With Sophisticated Electronics, They Can Mobilize U.S. Protests Against Violators Around World : 2 Peace Activists in Colorado Are Key Link in Human Rights Network

In a three-story cedar house built among the pines in this tiny mountain community, two peace activists use high-tech tools to wage war on the torture of prisoners and other human rights abuses around the world.

Scott Harrison, 39, and his wife, Ellen Moore, 45, have worked for Amnesty International for more than a decade, first as volunteers and now as paid staff members. They operate the organization’s U.S. urgent action headquarters from their home 40 miles northwest of Denver.

Their mission is to mobilize Americans to help stop executions, murder, kidnaping, torture and other ill treatment of prisoners anywhere in the world. About 50 similar offices are situated around the globe, but this is the only one in the United States.

Opposes Death Penalty

London-based Amnesty International, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, works on behalf of prisoners of conscience and tries to stop human rights violations. It unconditionally opposes the death penalty.

It acts independently of any government, ideology, religion or economic interest and counts 600,000 supporters in more than 150 countries. Of those, 230,000 are Americans.

In Nederland, microcomputers and instantaneous communications equipment are on-line 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in a corner of the couple’s sunshine-filled house.

Floppy disks store addresses of more than 12,000 American contacts, many of them church, academic and political groups numbering hundreds of names each.

When there is a human rights crisis, Harrison and Moore quickly contact Amnesty International supporters and ask them to immediately send letters or telegrams to protest the abuse.

Abusers Spotlighted

“Torturers like to do their dirty work out of the way, in dark corners,” said John G. Healey, U.S. director of Amnesty International, who is based in New York. “The urgent action network shines a light on those criminals and alerts governments right away that they’re being watched in a very specific case. It puts those governments onto the world stage and in the spotlight.”

In 1986, Harrison and Moore rallied American allies for almost 2,000 people in 73 countries. Although 1987 statistics are not yet available, Harrison says that Amnesty International’s knowledge of human rights violations has been increasing annually.

“In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Amnesty International was in fact 10 English gentlemen sipping tea and writing very polite letters to torturers,” Harrison said.

“Amnesty doesn’t try to change the world all at once,” Moore said. “It tries to help people one at a time. We know that most torture occurs within 48 hours after someone is picked up.”

Not a 9-to-5 Job

“You’re just blowing smoke if you say you’re going to help somebody on a five-day-a-week, eight-hour-a-day schedule,” Harrison said. “Because we use computers, we don’t have to be martyrs to work on weekends and in the middle of the night. It’s very easy to come down in our slippers, send some telegrams to try and get somebody out of jail, then go back upstairs to bed.”

It is impossible to track the effects of the network’s aid, but Healey estimates that it has reduced torture in 50% of the cases.

“Even if the food just improves or charges are brought quickly or observers are allowed into a trial, that is a small victory,” Moore said.

Harrison and Moore met at the San Francisco office of Amnesty International in 1975. He was an angry Vietnam veteran searching for meaning in his life. She was a longtime civil rights crusader who dished out food to the homeless and railed against apathy.

They fell in love, were married three years later and committed themselves to Amnesty International. Together, they stretched the organization’s then-meager resources to protest a few cases of torture and imprisonment as they devised strategies to expand the urgent action network.

Harrison and Moore are not bureaucrats, they are innovators, said Healey, which is one reason he allows them to work far from the madding crowds of New York or London, where Amnesty International has major offices.

Pair Called Key Activists

“Scott and Ellen are two of the key human rights activists working in the world today,” Healey said. “They have inspired the human rights movement. They, and a number of people like them, have become the movement.”

Healey said that the couple have his “total, unmitigated trust,” which is why he approved moving them to Colorado three years ago so they could rear their children in a rural, mountain environment.

Besides computers and myriad mass-mailing equipment, the Nederland house contains children’s toys, Harrison’s hand-carved carrousel animals and Moore’s profusion of plants.

Fresh white walls display kids’ crayon masterpieces next to a compelling poster-size photo of beautiful Brazilian teacher Ana Rosa Kucinski Silva, who was arrested and disappeared in 1974 and has become a symbol to Harrison and Moore of why they work so hard.

A Christmas card from Korean presidential candidate Kim Dae Jung hangs next to a mobile made by George, a prisoner at Soledad in California who corresponds with the couple’s 9-year-old daughter.

Harrison and Moore dress in the Rocky Mountain winter uniform of blue jeans, sweaters and flannel shirts as they take on Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile, President Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay and even General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union.

Village of Aging Hippies

Because of their activism, they have become something of local celebrities in this hamlet of 1,500 which has attracted scores of politically liberal aging hippies because of its easygoing life style and alpine beauty.

A fluctuating pool of volunteers helps Moore and Harrison run the office.

On a recent day, which the couple said was typical, London researchers sent to Nederland, by Telex, five requests for urgent action by American supporters.