[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 27, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1229-E1231]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE HELSINKI COMMISSION

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, June 27, 2001

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, twenty-five years ago this month, on June 3, 
1976, a law was enacted creating the Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe. We know it as ``the Helsinki Commission.'' One 
of the smallest and most unique bodies in the U.S. Government, it 
perhaps ranks among the most effective for its size. I have been proud 
to be a member of the Commission for the past 16 years.
  When President Gerald Ford signed, in Helsinki in 1975, the Final Act 
of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, he said that 
``history will judge this Conference not by what we say here today, but 
by what we do tomorrow--not only by the promises we make, but by the 
promises we keep.'' That

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piece of rhetoric has not only been repeated in various forms by every 
United States President since; it has continually served as a basis for 
U.S. policy toward Europe.
  Credit for this fact, and for the Commission's establishment, first 
goes to our late colleague here in the House, Millicent Fenwick, and 
the late-Senator Clifford Case, both of New Jersey. Observing the 
foundation of human rights groups in the Soviet Union and Eastern 
Europe to monitor and, it was hoped, to encourage their governments to 
keep the promises made in Helsinki, she and other Members of Congress 
felt it would be good to give them some signs of support. Keep in mind, 
Mr. Speaker, that this was in the midst of detente with Moscow, a 
polite dance of otherwise antagonistic great powers. It was a time when 
the nuclear warhead was thought to be more powerful than the human 
spirit, and the pursuit of human rights in the communist world was not 
considered sufficiently realistic, except perhaps as a propaganda tool 
with which to woo a divided European continent and polarized world.
  The philosophy of the Commission was otherwise. Respect for human 
rights and fundamental freedoms is, as the Helsinki Final Act 
indicates, a prerequisite for true peace and true security. As such, it 
is also a principle guiding relations between states, a legitimate 
matter for discussion among them. This philosophy, broadened today to 
include democratic norms such as free and fair elections and respect 
for the rule of law, remains the basis for the Commission's work.
  Of course, the Commission was not meant to be a place for mere debate 
on approaches to foreign policy; it had actually to insert itself into 
the policy-making process. The Commission Chairman for the first 
decade, the late Dante Fascell of Florida, fought hard to do just that. 
It was, I would say, a bipartisan fight, with several different 
Congresses taking on several different Administrations. Moreover, it 
was not just a fight for influence in policy-making; it was a much 
tougher fight for better policies. The Commission staff, led during 
those early years by R. Spencer Oliver, was superb in this respect. It 
knew the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It worked with non-
governmental organizations to increase public diplomacy and, 
subsequently, public support for
  In 15 years at the East-West divide, the Commission also championed 
policies, like the Jackson-Vanik amendment, linking human rights to 
trade and other aspects of U.S. bilateral relationships. The concept of 
linkage has often been chastised by the foreign policy establishment, 
but it comes from the passion of our own country's democratic heritage 
and nature. With persistence and care, it ultimately proved successful 
for the United States and the countries concerned.
  The Helsinki Commission also became the champion of engagement. 
Commission members did not simply speak out on human rights abuses; 
they also traveled to the Soviet Union and the communist countries of 
East-Central Europe, meeting dissidents and ``refuseniks'' and seeking 
to gain access to those in the prisons and prison camps. At first, the 
Commission was viewed as such a threat to the communist system that its 
existence would not be officially acknowledged, but Commissioners went 
anyway, in other congressional capacities until such time that barriers 
to the Commission were broken down. The Commission focus was on helping 
those who had first inspired the Commission's creation, namely the 
Helsinki and human rights monitors, who had soon been severely 
persecuted for assuming in the mid-1970s that they could act upon their 
rights. Ethnic rights, religious rights, movement, association and 
expression rights, all were under attack, and the Commission refused to 
give up its dedication to their defense.
  Eventually, the hard work paid off, and the beginning of my tenure 
with the Commission coincided with the first signs under Gorbachev that 
East-West divisions were finally coming to an end. Sharing the 
chairmanship with my Senate counterparts--first Alfonse D'Amato of New 
York and then Dennis DeConcini of Arizona--the Commission argued 
against easing the pressure at the time it was beginning to produce 
results. We argued for the human rights counterpart of President 
Reagan's ``zero option'' for arms control, in which not only the 
thousands of dissenters and prospective emigrants saw benefits. They 
were joined by millions of everyday people--workers, farmers, 
students--suddenly feeling more openness, real freedom, and an 
opportunity with democracy. Dissidents on whose behalf the Commission 
fought--while so many others were labeling them insignificant fringe 
elements in society--were now being released and becoming government 
leaders, people like Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek and 
Czech President Vaclav Havel. The independence of the Baltic States, 
whose forced incorporation into the USSR was never officially 
recognized by the United States, was actually reestablished, followed 
by others wishing to act upon the Helsinki right to self-determination. 
The Commission was among the first
  Of course, Mr. Speaker, those of us on the Commission knew that the 
fall of communism would give rise to new problems, namely the extreme 
nationalism which communism swept under the rug of repression rather 
than neutralized with democratic antiseptic. Still, none of us fully 
anticipated what was to come in the 1990s. It was a decade of 
democratic achievement, but it nevertheless witnessed the worst 
violations of Helsinki principles and provisions, including genocide in 
Bosnia-Herzegovina and brutal conflicts elsewhere in the Balkans as 
well as in Chechnya, the Caucuses and Central Asia, with hundreds of 
thousands innocent civilians killed and millions displaced. Again, it 
was the Commission which helped keep these tragedies on the U.S. 
foreign policy agenda, holding hearings, visiting war zones and 
advocating an appropriately active and decisive U.S. response. In the 
face of such serious matters, too many sought to blame history and even 
democracy, equated victim with aggressor and fecklessly abandoned the 
principles upon which Helsinki was based. Again the Commission, on a 
bipartisan basis in dialogue with different Administrations, took 
strong issue with such an approach. Moreover, with our distinguished 
colleague, Christopher Smith of New Jersey, taking his turn as Chairman 
during these tragic times, the Commission took on a new emphasis in 
seeking justice for victims, providing much needed humanitarian relief 
and supporting democratic movements in places like Serbia for the sake 
of long-term stability and the future of the people living there.
  In this new decade, Mr. Speaker, the Commission has remained actively 
engaged on the issues of the time. Corruption and organized crime, 
trafficking of women and children into sexual slavery, new attacks on 
religious liberty and discrimination in society, particularly against 
Romani populations in Europe, present new challenges. Senator Ben 
Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, the latest Commission Chairman, has 
kept the Commission current and relevant. In addition, there continue 
to be serious problem areas or widespread or systemic violations of 
OSCE standards in countries of the Balkans, Central Asia and the 
Caucuses, or reversals of the democratization process as in Belarus. 
The Commission was born in the Cold War, but its true mission--the 
struggle for human rights, democratic government and the rule of law--
remains as important now as it was then. It remains an essential 
element for true security and stability in the world, as well as, to 
paraphrase Helsinki, for the free and full development of the 
individual person, from whose inherent dignity human rights ultimately 
derive.
  To conclude, Mr. Speaker, I wish to erase any illusion I have given 
in my praise for the Helsinki Commission on its first quarter of a 
century that it had single-handedly vanquished the Soviet empire or 
stopped the genocidal policies of Slobodan Milosevic. No, this did not 
occur, and our own efforts pale in comparison to the courage and risk-
taking of human rights activists in the countries concerned. But I 
would assert, Mr. Speaker, that the wheels of progress turn through the 
interaction of numerous cogs, and the Commission has been one of those 
cogs, maybe with some extra grease. The Commission certainly was the 
vehicle through which the United States Government was able to bring 
the will of the American people for morality and human rights into 
European diplomacy.
  To those who were in the Soviet gulag, or in Ceausescu's Romania as a 
recent acquaintance there relayed to me with much emotion, the fact 
that some Americans and others were out there, speaking on their 
behalf, gave them the will to survive those dark days, and to continue 
the struggle for freedom. Many of those voices were emanating in the 
non-governmental community, groups like Amnesty International, Freedom 
House and Human Rights Watch. Through the Helsinki Commission, the

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voice of the United States Congress was heard as well, and I know that 
all of my colleagues who have been on the Commission or worked with it 
are enormously proud of that fact.

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