The signing of an agreement eliminating intermediaterange nuclear forces by President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev will hopefully lead to a reduction of tensions. more responsible Soviet foreign policies. and a more productive superpower relationship in the future. and that is to be applauded. With all the hoopla about the summit and the INF agreement and the resultant optimism about more positive United StatesSoviet relations. however. it is imperative that we not allow Soviet human rights violations to be placed on the back burner. Despite some positive actions in recent months by the Soviet authoritiessome limited intellectual freedoms under glasnost. the release of several of the most prominent refuseniks. and a small increase in the overall number of Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate this year. compared to recent past yearsSoviet practices remain inadequate. While we should welcome any positive change. no matter how small. we must continue to push for much more farreaching reform on Soviet human rights policies. The numbers on Jewish emigration are a good indicator of just how limited the change going on in the U.S.S.R. has been. In the first 10 months of 1987. 6.340 Soviet Jews were reportedly allowed to emigrate. While this compares quite favorably to recent yearsin fact. it exceeds the total for 1983. 1984. 1985. and 1986 combinedit is still far less than the total for 1979. when Soviet Jewish emigration topped 51.300. the Soviets are clearly capable of providing for much higher levels of emigration. We must encourage them to do so. for we know that hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews have indicated their interest in leaving. Numbers. of course. cannot tell the whole story.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigration