Amnesty International

Sergio Bitar, a former Allende cabinet minister, shuffled from one concentration camp in Chile to another. Institutionalized brutality there has produced "a sort of Gestapo autonomous from the central government," he says.

Sergio Bitar, a native of Chile, is now a fellow at Harvard's Institute for International Development. John Karefa-Smart left Sierra Leone to become a lecturer at the Harvard Medical School. Pavel Litvmov has been polishing his English at Manhattanville College in Purchase. N.Y., so he can resume the study of physics that he had to abandon in the Soviet Union. These men have one trait in common--all were political prisoners in their native countries, and all were aided by an organization known as Amnesty International.

"The purpose of Amnesty International is to free people who have been jailed for their consciously held religious, moral or political beliefs," says Pamela White, the 27-year-old Boston area director for Amnesty. She adds that candidates for Amnesty sponsorship must never have advocated violence or participated in espionage.

Amnesty officials estimate that there are upwards of a million political prisoners in the world, with almost every nation bearing some of the guilt. Only Holland, the Scandinavian countries, West Germany, New Zealand. Canada, and Australia have no political prisoners (Amnesty would classify England in this group if it weren't for uncertainties over the situation in Northern Ireland). The countries with the greatest number of political prisoners now are Chile. South Africa, Rhodesia, and Indonesia. Up until its liberation last spring. South Viet Nam would probably have won the prize for political repression.

Most of the approximately 100 political prisoners in the United States are draft resisters, while a substantial minority are civil rights cases. "Political imprisonment is a lot less heinous in this country than in others because we don't think that prisoners are being tortured and starved here as they are in Latin American counties," White explains.

Political imprisonment is reportedly far more widespread in the Soviet Union, where the KGB has reputedly used drugs and psychological torture on dissidents. Pavel Litvinov, a well-known physicist, spent several months in Siberia for his political beliefs untils he came to this country in March 1974. Lit-vinov hopes to have improved his English by next year to the point where he will be able to resume his research at Manhattanville College.

"Nobody thinks about these people [political prisoners]--they are outcasts," he says in a heavily accented but grammatically correct English. "Amnesty helps them to face their sufferings because they know that somewhere, others are caring about them." He comments that although a prisoner's release cannot be directly traced to Amnesty, the threat of adverse world-wide publicity has forced the Soviet Union to free many prisoners that it would not have otherwise. "This approach really works--especially with regimes like the Soviet," he says.

Sergio Bitar shuffled from one concentration camp in Chile to another until the military dictatorship there decided to release him in November. 1974. Former Minister of Mines for the Allende government. Bitar is now a visiting fellow at the Institute for International Development, where he is doing research on the political economy of his native country. He says that Amnesty has placed "much pressure" on the Chilean junta to curtail its repressive tactics. A recent Amnesty report on political imprisonment in Chile describes the situation in dry, detached language.

Consequently, political prisoners have stemmed from every sector of the Chilean population. Allende's cabinet ministers are in prison. At least 40 lawyers have been detained, many for having exercised their professional duties. Approximately 100 medical doctors were arrested (the majority of them now free), almost invariably accused of participation in "clandestine hospitals" which would have treated pro-Allende casualties in the event of a Civil War. Journalists who worked in pro-Allende newspapers, magazines, radio or television stations have been imprisoned, killed or forced to seek asylum. A similar fate has met all leaders of the now disbanded Central Workers Union.

Like Litvinov. Bitar notes that it is impossible to gauge the individual role of elements such as Amnesty, universities, and the church in gaining his release, saying that it was the combined pressures of world opinion that eventually won him his freedom. Many political prisoners are still languishing in Chilean jails. With a glint of anger in his eyes. Bitar remarks that the process of brutality has now been institutionalized in Chile, thereby producing "a sort of Gestapo autonomous from the central government." He describes the Chilean leadership as having "the most reactionary mentality in Latin America today," and concludes that a change will occur in Chile in the near future, due to internal instability and external pressure.

Dr. John Karefa-Smart, who turns 60 this year, now teaches preventive medicine at the Medical School. A former foreign minister of Sierra Leone, he was imprisoned in that country during the fall and winter of 1970. The government of Sierra Leone claimed at the time that a state of emergency warranted Karefa-Smart's imprisonment, but he was in tact detained for political reasons. Echoing Bitar and Litvinov, he cites Amnesty's apolitical nature as one of the keys to its success. "Amnesty is definitely helping the many political prisoners who are still in Sierra Leone," he says.

White describes prisoner conditions in most countries as "not to be believed." Political prisoners often undergo torture, she says, and some spend months in jail with no charges filed against them Most accounts of prison conditions come from escaped prisoners and the Red Cross. White adds that there are probably many prisoners in North Viet Nam, North Korea, and China, but Amnesty has no way of verifying this.

Amnesty International has spread all over the globe since it was founded by a group of British lawyers in 1961. With headquarters in London, the organization has over 1500 chapters throughout the world, although it is more active and better known in Western Europe than the United States. Motorists in West Germany and the Netherlands can even elect to pay their parking fines to Amnesty.

Amnesty operates through individuals and groups, who, White says, "actually adopt a prisoner as a long-term affair." Before Amnesty will sponsor a prisoner, the London headquarters investigates his case to verify that it is political, often sending observers to open trials. "We don't want criminals," White stresses. Amnesty groups consist of fifteen people who "adopt" three prisoners from different countries. Individuals usually "adopt" a single prisoner. In addition to the $5 per year dues required from every individual, groups are also expected to raise another $400 annually through functions like bake sales. Amnesty also conducts direct mailing campaigns to generate support.

"Adoption" means assuming responsibility for a prisoner until he is released or otherwise disposed of by his government. In its literature, Amnesty repeatedly invokes the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which White terms "a treaty more honored in the breach than anything else." Amnesty groups write letters to ministers and other key figures in the governments of their adopted prisoners. White says that although officials rarely reply the first time. Amnesty keeps pestering them "until the file on a particular prisoner has grown so fat that they cannot afford to ignore it." White mentions that it is more effective to be "courteous, rational, and apolitical" than overtly antagonistic to governments. In pleading a prisoner's case. Amnesty often reminds a country of a constitution that it may be disregarding. "We try to prick their conscience," she says, adding that the embarrassing weight of world opinion usually proves to be Amnesty's most effective weapon in dealing with repressive governments.

White emphasizes that Amnesty is a non-partisan, apolitical organization. Groups never handle political prisoners from within their own country to ensure impartiality. "We are really serious about not letting political beliefs interfere with the handling of prisoners," she says White points with pride to the fact that Amnesty has been alternately attacked as left-wing by Chile and right-wing by the Soviet Union. "Amnesty does not want to be identified with anything but the observance of human rights," she explains. "We are not trying to change the political structures of countries, but only the way they treat their political prisoners."

Amnesty's success has grown in proportion to its reputation. White mentions that prisoners often receive more food and better treatment once it is known that Amnesty has adopted their case. "In countries where repression is a serious issue, everybody in the jails knows about us," she says. Amnesty's services extend beyond merely obtaining a prisoner's release. The organization sometimes supports a prisoner's family while he is in jail, and often helps him to reorganize his life after he is out. White stresses that Amnesty does not only adopt famous dissidents, but "the little guy who nobody has heard of" as well (past Amnesty causes have included everyone from Benjamin Spock to Allende's sister). Amnesty also issues investigative reports on countries where political imprisonment is known to be a problem.

The Boston chapter of Amnesty was founded only recently but has already begun to attract support. White is the sole employee, and runs the operation from her home in Boston. She comments that "the Boston area is one of the most fertile grounds for Amnesty in the whole country, with so many liberal-minded students and others." An Amnesty-sponsored rally in Lowell Lecture Hall last spring drew a fair crowd for exam period, and featured a speech by George Wald, the Biology professor-cum-political activist. White would like to see Amnesty "grow by leaps and bounds" on the east coast as it has done in Western Europe. She would also like to see Amnesty establish outposts in Communist countries, but the quashing of a Soviet chapter two weeks after its inception last spring makes those prospects rather bleak.

Many Americans automatically associate the word "amnesty" with the issue of Viet Nam draft resisters, according to White. Although Amnesty heartily supports the freeing of draft resisters as part of its overall policy on the liberation of political prisoners. White terms it "unfortunate" that Amnesty International should be identified with them exclusively, lamenting that "simply the word 'amnesty' causes antipathy among some people." She says that mailmen have been known to refuse to deliver letters bearing the organization's name for this reason (Amnesty now uses the initials A.I. for its return address).

Ultimately, Amnesty aims at the same area of the American consciousness as those ads in the New Yorker which inform the reader that you-can-save-Jose-for-$15-a-month-or-turn-the-page. As White notes, "once you adopt a prisoner, the relationship weighs so heavily on your conscience that you feel personally responsible for his welfare." She adds that "this is why Amnesty works so well--it makes the members feel so concerned and successful with what they are doing."

In spite of its ambitious designs, Amnesty has its limitations. White observes that "it would be Pollyanna-ish to say that we're always successful." It is of course impossible for Amnesty to find out about all the political prisoners in the world. After imprisoning someone for political reasons, governments are naturally not anxious to publicize the matter and usually do their best to conceal it. "We are only handling a miniscule amount compared with the problem," White concedes. Amnesty must still reject even some of those cases that come to its attention, due to sheer volume. "We're successful with those cases we take, but we can't take everybody," she explains. And when a prisoner is freed, it is often impossible to attribute his release directly to Amnesty Litvinov, Bitar, and Karefa-Smart all mention that a combination of forces brought about their liberation, but Amnesty can serve as an effective channel for these forces.

Despite Amnesty's limitations, there is no denying the gains it has scored for political prisoners throughout the world. No other organization addresses itself directly to the plight of those who, in Pavel Litvinov's words, "know the feeling of being abandoned."