Hungarian Heritage Review, 1986 (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1986-01-01 / 1. szám
JANUARY 1986 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 5 99th CONGRESS TT r% H f\f\ 1st Session To suspend temporarily most-favored-nation treatment to Romania. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OCTOBER 22, 1985. Mr. SMITH of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. HALL of Ohio, and Mr. WOLF) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means A BILL To suspend temporarily most-favored-nation treatment to Romania. 1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 3 That the Congress— 4 (1) notes that the Department of State, in the 5 publication Country Reports on Human Rights Prac-6 tices for 1984, found that “In the area of human 7 rights, major discrepancies persist between Romania’s 8 Constitution, laws, public pronouncements and interna-9 tional commitments on the one hand, and the civil lib-10 erties and human rights actually allowed by the regime 11 on the other”; 12 (2) is aware of numerous accounts from various 13 human rights organizations, the Department of State, 14 and Congressional delegations of incidents of people 15 being arbitrarily harassed, interrogated, and arrested 16 by Romanian authorities for the exercise of civil 18 liberties; 19 (3) finds that official Romanian harassment has 20 not only been extended to the arrest of persons for car-21 rying Bibles and other religious materials, but even 22 carried to the point of destroying churches and recy-23 cling Bibles for the production of toilet paper; and 24 (4) further finds that the United States trade defi-25 cit with Romania (which in 1985 has already reached 26 a ratio of 4.7 to 1) is a result of our extension of non-27 discriminatory treatment (most-favored-nation treat-28 ment) to that country and can be construed as an en-29 dorsement of that nation’s abusive internal practices. 30 SEC. 2. (a) Nondiscriminatory treatment (most-favored-31 nation treatment) may not be extended to the products of 32 Romania during the 6-month period that begins of first day 33 of the second month occuring after the month in which this is 34 enacted. 35 (b) Before the close of the 6-month period, referred to in 36 subsection (a), the President shall— 37 (1) assess the status of civil liberties and human 38 rights in Romania; and 39 (2) recommend to Congress whether the suspen-40 sion of nondiscriminatory treatment to Romania under 41 the preceding section should be extended and, if so, for 42 what period within one year. EDITOR’S NOTE: It is our firm policy not to become embroiled in ideo-political advocacy or partisanship. However, this subject is not ideo-political at all. It is a human rights issue of special concern to all Hungarians. Therefore, we felt free to publish it in the hope that our readers will rally to the support of Congressman Smith, who is not just talking about what is happening in Transylvania, but trying to put a stop to it.
