The Nation: ... and Another in Grenada

In some ways it was more like a badly run block party than a diplomatic summit. When high officials from the 26-nation Organization of American States gathered in tiny Grenada last week for the annual Foreign Ministers' meeting, the chairs had been brought in from Canada, bilingual secretaries from Barbados, stationery from Chile, three cars from Japan and souvenir briefcases from Venezuela. Even the "conference hall" was imported: a white nylon geodesic dome from Florida's Cape Canaveral, where it had originally housed a space exhibit during last year's Bicentennial. St. George's, the sleepy capital of the OAS's poorest and smallest member (133 sq. mi., pop. 110,000), was so pressed for hotel space that most of the 1,600 delegates, OAS officials and newsmen had to double up or—in some cases—triple up in rooms that were often without running water.

Perhaps because of the forced togetherness, the conference was anything but chummy. The 25-nation* gathering divided bitterly on what turned out to be the only real issue of the meeting: human rights.

On one side were eleven OAS nations, which insisted persuasively that terrorism is at least as great a problem for the hemisphere as human rights. Declared Chilean Foreign Minister Patricio Carvajal: "The real cause of supposed repression of human rights is not poverty or economic hardship but subversion and terrorism sponsored by the Soviet Union. The problem of human rights and terrorism must be dealt with as one." Argentina's new Foreign Minister, Oscar Monies, insisted that governments have a "legitimate right of defense" against guerrilla terrorists. Among those vigorously backing these views were Nicaragua, Uruguay, Guatemala and El Salvador (all of which face problems with leftist guerrillas, in varying degrees) and the authoritarian regimes of Brazil and Paraguay.

Blunt Warning. Principal target of the anti-rights rhetoric was the Carter Administration. In a calm, reasoned reply, U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance admitted that terrorism was a serious problem; he noted that two Foreign Ministers were in fact missing from the conference because they were victims of attacks. El Salvador's Mauricio Borgonovo Pohl was murdered last month and Argentina's César Guzzetti was seriously injured. But Vance stressed that "if terrorism and violence in the name of dissent cannot be condoned, neither can violence officially sanctioned. Respect for the rule of law will promote justice and remove the seeds of subversion."

In a blunt warning that those states disregarding human rights will pay a price, Vance declared that U.S. "cooperation in economic development [that is, aid and technology] must not be mocked by consistent patterns of gross violations of human rights." He called for an increase in the budget of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and urged all OAS members to grant the commission free access for on-the-spot investigations of suspected infractions. Vance, whose position was privately backed by Colombia, Venezuela and Costa Rica, continued his human rights argument in individual discussions with most of the Foreign Ministers. He apparently made no converts. "It's a dialogue of the deaf," said one observer. "No one is listening to the other."