NATOR JACKSON News U S Senator Henry M Jackson of Washington 202 224-9378 FOR RELEASE A M 's Sunday October 1 1978 REMARKS BY SENATOR HENRY M JACKSON The Coalition For A Democratic Majority Human Rights Dinner Saturday September 30 1978 8 00 P M Waldorf Astoria Hotel New York City I want to welcome all of you to this dinner sponsored by the Coalition for a Democratic Majority We are here tonight in support of a group o f men and women whose commitment to human rights in their own country has been characterized by the highest integrity consistency and courage Our gathering tonight sends the message to Orlov Ginzburg Shcharansky Slepak Petkus Meiman Yakunin Tikhy Rudenko Podrabinek Pyotr Vins Elena Bonner and their colleagues we salu t e you These brave people have sought to monitor the Soviet record of compliance with the Helsinki Final Act They are simply asking the Kremlin to respect the human rights and humanitarian obl igations which the Soviet leaders themselve s freely undertook in the 197 5 Helsink i Agreement and in several other legally binding declarations and covenants In their efforts the Helsinki Monitors have international law on their side -2- That so many of the Monitors have been jailed or exiled is a clear indication of what the Soviet leaders have in mind a stubborn refusal to honor the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Final Act -- a refusal as premeditated as any five year plan but more effective If they have done so nowhere else the Soviets have managed to meet their quota for the crushing of dissent Against the awesome power of the Soviet totalitarian state a few men and women have held out They have done so against all the odds odds they knew and understood They have placed their freedom at risk because they believe individual rights and free information are directly related to peace among nations I know that many in this room share my deep disappointment at an American policy on human rights that has come increasingly to focus on petty dictatorships and transitory strongmen while ignoring the Soviet system that inspires and is invoked to justify repression around the world Thus it is that we simultaneously embargo equipment for Argentina or Uruguay while licensing massive transfers of advanced technology to the Soviet Union So it is that the Administration speaks more and more about the abuse of human rights in Nicaragua Chile the Philippines and South Korea while speaking less and less about the violation of human rights in the Soviet Union The fact is that with respect to human rights there is a bully on the block And we have come increasinqly to hasBle his followers and -3imitators while leaving the bully alone We are slipping into a double standard -- and that is no standard at all Only with sensible priorities can we hope to forge an effective policy out of the impulse to support the cause of human rights Only by reasserting our concern at the denial of human rights in the Soviet Union can we make credible and convincing our concern about human rights elsewhere The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Soviet Helsinki Monitoring Groups is an obvious and natural step for the Nobel Committee to take The Senate of the United States I am pleased to say adopted by a 90 to 1 vote my resolution asking the Nobel Committee to do just that I call upon President Carter to join with the Senate in urging the Nobel Committee to recognize the contribution of the Helsinki Monitors to the cause of peace and decency -- by conferring on them the Nobel Peace Prize By the test that always counts the test of sacrifice and courage they are uniquely deserving Now that Camp David has again become a sleepy vacation retreat I want to reflect a moment on the meaning and future of the Agreements reached there on September 17 At this time the Camp David Agreements remain a political framework a foundation -- for the construction of a new political relationship -4between Israel and Egypt The Middle East with the exception of Israel and despite vast oil revenues remains plagued by poverty and instability While a four-fold increase in the price of oil has enriched a small minority in a few countries the great mass in the Middle East continue to suffer the burdens of inadequate food and shelter high unemployment and a dismal future A major factor in the tensions that have produce a generation of political instability in the Middle East has been the desperation that afflicts all but a handful of rich and privileged individuals For example the Egyptian people some 38 million and growing by over a million each year live from hand to mouth In Cairo where si million people are crowded together the ancient cemetery area -- the city of the dead -- has become a city of the near living where hundre of thousands or urban poor live without water plumbing or electricit inside tombs Ten percent of the infants born each year die in infancy Many of the survivors are afflicted by trachoma and otitis media disabling eye and hearing diseases In the Upper Nile and in farming areas generally schistosomiasi is virtually universal -- a parasitic disease that contributes to Egypt's male life expectancy of 54 years and condemns millions to internal bleeding debilitation and suffering Professionals and skilled workers emigrate in droves -- for there is no work for them in Egypt -5This can and must be changed and plentiful The potential resources are rich With peace they can be developed and with peace one can imagine a fruitful partnership of unprecedented proportions betwee Israel Egypt and the United States In helping to alleviate poverty in Egypt and else•where in the Middle East I believe that there is a great and historic role for the United States a role that we once before were able to play in the reconstruction of postwar Europe As was the case with the Marshall Plan it is essential that any such program for the Middle East be based on a full partnership with the Israelis and Egyptians They should work with us for the common development of their countries and eventually the region as a whole Among them the countries possess all the potential resources capital ingenuity management skills labor and with our involvement technology and markets Together we can do much to reverse the misery of centuries to make the deserts bloom I urge President Carter to take the lead by inviting Egypt and Israel to join with us in embarking on a New Marshall Plan for the Middle East and I urge President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin to come to us with proposals for cooperation and development The American government can and should let all the countries of the Middle East know that there is a path to the realization of their peaceful dreams along which we are willing to accompany them And at the same time we must make it plain that those who are unwillina to io -6with us and Israel and Egypt will lose out on the economic and other benefits of cooperation and mutual assistance We may need to go farther While I hope that it will not prove necessary we may have to remind some countries in the Middle East that our willingness to cooperate with them -- and especially our willing· ness to assist them in meeting their security requirements -- has been and will continue to be predicated on their cooperation with us and their support for our peace efforts I hope we will not have to reassess commitments to supply arms to countries whose good will and cooperation was assumed at the time that their requests were approved Looking ahead we should encourage the evolution of a mutual defense arrangement within the Middle East Israel and Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia Jordan and Iran all face a common Soviet threat Their leaders are acutely aware of the Soviet attempt to encircle the oil-producing areas on which the West depends The Soviets have made inroads next door to Egypt in Libya and Ethiopia next door to Saudi Arabia in Yemen next door to Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan and next door to Israel in Syria and among the PLO On the theory that good fences make good neighbors the potential is there for cooperation and parallel action to establish some common barriers to further Soviet expansion in the region In short there exists a gee-political base for a mutual security perspective among countries whose security and independence is menaced by historic Soviet ambitions olaved out throuqh coups d'etat terrorist orqanizations and -7the cynical exploitation of regional conflicts It is significant that peace between Israel and Egypt only became possible when President Sadat understood that Soviet ambitions in the Middle East were incompatible with a stable peace and with the independence of Egypt and other countries in the region The Camp David Agreements are we trust a significant step on the road to a stable peace in the Middle East At the end of that road there are enormous and enormously positiv possibilities -- that all the people of the region will discover the truth about their neighbors as the walls that have divided them for so long come down For the peace to last it must be more than a peace among armies and diplomats more than an official peace It must come to occupy a place in the daily lives of Arabs and Israelis alike There must be movement across once fortified borders that can now become gateways to the develop ment of social and political and economic relations -- first among the Israeli and Egyptian people and in time among all those in the Arab world who are willinq to live in peace