A Harsh Warning on Human Rights

When Chile's military government asked to play host to last week's annual meeting in Santiago of the Organization of American States, the junta hoped the occasion might be a good chance to change its widespread image as the most repressive regime on the continent. No such luck.

At the opening session of the 23-nation conference,* Secretary of State Henry Kissinger walked to the podium in the steel-and-glass Diego Portales building and warned the junta that "the condition of human rights has impaired our relationship with Chile and will continue to do so. Human rights are the very essence of a meaningful life, and human dignity is the ultimate purpose of government. A government that tramples on the rights of its citizens denies the purpose of its existence." It was by far the strongest statement on the subject that he had ever made anywhere, and it was greeted by stony silence. One delegate explained that the lack of applause applied to all speeches and was "traditional," but the speech was anything but traditional for Kissinger.

Prison Network. The Secretary's statement was his carefully calculated response to the main topic of the meeting, a report on the hemisphere by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission detailing allegations of violations by 16 nations. The commission also filed a 191-page separate report on Chile and an 85-page brief against Cuba (which was finished too late to be included on the agenda). The OAS charge against Chile cited numerous examples of people murdered, tortured and unlawfully arrested by the regime of Chilean President Augusto Pinochet.

If anything, the report on Cuba was even tougher; it claimed that the Castro regime had set up a network of prison camps similar to Stalin's infamous Gulag Archipelago. Kissinger in his speech observed that the report "confirmed our worst fears of Cuban behavior."

Even discussing the human rights issue (especially in Santiago) was something of an innovation for the OAS--and for Kissinger. As one member of the American delegation put it, "Henry has come a hell of a long way on human rights in the last 18 months." The Secretary's awakened concern about civic morality in Chile has coincided with strong signals from Congress that as far as the Pinochet regime is concerned, national security, economics and human rights are closely interrelated. Rejecting Administration requests, Congress has not only banned new military sales to Chile but has also cut aid from $70 million to about $30 million. Last week the Senate was prepared to vote down military assistance already in the pipeline--an act, the Secretary's aides conceded, that would have made his visit to Santiago "extremely difficult."

As it happened, the Chileans accepted Kissinger's statement on human rights somewhat better than expected. The Secretary briefed Pinochet on the substance of his speech before it was delivered; the Chilean strongman was apparently relieved that the text was not stronger.

Other delegates to the OAS meeting felt that Kissinger had not gone far enough. Among the critics was outspoken Foreign Minister Dudley Thompson of Jamaica, an island nation where there are widespread fears that recent outbreaks of violence involve U.S. efforts to "destabilize" the moderately leftist government. "He didn't go far enough," said Thompson. "Those kind of comments run off Chile's back like water off a duck." More sharply, Thompson wondered how a German-born Jew like Kissinger could not be more sensitive to the brutalities of Pinochet's regime. "That's how it started in Nazi Germany --government by fear," said Thompson. "No one took a stand."

Kissinger could not have been much tougher without totally alienating the Santiago regime and other Latin American countries where a right-wing military trend is currently running strong. The meeting and speech nonetheless did have their impact in Chile. In a startling move, the conservative daily El Mercurio even printed the entire text of the OAS report on Chile. The issue containing it sold, as one American journalist put it, "like the Watergate transcript."

In a second address, dealing with cooperation on economic development for the hemisphere, Kissinger proposed setting up a regional consultative mechanism on commodity prices. He also declared that a new treaty being negotiated on the Canal Zone would give "full regard to the aspirations of the Panamanian people."

Magical Tourist. The Secretary's eight-day trip to Latin America was his second in four months. It included stops in Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, where the Secretary tried to resolve the nagging problem of Americans serving prison terms for drug offenses. The voyage proved that in certain parts of the continent Kissinger is still a diplomatic superstar, the ultimate magical mystery tourist. In Santiago, more than 3,000 cheering Chileans gathered outside the Hotel Carrera simply to catch a glimpse of the Secretary before he emerged to drive off to the OAS meeting. In Santa Cruz, a huge crowd mobbed his car when he drove to place a floral wreath at the monument of Bolivia's national hero, Ignacio Warnes. Bolivian President Hugo Banzer, in fact, paid Kissinger the ultimate tribute: prevented by protocol from greeting the Secretary on his arrival in the country, Banzer nonetheless donned civilian clothes, drove to the airport, and watched incognito as his famous visitor passed by in a motorcade to town.

* Two OAS member states refused to attend. Cuba has boycotted OAS meetings since the early 1960s, and Mexico objected because Chile was the host.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.