[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 135 (Wednesday, September 23, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2347-E2349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            ADMINISTRATION ONCE AGAIN SIDELINES HUMAN RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 23, 2009

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I again rise to express my deep 
disappointment with the Obama administration's sidelining of human 
rights in U.S. foreign policy.
  I submit for the Record an op-ed from today's Washington Post aptly 
titled ``A Cold Shoulder to Liberty.'' Columnist Michael Gerson writes 
of the administration's snub of the Dalai Lama on his upcoming visit to 
the nation's capital.
  Two years ago, the Dalai Lama received the Congressional Gold Medal 
in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. President Bush personally presented 
it to him. I was there for the occasion where this man of peace and 
dignity was honored for his life's work in promoting basic rights for 
his people.
  Next month, the Dalai Lama will again visit Washington, but this time 
he will be denied a visit with President Obama lest it ruffle feathers 
in Beijing in the lead up to the President's visit there in November.
  I am reminded of another administration which declined to meet with a 
dissident for fear of souring an upcoming meeting. It was 1975, and 
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was set to visit Washington. Henry Kissinger led 
the charge in refusing him a meeting with President Ford, who was 
worried about upsetting Soviet leader Brezhnev prior to the upcoming 
summit.
  Contrast this approach with President Reagan's 1988 speech in defense 
of religious liberty at the ancient Danilov Monastery in Russia. In his 
remarks he had the courage to invoke a quote by Solzhenitsyn about the 
faith of the people of Russia. In so doing, he respectfully made the 
point that religious freedom is central to who we are as Americans, and 
as such our leaders will not be silenced on this score for fear of 
offending oppressive governments.
  I believe that history shows this administration could learn from 
that approach.
  Sadly, the White House's treatment of the Dalai Lama is not an 
isolated incident. Gerson notes, ``. . . rebuffing the Dalai Lama is 
part of a pattern. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has argued that 
pressing China on human rights `can't interfere with the global 
economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security 
crisis . . .'' '
  But this begs the question, what of the human rights crisis in China?
  Just yesterday, the Associated Press reported that ``China has closed 
Tibet to foreign tourists and deployed soldiers armed with machine guns 
in the streets of Beijing--part of a raft of stringent security 
measures ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule. Even kite-
flying has been banned in the capital.''
  This is the government we are trying to curry favor with? I'd prefer 
to find common cause and solidarity with the people of Tibet, with the 
persecuted house church and Catholic bishops, with the repressed Falun 
Gong.
  The administration's approach in China has been mirrored elsewhere at 
the expense of oppressed people the world over.

[[Page E2348]]

  Gerson continues, ``Overtures to repressive governments in Iran, 
Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria and Egypt have generally ignored 
the struggles of dissidents and prisoners in those nations. So far, the 
Obama era is hardly a high point of human rights solidarity.''
  It seems we could also add Burma to that list. Today's Post reports 
that ``For the first time in nine years, the United States allowed 
Burma's foreign minister to come to Washington, a sign of softening 
U.S. policy toward the military junta that has run that Asian nation 
for nearly five decades.''
  The Post notes, ``Under the 2003 Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, 
the White House needs to approve a waiver to allow Burmese officials 
who are attending the U.N. General Assembly to travel more than 25 
miles outside of New York.''
  On the reported eve of the administration's much anticipated release 
of a Burma policy review, the waiving of this sanction for a major 
general in the Burmese Army, to essentially sight-see in Washington, 
sends the wrong message.
  Earlier this week, the Post featured an article with the headline, 
``U.S. Faces Doubts About Leadership on Human Rights,'' which reported, 
``as the U.N. General Assembly gets underway this week, human rights 
activists and political analysts say the new approach has undercut U.S. 
leadership on human rights issues.''
  I submit for the Record the entire article, which offers a grim but 
accurate assessment of this failed approach.
  Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, ``In the end, we will remember 
not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.''
  Are we not friends of the persecuted Coptic Christian in Egypt? Are 
we not friends of the North Koreans enslaved in the gulag? Are we not 
friends of the repressed Cuban or Iranian democracy activist?
  The answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes, which makes 
this administration's deliberate sidelining of human rights that much 
more devastating.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 23, 2009]

                       A Cold Shoulder to Liberty

                          (By Michael Gerson)

       Two Octobers ago, the Dalai Lama received the Congressional 
     Gold Medal, one of America's highest civilian honors, in the 
     rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi talked of a 
     ``special relationship between His Holiness the Dalai Lama 
     and the United States.'' Said Sen. Mitch McConnell: ``We have 
     reached out in solidarity to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan 
     people, and the Chinese government needs to know that we will 
     continue to do so.'' President George W. Bush urged Chinese 
     leaders ``to welcome the Dalai Lama to China. They will find 
     this good man to be a man of peace and reconciliation.''
       This October, on a scheduled visit to the United States, 
     the Dalai Lama will not be welcomed at the White House. Obama 
     adviser Valerie Jarrett was recently dispatched to 
     Dharamsala--the Dalai Lama's place of exile in northern 
     India--to gently deliver the message. The Tibetans took the 
     news, as usual, nonviolently. ``A lot of nations are adopting 
     a policy of appeasement'' toward China, observed Samdhong 
     Rinpoche, prime minister of Tibet's government in exile. ``I 
     understand why Obama is not meeting with the Dalai Lama 
     before his Chinese trip. It is common sense. Obama should not 
     irritate the Chinese leadership.''
       The Obama administration has its diplomatic reasons. Since 
     the uprisings of 2008, the Chinese government has been 
     particularly sensitive on the topic of Tibet. Chinese 
     President Hu Jintao is a guest in the United States this 
     week. And administration officials hint that Obama will 
     eventually meet with the Dalai Lama after the president's own 
     visit to China in November.
       Yet between the gold medal and the cold shoulder, a large 
     diplomatic signal is being sent.
       It is not that Obama is completely unwilling to anger the 
     Chinese. This month he imposed a 35 percent tariff on tire 
     imports from China, leading to talk of a trade war. The head 
     of the United Steelworkers said the president was willing to 
     ``put himself in the line of fire for the jobs of U.S. 
     workers.'' But Obama is clearly less willing to put himself 
     in the diplomatic line of fire for other, less tangibly 
     political reasons.
       In great-power politics, morality often gets its hair 
     mussed. Every president needs room for diplomatic 
     maneuvering. But rebuffing the Dalai Lama is part of a 
     pattern. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has argued that 
     pressing China on human rights ``can't interfere with the 
     global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and 
     the security crisis''--a statement that left Amnesty 
     International ``shocked and extremely disappointed.'' Support 
     for Iranian democrats has been hesitant. Overtures to 
     repressive governments in Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, 
     Syria and Egypt have generally ignored the struggles of 
     dissidents and prisoners in those nations. So far, the Obama 
     era is hardly a high point of human rights solidarity.
       Those who donate to Amnesty International and put ``Free 
     Tibet'' stickers on their Volvos often assume these 
     commitments are served by supporting liberal politicians. But 
     it really depends. On human rights, modern liberalism is a 
     house divided. In a recent, brilliant essay in the New 
     Republic, Richard Just describes the ``contradictory impulses 
     of liberal foreign policy: the opposition to imperialism and 
     the devotion to human rights. If liberals view anti-
     imperialism as their primary philosophical commitment, then 
     they will be reluctant to meddle in the affairs of other 
     countries, even when they are ruled by authoritarian 
     governments . . . that abuse their own people. But if 
     liberalism's primary commitment is to human rights, then 
     liberals will be willing to judge, to oppose, and even to 
     undermine such governments.''
       During the Cold War, Just argues, these impulses were 
     united in opposition to pro-American despots such as Chile's 
     Augusto Pinochet. ``But history does not always present such 
     convenient circumstances; and since the end of the Cold War, 
     every time the United States has undertaken a humanitarian 
     intervention--or, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, interventions 
     with humanitarian implications--this fundamental split has, 
     in one form or another, returned to the center of the liberal 
     debate.''
       This split is now evident within the Obama administration. 
     It includes some very principled, liberal defenders of human 
     rights such as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and National 
     Security Council staffer Samantha Power. But it seems 
     dominated, for the moment, by those who consider the human 
     rights enterprise as morally arrogant and an obstacle to 
     mature diplomacy.
       Which raises the question: What is left of foreign policy 
     liberalism when a belief in liberty is removed?

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2009]

           U.S. Faces Doubts About Leadership on Human Rights

                            (By Colum Lynch)

       United Nations.--From the beginning, the Obama 
     administration has unabashedly embraced the United Nations, 
     pursuing a diplomatic strategy that reflects a belief that 
     the world's sole superpower can no longer afford to go it 
     alone. But, as the U.N. General Assembly gets underway this 
     week, human rights activists and political analysts say the 
     new approach has undercut U.S. leadership on human rights 
     issues.
       Rights advocates have been frustrated by several episodes. 
     They say U.S. diplomats have sent mixed messages about their 
     intention to reward--or punish--the Sudanese government for 
     its alleged role in genocide in Darfur. The United States 
     rejected a U.N. proposal to compel Israel and Hamas to 
     conduct credible investigations into war crimes in the Gaza 
     Strip. And the administration has pursued a low-profile 
     approach to Sri Lanka, where a military offensive against 
     rebels is believed to have killed thousands of civilians.
       The administration continues to assert that ``the United 
     States is not going to preach its values and not going to 
     impose its values,'' said Kenneth Roth, executive director of 
     Human Rights Watch. ``The problem is they are not American 
     values--they are international values.''
       U.S. officials assert they have shown leadership on human 
     rights, citing the administration's decision to weigh 
     prosecutions of CIA interrogators. They note that the 
     administration joined the U.N. Human Rights Council, 
     reversing the Bush administration's policy of shunning the 
     troubled rights agency in the hopes of reforming it. A U.S. 
     vote on the Security Council in June was crucial in ensuring 
     continued U.N. scrutiny of Sudan's rights record.


                          Being a Team Player

       But U.S. officials say that American credibility also lies 
     in their willingness to be team players. In the past several 
     months, the United States has pledged to sign U.N. arms 
     control and human rights treaties, and has committed to 
     sending U.S. officers to far-flung U.N. peacekeeping 
     missions. Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United 
     Nations, says cooperation with the global organization is 
     essential for coordinating international efforts to combat 
     terrorism, scrap nuclear weapons arsenals and fight 
     pandemics.
       ``No single country, even one as powerful as our own, can 
     deal with these challenges in isolation,'' Rice said. ``We 
     are fundamentally living in an era when our security and our 
     well-being are very much linked to the security and well-
     being of people elsewhere. That's a simple recognition of 
     reality.''
       John R. Bolton, one of the U.S. ambassadors to the United 
     Nations under President George W. Bush, said the Obama 
     administration's strategy at the United Nations resembles a 
     religious ``act of faith.'' He questioned the wisdom of 
     empowering the organization.
       The United Nations' contribution to the ``great questions 
     of our time''--counterterrorism and nonproliferation--have 
     been only ``marginally effective,'' Bolton said.
       He also has criticized U.S. support for the Human Rights 
     Council, a body that ``spends its time attacking Israel and 
     the United States.''
       In April, the council, based in Geneva, called for an 
     investigation into alleged abuses during the war in Gaza last 
     winter. Richard Goldstone, a South African judge who headed 
     the probe, insisted on expanding the investigation to examine 
     abuses by

[[Page E2349]]

     Hamas and other Palestinian militants. His report accused 
     both sides of committing war crimes and called on the 
     Security Council to compel Israel and Hamas to conduct 
     credible investigations.
       Human rights advocates urged the United States to back 
     Goldstone, saying it would show that the United States is 
     willing to hold even its closest ally to account for abuses. 
     But Rice rejected his recommendations, saying the ``weight of 
     the report is something like 85 percent oriented towards very 
     specific and harsh condemnation and conclusions related to 
     Israel. . . . In that regard it remains unbalanced, although 
     obviously less so than it might have been.''


                         Troubled About Darfur

       Jerry Fowler, executive director of the Save Darfur 
     Coalition, said the administration's approach to Darfur has 
     been troubling. In recent months, Obama's special envoy, 
     retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, has pursued a 
     more conciliatory approach toward Sudan, saying that genocide 
     was no longer taking place in Darfur and that it was time to 
     ease some sanctions.
       ``We have been pushing consistently for a balance of 
     incentives and pressures, and so far we haven't really seen 
     that balance,'' Fowler said. ``Publicly, there has been more 
     of an emphasis on incentives.''
       Rice said Gration's ``vitally important'' efforts to pursue 
     a political settlement to crises in Sudan should not be 
     interpreted to mean ``that we are any less concerned'' about 
     Sudan's commission of atrocities ``or that we are prepared to 
     wield carrots in advance of concerted and very significant 
     steps on the ground. That's not the policy of the United 
     States.''


                         Silence on Sri Lanka?

       The other major concern of human rights advocates 
     monitoring developments at the United Nations is Sri Lanka.
       When the government launched its final offensive this year 
     against the country's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam 
     (LTTE), it was Mexico and Austria that first raised the alarm 
     in the Security Council. France and Britain sent their 
     foreign ministers to the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, to 
     press the government to show restraint.
       The United States supported those efforts to draw attention 
     to the crisis in the Security Council, which China and Russia 
     opposed. It backed a compromise that allowed for discussion 
     on the Sri Lanka conflict in the U.N. basement.
       ``The U.S. government remained relatively silent on the Sri 
     Lankan crisis, especially in the early stages of the 
     fighting,'' said Fabienne Hara, vice president for 
     multilateral affairs at the International Crisis Group. Its 
     response to Sri Lanka ``did not seem to match the commitment 
     to preventing mass human rights abuses stated during the 
     presidential campaign,'' she said.
       Rice challenged that assessment, saying ``my perception is 
     that we spoke out very forcefully.'' She said that the United 
     States had a strong ambassador on the ground in Sri Lanka, 
     conveying American concerns, and that the assistant secretary 
     of state for refugees traveled there to conduct an assessment 
     mission. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rice 
     said, had been personally focused on the issue.
       ``I think that is an instance where our stand was clear, 
     consistent and principled,'' she said.

                          ____________________