HELSINKI WATCH OVERVIEW

Human Rights Developments

The demise of communism in Europe has led to significant expansion in the work of Helsinki Watch. With countries fragmenting into their constituent parts, the number of signatories to the 1975 Helsinki accords grew from thirty-five to fifty-three countries, all within the same geographic area that we have traditionally covered. Whereas in 1992 the Helsinki Watch section of the Human Rights Watch World Report dealt with eight countries, this year we cover twenty-four, and the situations that we monitor are increasingly complex.

The nature of the human rights abuses that we are monitoring has changed radically. The rigidly uniform system of repression that existed under the communists in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has given way to a range of human rights abuses that covers the gamut from violations of the laws of war and unchecked violence against minorities and foreigners, to suppression of free speech and association and the imposition of unjust citizenship and residency laws. A few of the countries monitored by Helsinki Watch have maintained systems of repression reminiscent of the totalitarian rule of the communists, while others have seen the eruption of fierce armed conflicts, sometimes ethnic in origin, sometimes reflecting an internal struggle for power, and sometimes a combination of both. Many of the new countries were unstable in 1993, their governments barely able to maintain power and seemingly unable to enforce their own laws. Some, impoverished, looked to the west for aid and trade. Most seemed eager to privatize quickly and viewed the market system as their salvation. Following the collapse of central authority in both the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union, struggles for power and manipulation of nationalism led to bloodshed and/or repression on an astounding scale, with no solution to the conflicts on the horizon.

Warfare in Bosnia-Hercegovina continued to rage as of early November, the time of this writing. Largely as a result of Western inaction to halt past abuses, the war escalated during 1993, with all of the three factions fighting each other in various parts of the region. Gross abuses continued against civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom had been forcibly displaced as part of "ethnic cleansing." Several eruptions of warfare on Croatian soil, demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping forces sent there to maintain an uneasy cease-fire, indicated that more trouble might be brewing between Serbs and Croats in Croatia, as well as in Bosnia. In Kosovo, an ethnic Albanian province in Serbia, unwarranted arrests, abuse in detention, and police beatings of civilians escalated in the latter half of 1993, after Serbia expelled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) human rights monitors stationed there.

Fierce conflicts were also being waged on the territory of the former Soviet Union, especially in Nagorno Karabakh and surrounding areas where the warfare between Armenians and Azerbaijanis entered its fifth year, in Georgia where the government was fighting a two-sided struggle against Abkhazian separatists and against the forces of ousted President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and in Tajikistan where fierce clan battles resulted in incredible brutality. Civilians were subjected to egregious violations of humanitarian law, including indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, forced removal from their homes and abuse in detention. In each of these conflicts, as in the now quiescent conflict in Moldova, the direct or indirect role of Russian armed forces remained a deeply troubling factor.

In Tajikistan, the Rakhmonov government that took power after a fierce civil war was engaged during 1993 in a ruthless campaign of revenge against those who sympathized with or supported the opposition. In Azerbaijan, the Aliev government that essentially took power by force at first used violence, then censorship to suppress the opposition.

In Russia, hopes for a steady movement toward democracy were dashed by the events of early October, when President Boris Yeltsin illegally dissolved the Russian parliament, and theparliament staged a violent rebellion against the President's authority. Yeltsin's suppression of the reactionary forces that had taken over the parliament building was excessively harsh, resulting in many deaths and injuries. Nor were his actions after the uprising comforting: the Constitutional Court was suspended, leaving only executive power in place in Russia until the elections on December 12. Yeltsin issued decrees banning some newspapers and television programs as well as a number of political parties. The Moscow police behaved with excessive brutality, and the local government, with Yeltsin's tacit approval, sent thousands of people who did not have residency permits out of Moscow, focusing almost exclusively on people from the Caucasus and Central Asia, most of whom had nothing to do with the insurrection at the parliament building and many of whom were refugees from violence elsewhere in the former Soviet Union.

In two of the former Soviet republics-Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan-former communist leaders maintained control in a fashion not dissimilar to that of the past. Both governments maintained complete censorship of the media, prohibited free expression and association and kept dissenters under control either by arresting and trying them or by holding them under constant surveillance and de facto house arrest. The presidents of both of these Central Asian states maintained a cult of personality which was used to bolster their centralized control.

The wave of xenophobia and violence against foreigners that swept over most parts of Western and Central Europe resulted in many disturbing incidents in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. Skinheads and other neo-Nazi groups especially targeted Romas, often the first scapegoats of fascism and neo-nationalism. Romas were beaten in the streets and discriminated against without legal recourse; in Romania their homes were burned and they were imprisoned in connection with riots, while their attackers were not investigated or prosecuted. Other minorities were also targeted, either by violent means or more subtle forms of discrimination: Turks in Germany; Hungarians in Romania and Slovakia; Vietnamese in the Czech Republic; Turks and Macedonians in Greece; Macedonians in Bulgaria; Greeks in Albania; Serbs and Muslims in Croatia; Muslims, Albanians, Croats, Slovaks and Hungarians in Yugoslavia; and Kurds and Greeks in Turkey.

The state of the press and media in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Turkey and other countries was also very worrisome. The state employed a variety of tactics to keep the media under control, often very subtle ones: purging editors and radio and television directors who disagreed with the authorities, ostensibly for reasons unrelated to their politics; denying applications for joint ventures on various pretexts; blocking access to radio and television frequencies due to an array of technicalities; limiting access to newsprint and other facilities to squeeze independent journalists out of the market.

Many countries in the region passed, or maintain, laws that prohibit insulting the President or the state. In Poland and Kazakhstan, these laws were used to stifle dissent.

The granting of citizenship in some of the new states was also a problem with human rights dimensions. Particularly in Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Yugoslavia and the Czech Republic new legislation limited the citizen body and created non-citizen minorities.

Elsewhere in the region, human rights abuses remained unchanged, despite widespread international protests. In Turkey, a long-time violator of basic human rights protections, the situation, if anything, worsened: in addition to the continuing practice of torture in police detention, the escalating war against the rebel Workers' Party of Kurdistan (PKK) forces in eastern Turkey resulted in violence and abuse by both sides. Hundreds of civilians suspected of sympathy for the PKK either assassinated, death-squad style, or "disappeared," including a large number of journalists. Deadly force was used against demonstrators and suspected "terrorists," and free expression was sharply limited. In Northern Ireland violations of due process, the use of lethal force and abuses in detention continued. Serious curbs on free expression continued in the United Kingdom and Greece.

The Right to Monitor

Opportunities to monitor human rights in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union were considerably greater in 1993 than they were under the communists, when people who attempted to monitor their governments were arrested and imprisoned and people abroad who were known to be human rights activists were denied permission to enter most Warsaw Pact countries. Nevertheless, Helsinki Watch recorded a number of violations of the right to monitor in the regions that we cover. In armed conflict areas, such as Bosnia, Tajikistan, and, to a lesser extent, Croatia, internal monitors and outside observers were impeded by the armed forces and by the government and were prevented from conducting investigatory missions. In Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, local monitors were persecuted, and outside observers were prevented from conducting fact-finding missions. In Azerbaijan and Turkey, local monitors were harassed and, in Turkey they were also murdered, but outside observers were allowed to conduct fact-finding missions with relative freedom. In Greece, local monitors were harassed, but outside monitors were allowed to conduct fact-finding missions. In Serbia, local monitors were given a certain amount of freedom, but people from abroad who were known to be human rights observers were frequently prevented from entering or are forced out of the country.

President Milosevic of Yugoslavia and President Karimov of Uzbekistan flatly refused to meet with Helsinki Watch representatives in 1993. The Uzbek government also refused to issue visas to Helsinki Watch representatives, becoming the first country to employ this tactic toward Helsinki Watch in the post-communist era.

U.S. Policy

The Clinton administration's policy toward the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and the post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe was focused, during 1993, on bringing about a speedy transition to a market economy. This focus was based on two assumptions: that free enterprise and democracy go hand-in-hand and that democracy guarantees respect for human rights. Neither assumption is necessarily true. It was especially worrisome that these assumptions, on many occasions, served as the justification for a lack of forthright criticism of countries that were violating the human rights of their citizens. The administration not only failed to articulate basic human rights principles as part of its foreign policy, but also in effect, failed to establish any guiding principles with which to deal with other countries. The result was a weak, inconsistent and often contradictory set of actions and leaders who appear to be repeatedly buffeted by competing forces.

The Clinton administration cited Russia as one of its major foreign policy successes, but its response to the October events in Moscow would indicate that Washington had scant interest in the human rights ramifications of all that happened there. The Clinton administration appeared to be following the Reagan and Bush administrations by adopting a policy designed to support one man, in this case President Yeltsin. In doing so, it was implicitly condoning the very real human rights abuses that had taken place under the Yeltsin government since October. Yeltsin was not the only President in the former Soviet Union to rule without constitutional legality: Shevardnadze in Georgia, Rakhmonov in Tajikistan, and Aliev in Azerbaijan were each in power as the result of violence or a violent overthrow of a former regime. Yeltsin's apparent impunity in taking power to himself might send a sign to other leaders who had done the same, or who might take the same route in the future-that power is there to be taken by those who have the forces to do so.

With regard to other parts of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. administration's policy was inconsistent and reactive, rather than principled and forward-looking. Old ties from the past played a role, which may explain, for example, Secretary Christopher's praise on October 21 of Georgian President Shevardnadze "for his commitment to democratic values," despite the fact that Shevardnadze's beleaguered government in Georgia had taken no steps to improve therough justice meted out by police and paramilitary groups as well as in its prisons, and other human rights abuses that were within its power to correct. The administration appeared to be trying to please a variety of constituencies in the United States, such as a business community interested in joint ventures with the Newly Independent States. Presumably in response to a well-organized Armenian lobby, the administration did not speak out about Armenia's support of the Karabakh Armenians, even though sanctions were placed on Azerbaijan for its involvement in the Karabakh war.

But the main factor leading to inconsistency derived from the U.S. administration's uncritical commitment to President Yeltsin's Russia, which had a vested interest in sustaining the repressive governments of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, for example, because they were "stable," did not overtly persecute their Russian minorities, and continued to acknowledge Russia's military and economic hegemony. Although U.S. embassies in the region weighed in forcefully on human rights issues, Washington was virtually silent about the campaign of revenge against political opponents that was pursued by the Rakhmonov government in Tajikistan. It weighed in more strongly in the cases of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, especially when U.S. diplomats came face to face with actions by those governments to prevent U.S. officials from meeting with outspoken local critics. But the administration's public statements about the human rights failings of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan lacked force because the government failed to use economic development aid as leverage in a campaign to improve human rights behavior. State Department officials, in meetings with Helsinki Watch, made it explicit that they were disinclined to link the provision of aid to human rights behavior.

The U.S. remained silent about Russia's military involvement in the former republics. Despite evidence available to Helsinki Watch that Russian armed forces were implicated in the conflicts in Tajikistan, Georgia and Moldova, all areas in which the laws of war were being grossly abused, the U.S. remained silent about Russia's role in these conflicts, while Russia sought to portray itself as both protector and peacekeeper in the region. In August, a controversial article in The Washington Post and a subsequent briefing by an administration official indicated that the U.S. not only had no plans to become involved in conflicts in the former Soviet Union, but had "no plans to condition our assistance to Russia on our judgement of Russian policy and behavior towards the other newly independent states. ...We have a dialogue with Russia, a partnership with Russia."

In Bosnia, a disaster that has become a symbol of the failure of the international community, U.S. policy was characterized by astounding inconsistency and indecision. Instead of marshalling U.S. public opinion in response to the unrelenting bloodshed in Bosnia, the Clinton administration claimed to be responding to an electorate that did not want American lives to be lost in a foreign country. At times in 1993 the U.S. tried to assume its traditional role as world leader with regard to Bosnia, only to back off again and again, lacking the will to follow through on its own threats.

The U.S. virtually ignored human rights problems in Eastern and Central Europe and made no public statements of any significance. An exception was Germany where the U.S. ambassador spoke out against racist violence. The U.S. ambassador in Hungary also spoke out against violence toward minorities.

The U.S. government sent mixed signals with regard to human rights abuses in Turkey. In June, Secretary of State Christopher spoke openly in Turkey about widespread human rights abuses. But in October President Clinton hailed Turkey as a "shining example of cultural diversity," ignoring its longstanding repression of the Kurdish minority, a source of many of the human rights problems in Turkey today. In a welcome development, the State Department Bureau of Human Rights developed a written strategy for improving human rights practices in Turkey, concentrating on torture, extrajudicial killings and the stifling of free expression. Unfortunately, the paper itself did not address other forms of human rights abuse that werecommon in Turkey; moreover, there was no indication as of early November that the strategy has been put into action.

The Work of Helsinki Watch

In 1993 Helsinki Watch conducted more than twenty missions, many of them to new states where we had not been before or to places that have been so totally transformed that it was if we had never been there before. In the course of the year, Helsinki Watch published some thirty newsletters and reports, as well as numerous articles, press releases and lengthy letters of protest to the leaders of offending states.

Helsinki Watch also continued its traditional efforts to influence the U.S. government to use its leverage to promote human rights. We urged the U.S. government to end its one-sided approach to the participants in the Nagorno Karabakh struggle and employ sanctions against Armenia as well as Azerbaijan. We were successful in urging the U.S. government to take up the call for a war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and to speak out forcefully against any amnesties for war criminals. We urged the U.S. government to speak out forcefully against human rights abuses in Russia after the October rebellion, rather than blindly supporting President Yeltsin in whatever he might do. We urged the U.S. government to use aid as a form of leverage in a number of the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

New problems in the region required new and diverse strategies on the part of Helsinki Watch. Throughout the year we defined new approaches and tailored them to meet the needs of particular situations and particular problems.

Because U.S. aid to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union was relatively insignificant and in many cases primarily of a humanitarian nature, we urged that the U.S. government utilize the leverage of OPIC, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. OPIC is a U.S.-government-funded corporation which provides risk insurance for American investments in the developing world. It is one of the most important sources of long-term risk insurance for overseas investment. If a decision is made to deny OPIC coverage to American companies, it can be an extremely important form of leverage. OPIC incorporates section 116 of the Foreign Assistance Act, which provides that no assistance should be given to countries engaged in a consistent pattern of gross human rights abuses.

Helsinki Watch also began a campaign aimed at foreign businessmen involved in private ventures in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which are both rich in natural resources. We brought human rights violations to the attention of such companies and urged them to raise human rights issues in their dealings with repressive governments. It is our belief that "stability" based on repression is as bad for business as it is for human rights.

Helsinki Watch continued to engage foreign government leaders in a dialogue about human rights abuses in their countries. In 1993 we met with top officials in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Russia, and kept up contact with many others, some of whom we had met with in past years when visiting their countries. Although these leaders often took issue with our criticisms, most of them were open to maintaining a dialogue with us, a significant change compared to the atmosphere that existed under the communists.

Another new strategy that Helsinki Watch employed for the first time in 1993 involve monitoring the flow of arms in various armed conflicts. Together with the Human Rights Watch Arms Project, we traveled to both sides in the Georgian conflict and gathered considerable evidence pointing to Russian involvement in arming and aiding the Abkhazians in their separatist struggle. In late 1993 Helsinki Watch sent a letter to President Yeltsin giving details we have assembled about the involvement of Russian armed forces in the armed conflicts in Abkhazia, Moldova and Tajikistan and asking for an explanation and for those responsible to be disciplined.

Helsinki Watch continued to be the primary source of detailed information on human rightsabuses in the former Yugoslavia, scrupulously documenting and publicizing abuses by all sides in the conflict. Throughout 1993 we maintained a staff in the field at all times, documenting cases that might become part of the evidence for a U.N. war crimes tribunal. We made this evidence available to the U.N. Commission of Experts appointed to investigate such abuses. Simultaneously we kept up pressure for the establishment of a war crimes tribunal, calling for faster action by the U.N. when such efforts appeared to be lagging, demanding that amnesties not be granted to accused war criminals, and urging that witnesses and victims be granted adequate protection in line with the rights of the accused. Human Rights Watch and Helsinki Watch met with U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in an effort to speed along the naming of a prosecutor.

In addition to monitoring violations of the laws of war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Helsinki Watch also investigated and reported on violations of civil and political rights in Croatia and in Serbia and Montenegro.

In Eastern and Central Europe, Helsinki Watch took up a few over-arching issues that were problems in most of the region: the persecution of Romas, violence against foreigners, discrimination against minorities, and the restriction of press and media freedom. We accumulated a significant body of documentation on each of these issues, which we brought to the attention of various international bodies. We also criticized citizenship laws in Latvia, Estonia, Croatia and the Czech Republic and raised these issues with the appropriate officials in these countries. We sent trial observers to Kosovo, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and monitored trials in Moldova from afar.

Helsinki Watch continued its program of training human rights monitors, especially in the former Soviet Union. Our Moscow office set up a half-dozen training seminars in 1993, bringing people to them from other states of the former Soviet Union. We also worked with groups in other Western democracies to accomplish our common ends. In 1993 we organized a day of action by international groups focused on Turkey and participated in a number of joint actions with regard to the former Yugoslavia, including the filing of an amicus brief in opposition to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic's motion to dismiss charges of human rights abuses brought against him in a U.S. court. Helsinki Watch continued its association with the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and recently rejoined its executive committee.