Soviets Accuse U.S. of Violating American Indians’ Human Rights

In a mid-summit swipe at the United States, the Soviet government sent a message Tuesday charging wholesale violations of the human rights of American Indians.

“The present status of the indigenous population of the United States, American Indians, . . . is intolerable from both the human point of view and from the position of international law,” said the message, which was in the form of a letter to members of Congress from 14 members of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal Soviet parliament.

“How can America call itself a free and democratic nation (and) assert that it is an example for other nations as regards democracy, if the policy of genocide against the American Indians is carried on in the United States? This is what our electors (constituents) say at meetings with us, and we can only support their views,” the letter said.

State Department officials dismissed the letter as “summit posturing.”

“They did a lot of this kind of thing before the summit,” one official said. “They’ve been smarting over the human rights issue ever since (Soviet leader Mikhail S.) Gorbachev went to Paris (last month) and got asked some questions that he didn’t like to hear (during a news conference there). And now they’re getting asked human rights questions in Geneva. It looks like a feeble attempt to get back at us.”

Although the letter was addressed to members of Congress, officials on Capitol Hill said they have not yet received it.

Instead, the Soviet Embassy distributed it to newspapers over a news service used mostly by large corporations for news releases on their business activities. The embassy official who handled the message, Yuri Subbotin, said he did not know whether or how the letter was being sent to Congress.

“We don’t attribute any serious purpose to this,” a State Department official said.

The message specifically protested the case of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist who is serving two life sentences for the shooting deaths of two FBI agents in South Dakota in 1975.

Peltier’s conviction has already been questioned by several congressmen, by U.S. civil liberties groups and by foreign figures such as South African Bishop Desmond Tutu. Last month, a federal appeals court in St. Louis heard arguments over a motion for retrial, but it has not yet handed down a ruling.