van boven: my name is dale van boven. i was the director of the united nations for humaman righs fromom 1977 to 1982. tom mccarthy: there was a lot of presessure of all kinds from certain governments, hahaving ththeir secret service agentnts in the cocorridors looking after what t we were doing, followingg what the ngos were doing, threatening people, putting pressure on other govevernments. latin america had strong dictatorships. ngos couldn't mention government names in the commission for violations. van boven: it is inexplicable and indefensible for the united nations notot to react urgently to situations of gross violations of human rights. ramcharan: it was entirely unheard of that a human rights director would take vigorous positions. everything that a senior u.n. official did was s closely monitored, and so it was his great t breakthrough that he decided to act,t, and in some instances to speak out publicly against gross violatioions of human rights. van boven: there is a tendency, at that timeme at least, that the