Human-rights ‘showdown’ seems likely

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 8

Human-rights ‘showdown’ seems likely

|NZPA - Reuter Washington The United States Government is gathering evidence designed to show that the Russians have violated human-rights provisions of the Helsinki Declaration and the Soviets are planning similar charges against the United States and its allies. The rights issue is central to a 35-nation meeting to be held in Belgrade this year to examine the working of the 1975 Helsinki accords. Both the United States and the Soviet Union apparently are building evidence against each other for presentation at the Yugoslavia session. The Helsinki pact bound 35 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union, to observe human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the free movement of ideas, people, and information. In preparation for the Belgrade session, the United States and its allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation for months have been swapping notes, compiling thick dossiers, and preparing case-by-case examples of alleged breaches of the Helsinki agreement by the Soviet Union and its allies.

The violations range from the jailing of political dissenters to the harrassment and ill-treatment of Soviet Jews wanting to emigrate and reunite with their families in distant lands, mainly Israel. The Soviets have not been idle. The Government news media have publicised United States court cases, commented on the scale of

United States unemployment to illustrate what has been portrayed as the deprival of human rights to work, and publicised the recent United States denial of visas to three Soviet Union leaders who wanted to visit the United States. Moscow appears to be preparing a big counteroffensive. The British authorities say that five correspondents representing Tass, the official Soviet news agency, have arrived unexpectedly in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The British assumption is that the Soviets are collecting material on the struggle between Belfast’s Protestant majority and Roman Catholic minority. The Soviet media have portrayed the 17,000 British troops stationed there as oppressors. Three other Tass journalists also have arrived suddenly in Strasbourg, France, seat’of the Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights where the Irish Government has charged British authorities with torturing Irish prisoners held for their political beliefs. Diplomats representing United States allies in Europe are trying to head off the human-rights showdown between Mr Carter and the Soviets.

Unless the Belgrade meeting is carefully controlled through prior understandings, the meeting could descend into a wrangle, East and West trying to force each other into the defendant’s box, said the ambassador of one big United States ally.