Word: bitar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Sergio Bitar, a native of Chile, is now a fellow at Harvard's Institute for International Development. John Karefa-Smart left Sierra Leone to become a lecturer at the Harvard Medical School. Pavel Litvmov has been polishing his English at Manhattanville College in Purchase. N.Y., so he can resume the study of physics that he had to abandon in the Soviet Union. These men have one trait in common--all were political prisoners in their native countries, and all were aided by an organization known as Amnesty International...
...Sergio Bitar shuffled from one concentration camp in Chile to another until the military dictatorship there decided to release him in November. 1974. Former Minister of Mines for the Allende government. Bitar is now a visiting fellow at the Institute for International Development, where he is doing research on the political economy of his native country. He says that Amnesty has placed "much pressure" on the Chilean junta to curtail its repressive tactics. A recent Amnesty report on political imprisonment in Chile describes the situation in dry, detached language...
Like Litvinov. Bitar notes that it is impossible to gauge the individual role of elements such as Amnesty, universities, and the church in gaining his release, saying that it was the combined pressures of world opinion that eventually won him his freedom. Many political prisoners are still languishing in Chilean jails. With a glint of anger in his eyes. Bitar remarks that the process of brutality has now been institutionalized in Chile, thereby producing "a sort of Gestapo autonomous from the central government." He describes the Chilean leadership as having "the most reactionary mentality in Latin America today," and concludes...
...former foreign minister of Sierra Leone, he was imprisoned in that country during the fall and winter of 1970. The government of Sierra Leone claimed at the time that a state of emergency warranted Karefa-Smart's imprisonment, but he was in tact detained for political reasons. Echoing Bitar and Litvinov, he cites Amnesty's apolitical nature as one of the keys to its success. "Amnesty is definitely helping the many political prisoners who are still in Sierra Leone," he says...
...reject even some of those cases that come to its attention, due to sheer volume. "We're successful with those cases we take, but we can't take everybody," she explains. And when a prisoner is freed, it is often impossible to attribute his release directly to Amnesty Litvinov, Bitar, and Karefa-Smart all mention that a combination of forces brought about their liberation, but Amnesty can serve as an effective channel for these forces...