U.S. lauds Rightist govts in report

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 7

U.S. lauds Rightist govts in report

NZPA-Reuter Washington The Reagan Administration said in a report issued yesterday that human rights under Right-wing governments around the world had improved in the last year but that harsh conditions persisted under communist regimes. The Administration declared human rights to be at the core of United States foreign policy, in an annual report prepared by the State Department under a requirement laid down by Congress. "Our reputation among the people in important countries that are dictatorships will suffer if we come to be associated not with liberty, but with despotism,” it said. The report repeated Mr Reagan’s preference for quiet diplomacy rather than the former President Jimmy Carter s public condemnation of abuses to put pressure on repressive regimes. Latin American and Caribbeean countries threatened, by insurgencies and those' with Leftist governments had remained the worst human rights violators, the report said. In Asia also, it said, the pattern was human rights improvements under Rightwing governments but persistent bad conditions under communism. The department said that racial separation had brought increased violence inside South Africa and to its neighbours despite proposals for reform. In El Salvador, where the civilian-military junta is supported by Washington, there had been signs of improvement last year, although serious human rights problems had persisted. It said that the number of politically-motivated killings and disappearances reported in 1982 had dropped substantially from 1981 and that "the Armed Forces demonstrated an increased awareness of the need to respect human rights.” There had been improvement under the military regime in Guatemala, which

the United States also backs in its struggle against Leftist guerrillas. The Government of Briga-dier-General Jose Efrain Rios Montt, which took over in March, had committed itself to ending human rights abuses under the previous regime, the report said. "In Guatemala’s cities there has been a marked decrease in killings and disappearances... although some abuses continue to be reported.” Under the military regimes of Argentina and Chile there had been progress on the human rights front, although the pace of improvements in Chile had slowed. In Argentina the freedom ‘ of political. parties had increased, political prisoners had been released faster, and the press and trades unions had engaged in an upsurge of free activity, although human rights problems persisted, it said. In Marxist Nicaragua, on the other hand, “the human rights situation deteriorated markedly in 1982.” The report said that the Government had subjected the Miskito Indian tribe to torture, executions, and forced marches. The human rights position

in Cuba and the Soviet Union had remained bleak. The repression of dissidents in the Soviet Union last year had increased, Moscow had used ' chemical weapons against Asian tribesmen, slave labour was reported to have been used on the Yamal gas pipeline, and sane dissidents had continued to be confined in psychiatric wards. Vietnam had shown very little improvement and had used lethal chemicals supplied by the Soviet Union against dissident tribes in Laos and Kampuchea, the report said. North Korea had continued to repress its citizens, but in China there were signs of a gradual shift “towards a more open society.” Taiwan had showed “a slow trend toward improvement,” as. in South Korea where,, in 1982, there had been “an increase in freedom of movement and no allegations of murder against the Government,” it said. The position also had improved in the Philippines, where political and civil liberties continued to expand slowly since martial law was lifted in 1981.