SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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2003
A SURVEY AND ANALYSIS OF ''SUPPORTING
HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY:
THE U.S. RECORD 2002–2003''
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JULY 9, 2003
Serial No. 108–43
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
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COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
NICK SMITH, Michigan
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
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MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
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ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
CHRIS BELL, Texas
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
RENEE AUSTELL, Professional Staff Member, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights
LIBERTY DUNN, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State
The Honorable Roger P. Winter, Assistant Administrator, Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
The Honorable Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Board of Directors, International Republican Institute, appearing on behalf of George A. Folsom, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, International Republican Institute
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Kenneth Wollack, President, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs
Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy
The Honorable Harold Hongju Koh, Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, Yale Law School
Tom Malinowski, Washington Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch
Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director, Freedom House
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and Vice Chairman, Committee on International Relations: Prepared statement
The Honorable Lorne W. Craner: Prepared statement
The Honorable Roger P. Winter: Prepared statement
George A. Folsom, Ph.D.: Prepared statement
Kenneth Wollack: Prepared statement
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Carl Gershman: Prepared statement
The Honorable Harold Hongju Koh: Prepared statement
Tom Malinowski: Prepared statement
Jennifer Windsor: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Internews Network, Inc.: Statement submitted for the record
A SURVEY AND ANALYSIS OF ''SUPPORTING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY: THE U.S. RECORD 2002–2003''
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 2003
House of Representatives,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:31 a.m. in Room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith [acting Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order. Good morning to everyone.
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In Beijing in 1991, to press for religious freedom, release of political prisoners and end the forced abortion and coerced sterilization and torture, Congressman Frank Wolf and I met with Premiere Li Peng. After firmly, but diplomatically, making our case, the powerful leader of China unloaded with both barrels. It was a remarkable and dismaying spectacle, for everything was absolutely denied, as we might expect. There were no political prisoners in China, and the tired, old defense of internal affairs was trotted out and invoked.
Clearly ticked off especially by a face-to-face criticism of China's one child per couple policy—presumably no one in the international community had ever done that before—the Premier scolded Frank Wolf and I and said that all relevant documents concerning the U.S.–PRC bilateral relationship, including the Shanghai communique, precluded human rights.
To some extent he was right about those documents. However, the exchange underscored in my mind why human rights concerns must be central, at the core of bilateral relations, and when we subordinate human rights or treat them as an afterthought, the last albeit obligatory item on a set of diplomatic talking points, we miss precious opportunities to ameliorate suffering and may even, however unwittingly, enable abusing regimes to commit abuses by our lack of articulation, by our lack of emphasis or the relative unimportance we devote to human rights.
Human rights is not a side show, or at least it should not be. It ought to be the main event. What is conveyed concerning human rights and what is omitted at all diplomatic levels, but especially at the top, has predictable real world consequences for good or ill for at-risk persons and victims.
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As a Member of Congress for 23 years, it has been my experience to discover far too many seasoned diplomats for whom sustained and meaningful human rights and interventions, especially when it comes to religious freedom or coercive population control, are regarded as impediments to the conduct of serious diplomacy. One would note or would point out that that sort of diplomatic dinosaur hopefully is on the decline, hopefully en route to extinction.
I would note here that by properly honoring and extolling the exemplary work of Foreign Service Officers as is done in this report like Laura Englebrect and Mark Lambert, as co-winners of this year's award for exceptional achievements in the field of human rights and democracy, the department signals the high value it places on human rights advocacy. That emphasis can only have a positive effect on State Department culture.
Ladies and gentlemen, the report that we examine today is an important contribution to the ongoing and I hope ever expanding effort to ensure that human rights and democracy building is at the core of U.S. foreign policy. I commend and thank Assistant Secretary Lorne Craner not only for his strong personal and professional commitment to human rights, but for his leadership in compiling this very useful document. In like manner, I congratulate Roger Winter for his extraordinary service to humanity over the course of many, many years, especially to the disenfranchised and to refugees.
In many ways, the report that we are looking at and examining today resembles an executive summary. We get hundreds of thumbnail sketches of robust initiatives in scores of countries. Like many first reports, however, and we saw this with the first human trafficking report 3 years ago, some countries are inexplicably excluded from the report.
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For example, despite being classified as tier III countries in the just released TIP Report—in other words, countries that failed to meet minimum standards regarding human trafficking and failed to make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate trafficking—five countries—Greece, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Belize and Suriname—are not even mentioned in this report.
Surely the United States has undertaken important projects in each of these nations that a reasonable person would have expected would have been showcased in the report, and, as we would note, Turkey and Kazakhstan performed poorly in other areas of human rights, including the use of torture, especially in extracting confessions. I know for a fact that both Congress and the Executive Branch routinely raise these important issues as well.
Moreover, in its reporting on other tier III countries that are featured in the report—these are in the report, including Liberia, Burma, Sudan and Cuba, but again they are on the TIP Report as egregious violators of human trafficking and not making sustained efforts to mitigate that trafficking. There is no mention made about what they are doing and what we are doing, I should say, in response to try to mitigate and end human trafficking in those countries. Perhaps an oversight, but hopefully the next report will get it right.
Moreover, while the section on China contained numerous innovative initiatives designed to foster systemic reforms, no mention was made of the sanctions on population control programs. As Secretary of State Powell noted in his finding of July 21, 2002:
''The PRC Government publicly establishes and enforces detailed planned birth policies with legal births distinguished from out-of-plan births.''
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In other words, there are illegal children, and they are subject if the woman continues to carry that child, with very, very serious and Draconian consequences like a social compensation fee that is two to three times the annual income of both parents.
''This regime,''
Mr. Powell goes on to write,
''plainly operates to coerce pregnant women to have abortions in order to avoid those penalties.''
The human rights sanction that this Administration has initiated, the denial of funding to both China and the UNFPA, also was not mentioned. I was also disappointed to see no mention of our response and strategy to China's terrible crackdown on the WEAGers in Xiangcheng Province.
As we all know, the Chinese Government has cloaked their campaign to imprison and kill thousands of Muslims in the so-called autonomous region. They have cloaked it as an anti-terrorism campaign, somehow analogous to what the United States and our coalition forces are doing to try to end terrorism as we know it.
On the other hand, Jennifer Windsor of Freedom House points out that the report is a critical first step, and I think that needs to be underscored. This is a first step in trying to compile the strategies and the policies of the United States Government to combat human rights abuse and to promote democracy.
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She points out that it is an impressive collection and compilation of a portion of the work of the U.S. Government and what we are doing to promote democracy and human rights. In other words, some of the good things that we are doing are highlighted in the bill or in the report, but it does not tell the whole story. It is a good story. Hopefully the future reports all of it. It will probably double the size of it, but it needs to be done as well.
Again, I want to thank our very distinguished witnesses for being here, and I yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Lantos, for any opening comments.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND VICE CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
In Beijing in 1991 to press for religious freedom, release of political prisoners, and an end to forced abortion, coerced sterilization and torture, Congressman Frank Wolf and I met with Premier Li Peng for about an hour.
After we firmly but diplomatically made our case, the powerful leader of China unloaded with both barrels. It was a remarkable, deeply disappointing and dismaying spectacle.
First, everything was absolutely denied, (i.e. there are no political prisoners in China.) Then they trotted out and invoked the tired old defense of ''internal affairs.''
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Clearly ticked off—especially by face to face criticism of China's one child per couple policy—presumably no one from the international communities did that before—Li Peng scolded us and said that all relevant documents concerning the US–PRC bilateral relationship, including the Shanghai Communique, precluded human rights issues.
And to some extent—he was right about those documents. However, the exchange underscored in my mind why human rights concerns must be central—at the core—of bilateral relations. It also underscored that when we subordinate human rights or treat them as an afterthought—the last albeit obligatory item on a set of diplomatic talking points—we miss precious opportunities to ameliorate suffering and may even, however unwittingly, enable abusing regimes to commit abuses by our lack of articulation, by our lack of emphasis or the relative unimportance we devote to human rights.
Human rights aren't, or at least shouldn't be, a sideshow—it ought to be the main event.
What is conveyed concerning human rights, or omitted—at all diplomatic levels but especially at the top—has predictable real world consequences for good or ill for at risk persons or victims.
As a Member of Congress for 23 years, it has been my experience to discover far too many ''seasoned diplomats'' for whom sustained and meaningful human rights interventions—especially when it concerns religious freedom or coercive population control—are regarded as impediments to the conduct of serious diplomacy. One would hope that this sort of diplomatic dinosaur is on the decline en route to extinction.
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I would note here that by properly honoring and extolling the exemplary work of Foreign Service officers like Laura Engelbrecht and Mark Lambert as co winners of this year's award for exceptional achievements in the field of human rights and democracy, the Department signals the high value it places on human rights advocacy. That emphasis can only have a positive affect on State Department culture.
The report we examine today is an important contribution to the ongoing—and I hope—ever expanding effort to ensure that human rights and democracy building are at the core of U.S. foreign policy.
I commend and thank Assistant Secretary Lorne Craner not only for his strong personal and professional commitment to human rights but for his leadership in compiling this useful document.
In like manner, I congratulate Roger Winter for his extraordinary service to humanity, especially the disenfranchised, and refugees.
In many ways the report resembles an executive summary. We get hundreds of thumbnail sketches of robust initiatives in scores of countries.
Like many first reports however—and we saw this in the first human trafficking report 3 years ago—some countries are inexplicably excluded from the report.
For example, despite being classified as Tier III in the just released TIP report (in other words countries that failed to meet minimum standards regarding human trafficking and failed to make serious and sustained efforts to eliminate trafficking.) five countries—Greece, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Belize, and Suriname aren't even mentioned in this report. Surely the U.S. has undertaken important projects in each of these nations that a reasonable person would expect to be showcased in this report.
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And, as we all know, both Turkey and Kazakhstan perform poorly in other areas as well, including the use of torture, especially in extracting confessions.
Moreover, in the reports on other Tier III countries that are featured in the report including Liberia, Burma, Sudan and Cuba no mention is made of what is being done to mitigate trafficking.
Similarly, while the section on China contained some innovative initiatives designed to foster systemic reforms, no mention was made of the sanctions on population control programs. As Secretary Powell and the Department noted in findings on July 21, 2002, ''the PRC government publicly established and enforces detailed planned-birth policies with legal births distinguished from out-of-plan births. Fines on ''out-of-plan'' births are typically severe ''social compensation fees . . . (2–3 times the annual income of both parents) . . . This regime plainly operates to coerce pregnant women to have abortions in order to avoid the penalties . . .''
The human rights sanctions—the denial of funding to both China and the UNFPA—weren't mentioned.
I was also disappointed to see no mention of our response and strategy to China's terrible crackdown on the Uighurs in Xinjiang Province. Cloaked as an anti-terrorism campaign, somehow analogous to U.S. and coalition efforts, the Chinese have executed or imprisoned hundreds of Muslims.
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On the other hand, Jennifer Windsor of Freedom House points out that the report ''is a critical first step . . . an impressive compilation of a portion of the work the U.S. government is doing to promote democracy and human rights.''
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me at the outset pay public tribute to you because I know of no one in either the House or in the Senate on the Democratic side or on the Republican side who is a more consistent, courageous, articulate, powerful spokesman for human rights across the globe than you are. I think it is appropriate that you are chairing this hearing.
Let me also note, and I am reluctant to single out anybody, that we have some of our nation's leading human rights advocates in the audience, and several of them will be testifying. Ambassador Kirkpatrick's work in this field is legendary. Secretary Koh and others have made incredible contributions to promoting the cause of human rights, and I want to recognize both Secretary Craner and Mr. Winter for their very impressive work. I also must say, Secretary Craner, that from purely a physical point of view and an aesthetic point of view you have outdone yourself with this project.
I think it is a coincidence that the President is in Africa as we open this hearing because his speech yesterday, and I hope all of you heard it, was yet another step in our 200-plus year history of closing the hypocrisy gap. We were way ahead of our human rights practices when we signed and issued and expressed our dedication to the most powerful documents in favor of human rights, and it was good to see the President yesterday at a place where slaves were gathered and sent on their horrendous journey to say mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
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It is our collective guilt, and it is good to know that both President Clinton and President Bush have taken the time and trouble to visit Africa and to recognize a historical burden of horrendous proportions. Our whole history can be viewed as an attempt to close the hypocrisy gap between our stated objectives and the life we lead.
I think it is also important to recognize at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that one of our former colleagues, Congressman John Porter of Illinois, played a key role in the establishment of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus almost a quarter century ago, and he and I co-chaired that caucus for many years. Since his departure our colleague, Congressman Wolf, has taken the Republican Chair.
We often relegate human rights to the margins of American foreign policy. I always regret the lack of sustained attention that Congress pays to this most critical subject. Respect for human rights must be at the core not only of our foreign policy, but it must remain a pillar of American foreign policy.
By holding today's hearing at the Full Committee level, we are giving human rights policies the attention they fully deserve, and in issuing its first ever comprehensive report on U.S. human rights policy initiatives, the Department of State appears to have grasped the importance of this issue.
Of course, this landmark report was not spontaneous. It is a response to a requirement established in the Freedom Investment Act of 2002, which I sponsored, Mr. Chairman, and which was approved by the Committee and adopted as part of the State authorization bill in the last Congress.
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The report represents a major advance in our efforts to bring human rights into the core of our foreign policy because it breaks down the firewall we have long maintained between the State Department's reporting of human rights abuses in the annual Human Rights Report and its policy toward the violators.
This firewall was designed to insure that the State Department did not pull any punches in cataloging the sometimes massive human rights violations found in so-called allied countries such as Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan. Although this approach has been largely successful, it produces an ever-increasing hypocrisy gap between what we say and what we do.
If there ever was a justification for this gap during our long struggle with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, it surely died with the collapse of the Soviet empire. Like during the Cold War, the struggle against global terrorism requires that we confront, reform and sometimes even force change on regimes that commit gross human rights violations against their people.
The September 11 attack on the United States made it vividly clear to all of us that the bankrupt, corrupt and illegitimate regimes that are the worst violators of human rights also create cesspools of disaffection, intolerance and hatred that allows terrorists to thrive.
Mr. Chairman, the urgent need to confront these human rights violators and to expand democracy and the rule of law was the inspiration for the State Department report that we are reviewing here today. It is a good report, and I want to commend Secretary Craner for the report, but obviously, as with all reports, particularly first reports, there is a great deal of room for improvement. We will talk about this during the course of the hearing.
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I think the report in many ways would be more useful if there would be some critical evaluation of which of our policies worked, which of our policies have not worked, which of our policies need to be adjusted, modified, abandoned, changed, so that we have the best practices in our human rights and democracy programs.
I would like to say just a word, if I may, about those who feel that human rights is secondary to the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals. Without moral authority, the world's one remaining superpower will be unsuccessful in the international arena. We must not abandon the moral authority that this country had during periods of its history, the moral authority which, for whatever set of reasons, has declined in recent times, and we must put it at the top of our agenda to restore that moral authority.
When a few of us many years ago invited the Dalai Lama to meet with Members, we met in a small meeting room with a handful of colleagues, but the room was permeated and filled with the moral authority of a Buddhist monk. It would be hard for us as a superpower to expect ever to attain the degree that a simple Buddhist monk can attain with his own behavior and values and thoughts and actions.
I think it is extremely important at a time when we have undisputed hard power presence on this planet, undisputed military capabilities which are desperately needed, and I am immensely grateful that we have that, that they will never take the place of the moral authority which is the foundation of our republic and which in many ways must be the foundation of our foreign policy.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I close, Mr. Chairman, I just would like to take 1 minute to mention a few individuals in the Department of State singled out by the department for special recognition. You already mentioned in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Laura Englebrect; in China Mark Lambert. I would like to, if you will allow me, add a few names of some of our finest Foreign Service Officers.
I know that the department had a tough time selecting these because there were so many who are doing an incredible job in the field of human rights, so let me just list Greg Chapman at Embassy Vientiane in Laos; John Cushing at Embassy Seoul in South Korea; David Garrenbeck at Embassy Yerevan in Armenia; Tobias Glocksman at Embassy Phnom Penh in Cambodia; John Godfrey at Embassy Ashgabat in Turkmenistan; Greg Hicks at Embassy Manama in Bahrain; and Stuart Tuttle at Embassy Bogata in Colombia. These are the heroes who in the field, often at great risk to their own physical safety, carry on the message of America's commitment to human rights.
During the years that you and I have served, Mr. Chairman, and as I look around the room all of our colleagues have met and spent time and visited with those Foreign Service Officers whose portfolio includes human rights. I remember over 20 years ago in the Soviet Union it took a lot of courage for our Moscow Embassy people tasked with dealing with refuseniks and dissidents and human rights advocates to do the things that they did.
I want to commend Secretary Craner for including these outstanding Foreign Service Officers in your report, and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos. Thank you for your kind remarks.
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I would just say that the feeling is mutual. You have been a stalwart in the area of human rights. We have traveled together, and no one can articulate the position more effectively than you, so thank you for your tremendous work.
I would like to welcome our Assistant Secretary, Lorne Craner, to the Full Committee. Mr. Craner was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on June 4, 2001. Mr. Craner coordinates U.S. foreign policy and programs that support the promotion and protection of human rights and democracy worldwide.
Prior to his appointment, he served as President of the International Republican Institute, which conducts programs outside the U.S. to promote democracy, free markets and the rule of law. He served as President of IRI from 1995 until assuming his current appointment.
I would also like to welcome Assistant Administrator Roger Winter. Mr. Winter was sworn in as Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance for USAID on January 31, 2002. He also served as USAID's Director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.
For 10 years prior to joining USAID, Mr. Winter served as Executive Director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees. He has also held administrative positions in refugee resettlement during both the Carter and the Reagan Administrations.
Secretary Craner, please proceed.
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Before you do so, without objection all of the testimonies by our distinguished witnesses today will be made a part of the record, and any opening statements by any of my distinguished colleagues likewise will be made a part of the record.
Secretary Craner?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LORNE W. CRANER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. CRANER. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Members of the Committee. On behalf of Secretary Powell, I am proud to formally present to the Committee on International Relations the new State Department report entitled Supporting Human Rights and Democracy. The State Department welcomed this reporting requirement and the opportunity to catalog the steps we are taking to promote human rights worldwide. We also want to acknowledge the essential role of this Committee in the creation of this report.
Chairman Smith, over the years you have worked tirelessly to advance human rights and democracy and to press our Government to address these needs. We want to thank you for holding a Full Committee hearing to focus attention on this report. I know the legislative calendar in July is especially full, and this hearing yet again clearly demonstrates your commitment to these issues.
Mr. Lantos, you were the source of the legislative language that resulted in this report. This is the latest example of your long record of leadership in the field of human rights and democracy.
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I also want to publicly thank those who worked very hard to produce this volume. Special thanks in my office to Liz Dugan, Sally Builcema, Rob Jackson and Cynthia Bunton and their staffs who worked so hard on this report, and to those outside my bureau. This volume would not have been possible without the contributions from hundreds of officers, both throughout the State Department, with AID and with other agencies.
I am especially grateful that you have noted those names in the back of the book of people who really go out of their way, often into danger, to try and advance human rights and democracy in those countries.
I had the privilege of testifying at the end of April in front of the Subcommittee on International Terror, Non-Proliferation and Human Rights to discuss another report that my bureau publishes, the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. This document has a hard-won reputation over many years, including those that preceded my tenure, for being the most comprehensive, accurate volume on human rights conditions around the globe.
I described the report, among other things, as a call to action to direct our efforts on democracy promotion and human rights protection, and that is what brings us here today. For all their value in spotlighting human rights abuse, the Country Reports do not answer the very simple question: What are you doing about it?
This new annual report answers the ''what are you doing about it'' question for 92 of the world's most serious human rights violators. It identifies, in a systematic way, how the U.S. is integrating policy with reporting on human rights. As it demonstrates around the world in every region, the U.S. is implementing programs, advancing policy, taking advantage of the information and understanding of global human rights that we have built up over the years in the annual Human Rights Report.
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We will not shy away from criticizing human rights violations abroad, but we also want to go beyond that and take concrete steps to help the builders of democracy. In short, the report illuminates the fact that our support for human rights is more than a once-a-year exercise in identifying abuses. It is a day-in/day-out effort at the Department of State, AID and U.S. missions overseas.
Since becoming Assistant Secretary 2 years ago, I have defined several priorities for my bureau. One is Central Asia, where we have doubled, and in some cases quadrupled, our resources to advance human rights and democracy since September 11, 2001. Another new area is the Middle East, which for decades had been considered the democratic exception. Those days are over, especially as the United States-Middle East Partnership Initiative comes on line.
Another area is China, which we referred to earlier, and where we note increased pressure inside the country for political reform. This year, for the first time ever, the Bush Administration is not only supporting dissidents outside of China. We are supporting those inside China who are trying to advance structural reforms. We know we will not see change in all these cases overnight, but they offer the best hope for democracy in these regions.
As this report indicates, you should know that the new frontiers of the Middle East and the Muslim world in general have not led us to forget other parts of the world. In just the last week, at President Bush's request, former Secretary of State James Baker traveled to Georgia in a very successful effort to speak to his old colleague, now President, Severdnadze about upcoming elections.
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In the last few days, President Bush sat down with the leaders of eight West African countries—Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Mali Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone—to talk about how we can better aid the development of human rights in their countries.
This week we requested at a very high level the release of a number of prisoners in Laos. They arrived in Bangkok today. This week, my office committed to fund an effort in Guatemala that we hope to come to fruition, to appoint a commission to investigate recent human rights abuses by the country's ''dark forces.''
On a global scale, all these hopes are represented in one of our highest priorities to reshape the incentives for democratization through the Millennium Challenge Account, which will provide another vehicle for reducing the gap between human rights ideals and actual practices.
Encouraging democracy and human rights is no longer an exclusive purview of the United States, as we have seen in a number of important international developments. Last November, government representatives from more than 100 nations met at the Community of Democracies Conference in Seoul and affirmed democracy as the best weapon to fight terrorism. One of our goals is to see more nations join the Community of Democracies through our diplomatic efforts and by aiding democratic endeavors through programs like the MCA and MEPI.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, we have tried to provide a report that is true to both the language and spirit of the mandating legislation that came out of this Committee. We have tried to make the link from reporting to policy. I accept your praise for this volume. I also accept your critiques. It is a first edition. While I am very, very proud of it, there are changes that many in my office can already see need to be made. We will take your remarks as well.
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I want to conclude by noting that democracy building has historically been a bipartisan issue. The best example that we can offer folks overseas, and I have seen this from my own personal experience, is that politics need not be a winner-take-all sport.
I look forward to working with this Committee, with both sides of the aisle, in promoting human rights and democracy overseas, for there remains much to do. Thank you again for this hearing. Thank you again for your commitment to human rights and democracy. I would be happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Craner follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LORNE W. CRANER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND LABOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Chairman Smith and Members of the Committee, on behalf of Secretary Powell, I am proud to formally present to the Committee on International Relations a new State Department report entitled, ''Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2002–2003.'' As Secretary Powell says in the preface:
''This document complements our annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in substance and spirit, and details how we are applying the high standards of the Country Reports to the actions we are taking to decrease the number and severity of human rights abuses worldwide.''
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The Department of State welcomed this new reporting requirement and the opportunity to catalog the steps we are taking to promote internationally accepted human rights standards and norms. At the same time, we want to fully acknowledge the essential role of this Committee in the creation of this report.
Chairman Smith, over the years you have worked tirelessly to help human rights victims and to press our government to address their needs. We want to thank you for holding a Full Committee hearing to focus attention on this report; we know that the legislative calendar in July is very full and this hearing clearly demonstrates your commitment to these issues.
Mr. Lantos, you were the source of the legislative language in the FY03 Foreign Relations Authorization Act that resulted in the mandate for the Department to issue this report. This is just the latest example of your leadership in the human rights field.
Before continuing with a description of the report, I would also like to publicly acknowledge those who worked hard to produce this volume. I want to thank everyone in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for their hard work in compiling this report. Special thanks are due to Robert Jackson, head of the Office for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy, and his officers, as well as Cynthia Bunton and the officers who work for her in the Country Reports Office. I also want to thank those outside my bureau because this report would not have been possible without contributions from hundreds of officers from both regional and functional bureaus throughout the State Department, plus USAID, and other agencies, as well as employees of non-governmental organizations.
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BURMA.
Before turning to the new report, I want take advantage of this important forum to express our outrage about events in Burma. These events are not covered in the new report because they took place after the report was finalized, but everyone should know that this Administration has lost its patience with the regime in Burma. We consider the attack on the caravan of Aung San Suu Kyi to be the work of government thugs. We have heard reports that Aung San Suu Kyi was being held in the notorious Insein prison and has reported been moved to another undisclosed location. We strongly condemn her continued detention. The Burmese junta must release her and her supporters immediately and form a concrete plan to restore democracy in Burma. We have been working with Members of Congress, our allies in Europe and ASEAN and others to press for the release of Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates and the implementation of a real plan for democratization in Burma.
WHY WE SUPPORT HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY.
As I said at the Country Reports hearing, spreading democratic values and respect for human rights around the world is one of the primary ways we have to advance the national security interests of the U.S. The defense of liberty is both an expression of our ideals and a source of strength that we have drawn on throughout our history. Democratic values have also been at the heart of America's most enduring and effective alliances. For that reason, this report reflects our solidarity with those brave souls who dare to dream of freedom, not only in democratic societies, but also in repressive ones. They are setting the course of history and we must help them. The President's National Security Strategy explicitly commits the U.S. to work actively to bring democracy, development, free markets and free trade to every corner of the world. We start from these core beliefs and look outward for possibilities to expand liberty. Our goals are political and economic freedom, peaceful relations with states, and respect for human dignity. Secretary Powell has said, ''America stands willing to help any country that wants to join the democratic world.''
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I am also reminded that President Reagan said in his 1982 ''Promoting Democracy and Peace'' speech before the British Parliament:
''. . . democracy is not a fragile flower; still it needs cultivating. . . . The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy—the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities—which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. . . . This is not cultural imperialism: it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection of diversity.''
Keeping in mind our desire to extend democracy, but not having unlimited funds available to us, we developed a framework for focusing our resources. One obvious criterion is the importance of a country to America's national interests, but we also need to be realistic about the conditions required to have the desired effect. Key to such considerations will be the understanding of the reality that our assistance is unlikely, in and of itself, to create the changes we seek. In countries where the local dynamic is already moving towards democracy our assistance can help leverage the cause in the right direction. The will for change at a national level is therefore critical. It makes little sense, for example, to spend millions to train judges in a country where the ruler will not tolerate an increasingly independent judiciary, or fund programs in countries with ample private resources but without the will to pursue democratic goals.
If we are to be successful, it most likely will be over the long term. The challenges faced in these regions did not come about, and will not be solved, overnight.
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THE PURPOSE OF THE REPORT.
For more than 25 years, the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, a factual account of the human rights performance of nations around the globe, has been an increasingly indispensable human rights tool that is often used to shine a spotlight on human rights violators. As Deputy Secretary Armitage said recently about this report, ''Every year, for the last 25 years, we have released a 10-inch report on human rights violations around the world. The bulk alone speaks volumes about the distance the world still needs to travel between the reality of the day and the high standard we all want to reach.''
We believe in the power of information, and we have been willing, when some others have not, to condemn human rights abusers. Some have called this a ''name it and shame it strategy.'' However, the purpose of our new report is to show that U.S. support for human rights is more than a once-a-year exercise in identifying abuses.
Specifically, the purpose of our new report, as we see it, is to answer the question, ''What are you doing about it?'' We have written a report to demonstrate, in a systematic way, that the U.S. Government is working hard to integrate human rights reporting into policy.
More and more, we are using human rights reporting to tailor assistance programs to help countries achieve democratic governance. Examples of this approach are President Bush's U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) for projects in countries whose governments rule justly, invest in their people, and encourage economic freedom. Likewise we are working through innovative fora like the Community of Democracies to help strengthen democratic institutions that protect human rights and to voice both commitment to international standards and concern about continued human rights abuses such as Burma.
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THE REPORT PROCESS.
Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2002–2003 details U.S. efforts to support human rights in 92 countries and entities with especially problematic and persistent human rights violations. We take care to include places of concern for ''extra judicial killings, torture, or other serious violations of human rights,'' as called for in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003.
For those who wonder why a certain country is not included, we were asked to issue a report, not on all countries that are members of the UN, as is the case with the Country Reports, but on countries where serious problems occur regularly. Just because a country is not in this report does not necessarily mean that human rights problems do not exist in that country; it does mean that we do not see a persistent pattern of human rights violations, or a government policy promoting violations.
I was recently asked if the countries included in the report are the 92 worst countries, to which I responded that that is a fair assessment, both in terms of democracy and human rights. You can find countries in this report that are progressing toward democracy, but they still have human rights problems; and just because a country is not mentioned in this report does not mean that U.S. Government assistance programs are not being provided such countries.
The chapters in the new report typically begin with a very brief mention of the human rights conditions. This snapshot should not be read as providing a complete picture of everything we know about the human rights conditions in any country; those wishing more detail should reference the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Next, we provide a short narrative about our human rights strategy, followed by a sampling of the activities we are taking to defend liberty.
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REGIONAL PROGRAMS.
At this point, I would like to provide the Committee with an overview of some of our activities in the various regions. Time does not permit me to describe at length each of the regional sections of the report. I would encourage anyone interested in more detail to refer directly to the report. It is available on the State Department web page at www.state.gov.
This report is an overview of our efforts, not an exhaustive account of all U.S. Government programs. It is a representative sample of our human rights activities. To get a truly comprehensive picture it would be necessary to consider, for example, this Administration's commitment to try to reform the World Bank and other multilateral development banks to make them more effective in improving the world's poor areas.
And finally in this vein, while we are very pleased with the way the report turned out, we hope that everyone remembers that this is a first time effort, and that we welcome ideas and suggestions for next year.
I would like to share some examples from the report of the kinds of activities the Administration has undertaken to support human rights and democracy around the world:
Afghanistan continues to recover from 23 years of conflict and political instability. The lack of basic infrastructure and central government authority inhibit basic human rights for minority ethnic and religious groups, for women and for displaced persons. In 2002, the U.S. Government committed $800 million in assistance, and the Afghanistan Freedom Support Act authorized an additional $5 million for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). A total of $80 million has been provided to assist women and girls in education, health care, human rights, and other programs. The U.S. Government also funded the establishment of ten neighborhood-based Women's Centers in Kabul and several nearby cities to provide vocational training to women and 14 Women's Centers focusing on literacy and development of vocational skills for $2,575,000. My Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor's Human Rights and Democracy Fund (HRDF) has provided funding to support the AIHRC, which the Bonn Agreement of December 2001 established as the national institution in charge of defining the human rights agenda in Afghanistan.
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In Angola, 85 percent of the population will soon have access to Angola's only independent radio station, Radio Ecclesia, which is making a pronounced difference by providing listeners with unbiased reporting; members of Angola's civil society have called the radio a key player in bringing democracy to the country. I am pleased to note that the funding came from my bureau.
Our human rights and democracy strategy for Azerbaijan addresses a wide range of issues, with U.S. assistance in support of the strategy totaling about $8 million in FY 02. Diplomatic efforts are key, as we have pushed a strong human rights and democracy agenda in meetings with government officials, activists, and religious minorities at all levels. We are enhancing the rule of law through the training of judges, lawyers and students, enhancing legal literacy and improving women's access to justice. A major U.S. focus has been creating the conditions for free and fair elections through strengthening political parties and election administration, training election monitors, and urging the government to undertake necessary reforms. Our Embassy co-sponsored the first-ever nationally televised roundtable debates between government and opposition parties and civil society on proposed Constitutional amendments. We are strengthening non-governmental organizations through small grants and resource centers. U.S. assistance is funding the professional development of journalists and technical assistance to independent television stations. We have pushed the Government to respect religious freedom and have maintained close ties with local religious communities. We even brought some of their representatives on visitors programs to the U.S., to discuss issues such as Islam in America. Finally, to combat trafficking in persons, we promoted preventive measures by the government and awareness campaigns by NGOs, and funded a trafficking research study.
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We helped monitor the June 2002 municipal and legislative elections throughout Cameroon, contributing to one of the freest and fairest elections in the country's history. Our public diplomacy resources funded election observation workshops and a resource center for journalists, political parties, civil society and local observers. Journalists and others who participated in ''Operation Cell Phones for Democracy'' said these programs contributed significantly to detecting electoral fraud. To help contain radical Islam, the U.S. involved young Muslim leaders in the International Visitors Program that provided training in religious freedom, democracy and human rights. To address trafficking in persons, the U.S. worked with International Labor Organization on an ambitious four-part plan to encourage legislation, train enforcement personnel, educate parents, and assist victims.
The United States employs multiple strategies to promote human rights and strengthen the rule of law in China. We shine the spotlight on human rights abuses and routinely press China in bilateral and multilateral fora to bring its human rights practices into compliance with international human rights standards. The Ambassador and other Department officers also work with Chinese officials, NGOs and other organizations to identify areas of particular concern and encourage systemic reforms. Starting in 2002, the United States has strongly backed its support of systemic reform by funding a multi-million dollar program to promote legal reform and encourage judicial independence; to increase popular participation in government; to promote international labor standards; and to foster the development of civil society in China. All these efforts are coordinated with China's other human rights dialogue partners to ensure that China hears a clear and coherent message from the international community and that programs funded by the international community are complementary.
The 2002–2003 U.S. human rights and democracy strategy for Colombia is both proactive and responsive, tackling the root causes of human rights and democratic instability while continuing to invest in emergency humanitarian assistance and protection measures necessary to address the internal armed conflict. In FY02, we provided Colombia with $130.4 million in aid to support judicial reform, stronger democratic institutions, human rights protection programs, peace initiatives, an early warning system, humanitarian assistance and alternative development. The USG is currently implementing programs to protect threatened populations, increase access to justice, support judicial reforms and the rule of law, promote transparency and anti-corruption in local governance, support peace initiatives, reintegrate child soldiers, and provide humanitarian assistance to displaced populations. DRL's HRDF is supporting a project to temporarily resettle threatened Colombian judicial sector personnel outside the country in order to save their lives and provide them specialized training to enhance their ability to perform their jobs upon their return to Colombia.
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While the world's media was focused on the war in Iraq, Internews, through a DRL grant, focused its attention on providing Arab journalists invaluable lessons in the role of accuracy, objectivity, and balance in reporting and local media. As part of its on-going series of training Middle East journalists in responsible reporting, Internews trained 40 male and female reporters on basic reporting, interviewing and reporting skills, as well as legal issues, critical analysis, freedom of expression, and ethics. Veiled women worked alongside those not wearing veils. This training demonstrated once again that the United States can nurture vibrant, pluralistic, and open media.
Iraq is not included in our report due to the rapidly evolving situation. On the democracy front, DRL Deputy Assistant Secretary Scott Carpenter is working closely with Ambassador Bremmer in support of the Coalition Provision Authority's (CPA) efforts to establish a representative Iraqi interim administration. We are looking at a range of activities to lay the groundwork for democratic self-rule, including a constitutional process, political party development, elections, anti-corruption and women's issues. The CPA has set up an Office of Human Rights and Transitional Justice, led by DRL officer Sandy Hodgkinson to deal with mass graves, property claims, missing persons and special courts for crimes against humanity. On mass graves, there has been an initial assessment and we are working to obtain international assistance to begin exhumations and forensic examination.
In Morocco, one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East, we pulled out the stops in helping create the conditions for democratic elections, which paid off handsomely in the parliamentary elections last fall—among the best ever held in the region. The U.S. funded projects trained candidates and political parties, strengthened transparency in the election process, and promoted voter outreach and education and the training of women candidates. We are continuing our work strengthening parties and NGOs for upcoming municipal elections. We keep in close touch with a range of civil society activists, including Jewish and Berber community leaders, to help improve the human rights environment, with particular emphasis on women's rights, child labor, trafficking and religious tolerance. The United States also is funding a highly successful American Bar Association/Freedom House program that assisted the Government in reforming the Moroccan Penal Procedure Code. We are now starting to train judges, prosecutors and lawyers on how to implement the new code. We have used visitors programs effectively as well, bringing Moroccan NGOs representatives, government officials and activists to the United States to enhance their ability to confront children's rights and child trafficking, labor rights, prison reform, and women's rights, to the United States. This included five women political activists who observed U.S. Congressional elections last November.
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In October 2002 Freedom House opened Central Asia's first resource center for human rights NGOs in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Demand for resources at the center quickly surpassed its physical capacity, leading Freedom House to relocate the center to a larger building and install additional phone lines for greater Internet access. In April a second center opened in the Fergana Valley and human rights activists in every district in the country have asked for a center. The centers have greatly increased the capacity of human rights activists to effectively react to human rights abuses, including deaths in detention, as well as their sense of security to speak out and press their government for greater accountability. The Government of Uzbekistan has also noticed the centers' presence and has shown an interest in wanting to understand international standards governing press and freedom of expression.
CONCLUSION.
I have been asked if there are places where the U.S. is less aggressive in promoting human rights, for fear of running afoul of an ally. The answer to that question is no. That said, we do not have cookie-cutter approach to democracy around the world. The way we address concerns in one country may not be the way we address them in others. Every country is different and we look for the approach we believe will be the most effective, using the range of diplomatic tools available to us. Mongolia is a democracy, Mali is a democracy and Mexico is a democracy, but they are all headed in different democratic directions and at different paces. Assistance to those countries must be tailored accordingly.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, we have tried to provide a report that is true to both the language and the spirit of the mandating legislation that came out of this Committee. We have made the link from reporting to policy. The good news is that democracy is now accepted as an international norm.
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I want to conclude by noting that democracy building has historically been a bipartisan issue. The best example we can offer overseas is that politics is not a winner-take-all sport. I look forward to working with this Committee in promoting human rights and democracy overseas, for there remains much to do.
Thank you, again, for this hearing. Thank you for your commitment to human rights and democracy. I would be happy to answer your questions.
[NOTE: Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2002–2003, submitted by Mr. Craner for the record, is not reprinted here but is available in Committee files. At the time of this printing, this publication is also available on the World Wide Web at: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/shrd/2002 or on the Committee Web site at: http://www.house.gov/international_relations/educate.htm
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much.
I would like to now yield and recognize Mr. Winter.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROGER P. WINTER, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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Mr. WINTER. Thank you. I will not repeat all of the thank yous. They are all due and merited. What I would like to point out is that while the report demonstrates that much has been accomplished, more than anything in comparison to the basic human rights country practices report, it shows how far we have to go.
Let me speak on behalf of USAID to try to respond to some of the questions that were forwarded to us by your staff on your behalf. First of all, in conversations between outsiders to the government and insiders, I often sort of have it conveyed to me that what the State Department does is in the realm of the real politique, and what USAID does is more kum-ba-yah kind of stuff. In reality, we are very often the arms and legs of the policy as it reaches down into local communities around the world.
USAID is the humanitarian and development arm of our foreign policy operating in more than 100 countries. With respect to our democracy, governance and human rights programs, we manage more than a $700,000,000 portfolio, so in many senses of the word USAID is in fact the arms and the legs of the U.S. Government's human rights and democracy programming.
I will not dwell at all on the details of our programs because it is in the written testimony and in some degree in the report itself, but I would like to try to respond conceptually and strategically to some of the issues that you all have raised with us. I will try to be quick.
First of all, USAID believes, and the way we do our programs I think shows, that it is impossible for people to secure their human rights without democratic governance, and no government that abuses human rights can be considered wholly democratic. The rule of law begins with and is based on respect for human rights.
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In our budget, you will not see in bold letters the terminology ''human rights,'' but you will see in large letters reference to ''democracy and governance.'' Actually, the way we do much of our democracy and governance programs is human rights specific. This is a very substantial commitment that USAID has on behalf of the American taxpayers and the U.S. Government broadly.
Secondly, USAID, in approaching its development mandate as an agency, recognizes that effective development is not sustainable without democracy and productive governance. Democratic processes allow the people to secure their human rights, to pursue their interests and to resolve their differences without resorting to destructive violence.
Conflict destroys development, and it is, therefore, clearly in our interest as an organization to assure that the promotion of democracy and human rights is at the core of what we do. We also have issued a report, which is called Foreign Aid in the National Interest. The first chapter, because it is first in our minds, has to do with promoting democratic governance.
Third, most of the problems USAID addresses as America's international development agency are interrelated. Lack of democratic governance, oppressive or incompetent governance, human rights abuse, endemic conflict, complex humanitarian emergencies, pervasive conflict, they all tend to show up together in the worst case scenarios that we at USAID focus on. All of these, in our view, actually need in an ideal way to be comprehensively addressed for maximum impact, but democracy and good governance is the key.
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Fourth, USAID is a large agency. It has many priorities in many aspects of its variable program. Let me mention two that relate directly to the subject matter this morning. First of all, Lorne Craner mentioned the Administration's Millennium Challenge Account. At AID we recognize that foreign aid from the United States or anywhere else is important, but it is only part of the answer.
Sustainable solutions come about where people and governments truly adopt appropriate policies and institutionalize them effectively. Such an approach makes our foreign aid maximally productive and generates additional aid, including private foreign and domestic investment.
The Millennium Challenge Account proposal flows directly from that premise. It speaks to the issue of concrete performance in ruling justly, in economic freedom and in governments investing in people. These are topics in which we are intimately involved.
It will be, therefore, a major priority of USAID to focus on countries that do not meet the MCA cutoff criteria, but which, if we invest in an organized and robust way, may be able to in the future to meet the criteria of ruling justly, of promotion of economic freedom and of investing in people so they become eligible. The issue of helping to enable countries to become MCA eligible is something that will be a high priority for us.
Perhaps lastly, the second challenge perhaps is that of failed and failing states or fragile states. We are not going to abandon those states. We are the U.S. Government's international development and humanitarian agency, so the issue of fallen states, failed states, this is right down our alley.
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The National Security Strategy talks very much about the United States not being threatened by conquering states these days, but by failed states. What we have tried within USAID to do, keeping the issue of democracy, governance and human rights in the forefront, is shift our policy focus on these states to try to approach their issues in a far more organized way than we have in the past.
It is these states that are the incubators of terrorism frequently, these states that engage at the local level in the most ugly of human rights abuses, these states that produce most of the world's refugees, most of the world's internally displaced people and very often host genocide in real and very ugly terms.
It is also in these states that USAID's capital in large amounts is expended for humanitarian assistance programs, so we have an interest in trying to see what can be done to resolve the issues. Humanitarian assistance is necessary, but it is not a solution to the predicament in which people find themselves.
I know this Committee knows very well the situation of Sudan. In the last 13 years, we have spent $1,400,000,000 in humanitarian assistance in Sudan. That humanitarian assistance kept people alive, but it was not a solution. Democracy is a solution. Human rights is a solution.
What we have done is we have reorganized, and the bureau I head has the special task within USAID of coming up with solution-oriented approaches based on our humanitarian assistance programs that integrate democratization and good governance and conflict management and mitigation aspects to assure that we do not just spend this money forever, but that we do it in a way that approaches solutions realistically.
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Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Winter follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROGER P. WINTER, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU OF DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Chairman Smith and members of the Committee, thank you on behalf of USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios for the opportunity to testify today about this important report, ''Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2002–2003.'' As Assistant Secretary Craner has said, the report is the product of a lot of hard work by our colleagues around the world. But it is the result, particularly, of the leadership and dedication of Assistant Secretary Craner and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and of the Congress under the leadership of this Committee.
Although it addresses only 92 of the countries, indeed the 92 with the most human rights abuses, this report represents the first effort to gather publicly the programs from across the entire spectrum of U.S. Government institutions that support democratization across the globe. This accounting evidences the broad participation of U.S. Government departments and agencies in the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights, which lie at the heart of our foreign policy. We are a profoundly democratic nation, and we have supported freedom abroad from our very beginning as a nation. The extension of liberty, both political and economic, and in particular the promotion of democracy and human rights, is a high priority for President Bush and for Administrator Natsios. To reflect that priority, Administrator Natsios created an entirely new bureau, the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, which I am honored to lead. This new Bureau is designed to address the vexing—and closely related—problems of non-democratic government, human rights abuses, failed and failing states, and the conflicts and humanitarian disasters that result.
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In conjunction with our State Department colleagues and through the work of our grantee and contractor partners, our efforts to promote democracy are broad and substantial. The fiscal year 2003 democracy budget managed by USAID is over $700 million, supporting programs in nearly 100 countries. We are proud of the results these efforts have brought, yet mindful, as this report documents, of how much still remains to be done. There are new challenges to democracy in the world. Our significant achievements cannot be maintained without studying those challenges, and developing new priorities that respond to them. So let me address: first, the components of our programs and some of our accomplishments; second, the challenges we face; and finally, the new priorities USAID is establishing to meet these challenges.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Democracy programming in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is not new. Going back at least to human rights activities in Central America twenty-five years ago and expanding dramatically with subsequent administrations, democracy and human rights assistance has now become a key element of USAID's programs. It is impossible to secure human rights without democratic governance, and no government that abuses human rights can ever be considered wholly democratic. The rule of law begins with, and is based on, respect for human rights. Independent media and free and fair elections are the hallmarks of a country that respects human rights.
Our national commitment to the promotion of democracy and human rights is bi-partisan, and derives its support not only from the Executive Branch but from Congress as well. Mr. Chairman, we are grateful for that support. Together with State Department regional and functional bureaus, and with other departments of the U.S. Government as well, USAID is programming more money for democracy in more countries than ever before, indeed more than four-and-a-half times as much today as ten years ago. We promote democratic practices and values not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because we have learned that, without addressing the political aspects of change, other development programs cannot succeed.
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The last quarter century has created a record of accomplishment, some of which is discussed in this report. But it is important to note that, as required by the Congress, the report is a one-year snapshot. It does not purport, therefore, to reflect the full breadth or depth of U.S. Government programming in the promotion of democracy and human rights. To understand even that limited picture, however, it is important to understand the wider context of which it is a part.
First, USAID democracy programming can be categorized into four mutually reinforcing sectors: civil society; elections and political processes; the rule of law; and democratic governance. The first two categories work primarily outside governments, while the latter two work primarily with governmental institutions. Second, we shape our programs to the specific conditions of the countries we assist. No two programs are identical, although there are some common themes. It is our missions abroad that ensure the strategic coherence of our programs and their relevance to the conditions of these countries. Third, we work primarily through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and contractors, both American and local. The accomplishments to which I refer are due to the direct assistance those partners provide.
In repressive regimes, where we do not generally work with government institutions, USAID's ongoing assistance to civil society, democratic opposition groups, and the media keeps lit the torch of democratic hope, generates pressure for reform, and provides something of an incubator for alternative, democratic leadership. For example, in Belarus and the Central Asian Republics, our assistance is largely responsible for sustaining independent NGOs and the media. Quick action in 1998 prevented the Government of Uzbekistan from shutting down independent radio stations. In Burma and Cuba, whose dismal conditions are discussed in the report, USAID provides lifeline assistance to human rights activists and opposition groups.
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As an important part of our non-governmental assistance, USAID alone has granted over $250 million to independent media outlets worldwide since 1992. For example, in Burundi we helped establish two new radio stations which broadcast, country-wide, timely accurate news and programs to support the peace process. The point is to create alternatives to the ''hate-radio'' which played such an important role in exacerbating ethnic conflict and in fomenting the 1993 massacres.
A great deal of public attention tends to be focused on elections, even though less than 10 percent of USAID's democracy and governance budget last year was used to support political parties and elections. I say this to dispel a common public misconception that, for the U.S. Government, democracy is synonymous with elections and that most of our democracy assistance goes to supporting elections. I do not intend at all to understate the importance of elections. Free and fair elections are essential to democracy whose fundamental principle is that people have the right to choose and replace their governments and to establish their public policy. Elections are necessary for democracy, but true democracy is more than just elections.
By allowing citizens to fight for their human rights, further their interests, and resolve their differences through the ballot box, rather than through force, elections provide a device to avoid conflict or to resolve it. Unfortunately, the number of conflicts is growing, and the U.S. Government with its partners is pushing the envelope in finding new ways to manage, mitigate and hopefully avoid conflict and promote human rights. For example, support for political party development in Kosovo helped the nationalist ''liberation'' force to become a political party. They agreed to work with civilians to develop consensual election rules. On that basis, they participated in elections and ultimately accepted their own electoral defeat. The danger that they would push the elected leadership aside and take power militarily was avoided. A potential civil war, possibly engaging the U.S. forces stationed there, was turned into a peaceful contest for power. In a variety of countries, the promise of elections has helped prevent or end civil wars and produced more representative institutions and more open political systems.
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Apart from conflict, our assistance has been instrumental in increasing the number of elections considered free and fair throughout the world, and those elections have sometimes resulted in dramatic political changes. Our elections assistance helped in the peaceful alternation of power in Nigeria in 1999, Peru in 2001, and Kenya in 2002. Last fall, with U.S. help under the Middle East Partnership Initiative, Morocco held parliamentary elections widely regarded as the first free, fair, and transparent elections in its history.
Central to addressing and preventing human rights abuses has been support by USAID, often through the valuable work of our colleagues in the Department of Justice, for legal reform, especially reform of criminal justice systems. Over the past decade, for example, we continued critical support for criminal code reform across Latin America, including Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia. We helped introduce public, oral and adversarial motion hearings and trials where the judge serves as an impartial, independent arbiter of the rules and enforcer of due process rather than as an active investigator or prosecutor. A comparison of today's judicial systems in Latin America with the same systems in the 1980s shows that much has changed for the better, even though much still remains to be done. Prosecutors now direct case investigations and have greater control over police, reducing the likelihood of arbitrary arrests, detentions or police misconduct. The law now limits the duration of pre-trial detention. Defendants less frequently languish in jail without any legal determination of guilt. These programs have helped establish or expand public defender offices in the region, and have trained criminal defense attorneys representing the poor. In general, individual rights have been strengthened, and there is now a procedural embodiment of the principle that the state can be challenged and held accountable.
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A key factor in preventing human rights abuses and ending impunity for the abusers is the existence of an independent judiciary that applies the rule of law impartially and effectively. In Central and Eastern Europe, we have helped judiciaries gain greater independence from the executive branch. New courts, such as constitutional courts, and new institutions, such as judges' associations, have been created. As a result of new criminal codes and retrained judges, the twin notions that the prosecution must prove its case and that defendants can be acquitted is gaining ground across the region. In Russia, USAID helped institute jury trials, developed benchbooks for judges and defense attorneys, and supported pilot jury trials. We have seen an increase in acquittal rates in the regions with jury trials, where previously the chance of acquittal was almost zero. These reforms are now being adopted nation-wide by the Putin Administration.
Judges we have helped, particularly those attached to the new constitutional courts, are asserting their independence and are beginning to check executive power. For example, in Ukraine, the Constitutional Court struck down two proposed amendments to the constitution that would have strengthened already-overwhelming presidential powers. In Russia, the courts have overturned government decisions denying registration to religious groups. These changes are fundamental to securing human rights.
Fourth, we have assisted in good governance reforms for years, including support for decentralization, local and national legislatures, and policy reform. More recently, under instructions from President Bush, the U.S. Government has undertaken a coordinated government-wide effort to address global corruption. Since 1995, USAID has been an instrumental, early supporter of the work of Transparency International, the world's leading anti-corruption NGO. USAID has provided sustained financial support for the organization's secretariat in Berlin and has provided technical assistance to a growing number of national chapters, which are now found in over 90 countries around the world.
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With help provided under the Americas' Accountability Anti-Corruption Project, nearly every country in Latin America has adopted a financial management model instituting auditing, accounting, and transparency systems that help limit graft, fraud and abuse. The project develops and promotes best practices, improves donor coordination, runs a highly successful anti-corruption website, sponsors networks of NGOs and professional associations, supports courses and pilot projects, and has now expanded its work to municipal governments. In the long run, systemic improvements in practices and oversight—real institutional reform—are the means for permanently improving the poor record of corruption in Latin America.
USAID's governance efforts in Africa are younger and have concentrated on support for reformers within government and on the mobilization of public demand for change by civil society organizations. Our multi-year efforts to improve the skills and strength of a range of civil society actors in Kenya, for example, played a critical role in the rebirth of multiparty democracy. That same support has now enabled the new Government of Kenya to draw on capable, pro-reform resources within the country. For example, the new Minister of Justice applauded our early support for the Kenyan anti-corruption movement. In fact, eight parliamentarians with whom we worked on anti-corruption initiatives under the Moi government are now cabinet members in President Kibaki's government, and the executive director of a USAID grantee now heads the President's ethics office.
CHALLENGES
Notwithstanding our rich record of accomplishments, we also recognize both failures and new challenges, and we are moving to address them. The report documents some of these failures and challenges, especially where human rights continue to be violated. One challenge is the threat posed by failed, failing and fragile states. These states are incubators of violence and instability which often turn domestic life into a search for mere survival and personal security, but which also threaten to spill over borders and infect entire regions. Second, we are challenged by a variety of new urgent priorities such as terrorism, civil conflict and narco-trafficking for which we stand ready to assist, even as we recognize that other agencies may be taking the lead roles. Third, is the challenge posed by the expenditure of resources with insufficient long-term effect.
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The global challenge arising from chaos in failed and failing states is all too clear as we meet this morning. As the President has said in the National Security Strategy, ''America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.'' USAID alone provides well over $1 billion every year in humanitarian assistance to deal with crises. These crises are often the result of human failures, not natural disasters. Even when natural disasters strike, their costs are magnified by prior governmental failures. The roots of these failures are well documented in this report.
The people of Sudan, for example, have been living through the longest civil war in the history of Africa, a human tragedy of grand proportions. Since 1989, USAID has spent more than $1.4 billion on humanitarian assistance to ameliorate this disaster. But humanitarian assistance will not solve the governance problem. A just and durable peace is possible only when effective government institutions and processes are responsive to, and benefit all, Sudanese citizens. A unique opportunity exists at this moment, in southern Sudan particularly, to build on indigenous efforts to forge a consensus on democratic governance. In opposition-held areas, our goal is to promote peace, stability, democracy and human rights and to assist the authorities to put into place the basic institutions for effective democratic governance. Over the last two years, we have begun to strengthen courts and judges, local governments, and women's organizations dedicated to local conflict resolution. USAID is the first donor to take concrete steps in this direction. As we move toward the anticipated peace agreement, we are also planning programs, including democracy and governance activities, in areas controlled by the Government of Sudan.
The second challenge—that of transnational threats—covers a wide range of problems including narco-trafficking, trafficking in persons, terrorism, and conflict. Terrorism and transnational criminality thrive in fragile or failing states. Poor governance and disrespect for human rights lie at the heart of each of these threats. Beyond the devastating effect on individual lives and communities, moreover, these problems have clear regional, even global, impact. The conflict in Africa's Great Lakes region is only one example.
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The attacks on the United States on September 11th catapulted Afghanistan, and its tragic recent history, to the center of the world stage. An Afghanistan on the road toward freedom and prosperity would serve as a powerful victory over those that champion tyranny and terror. We are bringing to bear concrete, practical assistance between now and next summer as Afghanistan adopts a new constitution and elects the first democratic government in its history. In addition, to establish the foundations for sustainable democratic governance, we are helping rebuild the justice sector, secure human rights, and strengthen the ability of the government to develop and implement vitally needed policy reforms.
The third challenge—too few results for the resources invested—has been the subject of serious review both within the U.S. Government and internationally. At the Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in spring 2002, governments representing a very wide spectrum of countries, both donors and recipients, rejected the old paradigm of development which emphasized almost exclusively the importance of foreign donors rather than the commitment and performance of recipients. They agreed on a very different approach to development and its financing. They agreed that development is only possible when appropriate policies are truly adopted and the instruments for their implementation are institutionalized. Then, and only then, will the financing for development have the desired results. And when that happens, the major funding will come not primarily from donors but from private investment, both domestic and foreign. Overseas development assistance will therefore always represent a small portion of the development finances. Foreign assistance can play an important part, but it cannot substitute for self-help. Concrete performance is the key to additional funding, overwhelmingly from the domestic and international private sectors.
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The President's proposed Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) flows directly from that basic premise. The United States would provide substantial funding to help countries that have put the right policies and institutions into place. Those right policies and institutions are governed by three themes: ruling justly, promoting economic freedom, and investing in people. Countries that have demonstrated performance in these three areas will be eligible for the additional MCA assistance. USAID recently published its own report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest, which supports the same conclusion. More specifically, and more related to our discussions today, the very first, principal chapter of our report is ''Promoting Democratic Governance'' which of course includes respect for human rights. The evidence is growing, and we are already convinced, that without good governance, little progress will be made or sustained in the other areas.
PRIORITIES
To address these three challenges, USAID is reexamining its entire approach to development, including democratic governance. As Administrator Natsios recently testified, USAID will concentrate its assistance in five kinds of countries. First, to the extent we are asked to do so, we will work with the MCA countries themselves. Second, we will provide help in the countries that just miss the MCA performance criteria, and we will concentrate on those areas in which that performance falls short. We expect that ''ruling justly'' will be precisely the area in which help is most needed. Third, we will work in mid-range but basically good performing countries with the clear commitment to reform. There too, our aim is to help them to become MCA-eligible. So our assistance will focus on economic growth and democratic governance. As Administrator Natsios has testified, USAID will reduce assistance to countries in which democratic governance is lacking. This tough-love approach is necessary so that we can provide additional resources where they can be more effectively used to advance development. Fourth are the fragile, failing and post-conflict states where, in addition to our very substantial humanitarian assistance, we will also include governance programs to transition to development and mitigate conflict. Finally, we will of course continue to work in countries of substantial strategic importance to the United States. These are the countries that receive the lion's share of Economic Support Funds, SEED and FREEDOM Support Act funds. Indeed, of the total, worldwide democracy funding this year, 75 percent or more comes from these accounts.
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Once again, Mr. Chairman, this report documents tangibly both the failures and challenges we confront and the programs which the U.S. Government has mounted to address them. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and for the support of the Congress in those efforts.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Winter, thank you very much for your testimony as well.
I would just like to ask a series of questions, and if you would respond. The first is the fact that there are 92 countries that are detailed in this book, leaving obviously many others that were excluded.
Turkey again jumps off with neon lights. I mean, I personally have held hearings on the torture of journalists, the torture and the mistreatment of the Kurds. We all know that they have serious and ongoing human rights problems. We are addressing those. You know, our Embassy in Ankara certainly is raising these issues robustly, so I would hope that that would be included, and you might want to touch on that.
On the U.K., we have had, and this certainly was initiated by the Clinton Administration, and Senator Mitchell did yeoman's work on helping to craft the Good Friday Agreement. Mr. Haas continues that good work. The Department is very aggressively engaged in trying to keep tensions down and hopefully get to a sustainable and durable solution in Northern Ireland.
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The U.K., like many other western democracies, is not included, and I think it would be helpful to include them, even though perhaps we do not have other problems. The torture issue certainly does not burst forward with regards to London as it would with Turkey, but again we have a good news story to tell, and I hope that that would be included as well because Northern Ireland certainly has had serious problems, and we have been part of trying to find solutions there. You might want to speak to that.
Trafficking. Again, as I said in my opening statement, I hoped that that would be more adequately addressed because, you know, that issue is very near and dear to me and many other Members of this panel and Congress and certainly to all of the women victims who are abused in that way.
On Vietnam, I noticed that there is talk of the dialogue, and I know that the Special Ambassador for Religious Freedom has spoken very candidly to the Vietnamese that they are at risk of becoming a country of special concern because there has been a manifest deterioration of religious freedom in that country. Perhaps you might want to touch on whether or not you believe, Secretary Craner, as to whether or not Vietnam should be designated a country of particular concern.
Talking about the western democracies, again Mr. Lantos and I, Mr. Hoyer, many of us who work on issues relative to anti-Semitism, have been noticing a tremendous increase of anti-Semitism in many of our best friends and allies. Spain, U.K., Netherlands all have seen an ominous spike in the area of anti-Semitism.
I just got back from the OSC Parliamentary Assembly. I was head of delegation and raised that issue. Ms. Watson was along and was very much a part of that, as were other Members. There have been polls suggesting. The ADL did a poll suggesting that one out of five Europeans in five countries looked at had significant anti-Semitic views, and it has roughly corresponded with the most recent Intifada in the Middle East and a lot of other factors as well. I raise this because we are doing things to try to counter this rising tide of anti-Semitism, and I think it would be helpful if that were included in the book. You might want to touch on that.
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Finally, two of the witnesses that will follow, Mr. Koh, who had your position previously, makes the point, and I would appreciate your response to it. This is his criticism:
''In its single-minded pursuit of the war against terrorism, the Administration has permitted some human rights concerns to fall by the wayside and has consciously sacrificed others.''
How do you respond to that?
Tom Malinowski from Human Rights Watch makes the point, somewhat cynically, that the emphasis on programs, particularly those that are let to NGOs, becomes a substitute for the real diplomacy of fighting at the highest levels, the ambassadorial level and even higher. He writes:
''Why has the State Department focused so exclusively on assistance programs? I believe . . .''
he goes on to say,
''USAID grants can safely be disconnected from the conduct of real foreign policy.''
How do you respond to that as well?
Secretary Craner?
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Mr. CRANER. Let me go from the top of your list. Basically, we interpreted the legislation to cover a certain category of countries. I take your point on Turkey.
As for other countries: I think it would be more useful next year if we had a longer essay in the beginning to cover some of the achievements there. I take your point on trafficking. I think that is well made.
On Vietnam: We have told the Vietnamese repeatedly over the past couple of months that CPC designation can come at any time. It does not have to come just in the fall when we release our religious freedom report. There are a handful of countries that John Hanford regards as being on the verge of CPC designation. Vietnam is one of them. He and I talk frequently about where they are on that.
As for the two critiques that programs substitute for diplomacy, one of my hopes is that I sent this volume to every Ambassador around the world. You will notice that in some, and I would flag for you Kenya, China, Bahrain, Ecuador, Lesotho, Georgia, the Ambassadors have not been shy about talking about what they have accomplished diplomatically.
It is a source of frustration for me that other Ambassadors are shy about talking about what they have accomplished policy-wise and diplomatically, and it is my hope that those Ambassadors in the latter category will see what the Ambassadors in the former category did.
My point is that you cannot have programs without diplomacy. Let me give you a very good example of a guy named John O'Keefe in Kyrgyzstan. My bureau was interested in funding a printing press in that country. The government in the country was not interested in having the printing press, and through very intense diplomacy up to the very highest levels of the U.S. State Department, that has happened.
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You cannot have programs that advance the state of democracy or human rights in these countries without aggressive diplomacy. There are a number of Ambassadors, as well as the kind of people in the back of this book, who deserve great credit for being successful both in advancing human rights and democracy, and in diplomacy.
What I want to do is not just to have diplomacy, but to have the two in tandem. As our programs get more and more aggressive, we are seeing Ambassadors growing more and more diplomatically aggressive on these issues.
The other critique was that some human rights concerns fall by the wayside. I have great respect for Harold and I look forward to hearing his critique.
I think it is certainly fair to critique us and I could cite examples where I think good criticism is deserved, but I honestly do not think there is a whole lot of that. I think when you weigh it out against countries where we have never, ever talked about human rights and democracy—the whole of the Middle East—and against countries that essentially were not our focus during the 1990s, the weight of the two is far in favor of countries where we really had not done very much and were doing an enormous amount.
My obvious favorite example is Uzbekistan where we are constantly focused on these issues like a laser, from our Ambassador on up. We have not yet had the kind of breakthroughs we would like to in Uzbekistan, but it is certainly the case that if you looked at the years from 1991 through 2001, far less was accomplished in Uzbekistan than the very incremental baby steps they have taken in the nearly 2 years since then. That is the kind of thing that I think we have been able to achieve. I would say it has given us impetus.
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Again, I look forward to hearing Harold's critique.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Mr. Lantos?
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It is very tempting to deal with 40 separate countries because I have comments and questions on all of them, but I want to focus on just two issues if I may. I will later on ask Ambassador Kirkpatrick very much the same questions.
First of all, I want publicly to thank Ambassador Kirkpatrick for the enormous service she has provided our country at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva earlier this year. Her strong moral voice sent the signal that the United States will no longer tolerate the capture of this very vital international human rights mechanism by rogue states, and we fully support her efforts to clean up the Commission.
The fact nevertheless remains that there is a theater of the absurd atmosphere in Geneva with one of the world's worst violators of human rights, Libya, chairing the United Nation's Human Rights Commission, which appears to be captured now by rogue regimes who lobby for membership nominations from their regional groupings so they can fight against those who wish to improve human rights conditions across the globe. This rogue gallery in Geneva was successful in blocking any meaningful criticism of China, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, a number of other countries which fully deserved denunciation.
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As you know, Mr. Secretary, in May we passed as part of the State Department authorization bill a major piece of legislation entitled the United States International Leadership Act, which my good friend David Dreier of California and I co-sponsored. It would mandate the creation of a democracy caucus in both New York and in Geneva that would work to insure that democratic principles are respected in the U.N. system.
I would be very grateful if you could comment on whether the Administration fully endorses our goals and objectives and what the Administration is doing in addition to Ambassador Kirkpatrick's magnificent work in Geneva.
The second issue I would like to raise relates to Afghanistan, and it relates to Afghanistan as a sort of a case study that was the best of intentions by your bureau. You really cannot get anything done if at the top level conditions are not created that make human rights more feasible.
A few weeks ago we had a hearing here on United States policy toward Afghanistan, and at that time I expressed continuing very severe criticism, which I have been expressing for a long time, that we seem to be satisfied with a government in Afghanistan which for all practical purposes is running Kabul and only Kabul and not that well, the continuing domination of human rights violating warlords through much of the country, and I am particularly disturbed by the growing and systematic harassment and persecution of women in Afghanistan, which while it has not yet reached a level of outrage in activity that we witnessed under the Taliban, it is moving in that direction.
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Now, the State Department as a whole and our Government as a whole must see to it that Afghanistan is treated as a country and not just Kabul as a city. We saw what happened at the Pakistan Embassy there yesterday, so Kabul is not a haven of security in a civilized context. So, with the best of intentions, your bureau can achieve little or nothing to promote human rights if the basic framework is not created to the extent feasible by U.S. foreign policy in alliance with our allies and friends.
I would be grateful if you could comment on the U.N. Human Rights Commission absurdity and the Afghanistan situation.
Mr. CRANER. We think the U.N. Human Rights Commission has been a disgrace over the past couple of years, but we also think it is indispensable. There is no other multilateral human rights organization in the world. Some would like to see the Community of Democracies as a counterpart, but it cannot yet carry the weight, and it will be some years before it can.
Having said UNHRC is indispensable, it is only indispensable if it is a whole lot better than it is now. A year ago, we were able to get back on the Commission, but we made a decision that we did not intend to join the Commission to continue to watch it go downhill and that we were going to work to improve it. The Commission did not get to this pathetic state in only the last year or 2. It took a couple of years to decline, and it is going to take a couple of years to get better.
I was professionally and personally delighted that the Administration chose Ambassador Kirkpatrick to be our Ambassador because I thought this sent two signals. Number one, we want to take you seriously. We are appointing one of the most highly regarded diplomats of the past couple of generations to be our Ambassador to your body; but, number two, we are going to clean this place up. That is part of what Ambassador Kirkpatrick did to the U.N. in the 1980s: She helped to clean it up. We wanted to send those two messages.
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The second thing we have been working on is improving the membership. There are 53 nations on the Commission of whom close to 20 are basically dictatorships. It used to be around 10. I do not think that the Commission should be purely made up of perfect democracies. I think dictatorships or authoritarian countries should have their place in a handful of slots at the Commission.
We have been working very hard on the membership. This year, for the very first time in many years, we saw a slight increase in the number of democracies that came onto the Commission, and that is something we are going to be pursuing over the next couple of years, particularly in Africa. Of the close to 20 countries that are on the Commission that are authoritarian in nature, about two-thirds come from Africa, so that is something we will be pursuing very much there.
Lastly, obviously during Commission sessions, we are going to try and get more and better resolutions passed. Along with the international organizations, my bureau had a big effort with the Europeans to iron out a lot of the problems that had come between us and that led to unnecessary bickering during Commission sessions.
We were able to do that this year, but we also intend to work much more closely with other democratic countries that are on the Commission. That is why we were so taken with the Democratic Caucus idea, both at the Commission and at the General Assembly. That is something that we did not think we had time to do before CHR, given the rest of the mess we were trying to clean up there; so we are going to try to do it for the General Assembly and then the Commission on Human Rights session.
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As for the legislation in terms of objectives and ideals, I do not think there is anything in there that anybody at the State Department disagrees with. In fact, many of the suggestions for action are those that we are currently undertaking.
As for Afghanistan: It is a very fair statement to talk about the status of governance. One of our biggest desires is to see the rule of the central government extend outside of Kabul. We understand that this is not a country that has had a very tightly run, central government controlled type of political society over its history, but it is certainly the case that we want to see that reach extend further than it does.
Mr. LANTOS. My point, Mr. Secretary, is not so much the issue of a central government, but the extent to which the regional areas of governmental structures have some respect for human rights.
Mr. CRANER. Yes.
Mr. LANTOS. I realize that the regional leadership will be there for a long time. There are ethnic and tribal patterns that will persist, and we need to work with them and should work with them.
Mr. CRANER. But we take your point that enlightenment in those regions would be a good thing. That is something we work on day by day. My former deputy was part of a PRT down in Kandahar for months after he left. As a matter of fact, he and I are going back there next week to address some of these issues.
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It is certainly the case if you talk to people in Afghanistan. There was a very interesting USA Today article yesterday—if you have not seen it, I would commend it to you—about how people in Afghanistan think they are doing versus how they were doing 2 years ago. But that is not our goal.
Our goal is to see things much better in terms of trying to extend central control. The issue of taxes that President Karzai has been working on is also beginning to get at this, as well as the issue of planning elections for next year, which we are very mindful of and that we work on day by day. We also believe, however, that some of these structural issues—taxes, elections, et cetera—are going to be able to get at some of these problems in a time period that should not be too long. We are very conscious of this.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you.
Mr. SMITH. The Chair recognizes Mr. Tancredo.
Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Harkening back to the opening comments especially of the Ranking Member when he talked about the moral high ground that the United States now has to take and we should always take and some of the impediments to our achieving that, he mentioned the fact that there may have been a point in time when we had to equivocate because we were in conflict with the Soviet Union and, therefore, some human rights issues had to be relegated to a lower level of concern.
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I think that what I see, what I perceive in the actions of the Department of State, is that there is still this degree of equivocation. It is generated out of a number of things I think, but certainly I have heard often times the response when I make a request for a more aggressive policy in certain areas, and I am going to say specifically the Sudan. If it is not a direct response to me, it is an implied response that the reason that we cannot do more is because, of course, we are relying on the Government in Khartoum for support in our war against terrorism. Therefore, we compromise our position there.
What I am wondering is is there a certain criteria that we establish that says, you know, in this country or in that country we cannot go as far as we would like to go because of this issue? What is that criteria?
Is it a totally subjective thing that we say well, in Sudan, for instance, we are going to just have to play it by ear with them because, after all, they may give us some support in identifying people or holding people, I mean, telling us where we might find individuals?
Can that not be counterproductive, because does that not then give them the opportunity to play us off in that way? I do not know. That is all.
Mr. CRANER. That is a very fair question. Frankly, I think that whoever has been telling you that does not understand what we are trying to do in Sudan. This is a very complex issue that has long predated 9/11 in terms of both the poor conduct of the government in Sudan toward its own population and the human rights violations throughout Sudan.
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What I think the President, Secretary of State Walter Kansteiner, and Senator Danforth have done is to try and deconstruct the Sudan problem, and figure out what are the strands of problems in Sudan so they can address each one.
I think they have been making progress on this, but it is not going to come quickly. Anybody who tells you we are not pushing this issue because of the war on terror just does not know what he is talking about because the President and Secretary Walter Kansteiner spend a lot of time on it.
I think you can critique whether or not we should be dong this or that as we deconstruct it, and I think that is fair; but, the critique that we are not pushing because of the war on terror in Sudan is not a fair critique.
Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you.
Mr. WINTER. Could I add to that, please? From the beginning of the Senator Danforth initiative, the war on terror or terrorism collaboration from the government was only one of the issues that was on our agenda. The human rights and humanitarian issues were equally as large, and there were a number of others.
You know Sudan quite well, and all of us are grateful for the Sudan Peace Act that you put in place, but let me say we are all——
Mr. TANCREDO. Unfortunately, it did not put peace in place.
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Mr. WINTER. Well, we are working on it. Let me say we are plagued, I would say, by the fact that there is such a level of division within that government that sometimes creates a level of frustration that I share with you.
There are people clearly in the Sudan Government who have played their cards in such a way as they have committed themselves to the peace process. These are key people in many cases at the top of the heap, but there are equally strongly placed people within the government who seem beyond any command and control structure at this point in time who show a real unwillingness to come to peace, so we are constantly in the position of trying to deal with these disparities.
I believe that there will be a peace agreement signed within the next 60 days or so, as does Assistant Secretary Kansteiner.
Mr. TANCREDO. Really?
Mr. WINTER. I think the issue is will this group of people who seem out of control within the governmental system find—will they be exited in some fashion from their position because I think the better oriented officials see this peace process as very viable and actually in their interests in the long run. They, too, are threatened by this out-of-control crowd.
It is part of the frustration that Mr. Kansteiner and all of the rest of us have when we are dealing with Sudan. It has more than one major element within it.
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Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Watson.
Ms. WATSON. I want to sincerely thank the Chair for providing me this opportunity to respond to the State Department's report, but also for allowing me to accompany you and watch you in action as you pursued human rights information from the countries that attended our dialogue in Rotterdam. Thank you so much for that. You showed sterling leadership in that regard.
I also want to extend my thanks and appreciation to the State Department for your efforts that have been undertaken to promote human rights in many, many countries that have been slow in developing to what we consider the standards for the treatment of human rights. I appreciate it.
I have perused the section on the Western Hemisphere, and it contains reports on Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, among others. However, I just want to raise this particular aspect. I am going to have to leave when I finish, but maybe the other panelists, including Panel No. 1, can start looking at these issues and maybe address them in writing, will follow up with a letter.
Nowhere in the report does it mention efforts to deal with the pervasive historical human rights abuses of the indigenous and Afro-Latino descendants who together are estimated to make up close to 50 percent of Latin America's population. I think race is directly linked to poverty in Latin America. Without poverty alleviation, the economies of Latin America are truly doomed.
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IADB President Enrique Iglesias stated that only by utilizing the existing skill and capacities of the indigenous peoples and persons of African descent can the economies of the region substantially grow.
David DeFarante of the World Bank says that one of the major obstacles to poverty alleviation is the discrimination that exists against particular ethnic, racial and other social groups. For example, in Colombia, which has a significant African or Afro-Latino population, an Afro-Latino's life expectancy is 10 to 30 percent lower than the national average. Many Afro-Latinos live in areas where the drug cartels dominate. Their lands have been expropriated and their lives marginalized.
In Peru, 93 out of every 1,000 Afro-Peruvian children die before turning 5. Illiteracy rates for Afro-Colombians are 45 percent compared to 14 percent for the non-Blacks. In Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala, indigenous and Afro descenden