National movements of USSR appeal to Vienna Conference (12/25/88)

National movements of USSR appeal to Vienna Conference

MOSCOW - Representatives of national-democratic movements in the USSR have urged the ongoing Vienna conference reviewing implementation of the 1975 Helsinki Accords not to agree to a Moscow meeting on humanitarian concerns unless the Soviet Union lives up to its commitments in international agreements on human and national rights.

The rights activists, representing the Estonian, Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar, Latvian, Lithuanian and Armenian national-democratic movements, drafted their appeal on November 17 while in Moscow for talks with members of a U.S. Congressional delegation and deputies of the Supreme Soviet. The unprecedented meetings brought together U.S. legislators, most of them members of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Soviet officials and dissidents.

The USSR has been promoting the idea of a special meeting on humanitarian affairs within the framework of the Helsinki process to take place in Moscow. Western states, however, have expressed reluctance to agree to such a conference in view of the USSR's continued violations of the Helsinki Accords.

In their appeal to the Vienna Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the 15 national rights activists, including members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union, state that "holding a conference on humanitarian concerns in a state that does not abide by laws, such as the USSR, is contradictory in principle to the spirit and letter of the Helsinki Act and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

They go on to point out, however, that if the USSR should begin to steadfastly implement changes guaranteeing the rights of nations and individuals, holding such a conference in Moscow would be possible.

The appeal enumerates four principal demands: granting true sovereignty to the republics that constitute the USSR; expanding the rights of the individual, releasing and rehabilitating all prisoners of conscience; and adopting a law on cults that would guarantee freedom of conscience.

The full text of the appeal follows.

* * *

We, representatives of national-democratic movements of nations of the USSR, believe that holding a conference on humanitarian concerns in a state that does not abide by laws, such as the USSR, is contradictory in principle to spirit and letter of the Helsinki Final Act and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The realization of political reforms that are being proposed by the new leadership of the USSR attests to the fact that it does not wish to democratize the government, which is subordinate to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

We are witnesses to the speeded-up process of centralizing economic and social life. Russification of national minorities has not been halted. Nothing has been done to give genuine sovereignty to the republics. Prisoners of conscience continue to languish in concentration camps and in exile. Public movements are being repressed. Meetings and demonstrations are forbidden. New laws that regulate the civic and political activity of citizens have a reactionary, anti-democratic character.

Nonetheless, keeping in mind that the tendency toward democratization of life is not decreasing on the part of society, holding such a conference in Moscow would have some sense to it - if the government of the USSR pledged and began to steadfastly implement the following principles in international agreements on the rights of nations and individuals:

1. Granting true sovereignty to the republics that constitute the USSR, especially, changing over to republican self-financing; eliminating all-union ministries which limit such self-financing; granting republic languages the status of state languages; performing military service and serving terms of imprisonment within the boundaries of the republic of one's residence, establishing direct diplomatic, governmental, trade and cultural relations between the republics and all countries of the world; returning exiled nations to their homelands and restoring their states.

2. Expanding the rights of the individual: adopting a law about democratic elections without giving privileges to any party, organization or social group; granting and guaranteeing the right to disseminate and receive information, exchange periodicals, books, films, regardless of borders; eliminating jamming of radio broadcasts; abolishing the reactionary law about meetings; granting the right to freely move and choose one's place of residence.

3. Releasing and rehabilitating, with appropriate compensation, all prisoners of conscience and persons sentenced in fabricated cases; returning to normal life the victims of repressive psychiatry (rescinding their falsified diagnoses); returning the bodies of persons who died in concentration camps to their homelands; returning to their families all their scholarly and artistic works; eliminating articles 190 and 70 of the Criminal Code of the USSR and the corresponding articles in the codes of the republics.

4. Adopting a law on cults which would guarantee freedom of conscience, a realistic separation of Church and state; rehabilitating prohibited Churches; and eliminating discriminatory articles in the criminal codes regarding freedom of conscience.

We expect that the high-level forum of European governments will understand our fears and trepidations about the fates of our nations and will support us in our demands.

November 17, 1988

Estonian National Independence Party: Juri Adams, Tunne Kelams.
Ukrainian Helsinki Union: Mykhailo Horyn, Stepan Khmara, Vyacheslav Chornovil.
Central Initiative Group of the Crimean Tatar National Movement: Mustafa Dzhemilev, Fuat Abliamitov, Reshat Dzhemilev.
Informal National Front of Latvia: Ints Tsalitis.
Lithuanian Helsinki Group: Vytaustas Bogushis, Viktoras Petkus, Edmuntas Paulonis.
Lithuanian Movement for Perestroika: Kazys Saja.
Lithuanian Catholic Movement: Nijole Sadunaite.
Armenian National Self-Determination Federation: Moses Gorgisian.

Moscow

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