171. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (Derian) to the Senior Deputy Assistant of State for Economic and Business Affairs (Hormats)1
SUBJECT
- Human Rights and A.I.D.
This Administration’s commitment to working for human rights improvements is founded upon the established premise that as the richest nation in the world, the United States should use its vast resources to promote the economic and social rights of all people. Toward this end the USG has provided sizeable amounts of assistance to their nations. However, when considered as a proportion of our national wealth, our contributions lag far behind those of many governments. To insure that the U.S. comes closer to meeting its responsibility for promoting a more equitable international economic order, the Carter Administration has undertaken to increase international and bilateral economic assistance to poor countries.
The Secretary articulated the administration’s aid policy when, in a 1977 address, he told the American Bar Association: “The United States looks to the use of economic assistance—whether bilateral or through international financial institutions—as a means to foster basic human rights”. In my own efforts to promote human rights, I have consistently and publicly endorsed the President’s stated commitment to [Page 545] doubling the bilateral development assistance budget by 1982. Thus I am particularly concerned that efforts to cut back bilateral development assistance may be underway. The level agreed upon for Fiscal Year 1979 and proposed for Fiscal Year 1980 are already well below those originally deemed necessary to the President’s commitment. Further cuts would seriously jeopardize the effort to reach the level set for 1982. Failure to reach our assistance goals would have seriously adverse repercussions for our human rights policy.
Development assistance is the most visible of our aid policies. To other donor countries, to the Third World, and to critics such as the USSR, U.S. commitment in this area is seen to indicate that the U.S. is or is not ready to put its “money where its mouth is.”
Furthermore, development assistance more than any other assistance program, succeeded in channeling resources to encourage human rights progress. It has responded more directly than any other program to President Carter’s Directive (PD 30, No. 4)2 that “. . . countries with a good or substantially improving record of human rights observance will be given special consideration in the allocation of U.S. foreign assistance, just as countries with a poor or deteriorating record will receive less favorable consideration. Programs for each fiscal year shall be reviewed in this light.”
We are making ourselves effective by “rewarding” governments which have shown a commitment to promoting the broad range of human rights of their people. Conversely, by cutting back some programs, we have materially decreased our identification with repressive governments and have encouraged them to consider our cuts as an added cost of continuing their repressive practices. Through the design of projects, the development assistance program also has been our most effective way of encouraging recipient governments to bring equity and grass roots participation into their own programs.
I have one further concern, which is couched in specific rather than general terms. The latest review of FY 80 aid levels leads me to suspect that any further cutback would most seriously endanger the India program as well as those hard fought for Latin American programs designed to encourage certain countries in their efforts to restore human rights protections and democratic institutions. Cutbacks in either area would destroy the precarious balance we have achieved between political, human rights and other development related objectives in the FY 80 budget.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Chron and Official Records of the Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Lot 85D366, AID. No classification marking. Drafted by Bova. Hanson’s initials are on the memorandum. Bova subsequently sent a copy of the memorandum to Derian under cover of a November 30 memorandum, referencing Derian’s upcoming meeting with Vance regarding the OMB decision to cut the FY 1980 Agency for International Development budget. (Ibid.)↩
- See Document 119.↩