[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2390-E2391]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMMEMORATING 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SIGNING OF HELSINKI FINAL ACT
______
HON. FRANK R. WOLF
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Monday, December 18, 1995
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to represent the House as a
commissioner on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
and want to bring to the attention of our colleagues the remarks by the
Honorable Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States, at
Helsinki, Finland, on August 1, 1995, on the occasion of the 20th
anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act of the Conference
on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Thank you for your kind invitation to take part in this
historic event whereby we mark the 20th Anniversary of the
Helsinki Accords.
The title for my remarks today--``Helsinki: The Unfinished
Agenda.''
Before the formal signing of the Helsinki Accord, I warned
the world and the other heads of state gathered here that
``Peace is not a piece of paper . . . peace is a process.''
Twenty years later, the process we began here by signing
that piece of paper has given us a super power peace--the
Cold War is history.
Except for the stubborn ethnic conflict in the Balkans
which was already ancient when I was born, the course of
history has changed because here in Helsinki we recognized
certain basic rights to which all human individuals are
entitled.
In 1975 there was considerable opposition in the United
States to my participation in the Helsinki meeting. For
example, The Wall Street Journal advised in its July 23,
1975, editorial: ``Jerry--Don't Go,'' while other American
newspapers were equally critical. Some skeptics labeled the
Accord--The Betrayal of Eastern Europe. Basket III, which
included fundamental human rights language was either ignored
by most of the media or criticized as long on rhetoric, but
short on substance. Likewise, two of our most influential and
respected Senators, one a Democrat and one a Republican,
condemned Basket III of the Accord.
Furthermore, many ethnic groups in the United States,
especially those of Baltic heritage, were strongly opposed to
portions of the Accord because they believed it legitimized
the borders drawn by the Warsaw Pact. The United States and
the West German government met this criticism by insisting
Basket II language include the following: ``They, (the
signers) consider that their frontiers can be changed, in
accordance with international law, by peaceful means and by
agreement.'' The wholesale political upheaval behind the Iron
Curtain that took place fifteen years later made these
differences in 1975--academic, especially Latvia, Lithuania
and Estonia. The 1975 Helsinki Accord did not freeze the 1945
borders of Europe; it freed them.
The thirty-five leaders of nations on both sides of the
Iron Curtain that signed the Final Act of the Helsinki
Accord, according to one historian, ``Set in motion a chain
of events that helped change history.'' Each of us, including
Mr. Brezhnev, who signed the Final Act agreed to a commitment
of principle to recognize the existence of certain basic
human rights to which all individuals are entitled.
It is ironic that these accords are often described as the
``Final Act'' when, in fact, they were really just the
beginning of an historic process. Today, this process has a
past, as well as a present and a future--an unfinished
agenda.
Twenty years ago when I spoke here, my country was
beginning the bicentennial observance of our Declaration of
Independence. I drew on the inspiration of that great moment
in our history for the remarks I made to the Conference in
this Finnish Capital. I likened the Helsinki Accords to the
Declaration of Independence because I realized that, as with
our revolution, it is sacrifice and the indomitable human
spirit that truly separate ordinary moments in history from
those that are extraordinary. And today, as we reflect on the
past twenty years of achievement, we see that it has been the
sacrifice and the indomitable human spirit of great people
throughout the world that have made the signing of the
Helsinki Accords a truly extraordinary moment in modern
history.
I well remember the impressive ceremony in Finlandia House
where signatures were affixed to a 100 page, 30,000 word
joint declaration. In the limelight, representing the thirty-
five nations, were French President Valerie Giscard
d'Estaing, West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, British
Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Yugoslav President Josip Broz
Tito, Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, Canadian Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau, East Germany's Erich Honechor, our
host, President Kekkonen and others.
On the day we signed the Accords, appropriate speeches were
made by each nation's representative. On behalf of the United
States I chose to emphasize the Final Act's commitment to
human rights.
Let me quote from my speech: ``The documents produced here
affirm the most fundamental human rights--liberty of thought,
conscience, and faith; the exercise of civil and political
right; the rights of minorities.''
``Almost 200 years ago, the United States of America was
born as a free and independent nation. The descendants of
Europeans who proclaimed their independence in America
expressed in that declaration a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind and asserted not only that all men are
created equal, but they are endowed with inalienable rights
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.''
``The founders of my country did not merely say that all
Americans should have these rights, but all men everywhere
should have these rights. And these principles have guided
the United States of America throughout its two centuries
of nationhood. They have given hope to millions in Europe
and on every continent.''
``But it is important that you recognize the deep devotion
of the American people and their Government to human rights
and fundamental freedoms and thus to the pledges that this
conference has made regarding the freer movement of people,
ideas, information.''
I continued in my 1975 speech--``To those nations not
participating and to all the people of the world: The solemn
obligation undertaken in these documents to promote
fundamental rights, economic and social progress, and well-
being applies ultimately to all peoples.''
``And can there be stability and progress in the absence of
justice and fundamental freedoms?''
My final comments were: ``History will judge this
Conference not by what we say here today, but by what we do
tomorrow--not by the promises we make, but by the promises we
keep.''
In retrospect, it is fair to say that Leonid Brezhnev and
other Eastern European leaders did not realize at the time
that in endorsing the human rights basket of the Helsinki
Accord they were planting, on their own soil, the seeds of
freedom and democracy. In agreeing to the human rights
provisions of the Helsinki Accord, the Soviets and the
eastern bloc nations unwittingly dragged a Trojan horse for
liberty behind the Iron Curtain.
Often, current events we believe will be important in
history later become obscure and irrelevant. And sometimes,
events we consider irrelevant in history, become a defining
moment. As former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher noted in
Paris in 1990, ``It was clear that we underestimated the
long-term affects of the Helsinki Agreement.'' This great
British Leader went on to say that the Helsinki Agreements
``were a process which some envisioned as perpetuating the
division of Europe [but which have] actually helped overcome
that division.'' Likewise, scholars point out that at the
time the Magna Carta was adopted in England, its extension of
freedom was quite limited and applied only to a privileged
few; however, today we recognize the Magna Carta as a
dramatic first step on man's march to individual freedom.
Following the meeting in Helsinki, watch groups sprang up
throughout Europe. The Fourth Basket provision for a follow-
up meeting in Belgrade in 1977 and a subsequent meeting in
Madrid in 1980 would give these to those who were aggrieved a
global forum for their determined anti-Marxist and pro-human
rights views. To those suffering behind the Iron Curtain, the
Helsinki Accords was a powerful proclamation that contained
seminal ideas it was issued at a most opportune time.
I applaud President Carter's dedicated and effective
support of Arthur Goldberg in Belgrade in 1977 and Max
Kampelman in Madrid in 1980; however, it would be obviously
unfair to attribute all of the cataclysmic events of 1989 and
1990 to the Final Act, in as much as long suppressed
nationalist sentiments, economic hardship, and suppressed
religious conditions played equally crucial roles.
Today, as we face the harsh realities of August 1995, I am
reminded of the words of President Lincoln as he confronted
the awesome challenges of the American Civil War. With the
Republic hanging in the balance, he observed that ``the
occasion is piled high with difficulties and we must rise
with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew
and act anew.''
Yet, even as today's violence and suffering enrage and pull
at the heartstrings of all people--and the former Yugoslavia
is just one example--I know the central issue in the world
remains the preservation of liberty and human rights. When
the Berlin Wall fell, those who were protesting repression
were reading from documents like the American Declaration of
Independence. Today, they are reading to us the words of the
Helsinki
[[Page E2391]]
Accords. These are the great ideas of freedom--the constant drumbeat of
ideas that have been repeated time and time again in the
Helsinki process.
The harsh realities of the present are challenges which
signatories of the Helsinki Accords must address. Its member
states must wrestle with these challenges and continue to
achieve in the future the aims and goals of what was begun
here 20 years ago. To realize these hopes and dreams requires
planning, commitment, perseverance and hard work. The
Helsinki process provides a vision for a future based on
liberty and on the freedom to pursue a better life. As the
Bible admonishes, where there is no vision, the people
perish.
So, I compliment all the signers and I'm very proud to have
been one of the thirty-five. In August 1975 we made serious
promises to our countrymen and to people worldwide. Where
human rights did not exist in the thirty-five nations twenty
years ago, there is now significant progress and hope for
even better times. I congratulate the people in each nation
who used the tools of the Final Act to achieve the blessings
of human rights.
I am confident that if we continue to be vigilant, what we
began here two decades ago shall be viewed by future
historians as a watershed in the cause of individual freedom
and human rights. Twenty years from today, history will again
judge whether or not the world is a better place to live
because of what we promised here two decades ago, and because
of what we promise here today and the promises we keep in the
future.
The Helsinki Accords are not, then, a Final Act--rather
they are an unfinished agenda for the continued growth of
human freedom. On this anniversary date, let us resolve to
continue anew the work of that agenda.
____________________