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Latin America: Argentina and Chile continue to resist U.S. pressures, but there has been some change in Central America. When U.S. Ambassador Mauricio Solaun presented his credentials in Nicaragua five months ago, he coolly informed Strongman Anastasio Somoza that Washington wanted to see martial law lifted and official terror decreased. Somoza, whose family has ruled Nicaragua with U.S. backing for more than 40 years, yielded. Last month opposition elements mounted a two-week nationwide general strike to protest the assassination of an anti-Somoza newspaper editor. Ambassador Solaun cautioned Somoza that Washington would not support him unless he responded to the strike with reform rather than repression. "If it were not for Carter's concern for human rights," an opposition leader told TIME, "this general strike would not have been possible."
Africa: Human rights abuses remain widespread, but some progress can be cited. In December, Guinea's President Sékou Touré freed 300 former ambassadors, army officers, magistrates, government officials and others whom he had accused of trying to overthrow him. Western diplomats credit that to U.S. efforts. The military government of Nigeria, meanwhile, shows every indication of keeping its promise to return the country to democratic rule by October; and as far as is known, all political prisoners have been released.
The Carter Administration hopes that criticism of its human rights policy will diminish as the policy itself becomes, in the jargon of the foreign policymakers, "multilateralized." Translation: they are hoping other countries will adopt a version of the policy themselves and join forces with the U.S. in international bodies. There are already some signs that this is happening. A joint State Department-Treasury Department team toured Western Europe earlier this month drumming up transatlantic cooperation on human rights. The European Economic Community is considering writing human rights provisions into the Lome Convention, which provides trade preferences for 52 former European colonies in Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean.
In a speech before the American Bar Association in New Orleans last week, Christopher proposed the creation of an "International Clearinghouse for Human Rights Information," an idea partly inspired by the London-based group Amnesty International. The White House is also considering a proposal for a "Human Rights Foundation," a quasigovernmental body that would provide support to private human rights groups.
But the most important and immediate challenge to international cooperation on human rights is the European Security Conference, now in its last weeks in Belgrade. The U.S. is determined that the final document of the conference should reiterate human rights guarantees adopted at Helsinki four years ago but honored largely in the breach since then. The Soviet delegation at Belgrade is trying to avoid so much as a mention of human rights in the final document. So far the U.S. and Western Europe have maintained a solid front against Soviet recalcitrance. "We're not alone," says Christopher. "And there's a great deal of strength in numbers."