[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 75 (Tuesday, May 20, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6699-S6701]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MIKE JENDRZEJCZYK: A LEGEND IN HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, all of us who knew him and admired him
and worked with him were deeply saddened earlier this month by the
sudden and untimely death of Mike Jendrzejczyk, and we extend our
deepest condolences to his wife Janet and their family during this
difficult time. Mike was one of a kind, and his ability and dedication,
his tireless energy, his wonderful personality, and his many
achievements for human rights will always be remenbered.
I met Mike soon after he came to Washington more than a decade ago to
work on human rights issues in Asia for the Washington, D.C. office of
Human Rights Watch. Mike's work benefitted all of us who care about
promoting respect for human rights. We quickly learned that his last
Name was easy to pronounce even if we could never spell it. During the
debates on most-favored nation trade status for China, he was a
constant adviser to Senators and staff alike on the human rights
aspects of the issue. He also helped draft legislation on a code of
conduct for U.S. companies operating in China, and his proposals set
the standard for many human rights codes developed by those firms.
I last saw Mike earlier this year as he escorted Xu Wenli, one of the
many Chinese dissidents he assisted, on a round of visits to meet with
members of Congress. He greeted me with his trademark good welcome and
the unforgettable spirit and drive he brought to all his work. He was
loved by everyone and his death is a great loss for all of us, and for
the cause of human rights he served so brilliantly,
I ask unanimously consent that a series of articles on Mike be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, May 4, 2003]
Michael Jendrzejczyk, 53, Advocate for Asians, Dies
(By Elizabeth Becker)
Michael Jendrzejczyk, a human rights expert whose advocacy
on behalf of victims in Asian nations made him an unlikely
power broker in Washington, died on Thursday. He was 53 and
lived in Tacoma Park, Md.
He died after collapsing during a walk near his office in
Washington, has wife, Janet, said.
During more than a dozen years at the Washington office of
Human Rights Watch, Mr. Jendrzejczyk (pronounced jen-DREE-
zick) established himself as the Capitol's leading expert on
Asian human rights, routinely testifying before Congress,
writing opinion articles for newspapers and promoting his
causes.
He made his name after the 1989 Chinese military action in
Tiananmen Square by encouraging the United States to demand
that the victims be protected or, at least, accounted for.
He later became prominent in Asian human rights issues like
the protection of refugees from North Korea, ending financial
assistance to the military government in Burma, connecting
human rights to free trade and defending the religious
freedom of Tibetans in China and Montagnards in Vietnam.
What set him apart from advocates was his mastery of
details of subject as well as his networks of contacts with
officials, academics and dissidents he helped protect.
The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California,
said it would be ``difficult to count'' the contributions Mr.
Jendrzejczyk made in his promotion of human rights.
``We can point to famous dissidents who have been released
from prison because of Mike, but there are tens of thousands
of ordinary people, whose names we'll never know, whose lives
were improved by his work,'' she said.
Mr. Jendrzejczyk, who was born and reared in New Britain,
Conn., was a graduate of the University of Hartford. He
joined the Army reserve during the Vietnam War but was
discharged as a conscientious objector.
He taught at a preschool while protesting the Vietnam War
and working in the civil rights movement. He became a peace
advocate for the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Nyack, N.Y.,
and for Amnesty International in New York and London.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sister, Lynn
Ashmore of Willimantic, Conn.
He joked about the difficulty of pronouncing his surname,
telling others not to waste their time learning to say it or
spell it, but just to call him Mike J. His easy manner was
partly responsible for his wide reach.
Establishing himself in the relatively new field of human
rights advocacy in Washington, Mr. Jendrzejczyk broke ground
as a lobbyist for a cause without any obvious base of
support. Susan Osnos, former associate director of Human
Rights Watch, said he used information to promote his ideas.
``Over the years he evolved into someone who worked well in
Washington, creating two-way streets that are the bread and
butter of getting things done, especially when you are
advocating things that people aren't naturally interested
in,'' she said.
His constituents were the Asian dissidents who might have
remained faceless without Mr. Jendrzejczyk's interventions.
Tibetans, Burmese, Chinese, Indonesians and other dissidents
came to rely on him as their most reliable voice in
Washington. When the Chinese dissident Liu Qing was released
after 11 years in prison, Mr. Jendrzejczyk took him around
Washington to explain to policy makers the human consequences
of their votes. Today Mr. Liu works for the New York-based
Human Rights in China.
During the final years of the Clinton administration, Mr.
Jendrzejczyk took many dissidents to meet Harold Hongju Koh,
a Yale law professor who was then an assistant secretary of
state for human rights. Mr. Koh said while Mr. Jendrzejczyk
pressed for countless changes in foreign policy to reflect
human rights concerns he was never irritated by his demands.
``You start out in a professional relationship with him and
end up considering him a dear friend,'' Mr. Koh said. ``He
was one of those happy warriors who never let you forget that
you are holding a job not for personal gain but for the
betterment of American policy.''
____
[From the Washington Post, May 4, 2003]
A Quiet Champion
In the culture of federal Washington, no doubt as in all
cultures, there is a class of people who accomplish much by
seeking little credit. These people bring information to
reporters, suggest legislative language to Senate staffers,
introduce experts from different fields to promote
collaborations. Some do this work for profit, others for
principle. One of the latter was Mike Jendrzejczyk, who died
unexpectedly Thursday at age 53. He was far more influential
than famous, and his death is a setback to the cause of
freedom in Asia.
For Mr. Jendrzejczyk was in that subset of Washington
achievers known as human rights advocates: Specifically, he
was the Washington director of the Asia division of the
nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch. He was not the
sort of human rights champion who sneaks into totalitarian
countries and emerges with damning videotape, nor did he
devote much time to rhetoric or arcane points of
international law and doctrine. Mr. Jendrzejczyk believed in
getting things done. His ambitions were lofty, but they never
stood in the way of accomplishment. He would rather see two
dissidents freed from Chinese prisons than one, but he would
take one over zero--and over the years, the number of
political prisoners who owed their liberty in large part to
his persistence grew to a formidable total. He would have
liked to have seen democracy in China and Burma and Vietnam
yesterday if not sooner, but he worked hard for intermediate
steps: a loosening of political control, an improvement of
conditions for workers, a visit by a United Nations human
rights commissioner.
Those who knew Mike were always amazed at his perpetual
cheerfulness even as he sought to bring attention to the
worst horrors of human cruelty, to the sufferings of North
Korean refugees and Burmese child laborers. He understood
that human rights would always compete with commerce and
security and other national interests in the formulation of
foreign policy; he just wanted the voices of the oppressed
not to be drowned out altogether. He was influential in part
because his passion never diminished his honesty; if you
asked for the best argument on the other side, he would
deliver it, probably more eloquently than its true champions
could. He influenced us, and will continue to do so.
____
Human Rights Watch Mourns Death of Asia Advocate Mike Jendrzejczyk
New York, May 2, 2003.--Human Rights Watch is deeply
saddened to announce the
[[Page S6700]]
death of our beloved colleague Mike Jendrzejczyk. Mike was
the Washington Director for the Asia division. He died of
natural causes in Washington, D.C. on May 1. He was 53.
Mike has left a void that simply cannot be filled--not only
as a powerful advocate for human rights, but also as a
colleague and friend whose infectious energy, and passion for
social justice inspired us all.
In his 13 years with Human Rights Watch, Mike was the
leading advocate in the United States on human rights in
Asia. His depth and breadth of knowledge was astounding. He
was widely respected for his expertise on China, Japan's
emerging global role, the World Bank and human rights, trade
policy and worker rights, and US foreign policy in Asia. He
was particularly engaged in seeking accountability for the
1989 Chinese military crackdown in Tiananmen Square, getting
assistance to North Korean refugees, denying funding to
abusive security forces across Asia, including Burma and
Indonesia, and in defending religious freedom for minorities
from Tibetans in China to Montagnards in Vietnam. In the past
several years, Mike was also increasingly engaged in South
Asian affairs, from the humanitarian consequences of the war
in Afghanistan, to the human rights consequences of the
military coup in Pakistan and the rise of religious
intolerance in India.
Mike, who grew up in Connecticut, was the grandson of
Polish immigrants, and an avid Bruce Springsteen fan. With
his white short sleeve dress shirts, yellow ties, and
contagious laugh, he used far more than his fair share of
exclamation points!! Colleagues joked that if you could
harness Mike's energy, it would power a small city. There's
no one in D.C. who didn't know him, and no one in military
fatigues in Asia who didn't have reason to fear him. He was
late for every meeting, but only because he was saving the
world on the other line. No email went unanswered, no phone
call went unreturned, and no opportunity to make a difference
was ever passed up. He has changed and saved the lives of so
many.
For those who didn't know Mike, a comment from Human Rights
Watch's former Asia Director Sidney Jones sums up the
difference he made in so many people's lives:
``Mike has become an institution in DC. I have people I
barely know who, once they know I'm from Human Rights Watch,
begin to tell me how Mike is a national treasure; how
effective he is, and how knowledgeable and well plugged-in.
NGO colleagues from India to Indonesia know that by going
through Mike, they can get access to more and higher-level
officials than they can by going through anyone else.
Mike's ability to trade information is by now legendary. If
he's gone into the stock market, he could have made a
killing. He gets a piece of human rights news or gossip,
floats it, and watches it circulate as everybody in a
position to check it chases it down, and then waits until
they call him back with the facts, grateful for the heads up
he's given them.''
Mike first became involved in the human rights movement as
a Vietnam war protester in the 1970s and an anti-nuclear
demonstrator in the 1980s. He began working at Amnesty
International USA in the mid-1980's, then went on to work on
the staff of the Amnesty International Secretariat in London
in 1988. In 1990, he became Washington Director for the Asia
division of Human Rights Watch. Once a pre-school teacher, he
continued to teach us all.
Though most of us are unable still to correctly spell his
last name, we simply could not have gotten through each day
without him. It is hard to imagine how we will.
Our sincerest condolences go to Mike's wife, Janet.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, Mike Jendrzejczyk was an unusually decent
man whose commitment to human freedom left an indelible imprint on all
of us who knew him, and laid the foundation for a legacy of lasting
importance to the cause of human rights in Asia and the world.
Everybody who works on Asia in Washington knew Mike, and many of us
came to rely on his singular knowledge of human rights conditions
across Asia, as well as his operational ability to get things done by
astutely working with and through the myriad components of our
government. Time and again, I found Mike to be a unique authority on
the human rights agenda in Asia, and an extremely skilled advocate who
was able to cajole, charm, shame, and ultimately convince his listener
that a particular human rights initiative was not only a moral
imperative, but would best serve the national interest. Mike's
pragmatism never detracted from his high principles; on the contrary,
the combination of pragmatism and principle was what led people in
Government to reach out to Mike, time and again, for advice on how to
advance the human rights agenda, given his unique talent for producing
deliverables, in terms of policy and legislation, that advanced human
freedom.
Mike was a man of unimpeachable integrity. You could trust his word
and his judgment, a particularly admirable quality in Washington. He
could speak to so many audiences so well: whether to Burmese
dissidents, Tibetan exiles, Cambodian reformers, Chinese activists,
Republicans, or Democrats, Mike had a way of engaging his listener
without abandoning his trademark straight talk about practical
solutions to the grave challenges that confront those who fight
oppression every day. Mike had a friendly way of co-opting many of his
allies, making them want to pursue the goals he had laid out, with the
means he had proposed, in order to earn his respect and, as
importantly, the respect associated with those causes that met with his
approval.
Mike was in the process of helping my staff draft a bill related to
human rights in Vietnam when we lost him. Just as he accomplished so
much, Mike left behind so much more to do. I'd like to think Mike will
remain a voice of conscience to each of us who had the privilege of
working with him, and who found his work inspiring. Perhaps each of us
will try a little harder to fill the space Mike left behind in his
quest to advance the cause of basic human dignity, and hope.
There was no one like Mike. But if Mike's memory doesn't fade; if we
still rhetorically fumble his amazing last name in recollecting his
full life; if we each absorb a small bit of the energy that drove him;
and if we are true to the principles he held so deeply, reminding us of
our own obligation to uphold them as well, he will stay with us, and
freedom's light will shine a little more brightly for it.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on May 1, 2003, the world lost one of those
rare people who die long before their time but who touch the lives of
more people than most of us do in a lifetime far longer.
I did not know Mike Jendrzejczyk well, although I had met him. I did
know of his work, and my staff worked closely with him for over a
decade. Shortly after Mike's sudden death, the New York Times and the
Washington Post printed obituaries which described at length Mike's
extraordinary career. I will not repeat what was written there, other
than to say that they were remarkable for a person so young. They
portrayed very movingly the extent and impact of Mike's work in the
field of human rights.
It was because of Mike Jendrzejczyk and his colleague Sidney Jones at
Human Rights Watch that I first became concerned about human rights
violations in East Timor and Indonesia. In 1991, it was Mike's
encouragement and advice that enabled me to sponsor the amendment which
prohibited Indonesian military officers from participating in the
International Military Education and Training program, after they
slaughtered an estimated 200 peaceful demonstrators in a cemetery in
Dili, East Timor. It was also Mike who helped me with a similar
amendment after the Indonesian military orchestrated the mayhem in East
Timor following the independence referendum there in 1999. Those were
difficult issues, and the amendments were controversial. Without Mike's
guidance, they would not have become law.
Today, as the Indonesian military launches a major attack against
rebels in Aceh, the potential for widespread human rights violations is
of great concern. Mike's absence will make it far harder for us to
monitor what is happening there, and people in Aceh and throughout Asia
will suffer because he is no longer here to stand up for them.
Mike was also a regular source of information and advice on Burma,
Cambodia, and China, and many of the initiatives we have undertaken in
those countries were a result of his input. I can remember an
appearance of Mike's on ABC's Nightline when he spoke passionately
about human rights in China.
Mike was so effective because of his ability to balance his deeply
held beliefs about human rights with his understanding of the political
realities we deal with every day here. He was a close observer of
events in Southeast Asia. He saw opportunities for the U.S. Government
to act to support the development of civil society and to protect human
rights, the rule of law, and individuals who were persecuted for their
political beliefs, and his recommendations to us of what action to take
reflected his best judgment of what was possible.
[[Page S6701]]
Anyone who knew Mike, as my staff did over the course of so many
years, saw that he was motivated out of a deep commitment to the rights
and freedoms that the United States stands for. He believed, as I do,
that those rights and freedoms are universal, and that Asians, like
people in so many countries, yearn deeply for the right to express
themselves and to associate freely, without fear of persecution.
Throughout his career, Mike was a source of hope and support to
thousands of people who he never met.
His goal was for Asian people to have the chance to enjoy those same
rights and freedoms, and for the United States to live up to its own
ideals, and he worked tirelessly to achieve those goals. They are goals
I share, as do many others here. They are goals that I will continue to
work towards in Mike Jendrzejczyk's memory.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise today to remember and pay
tribute to Mike Jendrzejczyk, a tireless and dedicated champion of
human rights who passed away earlier this month. A gaping hole has been
left with his passing, but his life and commitment to fundamental
values we all cherish will continue to inspire and motivate us all.
As the Washington director for the Asia Division of Human Rights
Watch for 13 years, Mike became an institution in this city and a
leader in his field. Few human rights issues in Asia escaped his
attention and few of his colleagues could surpass his knowledge and
level of expertise.
As Human Rights Watch noted, ``There's no one in D.C. who didn't know
him, and no one in military fatigues in Asia who didn't have a reason
to fear him.''
From Burma and Indonesia, to Vietnam and North Korea, Mike spoke up
for those who could not speak for themselves. He shined a light on
human rights abuses and made it his mission to see that justice was
done. Time and time again he called on the United States to live up to
the values that made this country great and be the leader for human
rights that the world so desperately needed.
Recently, my office had worked with Mike on the need to bring safety
and stability to the people of Afghanistan, particularly women and
girls. We have lost a partner in that endeavor, but we have not lost
the example he set, and I know his memory will push us to work even
harder in the days and weeks ahead.
My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Janet and his colleagues
and friends at Human Rights Watch. Mike Jendrzejczyk will be sorely
missed.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I honor the late Mike
Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director for the Asia division of Human
Rights Watch, and a voice I have trusted and valued for many years.
Mike was kind, smart, unquestionably committed, and amazingly
energetic. He kept so many of us in Congress informed, always combining
savvy and idealism in his updates and enthusiastic calls to action. He
brought extraordinary human rights leaders from Asia to the Hill, and
by connecting us to these courageous people, he helped to round out our
view of faraway places--showing us not just the ugly reality of abuse,
but also the promise and bravery of those who resist.
By introducing Washington to these heros, Mike turned resignation to
resolve and did the crucial work of sustaining momentum for action and
change. He became a hero himself. Mike helped countless people overseas
in profound ways, but he helped the Congress as well. Mike helped us to
believe that it is possible to do the right thing. His death is a
terrible loss.
____________________