U. S.

Foreign Policy and Human Rights Violations in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis
of Foreign Aid Distributions
Author(s): Lars Schoultz
Source: Comparative Politics, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jan., 1981), pp. 149-170
Published by: Ph.D. Program in Political Science of the City University of New York
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 U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights
Violations in Latin America

A ComparativeAnalysis of Foreign Aid Distributions

Lars Schoultz

The purposeof this paperis to explore the relationshipbetween United States

economic and military assistance to Latin America and recipient govern-
ments' repressionof certainfundamentalhumanrights.' The emphasis of this
study is upon the humanrights to life, liberty, and the integrityof the person
in the sense thatthey cannotbe denied withoutthe impartialapplicationof due
process of law. Thus, the humanrights violations upon which this study will
focus are tortureand other forms of cruel, inhuman,or degradingtreatment,
including prolonged detention without trial. The selection of certain human
rights and the exclusion of others is by no means meant to imply that one
group has a status superiorto others; nor is it an arbitraryfocus. Rather it
reflects the fact that during the 1970s the U.S. government formulatedits
human rights policy primarilyin terms of what have come to be known as
"antitorture"rights.2This paperis an analysis of the implementationof that
policy, not a discussion of what one might wish the policy contained.
The relationshipbetween foreign inputs and the political behaviorof Third
World governments has been a central theoretical concern of comparative
politics for at least two decades. While the analysis of the influence of these
inputs now extends to an impressive variety of topics, ranging from the
cultural impact of Donald Duck to the political and social impact of
twentieth-centurytechnological innovation,3only a surprisinglyfew inputs
have received detailed, systematic treatmentfrom scholars with a variety of
methodologicalperspectives. One of these is foreign aid.
Until recently, one focus of this researchhas been uponthe purposesof aid.
More than a decade ago a numberof empiricalanalyses demonstratedthatthe
U.S. foreign aid programfunctions as a multipurposeforeign policy imple-

0010-4159/81/0115-0002$05.00/1
@ 1981 The City University of New York 149

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ComparativePolitics January 1981

ment.4 While one continuingpurposeof aid has been to increasethe material

well-being of poor people in the Third World throughthe expansion of eco-
nomic growth rates and the adoption of new production techniques, re-
searchershave indicatedthat foreign aid has other goals as well. A list of the
most transparentnondevelopmental(or "political") purposesof U.S. aid to
Latin America would include aid to help allies win elections (Chile in 1964),
to consolidate their power following its seizure (Brazil after 1964), and to
survive crises which threatentheir continuedexercise of power (the Domini-
can Republic after 1965, Bolivia after 1971). Aid has been used to purchase
Organizationof AmericanStates (OAS) and United Nations votes, to secure
military base rights, and to obtain the help of foreign troops.
Althoughin each of these examples aid has served as an inducement,under
different circumstances U.S. economic assistance has been employed as a
stick as well as a carrot. The Carter administration'sreductions in aid to
repressivegovernmentsare the most recent and obvious examples. According
to Joan Nelson, at the extreme aid has been used in attempts "to alter the
compositionof a government,outside the context of elections." There is no
evidence to suggest that anythinghas changed since outgoing SenatorFrank
Church (D-Idaho) noted a decade ago how "every kind of conduct by a
foreign governmentthat we view as mischievious ends up in some kind of
penalty provision that is attachedto the aid program.'"6
The evidence to supportthe claim that economic aid serves as a flexible
instrumentof U.S. foreign policy has become so massive that in recent years
social scientists have tended to minimize furtherempirical research on the
purposes of aid. Instead they have turned to the policy-oriented issues of
whether aid for nondevelopmentalpurposes is desirable and, if it is, which
foreign policy goals should enjoy primacy in determiningthe natureof the
U.S. aid program.' It is in the context of these questionsthat the relationship
between aid and humanrights became an issue of both theoreticaland policy
interest in the 1970s.
Observers of United States foreign policy debates are familiar with the
allegations and denials that the U.S. government has supportedrepressive
governments through its foreign assistance program.8While the Carter ad-
ministrationmay have sensitized the U.S. public to the question of human
rightsviolations, for nearlytwo decades the debateover the provisionof aid to
repressive governmentshas been a standard,often central feature of foreign
assistancepolicymaking.This ongoing debate has been conductedwithoutthe
benefit of systematicempiricalevidence. The basic reason for the absence of
this evidence is that the dependentvariable (the level of violations of funda-
mental human rights by governmentsreceiving economic or military assis-
tance from the United States) has never been operationalized.The problem
has not been so much one of selecting certainhumanrightsto defend as it has
been one of measuring government violations of these rights in a cross-
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 Lars Schoultz

nationalcontext. Lacking systematiccomparativedata, proponentsand oppo-

nents of U.S. foreign assistance policy have based their arguments upon
unrepresentativeexamples: Personswho posit a positive relationshipbetween
U.S. aid and human rights violations regularlycite the cases of Pinochet's
Chile and Somoza's Nicaragua, while those who deny the existence of this
linkage refer to Costa Rica and (until recently) Colombia.
The country-specifichearingsby the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee
on InternationalOrganizationsprovidea numberof examples of this approach
to the issue of aid and humanrights. Underthe directionof its formerchair-
person, Donald Fraser(D-Minn.), the subcommitteewas instrumentalin pub-
licizing human rights violations and in creating an awareness of the link
between U.S. aid and repressivegovernments.In 1976, for example, hearings
were held on such diverse humanrights subjects as the psychiatricabuse of
political prisonersin the Soviet Union, the role of the United States and the
United Nations in Namibia, and humanrights at the meeting of the General
Assembly of the Organizationof American States. The relationshipbetween
aid and humanrightsviolationswas particularlyprominentin country-specific
hearingson Argentina,Chile, El Salvador,Guatemala,India, Indonesia,Iran,
Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Almost immediately upon assuming office,
Carteradministrationofficials also decided upon a case-by-case approachas
the most appropriateway to include humanrights considerationsin aid deci-
sion making. Thus, duringthe 1970s both Congress and the executive branch
tended to concentratewith varyingdegrees of intensity upon every tree in the
foreign aid forest.
Clearly, the case approachhas the potentialto yield significant insight into
the distributionof U.S. aid. But as a means of assessing the overall relation-
ship between foreign assistance and human rights violations by recipient
governments, an approachwhich selects as data atypical examples from the
pool of nearly 100 aid-receivingcountries is probablyof limited explanatory
value. The country-specific approachdiscourages the search for patternsin
U.S. aid distributionsand, by doing so, it also discouragesthe identification
and analysis of the underlyingvalues which direct foreign assistancedecision
making.

Data and Procedures

An estimate of the comparative level of human rights violations in Latin

America was made by aggregatingthe judgments of a group of individuals
who have devoted their lives to the internationalprotectionof humanrights.
When research for this paper was initiated in early 1976, the universe of
experts on comparativehuman rights in the Western noncommunistworld
totaled approximately91 persons. They were defined as the persons who had
published widely on the subject or who occupied key positions in non-
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ComparativePolitics January 1981

Table 1 Levelof HumanRightsViolations,LatinAmerica,1976

Mean Expert Assessment

Rank Order* Country (N = 38)
1 .............. Costa Rica 1.00
2 .............. Trinidad and Tobago 1.13
3 .............. Surinam 1.36
4 .............. Jamaica 1.43
5 .............. Venezuela 1.48
6 .............. Colombia 1.52
7 .............. Guyana 1.56
8 .............. Mexico 1.85
9 .............. Ecuador 2.05
9 .............. Panama 2.05
11 .............. Peru 2.13
12 .............. Honduras 2.19
13 ............. El Salvador 2.35
14 .............. Dominican Republic 2.43
15 .............. Bolivia 2.61
16 .............. Nicaragua 2.95
17 .............. Guatemala 3.00
18 ............ Haiti 3.33
19 ............. Brazil 3.35
20 .............. Paraguay 3.44
20 .............. Uruguay 3.44
22 ............. Argentina 3.59
23 ............ Chile 3.79
* Ordered from least offensive to most offensive.

governmental and governmental human rights organizations. Rather than

sample this surprisinglysmall numberof experts, questionnaireswere sent to
each of them. Fromamong the 87 ThirdWorldcountrieswhich received U.S.
foreign aid between 1962 (the fiscal year in which the ForeignAssistance Act
of 1961 began to operate) and 1976, respondentswere asked to rank only
those nationswith whose humanrightsrecordthey were familiaron a scale of
ascending violations of from 1 to 4, using as a time frame the calendaryear
1976.
After two letters to many potential respondents, a number of telephone
calls, and six months of waiting, the response rate reached a respectable42
percent. As might have been expected given the specialized nature of the
subject, the thirty-eightrespondents form a fairly homogeneous group. In
termsof theirprimaryoccupations,twelve areemployees of nongovernmental
humanrightsorganizations(NGOs), eight are professorsof internationallaw,
seven are social scientists, six are practicingattorneys,three are membersof
national parliaments,and two are U.S. congressional staff members. All of
the attorneys,social scientists, and professorsof internationallaw are closely
associated with at least one NGO. Most of the respondentshave some first-
hand knowledge of human rights conditions in Latin America, generally

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 Lars Schoultz

gained through participation in an investigation sponsored by non-

governmentalorganizations. Many respondentshave participatedin several
investigations. As to the respondents' nationalities, thirty-two are from the
United States and Canada,five are from variousEuropeannations, and one is
from Latin America. This disappointingdistributionis the result of an ex-
tremely low response rate by non-U.S. experts; nearly half of the potential
respondentswere not U.S. citizens.
In order to reduce some of the hazardsof interregionalcomparisons, the
global assessment of the relationship between U.S. aid and human rights
violations was reducedin scope to one which considers only the twenty-three
aid-receivingnations of Latin America.9The dependentvariable, then, is the
experts' mean evaluationof the level of humanrights violations by each Latin
American government in 1976. This variable has a range of 2.79 (1.00 to
3.79), a mean of 2.35 with a standarddeviation of .87. Table 1 presentsthis
composite assessment of humanrights performanceby Latin Americangov-
ernments. These data representthe experts' mean (averaged) assessment of
the level of humanrights violations, and not necessarily the actual or "real"
level of humanrights violations. Although it is possible to defend the survey
respondents'expertise in the area of humanrights, the only informationthat
they (or anyone else) can provide are assessments of the reputationsof each
country's government. To the extent that these experts' perceptions differ
from the unobservableactual level of human rights violations, the data in
Table 1 are not reliable reflections of reality. Although most observers of
Latin Americain the mid-1970s would probablyagree that these assessments
are fairly reliable, especially at the extremes, there is no way to be certain.
Given this uncertainty,the readershould be aware that a country's human
rights reputationamong experts could differ from its actual performance,
simply because basic data on violations are not readily available on a com-
parativebasis for all Latin American societies. Moreover, the reliability of
some data is questionable for, except in the every extreme cases of rights
violations, there has been little attemptat independentvalidation.The reasons
for the lack of comprehensive, comparabledata are several, but they focus
upon the existence of structuralrelationships which facilitate international
communication. Some societies are more open to foreigners than others,
particularlyin establishingcomplex commericaland culturalcontactswith the
West and in permittingrelatively large amounts of foreign press coverage.
The differential levels of internationalcommunicationcause a reinforcing
emphasis upon humanrightsconditionsin certaincountries.10Note, however,
that there is no known method to determinewhetherand to what extent this
disproportionateemphasis creates distorted perceptionsamong experts who
often are the very persons who have created the emphasis.11
The independentvariable is U.S. foreign assistance to Latin America for

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ComparativePolitics January 1981

the sixteen U.S. governmentfiscal years from 1962 through 1977. Primary
emphasis is placed upon the three fiscal years of 1975, 1976, and 1977. In
addition to the overall aid figures, the data are disaggregatedinto economic
assistance(throughboth the Agency for InternationalDevelopment[AID] and
the Food for Peace [PL480] program)and military aid of various types.
At the presenttime, there is no consensus on the theoreticalsignificance or
the political meaning of foreign aid disbursements. Because it is not the
purposeof this paperto addressthis issue of the functionof foreignassistance,
aid will not be employed here as an indicator of any professed or ulterior
goal. Thus, in this context the size of the U.S. aid programto any specific
countrydemonstratesnothingmore thanthe amountof money the government
wishes to provide the government of that country for a variety of reasons
related to U.S. foreign policy. While the most frequently cited reason for
providingaid is a commitmentto socioeconomic development, and while (as
noted above) there are abundantdata to demonstratethat much aid has non-
developmentalobjectives as well, the examinationof these objectives is not
the focus of this paper. More specifically, the questionof causality cannot be
addressedwith confidence. The theoreticalliteratureon the relationshipbe-
tween U.S. foreign assistance and human rights suggests that the latter is
influenced by the former (see note 8), but this association has never been
confirmed with systematic empiricalevidence. Since there is little empirical
theory by which to interpretthe causal implicationsof the data presentedin
this study, the objective of this paper is simply to determine the extent to
which changes in one variable(humanrights violations) are related to varia-
tion in another(the distributionof foreign aid); i.e., to discover whetherthere
is concomitantvariation.
Stated anotherway, it is impossible to contest an assertionthat the correla-
tions in the following tables are spurious. A spurious correlation, it will be
remembered,is one where the observedimpact of one variableupon a depen-
dent variable is, in fact, the result of the influence of other, unobserved
variables. Cases exist which demonstratethat the repressionof humanrights
has been caused or encouragedby U.S. foreign assistance-Chile and Brazil
are the most completely documentedexamplesl2-but even in these cases it
remainsimpossible to determinethe level of respect for humanrights had no
aid been provided by the United States. If we wish to explore U.S. policy
towardBrazil in the 1960s or to Chile in the 1970s, we can study the ebb and
flow of aid disbursementsto the various governmentsof these two countries
and, in conjunctionwith otherdata on the purposeof aid, we can relateaid to
broaderconcerns of U.S. foreign policy. What we cannot determine from
these or, perhaps, any other data is whethera decline (or an increase) in aid
will cause a subsequentchange in the recipientgovernment'slevel of human
rights violations.

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 Lars Schoultz

Regardlessof whetherthe relationshipbetween U.S. aid and humanrights

violations is spurious, public law requiresthat it be analyzed in aid decision
making. Over the open and intense oppositionof the Nixon, Ford, and Carter
administrations,since 1973 Congresshas addedhumanrightsclauses to virtu-
ally all U.S. foreign assistancelegislation.13While each piece of legislation is
unique in its wording, since passage of the HarkinAmendmentin 1975 the
executive branchhas been severely restrictedin its ability to provide aid "to
the governmentof any countrywhich engages in a consistent patternof gross
violations of internationallyrecognized human rights." 14 Congress is rela-
tively unconcernedwith the causes of human rights violations; ratherit has
preferredto avoid the issue and simply to obligate the presidentto conduct
foreign assistance programsin a mannerwhich will "avoid identificationof
the United States... with governments which deny to their people interna-
tionally recognizedhumanrights." 15 This paperevaluatesthe extent to which
the patternof aid distributionsduring FY 1975-FY 1977 was responsive to
Congress' preferences."

Results

The results presentedhere are for both absolute and relative levels of foreign
assistance. Absolute assistance is defined as the gross dollar amount of aid
providedeach Latin Americangovernment.Because the twenty-threenations
of LatinAmerica vary so widely, particularlyin their populationsize, a focus
upon the absolute volume of aid distortssome aspects of the aid/humanrights
relationship. Relative (per capita) assistance recognizes these enormous
populationdifferences. The examinationof absolute and relative aid levels is
complementary,describingfrom two perspectivesUnited States aid programs
in Latin America.

Absolute Levels of Foreign Assistance Total U.S. Assistance. The correla-

tions between the absolute level of U.S. assistance to Latin America and
human rights violations by recipient governmentsare presentedin Table 2.
These correlationsare uniformly positive, indicating that aid has tended to
flow disproportionatelyto Latin American governments which torturetheir
citizens. In addition, the correlationsare relatively strong:8 of the 18 coeffi-
cients in Table 2 are +.40 or greater.17
Given the low number of cases (twenty-three countries) and the gross
characterof a single correlation coefficient, scatterplotsprovide a clearer
description of the relationshipbetween aid and human rights violations. In
Figure 1, the dollar magnitudeof the FY 1975 foreign assistance programis
plotted against the experts' evaluation of humanrights violations. There are
two majorclustersof LatinAmericancountries.One group of seven countries

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 Figure 1 Scatterplotof Relationshipbetween U.S. Aid to Latin
0"?
tA1
Level of HumanRights Violations by RecipientGove
as

3.78 -

3.50- Paraguay

Urugua
3.22 - Haiti
Y = 1.27 + 1.00X
0-- 2.94- r= +.68
r. Guatemala
0
> 2.66-
:
a 2.39- El Salvador *
C Dominican
a Republic
a 2.11-
:
10. /Ecuador Panam
5 1.83- *
Mexico
..J

1.55- •
Surinam Guyana
Venezuela *
1.27 - Jamaica

Trinidadand Tobago Costa Rica

1.00

0.0 0.20 0.4 0.60 0.80 0.99 1.19 1.3

United States Aid
(Log10 X + 1)

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 Lars Schoultz

betweenAbsoluteLevels of U.S. Aid and Level of

Table 2 PearsonCorrelations
HumanRightsViolations,LatinAmerica,1975-77*

U.S. Aid
Total
Economic and Total (Logl0 X+l) Total Foreign
Fiscal Military Economic Food for Military Military
Years Assistance Assistance A.I.D. Peace Assistance Sales

1975 .... .68 .46 .50 .34 .57 .53

1976 .... .50 .26 .24 .30 .28 **

1977 .... .49 .29 .37 .31 .34 .27

* N = 23.
** Too few cases available for analysis.
Source: Data on foreign assistance provided by the Bureau for Program Policy
and Coordination, Agency for International Development.

received little aid and maintaineda relatively high level of respect for human
rights, while a second cluster of the remaining sixteen countries received
comparativelylarge amountsof assistance and had a low level of respect for
human rights. Colombia is the only major deviation from this pattern.
Figure 2 is a scatterplotrelating U.S. aid and human rights violations in
1976. Since data on the level of humanrights violations are the same in both
Figure 1 and 2, between 1975 and 1976 changes in aid distributionscaused the
aid/humanrights correlationto drop from +.68 to + .50. In Figure 2 the two
clusters have largely disappeared, and several cases stand isolated on the
scatterplot. Except for the five very deviant cases of Uruguay, Paraguay,
Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Colombia, the observedvalues are much closer to
the predictedvalues in Figure2 (1976) thanthey were in Figure 1 (1975).1" As
it stands, in Figure 2 the slope of .81 barely exceeds the standarderror of
estimate of .77. In plain English, the two scatterplotsindicate that, while the
human rights/foreignaid relationshipis far from perfect, in both 1975 and
1976 United States aid tended to flow disproportionatelyto the hemisphere's
relatively egregious violators of fundamentalhumanrights.
Figure 3 is a scatterplotrelating U.S. aid in FY 1977 and the level of
humanrightsviolationsin 1976. While the correlationremainshigh (+.49), it
is obvious from Figure 3 that this simple summary statistic masks several
significant changes. Between 1976 and 1977 two countrieswith very repres-
sive governments (Argentinaand Brazil) experienced major aid reductions,
and three relatively nonrepressive governments (Costa Rica, Guyana,
Jamaica)obtainedmajoraid increases. By 1977 the clear patternin Figure 1
had disappeared,makingthe standarderrorof the regressionequationso large
that it would be inappropriateto draw a regression line. Nonetheless, the
placement of Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala,and Haiti in Figure 3 confirms the
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 Figure 2 Scatterplotof Relationshipbetween U.S. Aid to LatinAm
Clr HumanRights Violations by Recipient Governments, 19
V1
CIO

3.78 -

3.50 -
Uruguay Paraguay
3.22 - H

0 2.94- Y 1.42 + .81X

ZNicaragua
CO r + .50
o
> 2.66-

M
c 2.39 - 2*
-

El Salvador
E
1 2.11 Per
I

o Ecuador P
wa 1 83-
S1.83Mexico o
-J

1.55
Guyana*
Venezuela
1.27 - Surinam
? Costa Rica
1.00 Trinidad and Tobago
-
0.0 0.19 0.38 0.57 0.77 0.96 1.15 1.3
United States Aid
(Log10 X + 1)

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 Lars Schoultz

allegationof critics that humanrights criteriadid not determineseveral major

decisions on the distributionof aid to Latin America. With the single excep-
tion of Chile, however, it is instructiveto note that of the countriesruled by
repressive governments, by 1977 only the neediest (Bolivia, Guatemala,
Haiti) remainedmajor aid recipients. Unlike 1975, by 1977 aid to countries
with repressive governments and relatively few needy people (especially
Argentinaand Uruguay)had been severely restricted.As the discussion below
will indicate, this is because the issue of basic needs became a majorpartof
the aid/humanrights debates of the late 1970s.

EconomicAid. One of the two majorcomponentsof the total U.S. foreign aid
programis economic aid which, in turn, is composed primarilyof funds from
the Agency for InternationalDevelopmentand the Food for Peace program.19
The relatively strong correlationsbetween economic aid and human rights
violations (see Table 2) suggest that in FY 1975-FY 1977 the international
protectionof humanrights was not a central concern of economic assistance
decision making. But it should also be recognized that some of these correla-
tions are not strong and that others tend to fluctuate dramaticallyover short
periods of time. Between 1975 and 1976, for example, the correlationbe-
tween AID disbursementsand humanrights violations droppedfrom +.50 to
+.24. Most of this change occurredthroughmajor declines in aid to Brazil
and Uruguay, and through a substantialboost in aid to Costa Rica. On the
otherhand, during 1976 the repressivegovernmentsof Chile, earthquake-torn
Guatemala, Haiti, and Nicaragua continued to receive relatively large
amountsof assistance from AID.
Between 1976 and 1977 the correlationbetween AID disbursementsand
human rights violations rose from +.24 to +.37. Given the low numberof
cases from which these correlationswere computed, a change of this mag-
nitude should not be considered highly significant. It is worth noting, how-
ever, that the correlation did not rise in response to a clear pattern. In
FY 1977 AID reducedits assistanceto very repressive(Chile, the Dominican
Republic), moderately repressive (Panama), and nonrepressive (Colombia,
Costa Rica) countries. Similarly, AID increased funding to both repressive
Haiti and to nonrepressiveJamaica. The inspection of these individualcases
reveals no perfect patternof AID assistancebeing directedtowardrepressive
governments. When considering all Latin American countries, however,
during FY 1975-FY 1977 AID's funds tended to be directed toward coun-
tries with repressivegovernments.Given the findings in Table 2, it cannot be
argued that respect for human rights was a major criterion in AID decision
making.
No major changes occurred in the proportionaldistributionof Food for
Peace credits and grantsbetween 1975 and 1977. As a result, the correlations

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 Figure 3 Scatterplotof Relationshipbetween U.S. Aid to Latin A
and Level of Human Rights Violations by Recipient Go
*A
3.78

3.50 Argentina Paraguay

Uruguay
Brazil
3.22 -

th Nicaragua
c 2.4 Guate

> 2.66 - Dominican

Republic
El Salvador
S2.39 -
3c Honduras
E M
2.11
Ecuador e P
0

> 1.83Mexico
-J

1.55- Venezuela *
Guyana
0 Colombia
*
1.27 - Surinam

* Trinidad and Tobago Costa Rica

1.00 - *
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
United States Aid
U. S Bilateral Economic and Military Assistan
(Log10 X + 1)

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 Lars Schoultz

between this second majorform of economic aid and humanrights violations

remainedroughly unchanged.Persons familiarwith the Food for Peace pro-
gram to Latin America are already aware that the positive correlations in
Table 2 are almost entirely the result of a truly massive food aid programto
Chile, the country with the most repressive government in Latin America.
With only 3 percentof LatinAmerica's populationand probablyno more than
its proportionalshare of undernourishedpeople, Chile received an extraordi-
narily large amountof PL480 assistance.20Under similarcircumstances,crit-
ics of the Food for Peace programhave charged the U.S. governmentwith
financing food imports so that repressive governmentscan use their foreign
exchange for arms purchaseswhich are essential to the continuedrepression
of theircitizens. Respondingto this perceived abuse, Congressin 1977 added
a humanrights clause to the existing PL480 authorization.21

MilitaryAid. The second majorcomponentof the total U.S. aid programis

military assistance which, in turn, is composed of Military Assistance Pro-
gram (MAP) and InternationalMilitary Education and Training (IMET)
grants, excess defense stocks transfers, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS)
credits. In Table 2, the "Total MilitaryAssistance" column reflects all mili-
tary aid from these four categories. By far the largestportionof U.S. military
aid to Latin America-89 percent in FY 1975 throughFY 1977-is in the
form of FMS credits.
Each of the military aid/humanrights correlationsin Table 2 is positive;
most are stronger than those generated by U.S. economic assistance pro-
grams. As in the case of economic aid, however, major fluctuationsoccur
over short periods of time. This instabilityis most evident in the substantial
one-yeardecline from +.57 (1975) to +.28 (1976) in the correlationbetween
human rights violations and total military aid. In 1975 the most repressive
governmentsfaredunequallyin theirreceiptof U.S. militaryaid. Threeof the
six most repressivegovernments(Argentina,Brazil, and Uruguay)received a
substantialproportion-69 percent-of total militaryaid to the region, while
the other three (Chile, Haiti, and Paraguay)together received less than 2
percent. The positive correlationbetween militaryaid and humanrights vio-
lations existed not only because the United States favored three repressive
regimes, but also because the nonrepressivegovernmentsof Latin America
received almost no militaryaid. Excluding Haiti (which obtainedmilitaryaid
to train three students and to import navigationalequipmentfor air and sea
rescue units), not one of the ten least-repressiveLatin Americangovernments
was granted more military aid than any of the ten most-repressivegovern-
ments.
In 1976 the humanrights/militaryaid correlationdroppedto +.28, half the
size it had been a year earlier. The reduction was accomplished simply by

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Table3 PearsonCorrelations
betweenRelative(PerCapita)Levelsof U.S. Aid and
Levelof HumanRightsViolations,LatinAmerica,1975-77*

Total U.S. Aid

Economic and Total (Logl0 X+l) Total Foreign
Fiscal Military Economic Food for Military Military
Years Assistance Assistance A.I.D. Peace Assistance Sales

1975 .... .45 .31 .38 .28 .51 .49

1976 .... .29 .22 .13 .35 .27 **
1977 .... .35 .26 .25 .30 .15 .20

* N = 23.
** Too few cases available for analysis.
Source: Bureau for Program Policy and Coordination, Agency for International
Development.

cutting aid to repressive Uruguayfrom $9.2 million in 1975 to $1.0 million

in 1976, and by dramatically increasing aid to nonrepressive Colombia
($700,000 in 1975 to $20.3 million in 1976) and Venezuela ($700,000 in
1975 to $10.6 million in 1976). Militaryaid to two of the hemisphere'smost
repressivegovernments, Argentinaand Brazil, remainedhigh. In 1976 these
two governmentsreceived 56 percent of all military aid to Latin America.
In 1977 the correlationbetween militaryassistanceand humanrightsviola-
tions rose slightly to +.34. Although several substantialchanges occurredin
the distributionof military aid between 1976 and 1977, the rise primarily
reflected a major (36 percent) increase in aid to Brazil and an even more
dramatic decrease (99 percent) in aid to Venezuela. As in previous years,
Argentinaand Brazil continuedto receive slightly more than half of all U.S.
military aid to Latin America.

Relative Levels of Foreign Assistance The correlations between relative

(per capita) United States aid to Latin Americancountries and humanrights
violations by recipientgovernmentsare presentedin Table 3. As in the case of
absolute aid levels, these correlations are uniformly positive. Thus, even
when the remarkablediversity of population size among Latin American
countries is considered, the findings suggest that the United States has di-
rected its foreign assistanceto governmentswhich torturetheircitizens. When
comparedwith the correlationsbetween humanrights and absolute aid levels
(Table 2), about half of the correlationsin Table 3 are of equal strengthand
the remainderare slightly lower. In no case is a relative aid/humanrights
correlationstrongerthan an equivalentabsolute aid/humanrights correlation.
In consideringper capita ratherthan absolute aid, the most strikingchange
is a precipitousdecline in the prominenceof Argentinaand Brazil. In 1976,
for example, Argentinarankedfifth in absolute aid but sixteenth in relative

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aid, while Brazil was third in absolute terms yet twentieth in per capita aid.
Since both the Argentineand Braziliangovernmentsare rankedas extremely
repressive, the relative aid/human rights correlation would have declined
somewhat had not Nicaragua been the third major change in the ranking,
moving up from twelfth in absoluteaid to second in relative aid. The remain-
ing twenty nations are rankedroughlythe same on both absolute and relative
scales. In 1976 Chile was first in absolute aid and third in relative aid;
Guatemalawas second in absolute aid and fourth in relative aid; Bolivia was
sixth by either calculation. Because most of the other differences are minor,
nearly everything written above regarding human rights and absolute aid
levels applies as well to the relationshipbetween aid per capitaandthe level of
humanrightsviolationsby recipientgovernments.In neithercase is it possible
to find a negative correlationwhich would indicate that U.S. aid programs
favored nonrepressivegovernments.
While the correlations between various types of aid and human rights
violations are far from perfect, these findings for FY 1975-FY 1977 reveal
not isolated instancesbut rathera clearpatternof aid distributionsthatfavored
Latin American governments which abused their citizens' human rights.
During this period, aid officials regularlydenied the existence of a positive
correlationbetweenthe level of assistanceandthe violation of humanrights.22
In those individualcases where the linkage was evident beyond doubt, offi-
cials insisted that other equally importantforeign policy concerns required
that humanrightsconsiderationsbe minimizedin aid decision making.23Even
in the era of relatively intense governmentalinterest in humanrights during
the Carteradministration,only in isolated instanceswere humanrightsfactors
permittedto become the principaldeterminantof aid distributions.Aid offi-
cials perceivedotherlegitimatereasonsfor the grantingof foreign assistance.

Basic Needs versus Human Rights

Of all the possible criteria by which to determine the distributionof U.S.

economic aid, only human need has been formally accepted as superior to
respect for fundamental human rights. The original Harkin Amendment
(PL94-161, Sec. 310) to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 permittedeco-
nomic aid to continue to countries with repressive governmentsif the presi-
dent (1) determinedthat the aid would directly benefit needy people, and (2)
reported to the Congress on how it would do so. Even the reductions in
economic aid to Chile in 1975 and 1976 provided exceptions for food aid
through private voluntary organizations. These exceptional clauses were
writteninto law because a majorityof the membersof Congressbelieved that,
in the event of a conflict between humanrights and basic needs, the physical
needs of suffering human beings should not be ignored. As Representative

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Stephen Solarz (D-N.Y.) noted, "We ought to be helping the poor people all
over the world. The fact that they have a repressiveregime should not mean
they are denied the opportunityto eat." 24
In the view of some membersof Congress, aid officials occasionally inter-
pret the needy-peopleclause as a loophole permittingvarious types of assis-
tance to governmentswhich otherwisewould be ineligible on the basis of their
humanrights records. Argumentsin favor of using humanneeds to minimize
human rights considerations have also been offered by champions of the
"trickle-down" approachto economic development. In urging a restoration
of aid to Chile, for example, RepresentativeCharles Wilson (D-Texas) ar-
gued: "I don't think we serve the cause of human rights by making the
Chilean peasants drink dirty water.... The rich can only drink so much
water. So surely some of this clean water is getting to the poor."25 A related
argument against human rights-induced aid reductions was advanced by
former Assistant Secretary of State Terence Todman, who suggested that
humanrights violations are caused by the lack of fulfillment of basic needs.
Thus, the provision of aid can eliminate "the kind of conditions that are the
world's most widespread source of deprivation of basic human rights."'26
Most humanrights activists agreed with Todman's position, but argued that
aid to the Pinochetsand Somozas of the hemispheredid little to meet the basic
needs of impoverishedcitizens.
In any event, the original clause in the Harkin Amendmentis vague. Its
legislative historyin unclear, and while some key membersof Congress have
called it a major loophole, others have insisted that it is a stringentstipula-
tion.27 The Ford administrationpreferredthe former interpretation,defining
the term in such a way that assistance could be provided to any regime.
AdoptingRepresentativeWilson's argument,in early 1976 AID's legal coun-
sel wrote an opinion that "the decision on whether assistance will directly
benefit needy people.., should be based upon the 'principalpurpose' of the
assistance. If the principalpurposeis to benefit the needy people ... [then] the
intent of Congress has been carried out, notwithstandingthat the intended
class of beneficiariesmay not be the initial recipientof resourcesprovidedto
the project."28 Using this definition, AID effectively ignored the Harkin
Amendment.
In 1977 the battle over what constitutes aid to needy people was joined
during an attempt to extend the Harkin Amendmentto the Food for Peace
authorization.This was a particularlyappropriateplace to decide the issue.
Food aid is clearly beneficial to needy people, yet the process of providing
this aid underTitle I (creditsales) is such thatrecipientgovernmentscan make
at least a temporaryprofit on the transaction.The U.S. Departmentof Ag-
riculture (USDA) provides a purchasing government with low-interest,
long-termcreditthroughthe CommodityCreditCorporation(CCC).29In turn,
the recipientgovernmentuses the credit to buy food in the United States and
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disposes of it on its domestic markets,typically throughsales to wholesalers

at the prevailing market price. The borrowing governmentpockets the pro-
ceeds until the CCC loan must be repaid. The government also profits
wheneverthe proceedsof a sale exceed the cost of the food. Althoughdataon
this spread are unavailable, USDA officials acknowledge that few govern-
ments sell the food they have purchasedfrom the United States at a loss.
RepresentativesSolarz, Fraser,and others focused their criticism upon the
time lag provided by CCC repayment schedules. This lag, they asserted,
permitssome regimes to use the proceedsof PL480 sales to finance the costs
of political repression.3a For this reason, the needy-peopleclause in the 1977
PL480 authorizationwas craftedto ensurethat such aid to a repressiveregime
reached the poor. Specifically, the phrase "directly benefit needy people"
was defined in some detail:

An agreement [forPL480food]will notdirectlybenefitthe needypeoplein the

countryfor purposesof the precedingsentenceunlesseitherthe commodities
themselvesor the proceedsfromtheirsalewill be usedfor specificprojectsor
programs whichthe President
determineswoulddirectlybenefittheneedypeo-
ple of thatcountry.31
The House reportwas even more explicit, defining the term "specific projects
or programs"as those in the areaof agriculturaldevelopment, ruraldevelop-
ment, nutrition,health services, populationplanning, food distribution,edu-
cation, housing, public works, conservationand storage, and credit and mar-
keting facilities.32 Althoughnonbinding,since 1977 this understandingof aid
to needy people has governed all economic aid decision making in the execu-
tive branch.
During the entire debate over humanrights and humanneeds, no one ever
addressedthe empirical question of whether the protection of human rights
need necessarily conflict with attemptsto respond to basic humanneeds. In
cases of aid to victims of naturaldisasters, of course, the possibility of such a
conflict will always be present. But in day-to-day decision making on the
allocationof the severely limitedresourcesof the U.S. economic aid program,
it has neverbeen demonstratedthatbasic needs and humanrights are mutually
exclusive criteria.
Because there is no consensus on a definition of the variable "needy peo-
ple," it is difficult to determinewith precisionthe relationshipbetween U.S.
economic aid, humanrights violations, and the level of human need among
LatinAmericannations. The foreign assistancelegislation which providesthe
exception for need fails to define what is meantby the term, althoughit can be
arguedthat most of the relevantmembersof Congressbelieve the word refers
to economic poverty. This definition is roughly congruent with that of aid
administrators,who have settled on per capita gross nationalproduct(GNP)
as the principalindicatorof a society's level of human need.33Social scien-
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Table 4 Zero-andFirst-Order
PartialCorrelations
betweenU.S. EconomicAid and
HumanRightsViolations,LatinAmerica,1976*

U.S. Economic Aid

(Logl0 X+1)
Total Food for
Economic Assistance A.I.D. Peace

Zero-order correlation ............ .26 .24 .30

First-order correlation
controlling for per capita GNP ... .36 .20 .38

* N = 23.
Source: Bureau for Program Policy and Coordination, Agency for Interna-
tional Development.

tists, too, rely on per capita GNP as an imperfectbut acceptableindicatorof

humanneed, althoughthey continue to warn against the simplistic definition
of a complex phenomenon.34Money may not purchaseeverything,but it does
buy a nation off nearly everyone's list of countries with disproportionately
large numbersof needy people.
Using economic poverty as their definition of need and following the in-
structionsof Congress, aid officials have tended to directeconomic assistance
to Latin America's relatively needy countries. The statistical relationship
between per capita GNP and U.S. aid is thereforestronglynegative. In 1976,
for example, the correlation between per capita GNP and total economic
assistance was -.62. With occasional exceptions, the United States clearly
directs its economic aid to Latin America's less-prosperouscountries.
However, during FY 1975-FY 1977 the level of humanrights violations
was very weakly related to the level of human need (in 1976 the human
rights/percapita GNP correlationwas -. 13), and thus the positive relation-
ship between U.S. aid and human need is not a justification for the equally
strong positive correlationbetween aid and human rights violations. When
comparedto their more-affluentneighbors, in FY 1975-FY 1977 the gov-
ernmentsof relativelypoor Latin Americancountrieswere only slightly more
likely to violate their citizens' humanrights. But there are many such coun-
tries in the region with low per capita GNPs. Thereforethe crucial question is
not whetheraid was directed to these relatively poor countries-it was-but
ratherto which of these poor countrieswas U.S. aid distributed?In terms of
humanrights, the answerto this questioncan be determinedby computingthe
first-orderpartialcorrelationbetween aid and human rights violations con-
trolling for need. Table 4 presentsboth zero-orderand first-orderpartialsfor
1976. As expected, given the relatively weak relationshipbetween human
need and humanrights, there is no dramaticdifferencebetween the two sets of
correlationcoefficients. At any given level of humanneed, duringFY 1975-
FY 1977 U.S. aid remained positively correlatedwith the level of human

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rights violations in Latin America. In cases of equally poor (or wealthy) Latin
American countries with dissimilar records on human rights protection, the
United States tended to distributeits aid to the more repressive countries.
Viewed from a more positive perspective, this finding also demonstrates
that human rights considerationsneed not be ignored if aid programsare to
focus upon needy people in Latin America. It is possible for the United States
to direct its economic aid to impoverishedcitizens of Latin Americancoun-
tries with governmentswhich respecttheir citizens' humanrights. This possi-
bility would no doubtbe greetedwith scantenthusiasmby the millions of truly
poverty-strickenLatin Americans who are burdenedwith the added misfor-
tune of a repressivegovernment.TerenceTodmanoften articulatedthis point
of view in his aid recommendations.Following his superiors' decision to
block a $10 million Food for Peace loan to Chile in September 1977, for
example, Todmancomplainedpublicly that "poor, hungry, miserablepeople
ought not to be denied food, health care, clean water, medicine-the things
necessaryto life-just to make a point with a government.All you're doing is
adding to their misery."35 Critics disagreed. In the specific case of Chile,
they noted that the proceeds from open-market sales of food aid went to
finance the government'sarmsimports.By 1977 Chile had become one of the
best customers of U.S. arms manufactures-fifth in the world behind Iran,
Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. RepresentativeDonald Fraser concluded
that "one of the majorbenefits to Chile of Public Law 480 Title I loans is to
indirectlyassist Chile in purchasingarms from the United States."36

Conclusion

These data and common sense suggest that there is no simple answer to the
dilemma facing aid officials who must weigh multiple criteria in reaching
theirdecisions. Few studies of aid decision making, includingthis one, would
wish to underestimatethe difficulties these officials face. What the findings
from the data presentedhere clearly demonstrate,however, is that duringthe
mid-1970s United States aid was clearly distributed disproportionatelyto
countries with repressive governments, that this distributionrepresenteda
pattern and not merely one or a few isolated cases, and that humanneed was
not responsible for the positive correlationsbetween aid and human rights
violations.
Now thatthese threefacts have been established,researcherscan turnto the
more intriguingquestion of why in the mid-1970s the United States tended to
awardrelatively large amountsof aid to Latin Americangovernmentswhich
repressedtheir citizens' humanrights. It is tempting to begin such a discus-
sion here, for certain features of the scatterplots,particularlythe unusually
stronganticommunismof several majoraid recipientsand, later, the emphasis

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on aid to Latin America's poorestcountries, are so evident thatthey should at

least be mentioned. But the conclusion to a paperon one subject-the iden-
tification of positive concomitant variation between aid disbursementsand
human rights violations-is not the proper place to begin another-the rea-
sons for the variation.The data presentedin this paperare not able to address
the reasons underlyingany type of aid distribution.What they confirm is the
validity of the concernsof a broadvarietyof citizens, interest-groupactivists,
and members of Congress, who in the early and mid-1970s insisted that the
United States aid program was serving to identify their government with
unusuallyrepressiveLatin Americanregimes, and that there was no obvious
humanitarianjustification for such a policy.

NOTES

1. There is a large literatureon the relationshipbetween U.S. foreign assistanceprogramsand

the behaviorof recipientgovernments,but to date the only empiricalstudy to addressthe specific
issue of aid and the violation of humanrights is a collection of case studies by the Center for
InternationalPolicy, HumanRights and the U.S. Foreign Assistance Program, Fiscal Year 1978
(Washington, D.C., 1977).
2. For example, this emphasis upon antitorturehumanrights is found in the original Harkin
Amendment, Section 310 of the InternationalDevelopment and Food Assistance Act of 1975
(PL94-161): " ... tortureor cruel, inhuman, or degradingtreatmentor punishment,prolonged
detentionwithoutcharges, or other flagrantdenial of the right to life, liberty, and the securityof
person."
3. Ariel Dorfmanand ArmandMattelart,How to Read Donald Duck: ImperialistIdeology in
the Disney Comic, trans. with an introductionby David Kenzle (New York:InternationalGeneral,
1975); Keith Griffin, The Political Economy of Agrarian Change: An Essay on the Green
Revolution (Cambridge,[Ma.], 1974).
4. Edward S. Mason, Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy (New York, 1964), p. 3; Joan M.
Nelson, Aid, Influence,and Foreign Policy (New York, 1968), p. 23; William Reynolds Sanford,
"The Decision-MakingProcess in the Alliance for Progress," (Ph.D. diss., Universityof South-
ern California, 1972), p. 305; AbrahamF. Lowenthal, "Foreign Aid as a Political Instrument:
The Case of the Dominican Republic," Public Policy, 14 (1965), 141-60.
5. Nelson, fn. 4, p. 93. See also President'sCommitteeto Study the United States Military
Assistance Program,CompositeReport (Washington,D.C.: GPO, 1959), pp. 170-71.
6. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Western
HemisphereAffairs,RockefellerReporton LatinAmerica, 91st Cong., Ist Sess., November20,
1969, p. 31. It should be notedthatthe U.S. has no monopolyon the use of aid as a foreign policy
tool. The highly respected Swedish aid programis equally predicatedupon the notion that aid
recipientsmust behave in the way the Swedish governmentdeems appropriate.One commentator
has noted that the most distinctive featureof the Swedish aid programis "its moralisticand even
sanctimonioustone." Goran Ohlin, "Swedish Aid Performanceand Development Policy," in
Bruce Dinwiddy, ed. EuropeanDevelopmentPolicies (New York, 1973), p. 56.
7. CharlesH. Lipson, "CorporatePreferencesand Public Policies: ForeignAid Sanctionsand
Investment Protection," WorldPolitics, 28 (April 1976), 397; Steve Weissman, The Trojan
Horse: A Radical Look at Foreign Aid (San Francisco, 1974), p. 11; Michael J. Francis, "La
ayuda econ6mica de Estados Unidos a America Latina como instrumentode control politico,"
Foro Internacional, 12 (April-June 1972), 433-52. Social science has therefore made some
progressin understandingthe linkage between politics and economic aid in the years since 1962
when Hans Morgenthaunoted that "the very assumptionthat foreign aid is an instrumentof
foreign policy is a subjectof controversy." Morgenthau,"A Political Theory of Foreign Aid,"
AmericanPolitical Science Review, 56 (June 1962), 301.
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8. The hearings by various subcommittees of the House Committees on Foreign Affairs

(InternationalRelationsfrom 1975 to 1979) and Appropriationsand by the Senate Committeeson
Foreign Relations and Appropriationsare packedwith testimonyon both sides of this issue. See,
for example, Ra~ilS. Manglapus,"PromotingInstabilitywith MilitaryAid," in U.S., Congress,
Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Foreign Assistance Authorization,94th Cong., 1st
Sess., 1975, pp. 438-41; and the State Department's responses in U.S., Congress, House,
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommitteeon Asian and Pacific Affairs, The Treatmentof
Political Prisoners in South Vietnamby the Governmentof the Republic of South Vietnam,93d
Cong., 1st Sess., 1973, pp. 58-62; U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommitteeon Asian and Pacific Affairs, Political Prisoners in South Vietnamand the Philip-
pines, 93d Cong., 2d Sess., 1974, pp. 87-89; U.S., Congress, House, Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Subcommitteeon InternationalOrganizationsand Movements,InternationalProtection
of Human Rights, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., 1973, pp. 820-23.
9. Latin America is defined to include all nations whose aid disbursementsare wholly or
partiallycontrolledby the State Department'sBureauof Inter-AmericanAffairs. This definition
of Latin America thereforeincludes Guyana, Jamaica, Surinam, and Trinidadand Tobago.
10. On this issue see the excellent reportfrom the CongressionalResearch Service in U.S.,
Congress, House, Committeeon Foreign Affairs, Subcommitteeon InternationalOrganizations,
Foreign Assistance Legislationfor Fiscal Years 1980-81 (Part 7), 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 1979,
pp. 162-65.
11. For a furtherdiscussion of this issue, see ibid. and U.S., Congress, House, Committeeon
InternationalRelations, Subcommitteeon InternationalOrganizations,HumanRights Conditions
in Selected Countriesand the U.S. Response, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., 1978, pp. 341-72.
12. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommitteeon Western
HemisphereAffairs, United States Policies and Programs in Brazil, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., 1971;
U.S., Congress, Senate, Select Committee to Study GovernmentalOperationswith Respect to
Intelligence Activities, Covert Action in Chile 1963-1973, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 1975; U.S.,
Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Inter-AmericanAffairs,
United States and Chile during the Allende Years, 1970-1973, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 1975.
13. The only unopposed amendmentscame in PL94-302, a 1976 law which added human
rights considerationsto U.S. participationin the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank and the
AfricanDevelopmentFund, and PL95-88, a 1977 law which added humanrightsconsiderations
to Food for Peace decision making.
14. InternationalDevelopment and Food Assistance Act of 1975 (PL94-161, Sec. 310).
15. The InternationalSecurity Assistance and Arms ExportControl Act of 1976 (PL94-329,
Sec. 301).
16. In interpretingthese findings, it is importantto note that:(1) until 1976 some of the human
rights legislation was in the form of a nonbindingCongressionalresolution;and (2) the Carter
administrationenteredoffice four months afterthe beginningof FY 1977 and a full year after the
proposed aid budget for FY 1977 had been submittedto Congress by the Ford administration.
17. Since these correlationsreflect findings from the universe ratherthan a sample of Latin
Americancountries, significancetests are not used. For a contraryposition, see RobertF. Winch
and Donald T. Campbell, "Proof? No. Evidence? Yes. The Significance of Tests of Signifi-
cance," AmericanSociologist, 4 (May 1969), 143.
18. Again, these data only "explain" variancein the statisticalsense of the word-the sum of
squares-and most emphaticallythey pretendto no substantiveexplanationof the level of human
rights violations. Thus the r2 of .47 in Figure 1 means that U.S. aid was a fairly successful
variable to predict the level of human rights violations in Latin America, not that the former
caused the latter.
19. Bilateraleconomic assistance is defined as official bilateralgrants and loans on conces-
sional termsfor developmentpurposesas designatedby the Develoment AssistanceCommitteeof
the Organizationfor Economic Cooperationand Development. Excluded from the category of
bilateraleconomic aid are Export-ImportBank loans and guarantees,short-termcreditsunderthe
Commodity Credit CorporationCharterAct, Overseas Private Investment Corporationdirect
loans, and private trade agreementsunderTitle I of PL480.
20. In 1975, 49 percent of all PL480 aid to Latin America went to Chile; in 1976 the
percentagedroppedslightly to 43 percent;in 1977 it decreasedfurtherto 34 percent. Had Chile
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received no food aid in 1976, the correlationbetween the Food for Peace Programand the level of
humanrights violations would have been +. 13 instead of + .30.
21. Milton Leitenberg, "Notes on the Diversion of Resourcesfor MilitaryPurposesin Devel-
oping Nations," Journal of Peace Research, 13 (1976), 113; HubertH. Humphrey,"Economic
Disengagementfrom Vietnam," New YorkTimes, 5 June 1974; EmmaRothschild, "Is It Time to
End Food for Peace?" New YorkTimes Magazine, 13 March 1977, p. 44.
Title II of the InternationalDevelopmentand Food Assistance Act of 1977 (PL95-88) amended
the AgriculturalTrade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 (PL83-480) to include the
now-standardhuman rights clause.
22. Examplesof implicit or explicit denials include State Departmenttestimony in the follow-
ing: InternationalProtection of Human Rights, fn. 8, pp. 819-20; Political Prisoners in South
Vietnamand the Philippines, fn. 8, pp. 87-9; and U.S., Congress, Senate, Committeeon Ap-
propriations,Foreign Assistance Appropriations,1965, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 1964, p. 82.
23. See, for example, the statementto this effect by formerAID AdministratorBell inForeign
Assistance Appropriations,1965, fn. 22, p. 82.
24. U.S., Congress, Senate, Committeeon Agriculture,Nutrition,and Forestry,Subcommit-
tee on Foreign AgriculturalPolicy, Future of Food Aid, 95th Cong., Ist Sess., 1977, p. 73.
25. U.S., Congress, House, Committeeon Appropriations,Subcommitteeon ForeignOpera-
tions and Related Agencies, Foreign Assistance and Related Agencies Appropriationsfor 1978,
Part 2: Agencyfor InternationalDevelopment, 95th Cong., Ist Sess., 1977, p. 159.
26. Terence A. Todman, "Statement before the Subcommittee on Inter-AmericanAffairs,
House InternationalRelations Committee," March 1, 1978. (mimeo.).
27. U.S., Congress, House, Committeeon InternationalRelations, Subcommitteeon Interna-
tional Organizations,Chile: The Status of Human Rights and Its Relationshipto U.S. Foreign
Assistance Programs, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., 1976, p. 21.
28. Ibid., p. 114.
29. In FY 1977, for example, PL480 sales of $15 million of wheat to Chile were financed for
twenty years at an annualinterestrate of 3 percent, with a two-year grace period before the first
payment. U.S., National Advisory Council on InternationalMonetary and Financial Policies,
Annual Report, 1977, p. 353.
30. Future of Food Aid, fn. 24, p. 72; Chile: The Status of HumanRights, fn. 27, pp. 21-2.
31. PL95-88, Sec. 111(a).
32. House Report 95-240, p. 49.
33. The povertycriterionof the InternationalDevelopment Association, for example, is stated
in terms of per capita annualincome. A primarycriterionfor inclusion on the UN's lists of both
Least Developed Countriesand Most Seriously Affected Countriesis low per capita GNP. Per
capita GNP also determinesin partthe nations included on the list of Food PriorityCountries,a
category employed by the UN World Food Council.
34. Per capita GNP is used as a primaryindicatorof humanneed in R.D. McKinlay and R.
Little, "A ForeignPolicy Model of U.S. BilateralAid Allocation," WorldPolitics, 30 (October
1977), 66. For an alternativeto GNP as the definition of humanneed in the Third World, see
Denis Goulet, The Cruel Choice (New York, 1971).
35. In Congressthe SenateAppropriationsSubcommitteeon ForeignOperationshas takenthis
same position, arguingthat "to sever all ties would be to cut ourselves off from the peoples of
these countriesand to leave them underthe darknight of oppression.We can standafarand curse
the darkness,or we can try to bringthem light." U.S., Congress, Senate, Committeeon Approp-
riations, Foreign Assistance and Related Programs AppropriationsBill, 1978, 95th Cong., Ist
Sess., 1977, p. 20. The chairpersonof the House AppropriationsSubcommitteeon Foreign
Operationshas a contraryopinion: "Every conceivable abominationhas been perpetratedin the
nameof the poorand the needy .... We have plenty of poorpeople we can help withouthaving to
pay tributeto a bunchof ruthlessdictators."Foreign Assistanceand RelatedAgencies Appropri-
ations for 1978, Part 2: Agencyfor InternationalDevelopment, fn. 25, pp. 374-5.
36. Chile: The Status of HumanRights, fn. 27, p. 2; New YorkTimes, 16 October 1977, sec.
IV, p. 3.

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