A large part of the problem lies directly within our own State Department. The Department as well as the entire Nixon administration chooses to pretend that that repression. torture. and the abridgement.of human rights simply does not exist. A recent example of this is the response received by Senator KENNEDY from the State Department in reply to the recommendations contained in a study mission report submitted by his Senate Subcommittee on Refugees. In regard to political prisoners in South Vietnam. the Department stated: The Department of State cannot agree with the Study Missions assertion that "the record is clear that political prisoners exist in South Vietnam." We would add that the extensive evidence available to us simply does not sustain the highly publicized charges that civilian prisoners are subjected to widespread. systematic mistreatment in the jails of the Republic of Vietnam. Time and again. the administration continues to attempt to solve the problems of blatant and gross violations of human rights simply by denying that they exist. The State Department assertion that there are no political prisoners in South Vietnam defies not only the findings of the Refugee Subcommittee. but also the scores of reports by responsible humanitarian organizations whose documented evidence leaves absolutely no question that these violations exist. In Chile. while people are arrested. tortured. and summarily killed for any reason or even no reason. our Government is asking $85 million in bilateral aid for the next fiscal year. Unlike other Western countries. we have offered no asylum to Chilean refugees. And we have said nothing. officially. about the murder and savagery. If the United States only spoke out against the torture. if our Embassy in Santiago was active in watching the trials and other visible manifestations of oppression. if Congress could. just once. attach conditions to aid. those who rule Chile.
Keywords matched
Refugees Refugee refugees