The ordeal of Jacobo Timerman was an eloquent if silent witness this week at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearings on President Reagan’s controversial nomination of Ernest LeFever to be Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.
Timerman, former editor and publisher of the Argentine daily La Opinion, was imprisoned for 30 months without charges by the military authorities who govern Argentina. By his own account, he was subjected to harsher treatment than thousands of other political prisoners in Argentina because he is Jewish.
LeFever, an arch-conservative, is a vociferous critic of the stress placed on human rights by the Carter Administration in its dealings with authoritarian regimes friendly to the United States. He said he subscribes to the view that “quiet diplomacy” is more effective than public criticism in ameliorating human rights violations, except in the case of the Soviets and other Marxist governments.
Timerman, who now lives in Israel, was a spectator at the hearings where strong opposition to LeFever’s nomination has developed. He declined
to testify. But his recently published book, “Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number,” was cited by several foes of LeFever. The nominee was asked by Sen. Claiborne Pell (D. R.I.) if he had read it. LeFever replied he had read reviews but not the book and refused to be drawn into a discussion of Argentina.
Timerman’s book is his detailed personal account of his arrest, incarceration, and interrogation, under torture, about his Zionism, his loyalty to Argentina and his political opinions. It is also a powerful indictment of the Argentine military junta’s treatment of political dissenters.
Nearly three years after his arrest in April, 1977, the Argentine Supreme Court found no judicial grounds for his confinement. Nevertheless, he was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the country. His newspaper and other property confiscated at the time of his arrest were not returned.
ROUSING OVATION FOR TIMERMAN
When Foreign Relations Committee chairman Charles Percy (R. III.) saw Timerman in the spectators gallery and asked him to stand, the former Argentine journalist received a rousing ovation. Later, he told reporters that the Carter Administration’s human rights policy had helped “thousands” of Argentinians faced with repression.
He said the U.S. helped by providing information and legal advice to those in distress and by putting diplomatic pressure on the Argentine rulers. “Silent diplomacy is silence,” he told reporters. “Quiet diplomacy is surrender.”
AJCONGRESS OPPOSES NOMINATION
Meanwhile, the American Jewish Congress, in testimony submitted to the Foreign Relations Committee, said the confirmation of LeFever to the sensitive human rights post would be “a serious error” and urged his rejection.
The statement, signed by Henry Siegman, AJCongress executive director, and Phil Baum, associate executive director, said it would be “singularly wrong” to confirm LeFever “because the strategies he has recommended clearly subordinate human rights goals to many other considerations.” According to the AJCongress officials, “Too often the call for quiet diplomacy merely masks an intention to stifle criticism and inhibit significant action.”
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