Report Details Widespread Rights Abuses

Amnesty International, painting a despairing picture of human rights violations in 143 countries, castigated Yugoslavia, Iraq, Kuwait, China, Peru and Burundi on Thursday as the grossest offenders in a cruel world.

In its annual report, the private organization, widely regarded as the most effective campaigner against these violations, said that “the abuse of power continues unabated.”

Most offenders, according to the report, believe they can abuse their fellow citizens with impunity. “As long as the agents of repression believe they can kidnap, torture and murder without fear of discovery or punishment,” Amnesty International said, “the cycle of violence will never be broken.”

Summing up the widespread abuse in 1991, the London-based human rights organization reported that 294,000 political prisoners were detained in more than 60 countries; 1,270 were seized by security forces in 20 countries and never heard of again in mysterious “disappearances”; more than 500 were tortured to death in 40 countries; scores were legally executed in the United States and 32 other countries, and an untold number were executed by semiofficial death squads in 45 countries for opposing the government or belonging to a hated ethnic group.

In its catalogue of gross offenses, Amnesty International listed:

* Yugoslavia--After the outbreak of fighting in Croatia, the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav national army, the Croatian army, the Serbian paramilitary forces and the Croatian paramilitary forces executed civilians and unarmed soldiers. Several thousand civilians were detained without being charged, and a number reportedly were tortured. More than 20 journalists died covering the fighting.

As an example of the carnage, Amnesty International reported that 13 Yugoslav federal soldiers who had surrendered were shot to death by a special unit of the Croatian police in September, 1991.

* Iraq--A few months after the end of the Persian Gulf War, the military forces of Saddam Hussein crushed rebellions by the Kurds in the north and the Shiite Muslims in the south. An estimated 2 million people fled their homes in Iraq for Iran and Turkey and for Iraqi areas near the frontiers with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Many died at the hands of Hussein’s troops.

* Kuwait--After the Iraqi army was driven out of Kuwait, the Kuwaitis detained hundreds of political prisoners, holding them without charges or trials for several months. Most were Palestinians, Jordanians, Sudanese and Iraqis accused of collaboration. “Torture of political detainees was routine and widespread, and at least 80 Iraqis and Palestinians ‘disappeared’ in custody,” Amnesty International said. Most of those who “disappeared” were presumed dead.

Kuwaiti death squads executed scores of people without trial, and Kuwaiti officials expelled 400 people to Iraq despite fears that they would be harmed there.

* China--The government held thousands of political prisoners. Torture and harsh prison conditions were the norm. Amnesty International recorded 1,050 executions during the year but said it believed that the actual total was higher. Several people were executed a few days after their arrest.

During 1991, 26 pro-democracy militants were sentenced to terms of imprisonment after trials that were not regarded as fair. The defendants could neither call defense witnesses nor cross-examine prosecution witnesses.

* Peru--The government of President Alberto Fujimori, trying to battle the vicious Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrilla movement, engaged in widespread torture and mistreatment, according to the report. More than 300 people “disappeared” last year.

* Burundi--Intercommunal violence between the majority Hutu tribe and the politically dominant Tutsi tribe continued in this tiny African nation, the scene of widespread ethnic murder in the past. After a rebel attack, government soldiers executed about 1,000 people, mostly Hutus, without a trial.