing immediate shortterm training to Hutu jurists so that they can enter into the court

system and perhaps to allowing for the temporary recruitment of

foreign jurists to lend greater credibility to judgments in those

courts.

In the Rwandan context, support for the new gacaca process is,

of course, a valuable idea, but it’s one which we should permit only

if we do not sacrifice our own standards of due process, and that

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fense, particularly if the consequence of their condemnation will be

a life in prison.

Local human rights groups have been mentioned several times

this morning as important sources of information. Supporting them

financially and politically is of the greatest importance. In the

Rwanda chapter, there is a mention that local human rights groups

are weak because they have very few resources. Yes, indeed, and

USAID has refused to give any money to those local human rights

groups, up until very recently, when, after we made a vigorous protest, they decided to look at local human rights organizations as a

possible recipient of funds.

The Members of the Congressional Friends of Human Rights

Monitors have played in the past a very important role and need

to continue playing that role, being alert to possibilities of persecution and danger for our colleagues on the ground. When on missions, we’ve heard how often you all travel, a great deal obviously,

on those missions, your being in touch with local activists rather

than simply with official types gives those people a small measure

of protection and an enormous amount of encouragement.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Let me thank the Chairman. I think I’ve just

about given up my opportunity to go and vote. But for all of you—

maybe this is just a vent right now—the United Nations has apologized three times in Rwanda, Srebreneca, and East Timor, for their

failings.

They said I’m sorry. My question is, is I’m sorry enough? As I

watch the Rwandans, the Srebrenecans and the East Timorese try

to put their shattered lives back together and in the case of Rwanda and East Timor, trying to put countries back together, I’m sorry

just doesn’t seem to be enough.

Since you represent the legal community, maybe you could help

with, under the face of the staggering culpability by the United Nations, what’s out there for victims of U.N. complicity in human

rights violations.

But let me continue with the United States and accountability on

the part of the United States. As we learn and continue to learn

even today about U.S. military ties to other militaries, we see that

our own troops, our own people are complicit in human rights

abuses, and in some cases, even worse situations with respect to

Rwanda, I believe.

So what is it that keeps the United States accountable and for

those people who are victims of U.S. military behavior and policy,

Mr. Salinas, you talked in your piece about good information, but

bad policy. To whom do the victims of U.S. bad policy turn for redress and holding the United States accountable, and then with

U.S. corporations? Oil companies and our diamond people, we see

that oil and diamond are used as excuses for fueling wars and the

commission of human rights abuses.

How is it that we hold our U.S. corporate community accountable

for the human rights violations that they participate in as well?

Ms. MASSIMINO. There’s a lot there to respond to and all of them

very, very good points. I’d like to make a couple of points in response to that.

There had to be a lot of ‘‘sorries’’ on the part of the U.S., on the

part of the United Nations, over many, many years, and this is a

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big problem, the U.S. participation in human rights abuse, the U.S.

standing by watching human rights abuse and then deciding to act

when it’s too late to prevent.

I guess I would say there are a number of steps that could be

taken to help make sure we are not in a position of having to say

only ‘‘sorry.’’

Again, one is—and Mr. Salinas can talk more about this, but one

is the importance of making sure that people know that the conduct of their own government and their participation in human

rights violations is going to be made public, and that’s why the

Human Rights Information Act is such an important idea and such

an important vehicle, because if people know, if bureaucrats know

that their actions, that the basis on which they are making their

decisions, their involvement in the human rights violations of other

governments, to the extent that’s documented, is going to be made

public, that’s a huge deterrent.

On the issue generally of accountability——

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Massimino, would you mind suspending just

briefly. Ms. McKinney and I both have a second in a series of votes

and now they’re only 5 minute votes and this is on a bill. I have

several additional questions, but one with regard to North Korea,

which has been noticeably absent in much of this discussion.

When Ambassador Seiple was here and appeared before our

Committee and named the countries of particular concern, he left

out North Korea. I asked him couldn’t we presumptively list it,

even though we may not have access to detailed information? How

do you get a delegation on the ground? Reporting is minimal, nil

to none, and yet we know that there is severe repression that ought

to presumptively qualify North Korea in that list.

You might want to touch on North Korea.

Mr. Rees, who is our chief of staff, will keep the hearing open,

and your answers will be looked at very carefully by all of us, and

we thank you so much for coming. I hate to leave, but there is a

whole series of votes coming up.

Ms. MASSIMINO. Thank you.

Mr. REES. Perhaps you could briefly finish the answer to the

other question and then answer the question about the absence of

information in North Korea.

Ms. MASSIMINO. The other point I wanted to make on accountability is this. One thing that was striking to me, it was in Secretary Koh’s introductory remarks, on the release of the report. He

talks about accountability a lot and one of the things he says is

that there is no international consensus on the need for an international criminal court.

Happily, that’s not true. There is a strong international consensus that we need this international criminal court, a standing

body to address the kinds of abuses that have had to be addressed

in the various ad hoc tribunals.

The problem is that the U.S. is standing outside of that international consensus and that’s terribly distressing and a part of

U.S. policy that we hope to see changed in the future.

Mr. REES. Does anyone have an answer to the North Korea question? I think the focus of the Chairman’s question on North Korea

was that—and it’s not only North Korea, it’s also notable in the

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Laos report, the Burma report—where you can’t get information,

where there are reports, particularly from exiles, who say, ‘‘well my

relatives in the country or my friends tell me that this terrible

thing is going on,’’ and then the report either doesn’t mention those

things or it says, there were reports, but there was no way to confirm it.

Does the worst government win? In other words, the more successful you are at blocking transparency, at keeping human rights

organizations out, at keeping information from getting out, do you

get a pass in the human rights report because of that? What is the

solution?

Ms. MASSIMINO. That’s a difficult problem and we face it ourselves. If we were to sit down and talk about countries where we

don’t get access and, therefore, can’t publish reports and can’t—all

we can do is hold press conferences or issue statements saying that

they won’t let us in.

Cuba, North Korea, Syria, there are a number of countries. Now,

usually those are countries that are not getting a ‘‘pass’’ in terms

of U.S. policy toward them, because they are denounced as pariah

governments and aren’t getting aid so that——

Mr. REES. Laos and certain regions of Vietnam are utterly inaccessible. Terrible things are said to happen there, and it’s arguable

that those countries are getting a pass in terms of U.S. policy.

Maybe other countries, as well.

Ms. MASSIMINO. Yes. I guess what I would say is that what we

have to do in countries like that and what we urge the country reports to—the approach to take is to state specifically all of the allegations about abuses and to make a bigger point of not assuming

that access will be denied, but make—this is what we do—make requests, get denied, press again and document the denial of access

as prima facie evidence of their being something to hide there.

It’s a hard problem and we face it, too.

Mr. REES. Anybody else on that question?

Mr. SALINAS. I think part of it is to look at it in terms of whether

or not you allow the countries that do not permit access to get a

free pass. In a way, this is kind of answering the question of the

Ranking Member, ‘‘who holds the U.S. Government accountable?’’

The answer is you all. It’s the role of Congress, it’s the oversight,

it’s the checks and balances on the executive branch, it’s why we’re

so focused on Congress with this Colombia aid package.

You are the ones that can get the information. You are the ones

who can pass a bill to set up an orderly process to have clarity, and

you are also the ones that can help nudge the administration to

make it clear to countries that do not offer access, make it clear

to them, so that they understand, that there is a price to pay for

that.

So we’re not just left with an omission, it’s not just a gap in the

reporting, you make a big deal out of it. You make it clear that this

is unacceptable and you keep insisting.

Mr. REES. Dr. DesForges, this example in the context of North

Korea, other Asian nations, recalls the situation in Eastern Congo,

then Zaire, in 1996, when Refugees International, UNHCR, and

other groups were saying that there were over 100,000 missing refugees somewhere who might be being killed.

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As far as I know, the international community has—the bodies

that like to cal themselves the international community—have

never come to terms with that. They’ve never said ‘‘yes, too bad,

they got killed,’’ or ‘‘no, they didn’t.’’

You might be more familiar with the end game on that terrible

situation, about the lack of information and how the lack of information and perhaps the deliberate failure to search for information

generated policy.

Ms. DESFORGES. Yes. I think that’s the important distinction,

when is lack of information a true lack? It’s like we’re finding increasingly that famine is never really famine, it’s all politically determined. It’s not a lack of food, it’s a question of policy. I think

it’s not a lack of information, it’s a question of policy.

As in the case you mentioned, the information was there. The

U.S. had satellite surveillance. The information was there. It was

that one part of the U.S. Government was not about to share that

with human rights defenders because of certain policy interests.

I would suppose that even in a case like North Korea, that there

is a substantial amount of intelligence available if there were a

human rights culture that infected our intelligence service and if

they also believed that this was something that their information

should reflect. My guess is there would be a way that that information could be gotten and passed to the country reports people.

It’s just that that, as we have bemoaned all day long, has not yet

happened. We’re creeping up on them. But I think there is also the

question of time. As my colleagues have stressed, it’s not enough

to be refused once. You have to keep trying, and things do change.

No situation is set in concrete and no group of abusers, no abusive

government is homogeneous.

There are always factions within any government and at some

point, they will start to see that the costs of continuing to stonewall

on these issues is such that it might be better to give in and allow

for some closer examination.

I think it’s a question of publicity. For example, the Mwenge incident, which has now become so famous that Secretary Albright

mentioned it at the United Nations, 15 people were massacred.

How many times have 15 people been massacred in Eastern

Congo?

Now, obviously, this was a particularly gruesome incident that

caught people’s imagination, but it was simply the fact that that

was picked up and talked about over and over and over again, that

finally led those local authorities to get in touch with people like

us to say wouldn’t you please come and investigate, because we

would really like to have the world know what happened at

Mwenge.

Of course, then you’re subject to manipulation once you get there

and you have to be alert to that. But the point is that over time,

with sufficient pressure, cracks develop in those edifices and then

you can scoot on through.

Mr. REES. In accordance with the Chairman’s order, the hearing

is now closed.

[Whereupon, at 2:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.

(81)

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MARCH 8, 2000

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