Speech #1020031748

I believe. Mr. President. that we should reject this resolution and should reject any further acts under the existing waiver of JacksonVanik. or tolerate any extensions of that waiver. until the Soviet Union has taken steps to confirm and institutionalize its own standards of human rights. particularly. the right to emigrate. There has been a long series of representations. commitments. and assurances that the Soviet Union was on the verge of institutionalizing its human rights policies. I believe it is fair to comment. Mr. President. that the Soviet Union has. in fact. in recent months. by action. demonstrated a substantial change in its policy relative to the right of emigration. particularly. as it relates to its Jewish citizens rights to leave for the State of Israel. Today. almost 1.000 Soviet citizens a day are leaving to emigrate to Israel. The Soviet Union and its current leadership deserves to be recognized for that important step. But what has not happened is the translation of those individual decisions into a system of law and due process. which will give us some assurance that whoever the individual personality in leadership in the Soviet Union is. those practices will be continued. There has been great attention focused in our press. media. in the Congress. and among the American people. on the current efforts by the Supreme Soviet to adopt a permanent right of emigration law. and hopes have been expressed that that will represent what we have been asking for so long of the Soviet Unionto provide a permanent system of law on the right to emigrate. Mr. President. it therefore. grieves me to have to report that the law that is pending before the Supreme Soviet has been repeatedly delayed in terms of its actual adoption. I was told personally in August 1990. when I was in Moscow. that the right to emigrate law would be adopted before the end of 1990. It is now May 15. 1991. and it has not been adopted. It is my understanding that it has been set aside in terms of immediate consideration by the Soviet Parliament. Mr. President. even if adopted. that draft does not comply with our expectations in terms of the right to emigrate. What are some of the problems with the draft currently being considered? One. it does not take effect until July 1992. So we are looking at more than a year. in the most optimistic timetable. before it will be actually placed into effect. Second. articles 7 and 12 of the draft provide that a citizen can still be denied the right to travel abroad. or to emigrate. if he or she possesses state secrets. Those words. "state secrets." are the very words which were used for decades to deny the right of Soviet citizens to emigrate. Moreover. the law does not clarify what constitutes state secrets. Article 12 refers to a law on protection of state secrets. but the law does not exist and. as of this date. has not been dratted.