The World - News from Dec. 30, 1987

The Reagan Administration has repeatedly failed to couple its push for free elections abroad with any outrage over military abuses of power, two human rights coalitions said. The groups, Human Rights Watch and the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, examined the Administration’s record in 42 countries. Particularly, their report said, Haiti and the Philippines “symbolize the Administration’s inability to transform a short-term change of power into a long-term commitment to human rights.” The State Department responded that the criticism was based on “an utterly unrealistic expectation of American ability to remake foreign societies.”