German View on Human Rights

I would like to compliment you on the many European authors appearing recently in your Editorial Pages. It is good for a European observer to have an international-minded paper at breakfast. If Dominque Moisi (Editorial Pages, Nov. 19) predicts, though, that “human rights will be real losers in Geneva,” this observer would like to offer some comments.

There is, and has always been, a common Western policy on West-East relations. I consider myself privileged to have spent most of my career--since 1969--in helping to elaborate it. It was, at times, difficult to reach common positions. But there is a never-ending process of consultations on all levels and in various forums--NATO, European political cooperation, bilateral meetings of the Western alliance--by which the Western allies constantly solidify and develop their common strategy. In this process, obviously each partner is guided by its interests and experiences. This distinguishes us from the Warsaw Pact.

I, therefore, take exception to Moisi’s statement that my government’s human rights policy “centered on the fate of the East Germans to the detriment of other candidates.”

If this sentence has any substance, it seems to refer to our stand on the Western reaction over martial law in Poland. But the issue for us was not a preference for Germans, but how to express the Western position best, and how to influence the situation in Poland most effectively. It was my foreign minister who first proposed and energetically pursued a meeting in Madrid at the level of foreign ministers for a political discussion of the Polish situation. Meanwhile, the West German population spontaneously began an enormous food aid campaign for the Poles unmatched by any other Western European country in absolute or relative size.

Policy declarations and pragmatic steps form a whole. We have acted accordingly. Every German chancellor or the foreign minister have made a strong plea for human rights in their discussions with Eastern leaders, more than once at public ceremonies in the Kremlin itself. But we need a right policy mix. Your paper stated in an editorial in the same edition that the Geneva summit has brought some concrete results for human rights before it started. This confirms our experience that it is the political dialogue rather than principled declarations that leads to practical results.

GUNTER JOETZE

Consul General

Federal Republic of Germany

Los Angeles