Clinton Meets With Human Rights Activists : Causes: White House seeks to demonstrate support but avoids specific commitments.

Leaders of human rights groups, including a Rwandan woman who has been beaten and reportedly threatened with death by officials in her own country, met with President Clinton and top aides Friday to observe Human Rights Day--their highest-level White House meeting to date.

But the groups failed to win commitments that the Administration will fight such abuses more aggressively in Haiti, Somalia and elsewhere.

Clinton, who has won mixed grades from human rights organizations, sought to demonstrate his support for their cause in a breakfast meeting that included Rwanda human rights leader Monique Mujawariya, who has been attacked three times and has reportedly been warned that she will be killed if she continues her activities.

By spotlighting the U.S. government’s sympathy for her efforts, the meeting with Clinton may give her a measure of protection in Rwanda, supporters hope.

At the meeting with Clinton and Mujawariya were leaders of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House and the Rwandan Assn. for Defense of Human Rights and Public Liberties.

But in a subsequent meeting between 20 rights groups and Anthony Lake, the national security adviser, Samuel Berger, his deputy, and John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state, the advocates won no commitments that the Administration will accept their goals in holding human rights violators accountable.

Lake’s response “was disappointing,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Specifically, some of the advocates urged the Administration to state publicly that Haitian military leaders could not expect amnesty for human rights abuses as part of a settlement of the current standoff over exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s attempt to return to power. Such a statement is needed to prevent further abuses, they argued.

Lake told the group that Haiti presents a difficult issue, but he asserted that the question of punishment for the army must be decided by Haitians, Roth said.

The advocates also condemned the U.S. policy of forcibly returning Haitians who flee their homeland by boat; they said that treatment was especially unfair when contrasted with the longstanding U.S. policy of accepting all Cuban emigrants.

Lake did agree to hold more frequent meetings with the group.

In an annual report issued this week, Human Rights Watch said Clinton has placed more emphasis on human rights than did former Presidents George Bush or Ronald Reagan. But it maintained that the Administration has “only cautiously embraced the cause, jettisoning human rights when the going gets rough.”

The group has criticized the Administration for its actions in Somalia, where it says U.S. officials should have held all factional warlords accountable for abuses.

Shattuck, who is assistant secretary for human rights, defended the Administration later Friday in a State Department briefing for reporters.

He said the Administration had exercised world leadership in several areas and was pushing the United Nations to name a high commissioner on human rights.