U.S. Puts Onus on Soviets for Major Rights Violations

The State Department, in its annual review of international human rights problems, says Soviet Bloc nations have “the most serious” rights violations, while “real progress” is being made in Latin America and the Caribbean.

And although the report praised the rights records in most democratic countries, the situation in Uganda, one of Africa’s few parliamentary democracies, was described as “grave,” with tens of thousands reported killed as a result of insurgent terrorism and government countermeasures.

Other countries singled out for unusually harsh appraisals were Albania, where conditions were said to be “exceptionally bad,” with “extremely harsh prison conditions,” and North Korea, described as “one of the most highly regimented and controlled” nations in the world.

Among anti-communist countries found to have rights problems, the report said there was a “general deterioration” in Chile following the imposition of a state of siege in November. The measures taken by the government included the internal exiling of 257 people without trial and severe restrictions on political activity. The report also noted, however, that leftist terrorists were responsible for an undisclosed number of murders and hundreds of bombings last year.

Improved Performance

Pro-Western countries where human rights performance was said to have improved last year included the Philippines, South Korea and El Salvador.

The 1,453-page report, which is mandated by Congress and has been issued annually since the late 1970s, covers conditions in 164 countries through the end of 1984 and, in some cases, early 1985.

Asserting that objectivity was an important goal of the department’s annual review, the report said that “while the Soviet Union presents the most serious long-term human rights problem, we cannot let it falsely appear that this is our only human rights concern.”

According to the report, “Soviet performance in the realm of human rights fails to meet accepted international standards. The regime’s common response to efforts to exercise freedom of expression is to incarcerate those concerned in prisons, labor camps or psychiatric hospitals.”

‘Pervasive’ Surveillance

Vietnam a close Soviet ally, maintains “pervasive” surveillance and control over its citizenry, while the pro-Hanoi “puppet government” in neighboring Cambodia is responsible for “executions, forced labor, denial of legal process, forced relocations and arbitrary arrests,” the report said.

The study said that human rights groups have estimated the number of political prisoners in Cuba at between 250 and 1,000 and that many suffer from deficient medical treatment and deplorable living conditions.

The State Department report called democracy “the surest safeguard of human rights” and said it was “encouraging” to see real progress coming about in the strengthening of democratic institutions, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean.