Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, as we do every year, I rise to mark April 24, the somber anniversary of one of the great crimes of modern history: the beginning of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. During and after World War I, a government-orchestrated campaign to eliminate the Armenians under Ottoman rule led to the slaughter of about one and a half million people. Entire communities were uprooted, as survivors fled their homes and were forced into exile. Fortunately for them, the United States offered a haven. In turn, Armenian refugees gave this country the best they had to offer. Their contributions in many fields of endeavor have energized and enriched American culture and politics. Surely Turkey's loss has been America's gain, as Armenian refugees in the early part of the 20th century and their progeny have become an inspiring success story. Turkey has lost in another way: its longstanding campaign of denial that the atrocities perpetrated during 1915-1923 were a genocide has not convinced anyone. More and more representative institutions across the world have openly declared their recognition of the genocide , and their number will grow. By refusing to acknowledge what the rest of the world sees, Turkey has stunted its own development and complicated its ability to come to terms with its own past, present, and future. As we soberly mark April 24 this year, there is at least reason to hope for progress on a front important to all Armenians. The OSCE-brokered negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh finally seems to be making headway. Though the details remain confidential, the recent meeting between Armenia's President Kocharian and Azerbaijan's President Aliev in Key West, Florida apparently went well enough for the OSCE Minsk Group to prepare a new peace proposal that will be presented to the parties in Geneva in June. Much hard bargaining surely lies ahead. Nevertheless, for the first time in years, we can allow ourselves of bit of optimism about the prospects for peace in a very troubled and important region. Mr. Speaker, nothing can compensate for the loss of so many Armenians last century. But a prospering Armenia, at peace with its neighbors, and giving free rein to the natural abilities of this talented people, would mitigate the pain and sorrow we feel today.

Mr. Speaker, the United States has a longstanding dynamic relationship with our NATO ally, the Republic of Turkey, and I believe that the strength of that relationship relies on forthright candor. I have willingly recognized positive developments in Turkey, and I have sought to present fairly the various human rights concerns as they have arisen. Today, I must bring to my colleagues' attention pending actions involving the Government of Turkey which seem incongruous with the record in violation of human rights. I fear the planned sale of additional military aircraft to Turkey could potentially have further long-term, negative effects on human rights in that country. As Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I presided over a hearing in March of 1999 that addressed many human rights concerns. The State Department had just released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices covering 1998. Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Harold Hongju Koh noted in testimony before the Commission that ‘serious human rights abuses continued in Turkey in 1998, but we had hoped that the 1998 report would reflect significant progress on Turkey's human rights record. Prime Minister Yilmaz had publicly committed himself to making the protection of human rights his government's highest priority in 1998. We had welcomed those assurances and respected the sincerity of his intentions. We were disappointed that Turkey had not fully translated those assurances into actions.’ I noted in my opening statement, ‘One year after a commission delegation visited Turkey, our conclusion is that there has been no demonstrable improvement in Ankara's human rights practices and that the prospects for much needed systemic reforms are bleak given the unstable political scene which is likely to continue throughout 1999.' Thankfully, eighteen months later I can say that the picture has improved- somewhat. A little over a year ago the president of Turkey's highest court made an extraordinary speech asserting that Turkish citizens should be granted the right to speak freely, urging that the legal system and constitution be ‘cleansed,’ and that existing ‘limits on language’ seriously compromised the freedom of expression. The man who gave that speech, His Excellency Ahmet Necdet Sezer, is the new President of the Republic of Turkey. Last summer several of us on the Commission congratulated President Sezer on his accession to the presidency, saying, in part: We look forward to working with you and members of your administration, especially as you endeavor to fulfill your commitments to the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and commitments contained in other Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) documents. These human rights fundamentals are the bedrock upon which European human rights rest, the solid foundation upon which Europe's human rights structures are built. It is worth remembering, twenty-five years after the signing of the Final Act, that your predecessor, President Demerel, signed the commitments at Helsinki on behalf of Turkey. Your country's engagement in the Helsinki process was highlighted during last year's OSCE summit in Istanbul, a meeting which emphasized the importance of freedom of expression, the role of NGOs in civil society, and the eradication of torture. Your Presidency comes at a very critical time in modern Turkey's history. Adoption and implementation of the reforms you have advocated would certainly strengthen the ties between our countries and facilitate fuller integration of Turkey into Europe. Full respect for the rights of Turkey's significant Kurdish population would go a long way in reducing tensions that have festered for more than a decade, and resulted in the lengthy conflict in the southeast. Your proposals to consolidate and strengthen democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Turkey will be instrumental in ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity in the Republic. The Helsinki Final Act and other OSCE documents can serve as important guides in your endeavor. We all recall the pending $4 billion sale of advanced attack helicopters to the Turkish army. I have objected to this sale as leading human rights organizations, Turkish and western press, and even the State Department documented the use of such helicopters to attack Kurdish villages in Turkey and to transport troops to regions where civilians were killed. Despite repeated promises, the Turkish Government has been slow to take action which would hold accountable and punish those who have committed such atrocities. And we recently learned of the pending sale of eight even larger helicopters, S-80E heavy lift helicopters for Turkey's Land Forces Command. With a flight radius of over three hundred miles and the ability to carry over fifty armed troops, the S-80E has the potential to greatly expand the ability of Turkey's army to undertake actions such as I just recounted. Since 1998, there has been recognition in high-level U.S.-Turkish exchanges that Turkey has a number of longstanding issues which must be addressed with demonstrable progress: decriminalization of freedom of expression; the release of imprisoned parliamentarians and journalists; prosecution of police officers who commit torture; an end of harassment of human rights defenders and re-opening of non-governmental organizations; the return of internally displaced people to their villages; cessation of harassment and banning of certain political parties; and, an end to the state of emergency in the southeast. The human rights picture in Turkey has improved somewhat in the last several years, yet journalists continue to be arrested and jailed, human rights organizations continue to feel pressure from the police, and elected officials who are affiliated with certain political parties, in particular, continue to be harassed. Anywhere from half a million to 2 million Kurds have been displaced by the Turkish counter insurgency campaigns against the Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as the PKK. The Turkish military has reportedly emptied more than three thousand villages and hamlets in the southeast since 1992, burned homes and fields, and committed other human rights abuses against Kurdish civilians, often using types of helicopters similar to those the Administration is seeking to transfer. Despite repeated promises, the Government of Turkey has taken few steps to facilitate the return of these peoples to their homes, assist them to resettle, or compensate them for the loss of their property. Nor does it allow others to help. Even the ICRC has been unable to operate in Turkey. And, finally, four parliamentarians, Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogÿan, and Selim Sadak, continue to serve time in prison. We cannot proceed with this sale, or other sales or transfers, when Turkey's Government fails to live up to the most basic expectations mentioned above. Mr. Speaker, I think it is also time that the United States establishes an understanding with Turkey and a credible method of consistent monitoring and reporting on the end-use of U.S. weapons, aircraft and service. An August 2000 report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) entitled ‘Foreign Military Sales: Changes Needed to Correct Weaknesses in End-Use Monitoring Program’ was a cause for concern on my part regarding the effectiveness of current end-use monitoring and reporting efforts. While we had been assured that end-use monitoring was taking place and that the United States was holding recipient governments accountable to the export license criteria, the GAO report reveals the failure of the Executive Branch to effectively implement monitoring requirements enacted by Congress. For example, the report points out on page 12: “While field personnel may be aware of adverse conditions in their countries, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency has not established guidance or procedures for field personnel to use in determining when such conditions require an end-use check.” For example, significant upheaval occurred in both Indonesia and Pakistan within the last several years. As a result, the State Department determined that both countries are no longer eligible to purchase U.S. defense articles and services. However, end-use checks of U.S. defense items already provided were not performed in either country in response to the standard. DSCA officials believed that the State Department was responsible for notifying field personnel that the criteria had been met for an end-use check to be conducted. However, DSCA and State have never established a procedure for providing notification to field personnel. Currently, the end-use monitoring training that DSCA provides to field personnel consists of a 30-minute presentation during the security assistance management course at the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management. This training is intended to familiarize students with end-use monitoring requirements. However, this training does not provide any guidance or procedures on how to execute an end-use monitoring program at overseas posts or when to initiate end-use checks in response to one of the five standards. In the past there have been largely ad hoc attempts to report on the end-use of U.S. equipment. Therefore, I was pleased to support the passage of H.R. 4919, the Security Assistant Act of 2000 that was signed by the President on October 6. Section 703 of this Act mandates that no later than 180 days after its enactment, the President shall prepare and transmit to Congress a report summarizing the status of efforts by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency to implement the End-Use Monitoring Enhancement Plan relating to government-to-government transfers of defense articles, services, and related technologies. I want to commend House International Relations Committee Chairman Ben Gilman for his efforts in trying to make our end-use monitoring and reporting programs effective and accurate. I look forward to working with him and others to ensure that an effective and credible monitoring program is put in place without further delay. We must be consistent in our defense of human rights, and our relations, including our military relations, must reflect that commitment. For this reason, Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to support the sale of additional weaponry and aircraft to Turkey at this time.

Mr. Speaker, a small bit of good news has emerged from the tortured region of Chechnya, where the Russian military is killing, looting, and terrorizing the population under the guise of an “anti-terrorism operation.” Andrei Babitsky, the Radio Liberty correspondent who had disappeared in Chechnya in early February after Russian authorities had “exchanged” him to unknown persons in return for some Russian prisoners of war, has emerged in Dagestan and is now in Moscow recuperating from his ordeal. Mr. Babitsky's courageous reporting from the besieged city of Grozny had infuriated Russian military authorities, and he was arrested in mid-January and charged with “participating in an unlawful armed formation.” Prior to his release, Mr. Babitsky had spent time in the notorious Chernokozovo “filtration” camp where the Russian military has been detaining and torturing Chechens suspected of aiding the resistance. Following his arrival in Moscow, Mr. Babitsky provided a harrowing account of his incarceration at the Chernokozovo prison, and especially the savage treatment of his fellow prisoners. It is another graphic reminder that for all the fine words and denials coming out of Moscow, the Russian military has been conducting a brutal business that makes a mockery of the Geneva Conventions and the code of military conduct stipulated in the 1994 Budapest Document of the OSCE. Mr. Speaker, last month President Clinton stated that Russia's Acting President Putin is a man the United States “can do business with.” With this in mind, I would suggest for the Record excerpts from Mr. Babitsky's interview with an NTV reporter in Russia. If Mr. Putin is aware of the state of affairs at Chernokozovo and condoning it, I would submit that our business with Mr. Putin should be extremely limited. If he is not aware of the truth, then his authority over Russia is a chimera, and we might better deal with the real rulers of Russia. Babitsky's statement follows: [From Hero of the Day NTV Program, 7:40 p.m., Feb. 29, 2000] INTERVIEW WITH RADIO LIBERTY CORRESPONDENT ANDREI BABITSKY Babitsky: On the 16th I tried to leave the city of Grozny through the settlement of Staraya Sunzha, a suburb of Grozny which at the time was divided into two parts. One part was controlled by federal troops and the other by the Chechen home guard. I entered the territory controlled by the federals and it was there that I was recognized. I was identified as a journalist, I immediately presented my documents. All the subsequent claims that I was detained as a person who had to be identified are not quite clear to me. I had my passports with me, my accreditation card of a foreign correspondent. Then I was taken to Khankala. Not what journalists who had covered the first war regarded as Khankala, but to an open field. There was an encampment there consisting of trucks used as their office by army intelligence officers. Two of my cassettes that I had filmed in Grozny were taken from me. They contained unique frames. I think those were the last video pictures ever taken by anyone before Grozny was stormed. Those, again, were pictures of thousands of peaceful civilians many of whom, as we now know, were killed by federal artillery shells. I spent two nights in Khankala, in the so-called Avtozak, a truck converted into a prison cell. On the third day I was taken to what the Chechens call a filtration center, the preliminary detention center in Chernokozovo. I believe I am the only journalist of those who covered the first and the second Chechen wars who has seen a filtration center from the inside. I must say that all these horrors that we have heard from Chechens who had been there have been confirmed. Everything that we read about concentration camps of the Stalin period, all that we know about the German camps, all this is present there. The first three days that I spent there, that was the 18th, 19th and the 20th, beatings continued round the clock. I never thought that I would hear such a diversity of expressions of human pain. These were not just screams, these were screams of every possible tonality and depth, these were screams of most diverse pain. Different types of beatings cause a different reaction. Q. Are you saying that you got this treatment? A. No, that was the treatment meted out to others. I was fortunate, it was established at once that I am a journalist, true, nobody knew what type of journalist I was. Everybody there were surprised that a journalist happened to be there. In principle, the people there cannot be described as intellectuals. They decided that there was nothing special about this, that such things do happen in a war. As a journalist I was “registered”, as they say, only once. They have this procedure there. When a new detainee is being taken from his cell to the investigator he is made to crawl all the way under a rain of blows with rubber sticks. It hurts but one can survive it. This is a light treatment as compared with the tortures to which Chechens are subjected day and night, those who are suspected of collaborating with the illegal armed formations. There are also cases when some testimony is beaten out of detainees. Q. What is the prison population there? A. In my opinion ..... I was in cell No. 17 during the first three days. In that cell there were 13 inhabitants of the village Aberdykel (sp.--FNS). Most of them were young. Judging by their stories, I am not an investigator and I could not collect a sufficiently full database, but in such an atmosphere one very rarely doubts the veracity of what you are told. Mostly these were young men who had nothing to do with the war. They were really common folk. They were treating everything happening around them as a calamity but they were not taking any sides. They were simply waiting for this calamity to pass either in this direction or that direction. Beatings as a method of getting testimony. This is something that, unfortunately, is very well known in Russian and not only Russian history and tradition. But I must say that apart from everything, in my opinion, in all this torture, as it seemed to me, a large part is due to sheer sadism. In other words, an absolutely unwarranted torturing of people. For instance, I heard ..... You know, you really can't see this because all this happens outside of your cell. But the type of screams leaves no doubt about what is happening. You know this painful reaction. For two hours a woman was tortured on the 20th or the 19th. She was tortured; I have no other word to explain what was happening. That was not hysteria. I am not a medic but I believe that we all know what hysteria is. There were screams indicting that a person was experiencing unbearable pain, and for a long period of time.

Mr. Speaker, in a matter of days President Clinton and the leaders of the OSCE participating States will gather in Istanbul, Turkey for the final summit of the century. Among the important issues to be discussed will be a charter on European security. As the leaders of our countries assemble on the banks of the Bosphorus, few are likely to realize that the torturers continue to ply their trade, crushing the lives of countless men, women, and even children. In recent days I have received disturbing reports that highlight the fact that torture continues in Turkey despite Ankara's stated zero tolerance policy. Once again, we see that those who attempt to heal the physical and emotion scars of victims of torture are themselves often victimized by the so-called “Anti-Terror Police.” A case in point involves Dr. Zeki Uzun, a medical professional volunteering his services to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey's Izmir Treatment and Rehabilitation Center. Dr. Uzun was reportedly forced from his clinic by Anti-Terror Police and held for interrogation about past patients he had treated. During the interrogation, he was apparently subjected to various kinds of torture, including having a plastic bag placed over his head to stop his breathing. Dr. Uzun was held by the police for a period of six days during which time he was repeatedly abused. In March I chaired a Helsinki Commission hearing on human rights in Turkey in anticipation of the OSCE Summit that will be held in Istanbul, November 17-18. Experts testified to the continued widespread use of torture in Turkey, including the increasing use of electric shock. The gripping testimony included the case of torture against a two-year-old child. Mr. Speaker, I urge President Clinton to place the issue of prevention of torture at the top of his agenda when he meets with Prime Minister Ecevit and include these longstanding concerns in his address before the Turkish Grand National Assembly. If the Government of Turkey is serious about ending the practice of torture, it must publicly condemn such gross violations of human rights, adopt and implement effective procedural safeguards against torture, and vigorously prosecute those who practice torture. Instead of treating individuals like Dr. Uzun as enemies, Ankara should direct its resources to rooting out those elements of the security apparatus responsible for torture.