[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 144 (Thursday, October 6, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 6, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL BARRED FROM TURKEY

                                 ______


                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 5, 1994

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, in what is becoming an all too frequent 
occurrence, I again rise to protest actions by the Turkish Government 
which raise serious questions about professed human rights commitments. 
Amnesty International's leading researcher on Turkey, Jonathen Sugden, 
has been declared persona non grata and is now barred from entering 
Turkey to look further into the deteriorating human rights situation of 
Turkey's Kurdish population.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not need to detail for this body the excellent work 
Amnesty International does around the world. As cochairman of the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I know the value of 
Amnesty's human rights research and reporting. Its grassroots 
membership around the world often serve as the eyes, ears, and 
conscience of governmental and nongovernmental efforts to promote human 
rights protections, indeed to save lives.
  Over the years, the Government of Turkey has understandably resented 
Amnesty's attention to widespread torture, political prisoners, and the 
brutality used to suppress Kurds. Yet through Turkey's leadership 
denounced Amnesty's findings as being politically motivated and often 
refused to meet with Amnesty officials, they nevertheless allowed 
Amnesty researchers access to the country. If leaders of Turkey now 
believe that by barring human rights investigators they will escape 
embarrassing scrutiny, they have again seriously miscalculated. Such 
action will only draw increased interest and attention to the very 
practices the Government seeks to keep out of view. This issue will 
surely be raised at the upcoming CSCE Budapest Review Meeting 
Conference and will likely contribute to calls by a number of states to 
invoke the Moscow Human Rights Mechanism to mandate a CSCE monitoring 
mission to Turkey.
  Mr. Speaker, the Turkish Government continues to view its human 
rights problems as a result of terrorism employed by the Kurdish 
Workers Party [PKK]. For years Turkish Governments have vowed to crush 
the PKK militarily. And while this objective is understandable, in the 
process of combating the PKK, the Government has waged war upon its own 
citizens--razing Kurdish villages, destroying livestock and crops, and 
forcing over 1 million Kurds to become refugees in their own country. 
In effect, their actions have generated more recruits for the PKK than 
the PKK could have ever enlisted itself.
  Mr. Speaker, I am coming to believe that despite our mutual strategic 
and economic interests we should express serious reservations about 
continuing to provide the weapons Turkey uses on its own citizens. The 
action taken by this Congress to condition 10 percent of Turkey's 
foreign assistance on human rights performance indicates growing 
concern, yet affects only a small amount of favorable loans. Turkey 
also receives billions of dollars of excess defense equipment and other 
assistance, and perhaps it is time that we consider conditioning this.

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