For years the Reagan administration has come down hard on the Soviets for their human rights record, saying their mistreatment of political prisoners and restrictions on emigration had created mistrust and hurt prospects for arms control.
But now that the administration may be on the verge of signing a key document acknowledging improvement in those areas, a major Soviet Jewry group is charging that the Soviets are being let off easy.
Next month, U.S. officials in Vienna could sign a document concluding East-West talks on human rights and security issues.
The talks are a review of the Helsinki accords signed in 1975 by 35 nations, including the Soviet Union. The accords, known officially as the Final Act on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, mandated respect for human rights.
Compliance with the accords is reviewed regularly at a series of follow-up conferences. The United States has refused to begin new talks with the Soviets on cutting conventional arms in Europe until the follow-up process is completed to its satisfaction.
The latest conference, which has dragged on for over two years, is scheduled to reconvene in Vienna on Jan. 6.
The end of the follow-up process is near, because U.S. State Department officials say Moscow is close to meeting their demand that all of those they have identified as political prisoners be released. The Soviets have also agreed to review disputed cases.
150 REFUSENIK CASES ABANDONED
The administration now says it is prepared to begin the arms talks, if Moscow allows the emigration of 150 to 200 Soviet Jews who have long sought permission.
The Union of Councils for Soviet Jews says that is not enough. According to the Washington-based umbrella group, the compromise would abandon 150 other long-term refusenik families.
“As recently as Oct. 20, 1988, President Reagan wrote to us, promising that ‘the calendar will not hold us hostage to an unacceptable agreement,’ ” in Vienna, Pamela Cohen, national president of the council, said in a statement released Thursday. “What happened to those promises?” she asked.
Cohen also said the United States is abandoning demands that the Soviets institutionalize reforms that would abolish the system of arbitrary refusals.
For their part, U.S. officials quoted in The New York Times said their demand would cover Soviet Jews who have been denied permission to emigrate for more than 10 years.
Another official said the United States expects the Soviets to allow other refuseniks to leave after the Vienna meeting. The official referred to Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech to the United Nations earlier this month, during which the Soviet leader promised that emigration problems were “being dealt with in a humane spirit.”
In that speech, Gorbachev repeated his insistence that the next CSCE-sponsored conference on human rights, scheduled for 1991, be held in Moscow.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
