The Gazette 1971

MacBride—Protecting the Rights of Man Mary Gaffney INTERVIEW

when they are engaged in a war situation or in an armed conflict, to use violence and brutality is in itself a cause for the generation of brutality and violence. Brutality is contageous, like a disease. If one country uses it, another tends to use it; if a government uses it, another government wil use it. And so brutality always leads to counter-brutality in the world. That is quite a frightening element. "It probably comes from the fact that there has been a general deterioration in moral standards, public and private, in the world. Everything is being put in question. In turn, this comes from the fact that there has been such rapid advance in science and material things which has not been matched by an equivalent development of a sense of ethical and moral respon- sibility on the part of the people. The Churches have been completely outpaced by the advance and have been unable to catch up with modern developments. The churches are slow-moving. This is inevitable. They do not change, and are now trotting behind the events of the modern world. Whether these modern develop- ments are good or bad is everybody's guess; but the situation is that they have led to a complete break- down of public and private morality." Mr. MacBride feels that to counter-act this, a high sense of responsibility must be developed among people and among governments by trying to get the churches to play a more progressive and more important role in public life. But in order to play a more important role, they have to be more credable than they have been in the past. "In the past, churches were regarded as part of the establishment and were often aligned with govern- ments. They depended on governments for financial and other support, so they were always afraid to criticise them or to get at cross purposes with them. This means that the churches also suffered from the credibility gap which is more noticeable with regard to governments. People have really very little faith in what a government says now. But the churches have also suffered from the credibility gap. Therefore, they will have to get away from being part of the establishment, do a good deal of pioneering work and provide a leadership based on public morality, human rights and the defence of the weaker section of the community". Should all weapons and means of warfare be destroyed 'One of the essential things in the world today is complete disarmament. Another world war would in- evitably lead to the use of nuclear weapons, which 93

Mr. MacBride was a member of Dáil Eireann from 1947 to 1958, Minister for External Affairs in the Inter-Party Government 1948 to 1951, vice-president of O.E.E.C. (Organisation for European Economic Co- operation) 1948 to 1951, and president, Committee of Ministers of Council of Europe, 1949-1950. He was one of the initiators, sponsors and signatories of the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom; one of the founding members of Amnesty International and chair- man of its international executive committee since its inception in 1961; chairman of the World Assembly for Human Rights and the Montreal Assembly for Human Rights, secretary-general of the International Commission of Jurists and chairman of the executive committee of the International Peace Bureau. I talked to him in his study. I first asked him about Amnesty International, which helps obtain the release of prisoners of conscience. "I am chairman of Amnesty since it was founded 10 years ago and I have been chairman of the executive since. It is a very useful organisation and does valuable work with regard to prisoners of conscience. They are persons who are in prison by reason of their religious and political views and who have not participated in violence. Strange as it may seem, there are vast numbers of such prisoners in different parts of the world, for example, Indonesia, South Africa and China, although we have little information about China. But we have a great deal of information with regard to Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil. These are our main headaches. "Coupled with this retention of political and religious prisoners, our great concern is the increase in brutality in dealing with prisoners. "The great increase in violence and brutality in the world is reflected in the treatment of prisoners where torture is quite frequently practised. Examples of this are Greece and Brazil, where prisoners were system- atically tortured with the knowledge and approval of the government. "Amnesty itself is expanding very rapidly. Last year we had 100 new groups, which means we now have between 800 to 900 groups all over the world. The headquarters of the organisation are in London and there the secretariat has to service each group and supply them with information concerning prisoners." Was he alarmed by the violence in the world today? "Yes, it is very alarming, and it comes from govern- ments who are to blame because of their bad example in regard to violence. The tendency of governments,