There is "potentially damaging
confusion" over how the United States communicates the problem of
religious persecution to the rest of the world, a top State Department official
admitted Wednesday, two weeks after the release of a report listing the world's
22 worst violators of religious liberties.
That recent report was issued by the U.S. Commission on International Religious
Freedom (CIRF), an agency created in 1998 to give independent recommendations
to the executive branch and Congress.
But CIRF's message competes with the official line coming from the similar
sounding State Department Office of International Religious Freedom (OIRF),
according to OIRF Director Tom Farr.
"I'll be candid in telling you that there are some challenges presented in
the parallel work of the commission and my office, each presuming within its
respective statutory realms the objectives of U.S. religious freedom
policy," Farr said. "The core of the problem, in my view, is that
there is an unfortunate and potentially damaging confusion out there over who
does what."
Both the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and John V. Hanford
III, whom President Bush appointed as ambassador-at-large for the State
Department Office of International Religious Freedom came under attack
Wednesday.
"I'm not impressed with the commission and the ambassador and their impact
on public policy. My own judgment is that the commission, in terms of its
impact on public policy on its best days, gets a C minus, and that's generous,
generous grading," said Michael Horowitz, senior fellow and director of
the Project for International Religious Liberty at the Hudson Institute.
The commission needs to be more aggressive in fighting religious persecution,
Horowitz charged.
"Your responsibility is not to write reports and make recommendations. It
is to have recommendations adopted, to make it real and live," Horowitz
said.
In its 2002 report on religious persecution, the CIRF listed 22 Countries of
Primary Concern (CPCs).
Afghanistan, Belgium, Burma, China, Egypt, France, Georgia, India, Indonesia,
Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Nigeria, Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(North Korea), Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
and Vietnam made the list.
The former Taliban regime in Afghanistan was listed as a "particularly
severe violator" of religious freedom. The commission's report also
highlighted the need to "foster religious tolerance and respect for human
rights in the reconstruction of post-Taliban Afghanistan."
The report blamed France for its "anti-cult" law and accused the
government of fostering anti-Semitism. Georgia, where recent violence has
targeted Jehovah's Witnesses, also raised concern in the CIRF report. And North
Korea, "where religious freedom is non-existent," was criticized
again.
But confusion over which agency represents the U.S., prevented Farr from
meeting with official church leaders on a recent visit to China. Farr said the
Chinese "do not understand the American penchant for checks and
balances."
"We have to do a better job in articulating not only how many official
institutions we have pressing for religious freedom, but also the critical
distinctions between those institutions and how they support U.S. policy,"
Farr said.
Horowitz disagreed calling Farr's comments "bureaucratic twattle."
"The fact that Tom Farr couldn't get a meeting with the Chinese is
irrelevant ... as to whether or not there is freedom for Christians or Falun
Gong in China," Horowitz said. "If China is dealing with this issue
at the level of Tom Farr or the ambassador, you can kiss the hopes of those
people goodbye."
Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy,
said he believes both the commission and the State Department play important
and distinctive roles in promoting international religious freedom.
"It is the ambassador that is the principal voice of the U.S.
government on the issue," Grieboski said. "They are the ones who have
to talk to the top. It is the State Department whose responsibility it is to
speak responsibly the policies to foreign governments.
"The report of the commission does a wonderful job of stating what exactly
the commission has done, and I think it is very important that people know
that. But, it is more important, I think, that the commission begin to take a
long view. The State Department is the tactical element of the U.S. government
in dealing with the overall U.S. foreign policy," he said.