Human Rights: Confrontation in Belgrade

The human rights issue has become the centerpiece of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy. His stand is popular at home; abroad it has won admiration mixed with puzzlement and even indignation. The policy ran into two major tests last week at diplomatic meetings more than 5,000 miles apart. In Grenada, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance found himself defending the Administration's criticism of human rights violations by various Latin American governments against a chorus of officials who argued that terrorism is more of a menace (see following story). In Belgrade, differences between the Kremlin and the White House over human rights abuses in the Communist world--though they might temporarily be papered over at the conference--threatened to become a test of wills and even of East-West relations.

There was one ominous note in Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milos Minic's speech of welcome to the 150 delegates who assembled in Belgrade last week for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Wishing the dignitaries a pleasant stay, Minic warned against "sinister forces" that oppose detente and engage in "propaganda campaigns" and "terrorism."

Delegates who checked the wire-service tickers in the press room of Belgrade's imposing new $30 million conference center could glean what the minister had in mind. On the conference's opening day, prisoners in Soviet camps and jails in Perm, Mordovia and Vladimir, east of Moscow, sought to draw attention to their plight by going on hunger strikes. In various Communist and Western countries, demonstrators organized protests or stood in silent vigil in support of human rights. When 15 women from nine countries appeared in Belgrade to demonstrate on behalf of Soviet Jews, the Yugoslav security police swooped down on them in their hotel and deported them before they could get near the conference hall. In Manhattan, three Croatian terrorists barricaded themselves inside the Yugoslav mission to the U.N. in an attempt to publicize their national aspirations.

None of these incidents, however, ruffled the tranquil spirit of the meeting. Its purpose is to hammer out a technical agreement on the date, duration, agenda and procedures of a larger session in Belgrade next October. There the U.S., the Soviet Union, Canada and 32 European states are to discuss how the signatories have complied with the 1975 CSCE accords proclaimed at the Helsinki summit.

Future Goals. Both the West and East blocs of nations seem determined to avoid an open clash on human rights --at least at the preliminary meeting. Still, even setting up that October meeting has its pitfalls. The Soviet team of negotiators in Belgrade--headed by Yuli Vorontsov, a sophisticated, tough-minded diplomat--wants to keep the October meeting relatively short, with a fixed "termination date" before Christmas. The obvious aim: to limit discussion on violations of the human rights provisions of the Helsinki accords. In addition, the Russians will press for what they vaguely term "positive criticism" that would stress future goals, rather than discussion of past abuses.

By way of background: During the negotiations leading up to the Helsinki agreement, the Western powers induced Moscow to accept the so-called Basket III clauses, pledging a free flow of people and information. In addition, the agreement contained a sweeping declaration to respect human rights. The Soviets complied in exchange for things they wanted: the Basket I and II declarations on military, economic and technological cooperation. The Russians evidently thought no one would hold them to their pledges. In Belgrade, the U.S. delegation, headed by Albert Sherer, a former ambassador to Czechoslovakia, is determined to prevent the Soviets from sliding by an examination of their record on human rights and every other provision of Helsinki. The U.S. joined the British in proposing "a thorough review" and a "thorough exchange of views" on compliance with Helsinki. The proposal stipulated that although the signatory nations would try to finish their discussions in twelve weeks, they would keep on talking until they had fulfilled their mandate.

Moscow was enraged by a White House report earlier this month that took Communist countries to task for a whole series of violations of the Helsinki provisions on human rights. Defending President Carter's active concern with the subject, the report argued that "interest in human rights does not constitute interference in the internal affairs of other states." In retaliation, the Kremlin denounced the new Administration and Carter personally in the strongest terms yet, stepped up a press campaign to expose human rights abuses (some real, some fancied) in the West, and undertook a new crackdown on human rights activists and other dissidents in the Soviet Union.

There has also been much counter-propaganda on human rights, ranging from the legitimate to the preposterous. On the subject of the free flow of ideas, Russian journalists have rightly pointed out that the U.S. has not widely distributed the text of the Helsinki document, as stipulated in the accords. A Warsaw newspaper complained that while Polish TV ran 2.3 hours of American movies every week last year, U.S. viewers were allowed to see only 6.4 hours of Polish films in the entire year.

More seriously, Pravda last week pointed to injustice to blacks and other minorities in the U.S., accusing Carter of "closing his eyes to the suffering of tens of millions of U.S. citizens who are without rights." Earlier, Tass had accused Carter of "using the most absurd and wild concoctions borrowed from the stock in trade of reactionary bourgeois propaganda." At his press conference last week, Carter observed: "I believe that the pressure of world opinion might be making itself felt on them, and perhaps I'm kind of a scapegoat." --

At week's end the Soviets allowed a U.S. newsman to leave after a six-day ordeal that illustrated how seriously the Russians are taking their pledge at Helsinki to "increase the opportunities for journalists to communicate personally with their sources." In an action that was unprecedented since the Stalin era, the KGB forced Los Angeles Times Correspondent Robert Toth to undergo long sessions of hostile and often threatening interrogation in Moscow's dread Lefortovo prison.

Toth had apparently been tricked into a street-corner meeting with a Russian scientist who insisted on handing him an article he claimed was on parapsychology and telepathy. Five KGB officers pounced on Toth and accused him of collecting information of a "political and military nature." Toth, who has made use of dissident sources for articles on Soviet science during his three-year stay in Moscow, was later interrogated about gathering information from Anatoli Shcharansky, an imprisoned Soviet human rights activist who has reportedly been charged with treason. This was clearly a warning to both foreign correspondents and dissidents that communication between them would no longer be tolerated.

Foreign newsmen kept a vigil outside the prison where Toth was held while U.S. embassy officials tried vainly to gain admittance to the interrogations. President Carter pronounced "the strongest objections," warning that

Toth's detention could endanger the Belgrade conference. Thanking the President upon his release, Toth observed that "when you are out there in the woods alone you begin to wonder if anyone is taking an interest." Heading for home, Toth and his family flew to London, where he was telephoned by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. After telling Toth of Carter's relief that the incident was over, Brzezinski said: "We were also concerned because your treatment raises certain fundamental principles--the free flow of information, free access and freedom of the press." Brzezinski was choosing his words carefully to echo the language of the Helsinki Basket III provisions.

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