[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 44 (Wednesday, April 20, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         UPDATE ON HUMANITARIAN CRIMES AND GENOCIDE IN GORAZDE

  (Mr. McCLOSKEY asked and was given permission to speak out of order 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McCLOSKEY. Mr. Chairman, while we debate the crime bill today, I 
think it is important to note for the Record that a major crime, 
international humanitarian crime, is allowed to go on unabated today in 
Bosnia. I appreciate the generosity to speak for 1 minute for the 
Record, and also for our decisionmaking or thoughts over the next day 
or two, to consider this statement that my office has just received 
from the mayor, the top elected local official in Gorazde, Ismet Briga. 
For our information, I do appreciate the House's attention.

                              {time}  1430

  This is perhaps the only time I have made a request of this nature.

       Hospital is being hit. People are up to their shoes in 
     blood and it is almost that bad in the streets.
       The Serbs are going house to house, destroying the city 
     apartment by apartment.
       You cannot count the wounded, you cannot count the dead.
       President Clinton, it is a shame that you should not 
     collect the courage to bomb us. President Clinton, since it 
     is so painful to ask Manfred Woerner for airstrikes. We beg 
     you to stop this terror. We cannot live any longer in this 
     terror.
       The people of Gorazde ask you to please tell the Serbs to 
     stop this agony.
       A mother was only 10 meters from her child in the rubble 
     but could not reach him. She would have been killed herself 
     so we held her back.
       Unarmed and innocent people are being killed in Gorazde. 
     The streets are bloody. There is chaos.

  Mr. Chairman, I think most important, most tragically and most 
poignantly this mayor's statement is in sincerity:

       We don't ask that the Serbs be bombed. We beg that the 
     people of Gorazde be bombed so that we die rapidly and 
     quickly--so that we will not die in such a horrible way. We 
     cannot live in agony anymore. We forgive you for bombing us, 
     because we beg you to end our agony.

  Mr. Chairman, I would say to my colleagues in the House, this tragedy 
cannot go on. It cannot wait a day or an hour longer. President Clinton 
has to act now. This can be done by instant communications, not a much, 
much delayed NATO conference.
  The CHAIRMAN. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 31 printed 
in part 2 of House Report 103-474.

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