[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 43 (Tuesday, April 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    LIFT THE ARMS EMBARGO ON BOSNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Danner). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] 
is recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BONIOR. Madam Speaker, how many innocent people have to die in 
Bosnia before the world does something about it?
  How many innocent children have to be slaughtered in Gorazde before 
we respond?
  Are 200,000 dead Bosnians enough? Are 16,000 slaughtered children 
enough?
  That's how many have died in Bosnia in less than 2 years.
  As we stand here this morning, Serbian bombs continue to rain down on 
the defenseless Moslem enclave of Gorazde.
  The body count from 3 weeks of savage Serbian shelling stands at 302 
and counting.
  Nearly 1,100 men, women, and children in Gorazde have been injured.
  Half the population has been rendered homeless.
  Madam Speaker, this is not just a humanitarian disaster of epic 
proportions. It's one of the great moral tragedies of our time.
  As we speak, bombs are falling in Gorazde at a rate of 1 every 20 
seconds.
  The town hospital--which is trying to treat the sick and injured--has 
been hit so many times they don't know how much longer it will last.
  Serbian snipers are randomly shooting at people as they walk the 
streets, in search of shelter out of the line of fire.
  Every new village that Serbian troops capture on the way to Gorazde--
is another village burned to the ground.
  One U.N. plane has already been shot down. One British soldier has 
already been killed.
  Meanwhile, the Moslem population in Gorazde continues to starve, and 
bleed, and die.
  Madam Speaker, how can this have happened?
  How can civilized nations have sat back silently and watched this 
situation unfold?
  There is no question that the hottest places in hell today are 
reserved for the butcher of Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic, and the 
shameless leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Radovan Karadzic.
  And we cannot let them commit these atrocities any longer.
  This is nothing less than ethnic genocide.
  And we cannot be willing partners to genocide any longer.
  We must take action now.
  Madam Speaker, it is clear that the Serbs cannot be trusted.
  Time and time again at the bargaining table, they have lied to the 
United Nations. They have lied to the international community. They 
have even lied to the Russians.
  And even though negotiations will and must continue, they have given 
us no reason to trust them now.
  The only thing that is going to stop the Bosnian Serbs now is if 
their force is met by force, and if they are made to realize that 
further force will get them nowhere.
  Madam Speaker, it is incomprehensible to me that the combined power 
of the United States and NATO cannot stop the Bosnian Serbs.
  Some say air strikes have failed. But let us be honest--we have not 
really tried air strikes. We just dropped a few bombs and then backed 
off when it got dangerous.
  Madam Speaker, it is time to use the full weight of United States and 
NATO war planes in Bosnia.
  It is time to pound the Bosnian Serbs into submission.
  And if the Serbs continue to hit targets in Bosnia--then select 
targets in Serbia itself ought to be hit in return.
  And even if the United Nations is unwilling to step in and defend the 
people of Bosnia with all guns blazing, at the very least, we must let 
the people of Bosnia defend themselves.
  To deny them both is unconscionable.
  For nearly 2 years now, some of us have been calling for an end to 
the U.N. arms embargo on Bosnia, to let the people of Bosnia defend 
themselves from these brutal attacks.
  But for 2 years, the international community has just waited and 
watched.
  Madam Speaker, we have already waited far too long. And we can't wait 
any longer.
  It is time to lift the U.N. arms embargo on Bosnia today.
  To have imposed the arms embargo in the first place was 
incomprehensible. To have kept it in place for so long, and after so 
much suffering, is utterly shameful.
  We promised the Moslem people that Gorazde would be a safe haven.
  We promised that their children and their families would be safe 
there.
  We promised that no harm would come to them if they trusted the 
United States.
  Well, they trusted us, Madam Speaker. And now they are dying.
  And unless we act right now to let the Bosnian people defend 
themselves, unless we act right now to lift the arms embargo, and to 
use the full force of the United States and NATO to increase air 
strikes, then the blood of Bosnia is not just on the hands of the 
Serbs.
  It is on all of us.

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