[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 56 (Wednesday, May 10, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE MOSCOW HELSINKI GROUP

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 10, 2006

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, 17 years ago, my dear friend 
and colleague, Rep. Frank Wolf, and I traveled to the Soviet Union, to 
visit the notorious Perm Labor Camp No. 37, located in the shadows of 
the Ural Mountains. There were three camps in the Perm labor camp 
complex that had been set up specifically in 1972 for political 
prisoners and others whom Moscow considered ``especially dangerous.'' 
Fortunately, by the time of our visit many of the incarcerated had been 
released and by 1991 the camp had emptied out completely in the closing 
chapter of the USSR. As Co-Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I can 
vividly recall that glimpse into life in the Soviet GULag, both a 
memorable and sobering experience.
  I mention that trip because Friday of this week, May 12, will mark 
the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a 
leading human rights organization devoted to monitoring the Kremlin's 
adherence to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. The Helsinki Final Act was 
signed by the United States, Canada and thirty-three European 
countries, including the Soviet Union. While much of this document was 
focused on military security, economics and trade, there were important 
provisions on human rights and humanitarian issues, such as freedom of 
conscience and family reunification, which the Soviet Government and 
the other signatories promised to uphold.
  At a May 12, 1976, Moscow press conference organized by Nobel Peace 
Prize Laureate Dr. Andrei Sakharov, the Moscow Helsinki Group announced 
that it would collect information and publish reports on implementation 
of the Helsinki Accords by the Soviet Government. The initiator of this 
effort was Dr. Yuri Orlov, a physicist who had already been repressed 
by the Kremlin and the KGB for his human rights activism. Orlov was 
joined by ten other founding members; with time others joined in the 
group.
  As might be expected, the Soviet Government did not welcome this 
initiative. Members were threatened by the KGB, imprisoned, exiled or 
forced to emigrate. The Soviet press went into full-scale attack mode, 
accusing the Moscow Helsinki Group of being subversive and charging 
that some members were on the payroll of foreign intelligence services. 
I might mention that a thinly veiled version of this canard against the 
group was recently resurrected by a representative of the KGB's 
successor, the FSB, on national television.

  Arrests of members of the Moscow Group began within a year of its 
founding. In 1978, Dr. Orlov himself was sentenced to 7 years labor 
camp and 5 years internal exile. In 1986, he was brought back to 
Moscow, put on a plane and deported to the United States in exchange 
for a Soviet spy. Other Moscow Helsinki Group members found themselves 
at the notorious Perm Labor Camp complex that I mentioned earlier. For 
his criticism of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Dr. Sakharov 
was exiled to the closed city of Gorky beginning in January 1980. His 
wife and Moscow Helsinki Group member, Dr. Elena Bonner, joined him 
there in 1984 after having been convicted of ``anti-Soviet agitation 
and propaganda.'' Founding member Anatoly Marchenko died while on a 
hunger strike at Chistopol Prison in December 1986,
  By the end of 1982, less than 7 years after the group's founding, it 
appeared that the KGB and the Soviet Government had triumphed over the 
small band of idealists who pressed their leaders to live up to the 
promises made at Helsinki. With only three members at liberty and those 
under intense KGB pressure, the Moscow Helsinki Group was forced to 
suspend its activities. By 1986, only one member of the group, Naum 
Meiman, continued to meet with foreign visitors and Western 
correspondents. Meiman's wife, Irina, died of brain cancer after 
waiting years for Soviet authorities to give her permission to leave 
the Soviet Union for specialized treatment abroad, a reminder of the 
personal costs to human rights activists and their families under a 
cruel regime.
  But the Helsinki spirit lived on. In the West, supporters and 
sympathizers demonstrated on behalf on imprisoned Helsinki Monitors. 
The cases of imprisoned or exiled Helsinki Monitors were often raised 
at diplomatic meetings between the United States and the Soviet 
authorities. In the Soviet Union itself, enlightened leaders began to 
understand that repressive governments may squelch the voices of 
dissenters for a time, but their message will heard by other means.
  And on February 14, 1987, less than 5 years after the Moscow Helsinki 
group was forced to suspend its activities, a small item in 
``Izvestiya'' announced the possibility of certain prisoners being 
released from labor camp. It was the beginning of the end for the 
repressive Soviet system.
  In July 1989, the Moscow Helsinki Group was reestablished by several 
longtime human rights activists: Larisa Bogoraz, Sergey Kovalev, 
Viatcheslav Bakhmin, Alexey Smirnov, Lev Timofeev, and Boris 
Zolotukhin. Today, Ludmilla Alexeyeva, who had been exiled to the 
United States by Soviet authorities for her earlier work, now chairs 
this respected organization.
  Mr. Speaker, 30 years after its founding and 15 years after the 
collapse of the Soviet Union, the re-established Moscow Helsinki Group 
remains active in speaking out in defense of human rights, civil 
society, and rule of law in Russia. I congratulate the members of the 
Moscow Helsinki Group for their achievements in the past and pledge my 
support for their vital ongoing work.

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