Mr. Derwinski, the State Department, I think, is to be commended for probing almost every opportunity the question of religious persecution and the question of emigration from the Soviet Union. They constantly throw up in our faces the fact that when you ask them about why they will not let these people emigrate or why they are persecuting Germans or fundamentalists or Catholics, then you hear, well, what about the American Indians, and, you know, it is the same story over and over again and the blacks and the American Indians. This is their retort to us, but in the latest conferences that you might have had, that the State Department has been engaged with, I know even at Geneva, there was discussion about human rights in general, what has been their attitude? Have they refused to discuss it? Have they just basically stonewalled it, as usual? Are they tying it hostage to anything? Mr. DERWINSKI. No. Basically Mr. SMITH of Florida. Helsinki? Basket problem, all of that, just the same? Mr. DERWINSKI. Basically, they stonewalled it, but there havethe problem is that sometimes the news creeps out. For example, in Lithuania, the underground church has a Lithuanian Chronicle, which they distribute in the West. There are means of getting news out which then they cannot deny. The point Mr. Solomon raised of the personal reaction of Soviet Islamic soldiers to the situation they find themselves in Afghanistan has been documented enough by enough observers. So, as a result of that, despite their stonewalling, they must acknowledge and they might, in the long run of necessity, adjust to the collective pressures that have built up in their system. Mr. SMITH of Florida. But you do not see that any time in the short run? Mr. DERWINSKI. No; do not see it in the short run, do not see it in the latest change in their government. Mr. SMITH of Florida. So, obviously, they are angling for some thing else which we have not struck a responsive chord with them yet? Mr. DERWINSKI. And, then, of course, they always take time. They are in no great hurry. We tend to be in a hurry. They tend to look at the long Mr. SMITH of Florida. Their clock runs slow. Mr. DERWINSKI. Right. Mr. SMITH of Florida. Thank you very much. Mr. YATRON. Thank you. We have a vote on the Walker Amendment to the Transportation Appropriation bill. I know that Secretary Schifter has to leave for another commitment, so we will have to conclude shortly. I was going to ask Mr. Derwinski a question about Romania, even though this hearing focuses on the Soviet Union. I would like to raise a particular concern of mine involving a Romanian who has been separated from his family for many years. Have you received any information pertaining to the wife and son of Mr. Napoleon Fodor? I know that you have been involved in that matter. Mr. DERWINSKI. That is our No. 1 human rights case with Romania, and I will be glad to give you full information. In fact, I will come by your office and lay out the whole thing for you. Mr. YATRON. Thank you very much. We thank you, gentlemen, for being here. We will recess for 10 minutes, and then we will come back and start with the second panel. Thank you very much. [Recess.] Mr. YATRON. We will resume the hearing. Our next panel of witnesses includes Ms. Catherine Fitzpatrick, representing Helsinki Watch; Mr. Nikita Moravsky, former Deputy Chief of the U.S.S.R. Division of Voice of America, and professor of Russian Culture at George Washington University; Rev. Ernest Gordon, president, Christian Rescue Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents [CREED]; and Ms. Natalia Vins, International Representation for the Council of Evangelical Baptist Churches of the Soviet Union. It would be very much appreciated if the witnesses could limit their oral presentations to around 5 minutes each because the hour is getting late. This way, we will maximize the time that we have for the question and answer period. If you have a written statement, it will be included in the record. Ms. Fitzpatrick, you may begin with your statement. STATEMENT OF CATHERINE FITZPATRICK, REPRESENTING HELSINKI WATCH Ms. FITZPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have been following some of the developments since Gorbachev has come to power in the last year. There has been a lot of speculation about the economic and cultural reforms that may be in the offing, but it has been our feeling that this has not been accompanied by any improvements in the religious sphere, unfortunately, and, in fact, there is evidence that religious persecution has worsened. If we go back in history a little bit and look at Nikita Khrushchev, he was known as someone who brought about a cultural thaw and economic improvements. But, this was not accompanied by any improvements in religion. His repressive policies are still in place today. I think that we can look at Gorbachev in much the same way as we did Khrushchev. I will mention some of the highlights of the repressive campaign that has been going on against religious activists in the last 5 years. The figures show that the number of religious prisoners of conscience has increased fourfold in the last 5 years. Those most highly represented in the prison camps are prisoners of the Christian faiths; we could also note that the Baptists are the largest group among these prisoners. In the last 2 years, Helsinki Watch has sent fact-finding missions to the Soviet Union, where we have met with dozens of activists, young people from all walks of life, middle-aged people, veterans of the civil rights movement, people in the underground religious movement, and the independent peace movement. One of the most striking things for us has been to see what we could really term as a religious revival in the Soviet Union. It has come about for a number of different reasons, some of which are similar to reasons we find in the West, with the break down of the family, with the problems that many people face in modern life, also with the problems in the Soviet Union with the exhaustion of Marxism as an ideology. For some, religion is a spiritual belief. For others, it is more of a cultural phenomenon, but there is no question that it is very widespread. We were surprised to find that some of the cults from the West and the East have taken root in the Soviet Union, namely Hare Krishna, Zen Buddhism, Children of God. Some of these groups that we remember from the 1960s in the United States have now begun to grow in the Soviet Union. And there has been ensuing persecution with the spread of these cults. Today, there are about 20 Hare Krishna leaders in prison. There are a number of Buddhists, Yoga practitioners, and others. This involves many hundreds of young people in the large cities. Also, of course, Muslim activism has been spreading, which is particularly important if you take into account that the Muslim population is growing very rapidly. There are presently 45 million Muslims in the Soviet Union and their population is growing at the rate of forty-five percent, as compared to the Russian population, which is growing at thirteen percent. And we have noted already in the hearing today, the war in Afghanistan and the ramifications that has for Muslim believers in the Soviet Union. The other development that has been mentioned today has been the crackdown on Jewish culture, in the last 2 years, particularly the arrest of Hebrew language teachers. Religious instruction for Jews is now being vigorously opposed by the authorities. One of the most disturbing phenomena over the last 2 years in terms of repression has been the forced public confession. There has been a great increase in the number of people who have been broken after lengthy terms of imprisonment and have been forced to appear on television or to write for the newspaper and to denounce their activities and their friends and so forth. One of the most chilling aspects of these confessions is not that the individuals are forced to recant religious beliefs; rather, they portray their beliefs in a positive way. But, they have obviously been led along the line to see that their human rights activities have purportedly been anti-Christian or against their beliefs. The Soviet authorities have been very persuasive in guiding young people particularly to see that if they want to be true Christians, they must also be good Soviet citizens. This kind of brainwashing is very subtle and very effective, and there has been a number of victims of this campaign. It dovetails with Gorbachev's public relations campaign, where, for example there have been returning defectors, such as Yurchenko, or Oleg Tumanov. Religious believers forced to recant have been put right in the centerpiece of this campaign by appearing on television or in the press. I am submitting an extensive testimony with cases, which only touch the tip of the iceberg. I will not go into those now, but I would like to speak for a moment of where I think the U.S. Congress could play a role here. If you read some of these cases, one of the features that keeps cropping up is that people are charged for listening to foreign radio broadcasts, for reading foreign literature, for meeting with foreigners. Clearly, foreign broadcasting and other efforts to communicate from outrside the U.S.S.R. is effective. People are converted and helped by foreign radio broadcasts and literature. The Soviet authorities are very keen to eradicate them for precisely this reason. That is why it is very important that U.S. radio broadcasting to the Soviet Union identify and adequately serve all the religious populations of the Soviet Union. U.S. broadcasting is providing an alternative and, for some, the only source of their religious information. We will be releasing a report on a study of Radio Liberty and Voice of America Russian-language broadcasts in the next 2 or 3 weeks, which I will sub:nit to you. I want to mention today that one of the problems we have found is that there is a real dirth of broadcasting to the Protestant denominations, which is peculiar given that our country has strong Protestant traditions. In fact, what has been going on at the radio stations is that one of the denominations of the Russian Orthodox Church has obtained what could be called an overprivileged position in its access to broadcasting. It is the only denomination that broadcasts its church services; no other kinds of church services are being broadcast. This should be remedied so that there is a balance among Russian Orthodox-which is, of course, the religion of a very large part of the population in the European part of Russia-and other denominations, the Catholics, the Ukrainian Uniates, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, and so on. Jewish broadcasting is also not really sufficient. Then, there is widespread movement of the Eastern cults, such as Hare Krishna, that also should be served. I also think it is important that Russian language broadcasting have more cross-pollination with the other faiths, and the other languages and nationalities of the Soviet Union, so that Russians have broadcasts in their language about the Muslim religion, about the Lithuanian Catholic situation, etc. That helps to build more cohesion in the Soviet Union. It helps address what will become a very critical issue with the upsurge in the Muslim population. We already see clashes between Russians and the Central Asian nationalities, with fights breaking out periodically among youth, and other disturbances. If we are going to have a positive contribution to this, we have to make up our minds what message we want to say about this problem, ourselves, and then convey it. It is very important that the American public follow what is being broadcast in their name, using their tax dollars, and that the Congress, which funds the radios, monitor broadcasting closely. Thank you. [The prepared statement of Ms. Fitzpatrick follows:] HELSINKI 35 West 44th Street York, NY 10036 1840-9460 Washington Office PREPARED STATEMENT OF CATHY FITZPATRICK 739 Eighth Street S.E. Washington, DC. 2003, (202) 546-9336 My name is Cathy Fitzpatrick. I am Research Director for the U.S. Helsinki Watch Committee, a non-governmental organization that monitors compliance with the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki accords. Helsinki Watch is concerned with human rights compliance in each of the thirtyfive Helisnki signatory countries and has devoted special attention to those Helisnki countries in which severe and systematic violations occur USSR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and Turkey. the Since Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev came to power in March 1985, observers in the West have |