12 September 1997
The Chicago Tribune
EditorialSanctions Won't Help Believers
Washington's new willingness to treat religious persecution as a major human-rights issue is as welcome as it is overdue. Believers are oppressed in many countries, but their plight has rarely been a prime concern for traditional human-rights activists.
But a coalition of religious groups demanding vigorous action on behalf of religious minorities is backing the wrong remedy when it calls for unilateral economic sanctions against countries that abuse their citizens on the basis of creed or worship.
The U.S. has learned by sad experience that unilateral sanctions seldom work. On dozens of occasions in recent decades. Washington has failed to bring about changes in other countries by employing this tactic. Too often, the use of sanctions has just made things worse, angering the target countries and causing them to dig in their heels.
While they have little impact abroad, sanctions take a heavy toll on the U.S. economy, costing exports, jobs and income. Sanctions broadly supported by the international community, such as those imposed on South Africa or Serbia, can have dramatic success, but unilateral ones are little more than symbolic protests.
The coalition calling for mandatory sanctions may not appreciate just how futile and self-defeating this strategy is. But the Republican congressional leadership, which has pledged to enact the Freedom From Religious Persecution Act, knows better. Yet it is shamelessly pandering to conservative Christian groups whose support it will need in 1998 elections.
Sanctions aside, the act has merit. It would require the White House to monitor the treatment of religious minorities around the world and make it easier for those fleeing religious persecution to enter the U.S.
It is hoped Congress and the Clinton administration, which opposes mandatory sanctions, can craft a compromise - one that launches an effective attack on religious persecution without holding U.S. foreign policy hostage to a single issue or complicating relations with key allies and trading partners such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and China.
The White House favors rigorous reporting on religious oppression to keep the spotlight on offending nations. Current human-rights law would be expanded to include abuse of religious minorities.
That's clearly the more sensible and promising approach, provided there is equal concern for all suffering sects, not just persecuted Christians.
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