Ashrawi Rejects Top PLO Post in Washington

Hanan Ashrawi, the literature professor who became the face and voice of the Palestinian people during peace negotiations with Israel, said Friday that she has declined the job of representing the Palestine Liberation Organization in Washington to concentrate on human rights at home.

Ashrawi, who had been offered the high-profile Washington job by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, said she has decided against accepting any official position within the PLO or the Palestine National Authority that will be established soon to administer the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“I am not accepting any official position, not in Washington and not here, because I want to work on the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights,” Ashrawi said, stressing the importance of this activity as Palestinians build their government and lay the foundation for what they hope will become an independent state.

“This is a unique situation,” she said. “We have an emerging authority and a period of transition in which all kinds of mistakes can be made. We have a leadership that has been in exile and a people that have been under occupation. The prospect of merging these two to create a democratic system of government is a source of fear.”

Her decision was quickly interpreted as both a reflection of the concerns here over the observance of human rights during the period of self-government and of the worry about the character of the PLO-led government that will assume power.

When Ashrawi, a 47-year-old professor of English and comparative literature at Birzeit University near here, joined the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace talks in Madrid two years ago and became its eloquent spokeswoman, she awakened many around the world to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.

Although Ashrawi stressed her support for Arafat and the PLO, she had complained bitterly to friends in recent weeks that Arafat was too autocratic a leader, and the PLO too chaotic an organization, for the difficult tasks ahead.

But on Friday she would not be drawn into criticism of the PLO chairman, and she praised him for his declaration calling for the strict observance of human rights during the period of self-government.

Ashrawi had initially accepted the job, but she was clearly reluctant to leave her people at a decisive moment in their history and had hoped for a major post here.

Intended to be a “voice of conscience,” the human rights commission will be staffed by both professionals and political activists.