National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council
NJCRAC Joint Program Plan 1994-1995

Guide to Program Planning Of the Constituent Organizations

International Human Rights

Changing Conditions

Difficulties in implementing U.S. human rights principles in trouble spots around the world - Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti - have raised serious questions about the goals of U.S. foreign policy in the post-cold war era. At the same time, pressures to meet pressing domestic needs might truncate efforts to articulate a U.S. approach to human rights that effectively synthesizes both U.S. national interests and principles.

Background

Efforts by the United States to meet a series of foreign policy challenges that involve fundamental human rights principles have proven difficult to bring to successful conclusions. Most troubling has been the inability or perceived unwillingness of the U.S. to take the steps required to end more than two years of increasingly brutal civil war in Bosnia. The UN Security Council and others have judged the ethnic cleansing, the massacres of innocent civilians, the indiscriminate mass raping of women as war crimes and acts of genocide. NATO's threats to carry out air attacks on Serbian positions surrounding the besieged capital city of Sarajevo did result in an end to the shelling, although the siege of that and other cities in Bosnia continued. U.S. jets, acting on behalf of NATO, bombed other Serb forces in an effort to halt their advance on Goradje. At the same time the truce between the Moslems and Croats in Bosnia, signed in Washington, appeared to be holding firm. In addition, the U.S. did support a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a war crimes tribunal to investigate the atrocities in Bosnia, but its miniscule efforts to date have been tied up in the world body's bureaucracy without adequate funding to pursue trials.

In Haiti, a U.S.-sponsored effort to restore democratically-elected President Jean-Claude Aristide foundered in the wake of bloody reprisals against the military junta in control. Equally painful has been the decision of the U.S. government to return potential Haitian refugees interdicted on the high seas without recourse to elemental due process in the adjudication of their claims. An announced change of policy in May 1994 has not yet restored the right of adjudication of refugee claims that it promised. (See section on Immigration and Refugees.)

In Somalia, largely successful United Nations efforts to end the squalid starvation in that country, televised images of which were seared into American conscience, were transformed into images of chaos and death as UN troops, including Americans, became embroiled in the strife accompanying efforts to reestablish civil authority in that country. The death American servicemen, followed by Congressional outcry questioning the vital American interest in Somalia, led President Clinton to withdraw U.S. troops.

The organized Jewish community ha actively participated in efforts to ad dress these problems. The NJCRAC has coordinated coalitional activity to address the abuses of human rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia and Haiti. Mobilizing interfaith coalition partners, the Muslim community and others, the organized Jewish community has pressed the White House and the Congress to end the interdiction of Haitians on the high seas, to feed the Somalis, and to provide not only humanitarian assistance but military equipment to the Bosnians as they struggle to preserve their homes, their families, and their very lives.

In the absence of conflict with an opposing superpower, the kinds of situations the United States faces in Bosnia, Somalia, and Haiti denote the kind of foreign policy issues that the nation is increasingly likely to face in the future. The country will therefore be called upon to define America's national interest not in terms of east-west power politics but rather with regard to global interdependence, democratic governance, and human rights principles.

The NJCRAC is supportive of President Clinton's efforts to support the development of democratic institutions and free market economies in the states of the FSU (see section on Jews in the FSU). The President's acknowledgement of global economic interdependence is crucially important to efforts to redefine the national interest. Where the Administration has been less successful, however, is in making the case for support for individual human rights around the world as a central principle of American foreign policy.

Of particular concern is the continuing repression of Tibetan culture and religion by the Chinese. As the U.S. and China move toward expanding commercial ties, it is essential that the Administration continue to press the Chinese with respect to the denial of rights to the natives of Tibet and also to the suppression of the advocates of democratization in China itself. At the same time, the United States should continue to raise the issue of xenophobia directed at Turkish guest workers and anti-Semitism that continues in Germany. The neo-Nazi threat in Germany demands vigorous response by German authorities, supported by allies in the west.

The organized Jewish community has a long record of involvement in addressing international human rights needs. Jewish history informs the communal understanding of the importance of supporting freedom of religious worship, full participation in the life of one's community, freedom of emigration - and the consequences that ensue upon the denial of these rights. Moreover, the fact that Jewish communities exist in many nations throughout the world impels Jewish interest in these principles and rights.

As the organized Jewish community continues to advocate a U.S. foreign policy rooted in a commitment to individual human rights around the globe, it is essential that it develop and implement guidelines for involvement in issues that will engage the community's attention in the period ahead. At the same time, the community will need to engage the Administration and Congress in discussion over the steps to be taken to integrate human rights considerations in the development of U.S. foreign policy.

Priority Strategic Goals

The Jewish community relations field should

• continue to advocate the centrality of individual human rights to U.S. foreign policy;
  

• encourage the United States to persist in efforts to end the tragedy in Bosnia, protect the lives of the Bosnian population, provide humanitarian relief to the victims of ethnic cleansing and other genocidal acts, stop the bloodshed and gross human rights violations through a forceful joint international effort to end the arms embargo, initiate war crimes trials, and assure the continuing independence of Bosnia;
  
  
• monitor developments in newly-emerging nations in eastern Europe and third world countries where either ethnic turmoil or natural disasters or both undermine efforts at democratization;
  
  
• insist that China desist in its efforts to smother Tibetan culture and restore the rights of that people to their distinct culture, religion, and way of life; and,
  
  
• together with allies in Europe, develop programs to end the xenophobia and discrimination directed at guest workers and others.