Helsinki Delegates Hammer Away at Soviets on Rights Issue

Foreign ministers of Western, neutral and nonaligned states hammered the Soviet Union on the human rights issue Wednesday at the gathering of 35 states to mark the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki agreements on security and cooperation in Europe.

None went as far as did Secretary of State George P. Shultz the day before--Shultz cited specific cases of human rights violations in the Soviet Union--but the issue figured in every speech with one exception. Alex Sceberras Trigona, the foreign minister of Malta, made no reference to human rights in his remarks.

Leopold Gratz, the foreign minister of neutral Austria, was in effect speaking for the vast majority of the Helsinki agreement’s signers when he told the gathering: “Human rights is an important pillar of the Helsinki process. . . . Respect for human rights is an essential factor for peace, justice and friendly cooperation among states. It is highly regrettable that human rights provisions are not being complied with.”

Joe Clark, the Canadian minister of external affairs, said: “We simply do not believe that any government represented here is so weak or should feel so insecure that it must treat as criminals or traitors those individuals who believe that we all meant what we said in the Final Act (as the accords are known). We take this occasion to affirm that failure to implement provisions dealing with human rights is related directly to progress on other provisions.”

Barred From Emigrating

West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, whose government has a specific problem with the Soviet Union involving ethnic Germans who are prevented from emigrating to Germany, said: “We do not and shall not remain silent when human rights are infringed. We shall not look the other way when people, the nameless as well as the well-known ones, have to suffer persecution and unfair treatment for invoking promises made in the Final Act.

“The flow of goods and services and energy between countries has multiplied. In a few hours one can travel from one end of the Continent to the other. But innumerable people are still unable to meet each other. It is technically possible to telephone all corners of the globe from one’s living room, and to receive television pictures from all continents. But the free flow of information between Europeans in West and East is still not guaranteed. It is a priority task for the participating states to find a remedy.”

Geoffrey Howe, Britain’s foreign secretary, said: “The tragic fact is that in some Eastern states there has effectively been no movement at all on human rights. The Helsinki act established a benchmark by which to judge the way in which governments deal with their own people, the extent to which states respect human rights. The message has got through. Despite all the disappointed hopes, the Helsinki Final Act did light a beacon that continues to shine. We will continue to include human rights and human contacts on the agenda of our future meetings.”

Bland Assertions

East Bloc speakers responded to this barrage by blandly asserting that they are fully abiding by all the provisions of the accords. This attitude was typified at a Soviet press briefing when a British journalist asked why the Soviet Union did not commemorate this 10th anniversary with an amnesty for jailed human rights activists.

“We could also observe it with a moratorium on nuclear testing,” the Soviet spokesman replied.

On Monday, the United States rejected a Soviet proposal for a five-month moratorium on nuclear tests, beginning Aug. 6. A spokesman in Washington dismissed the proposal as propaganda.