Political Killings

Political observers in an Amnesty International forum on systematic political killings last night called on the public to hold the government responsible for protecting human rights.

The Harvard Hall forum addressed the widespread perpetration of political assassination and genocide by ruling forces in Asian, African, and Latin American countries.

Rithipol Yem, a Cambodian refugee who now teaches in the Boston public schools, told the audience of about 50 people of the horrors he witnessed under the Khmer Rouge regime before he escaped to Thailand in 1975.

"Pol Pot made Cambodia a huge prison. The whole country was impossible to live in--there was no light of freedom, no sense of life," he said.

"I asked myself, what is the purpose of government--certainly not to kill its people," Yem recalled.

"We may not be able to directly influence Pol Pot, Marcos, or Stalin, but we can certainly influence the foreign policy of our own government," said Dr. Jonathan Fine, president of American committee for Human Rights.

Pine said the United States government is stepping up maistance to the Ferdinand Marcos regimes in the Philippines, despite its violation of U.S. human rights policies.

John J. McAward, who leads Congressional fact-finding missions to Central America, said El Salvador is terrorized by "military death squad rule." He added that the U.S. government continues to support the ruling forces there in the face of its knowledge of the killings.

"We hope to peel back the eyeballs of everyone in the U.S. who will not support-the kind of policy being implemented now," McAward added.