Interview with U.S. Ambassador Robert Seiple, Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom

By Rick Marshall, Washington File Staff Writer

Ambassador Robert Seiple, recently confirmed as U.S. Ambassador-at-Large, gave this interview to USIA Staff Writer Rick Marshall at the State Department, June 24, 1999.

QUESTION: You are the first person to occupy the position of U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. What are your principal duties?

ANSWER: My office has a dual mandate. The portfolio I was given initially was to promote religious liberty internationally and to seek reconciliation in places like Bosnia or Indonesia, perhaps, where religious conflicts pose a threat to international stability.

The passage of the International Religious Freedom Act last year added some additional monitoring and reporting responsibilities. First, we have to report on religious freedom for all countries abroad. This is due to Congress by the first of September. Second, the legislation established an Independent Commission on Religious Freedom, of which I am an ex-officio member. Beginning next May, the Commission, which is made of up nine other religious leaders, scholars, and human rights advocates, will recommend steps the President, Secretary of State and Congress should take with respect to the most serious abuses of religious freedom throughout the world.

In addition, there are the violations themselves, the need to express what has been done accurately and to reflect upon the trends that are developing. For we know that religious persecution is an early warning sign of societies in trouble. If we are going to prevent the next century's wars, we have to engage the power of faith in our quest to try and promote religious tolerance and the acceptance of minority rights.

So we are looking for positive trends. We are looking to promote religious freedom, not to target a country or a religion.

At the same time, there are countries that are seriously violating the universal right to worship freely. Now, for the first time, the U.S. has a legislative mandate to report on these violations. This should bring a great deal of visibility to the issue.

QUESTION: Is there a domestic side to your office's work?

ANSWER: I think so. Let's get to the bottom line first: we have to get it right in this country before we have anything to say to the rest of the world. And if there are procedures and policies that take us to the point of excess with a minority group -- and we don't correct that here -- it's pretty difficult for me to go to a country like Uzbekistan and talk to them candidly about the kind of radicalization taking place there within the moderate ranks because of their excesses. So we do have to look at our own house.

I see it as part of my responsibility to touch base with people and organizations in this country. Take for example our Muslim and Serbian Orthodox communities. They often have close ties to religious communities overseas, and they can help us convey our message to places where we are involved internationally.

But before that can happen, we need to understand better what their issues are, what their concerns are, and what their faith is all about. It is very important to understand their points of view.

QUESTION: In this respect, your office has begun a specific dialogue with American Muslim organizations. What are these about?

ANSWER: We began the Islamic Roundtable in order to understand the issues coming from moderate America Islam as it relates to Muslim thinking and Islam around the world. I think we're making headway. I don't profess to have come to this job with a great sense of what modern Islam is. But I have begun to understand the beauty and richness of the faith and how it is has been so terribly misconstrued both within the faith and outside it. So I've begun that process personally, and I hope that we have also begun it within the State Department and elsewhere within the government.

For me it is important to make sure that the State Department provides a point of learning and dialogue and exchange, so that people who feel deeply about their issues have a place to go where they can be properly heard. We obviously need to take what we learn at these roundtables and implement it, otherwise they are nothing more than therapy sessions. So we will try to follow up on the insights we have been able to glean from them.

QUESTION: Is this Islamic Roundtable the only one at this time?

ANSWER: Yes, but it's certainly not going to be the last. We need to look at issues of religious conflict preventively and pre-emptively and not wait to develop relationships after a crisis has emerged. So I think we have work to do with many of the large, traditional faiths that are alive and well in the United States.

QUESTION: You have been meeting with members of the business community, as well. What is the nature of those discussions?

ANSWER: I think that in order to operate and do business over the long-term, business is going to have to know and understand human rights and specifically, issues of religious freedom. And I want that to happen. For example, when the dissidents began to be rounded up in China last year, the human rights establishment raised its voice. But it would have been much stronger if the business community had raised its voice, too.

QUESTION: Overall, what have your first months in office meant to you?

ANSWER: I think the passage of a bill on international religious freedom that was approved unanimously by Congress and signed by the President was a very major event. It gave my office the chance to put some legs to this issue and some firepower to do it with. So, armed with that, I began traveling in January. The idea has been to see people face-to-face in high-profile countries, to talk with potential interlocutors at the highest levels we could get -- on the government side and on the religious belief side -- and to explain to them the legislation and the methodology that flows from the concept of religious promotion, as opposed to religious targeting.

It was also important to start getting to know the people in our embassies, specifically the officers who monitor human rights. These are critical people in helping us understand what is going on in the world and record it properly.

QUESTION: What countries have you paid official visits to?

ANSWER: The first were Indonesia and China this January. Then came Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Austria, The Vatican, the U.N. in Geneva, Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakstan. In July I am planning to visit Vietnam and Laos and then, later in the year, Turkey, maybe Greece, India, Pakistan, France, and hopefully, Tibet.

QUESTION: Thank you.