Four years ago, on May 21, 2022, several months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government published a list of 963 U.S. citizens permanently banned from entering the Russian Federation. The list included President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, most Members of Congress (from both parties), government and military officials, journalists, academics and civil society figures. There was one entity that was overrepresented relative to its size – the leadership and staff of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, commonly known as the Helsinki Commission. Nearly 20 current and former staffers, including myself, were blacklisted, making the Helsinki Commission the most heavily represented U.S. institution on the list. So why did Moscow harbor such exceptional hostility toward the Helsinki Commission?
Fifty years ago this month, in June of 1976, Congress created, over State Department objections, the bipartisan and bicameral Helsinki Commission. Its mandate: to monitor and encourage compliance by all signatories of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, promoting human rights, military security and economic cooperation in Europe and the former Soviet Union. The commission emphasized human rights, which were being routinely flouted by the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in Eastern Europe. While mostly Congressional, the commission also had an Executive Branch component, which was unusual for a governmental entity, but it provided greater opportunities to fulfill its mandate.
The commission played a prominent role in shining a bright light on Soviet human rights violations and supporting dissident movements in the Soviet Union and their Eastern European satellite states.
During the Cold War, the commission was led by House and Senate chairs and co-chairs of the commission – Reps. Dante Fascell (D-Fla.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Sens. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.). A crucial role was played by its first chief of staff, Spencer Oliver, who was instrumental in the creation and development of the commission. Later, Mr. Oliver served from 1992-2015 as the Secretary General of the 56-country OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
During the Cold War, the commission became a leading voice in exposing Soviet bloc human rights violations. Not surprisingly, they were extremely unhappy with this U.S governmental commission.
I was privileged to serve on the Helsinki Commission’s staff for over 35 years, from 1981 to 2017. I was part of a team of non-partisan professionals who organized hearings and briefings, and wrote countless public reports and speeches, press releases and Congressional resolutions. We promoted respect for, called attention to and condemned human rights violations in the Soviet Union and Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. At a time when U.S. governmental and media attention focused on Moscow-based dissidents (after all, Moscow was where the U.S. Embassy and the American media were located), the Helsinki Commission also highlighted the repression of non-Russian dissidents, notably Ukrainians and Lithuanians. This, of course, only further irritated the Soviets.
We also pressed the Executive Branch, notably the State Department, to be more proactive in raising specific instances of rights violations. This included “naming names” of individual cases of political prisoners, especially at international diplomatic gatherings of the then 35 signatory states of the Helsinki Final Act.
Along with State Department colleagues, Helsinki Commission staff, including myself, were integral members of official U.S delegations to these multi-year gatherings of what was called the Helsinki process. Conferences were held in Belgrade (1977-1978), Madrid (1980-1983) and Vienna (1986-1989). There were also meetings of limited duration in Budapest, Ottawa, Bern, Paris, Copenhagen and Moscow between 1984 and early 1991. At these forums, Western countries, led by the United States, censured the Soviets and their allies for their Helsinki human rights transgressions. The Soviets were greatly annoyed at the West’s criticism of their human rights record, while trying, without much success, to defend themselves.
So, what were some of the Helsinki Commission’s areas of concern during its early years consistent with its mandate to monitor human rights?
A focal point of commission activity was vigorously defending Soviet political prisoners and other dissenters, especially members of Helsinki Monitoring Groups that were formed in Moscow, Ukraine, Lithuania, Armenia and Georgia and other affiliated groups. These citizen members took great risks in documenting human rights violations and in pressing the Soviet government to adhere to human rights commitments it had freely undertaken when it signed the Helsinki Final Act. The commission made a point of also highlighting the plight of non-Russian dissidents, especially members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, which was the largest and most repressed of the Soviet Helsinki groups. Mind you, the Soviets were keenly sensitive to dissent coming from Ukraine and the three Baltic states given their history of resistance to Soviet rule.
The commission strongly defended religious rights. For instance, it spoke out against the repression of Pentecostals, who constituted a disproportionate number of prisoners of conscience. The commission also strongly advocated for the legalization of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, at the time the largest banned church in the world.
Another issue that garnered a lot of the commission’s attention was what at the time was referred to as “human contacts.” The Soviets and their allies to varying degrees would not allow their citizens to emigrate, and specifically, to reunite with their relatives in the West. Among my first tasks at the commission was to manage lists of thousands of individuals forbidden from exercising this fundamental right – primarily Soviet Jews and Romanians. In those early years, the Soviets would categorically refuse to accept our lists. The oppressive Romanian regime, on the other hand, would allow people included on our lists to join their families in America, but only because they wanted to maintain favorable trading status with the U.S. We also advocated on behalf of Soviet citizens who were prevented from reuniting with their spouses in the United States or who were denied the right to visit their families.
The commission closely monitored human rights in the Soviet satellite states, vigorously defending Poland’s suppressed Solidarity movement and Czechoslovakia’s Charter ’77. We also spoke out on human rights concerns that received little to no international attention at the time, such as the Bulgarian Communist government’s cruel attempts to forcibly assimilate its Turkish minority. Somewhat inexplicably, the Bulgarians would allow commissioners and staff, including me, whose country responsibilities included Bulgaria, to travel there. Despite the official propaganda of denial, we would witness examples of their efforts to eradicate Turkish identity.
The Helsinki Commission had valuable allies who supported and facilitated our work, including various human rights, Soviet Jewry, Ukrainian, Baltic, Polish, Hungarian and other Eastern European non-governmental organizations. Through their tireless advocacy, they demonstrated that it wasn’t just the government, but the American people, who cared about human rights.
With the emergence of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s and the fledgling democratic movements in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, first and foremost Poland, some aspects of the commission’s work began to change. More on this time of dramatic transition, what came after the fall of the Soviet empire, and the commission’s current focus on Russia’s greatest violation of Helsinki Final Act core principles – their war against Ukraine – in my next column.
Photo: generated by AI
Author: Orest Deychakiwsky
