[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 48 (Thursday, April 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: April 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2333, STATE DEPARTMENT, USIA, AND RELATED
AGENCIES AUTHORIZATION ACT, FISCAL YEARS 1994 AND 1995
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the
House, I call up the conference report on the bill (H.R. 2333), to
authorize appropriations for the Department of State, the United States
Information Agency, and related agencies, and for other purposes.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of
Monday, April 25, 1994, the conference report is considered as read.
(For conference report and statement, see proceedings of the House of
Tuesday, April 26, 1994, at page H2761.)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton]
will be recognized for 30 minutes, and the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Gilman] will be recognized for 30 minutes.
parliamentary inquiry
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman will state it.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire whether the gentleman
from New York is opposed to the conference report.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman]
opposed to the conference report?
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I do not oppose the conference report.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe]
opposed to the conference report?
Ms. SNOWE. I am opposed, and I would like to be allocated the
customary one-third of the time for debate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time will be divided three ways.
The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] will be recognized for 20
minutes, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] will be recognized
for 20 minutes, and the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] will be
recognized for 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton]
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Berman], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee
on International Operations of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mr. BERMAN. I thank the chairman for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report on H.R. 2333.
The bill before you today provides basic authorization for fiscal years
1994 and 1995 for the operating expenses of the Department of State,
the U.S. Information Agency, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
and the Peace Corps. The bill provides no authorization for foreign
assistance programs. These will be the subject of the Foreign
Assistance Authorization Act. The bill before us is, as we sometimes
call it, the bureaucracy bill.
The conference agreement has, in budget terms, adheres in its
authorization levels to the limitations and assumptions of the fiscal
year 1995 House-passed congressional budget resolution. This means that
the bill before us authorizes, in the aggregate, less than the
administration has requested in terms of new appropriations. For fiscal
year 1995, the conference agreement authorizes over $400 million less
than the bill passed by the House last year, and some $150 million less
than 1993 appropriated levels. This is simply a reflection of the
reality that the days are long gone when we could add things to
authorization bills without showing the appropriations committee how we
intend to pay for them.
The funding provisions of the bill itself are austere, to say the
least. The administration's budget request constitutes a hard freeze to
many accounts, made reductions to some others, and zeroed out still
others entirely. The conference agreement accepts most of these cuts,
and preserves provisions which will constrain the Foreign Service
bureaucracy in the one area in which abuses have become egregious:
personnel. The bill includes statutory personnel ceilings similar to
those enacted in annual Defense Authorization Acts, which will reduce
the size of the Senior Foreign Service by 10 percent over 2 years.
One centerpiece of the draft bill, in my opinion, is its provision
for organizational flexibility. For the State Department, the bill as
drafted provides a degree of much-needed organizational and managerial
flexibility. It authorizes all subcabinet appointments the Department
has formally requested, and allows the Secretary to shuffle and
reshuffle positions, bureaus, and offices in any way he sees fit. With
a few exceptions, the bill would repeal all statutory micromanagerial
provisions which preserve existing positions and organizations at
State. It evidences our willingness, in a time of extreme fiscal
constraint, to allow the executive branch to organize itself in the
most efficient way possible, subject to notification.
In title II of H.R. 2333, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act,
fiscal years 1994 and 1995, we are providing the resources required by
the U.S. Information Agency to carry out its broad range of public
diplomacy programs. For purposes of clarification, I want to note that
for the fiscal year 1994, we are specifically authorizing the
appropriations enacted earlier in Public Law 103-121.
For that year, under the heading of Salaries and Expenses, section
201(a)(1), we have provided $487,988,000, which includes $14,500,000
allowed by the Appropriations Committee under the Educational and
Cultural Exchange Programs account to meet some of the administrative
and other support costs for those exchange programs.
Inasmuch as some of the fiscal year 1994 support costs were already
under Salaries and Expenses and all such costs are in the Salaries and
Expenses request for fiscal year 1995, we have placed all such costs in
the Salaries and Expenses heading for both years to provide overall
comparability. Thus, we have authorized the $14,500,000 for fiscal year
1994 to be used for exchange program support although we have included
it in a different category from the appropriations legislation.
Among major policy issues, title VII of the conference agreement
contains the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Act of 1994, a close
cousin of H.R. 2155, a bill originally introduced by Congressman Lantos
and myself. This important policy initiative, long overdue, permits the
revitalization of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, ACDA. ACDA
has played a vital role in pursuit of important national objectives in
arms control and disarmament. With the end of the cold war, ACDA's
mission is no less important.
Indeed, halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction has moved
to the top of our national security objectives. The revitalization of
ACDA will place that Agency in a leadership position in our
international nonproliferation activities. The act recognizes the
Director of ACDA as the principal advisor in the executive branch on
matters relating to arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament.
ACDA has the lead in the U.S. effort to extend the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty when it comes up for renewal next year; ACDA has
the lead in the negotiations currently underway in Geneva to achieve a
comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. ACDA led the successful
negotiations on the Chemical Weapons Convention, a global treaty
outlawing chemical weapons, and now is in charge of leading the U.S.
Government's implementation of the accord. I look forward to ACDA's
continuing revitalization so that once again that proud Agency will
assume the role envisioned for it when it was created by Congress more
than 30 years ago.
Title III of this bill--The United States International Broadcasting
Act--constitutes a consolidation of our nonmilitary international
broadcasting activities. Under a new Broadcasting Board of Governors
our broadcast services will reorganize and reorient their activities to
meet the challenges of the post-cold-war world, utilize new
technologies, and save millions of taxpayer dollars over the next few
years.
This title also authorizes Radio Free Asia which will significantly
enhance and improve our ability to deliver accurate news and
information to the people of China and others living under oppressive
Asian regimes.
This bill also reauthorizes the Lautenberg-Berman amendment. This
provision facilitates the granting of refugee status for certain
historically persecuted groups such as Jews and Evangelical Christians
from the former Soviet Union. The potential for political extremism and
the growth in antiminority sentiment in the former Soviet Union are
vivid illustrations of why this legislation remains as vital and
necessary as ever.
I want to mention briefly two other provisions of this bill. The
first is the Middle East Peace Facilitation Act. This legislation,
first passed last year after the September handshake on the White House
lawn which many of us were privileged to witness, allowed the President
to waive certain provisions of law restricting United States contacts
with the Palestine Liberation Organization for a limited period of
time. We now extend the President's authority to continue to waive
those provisions for 6-month increments until July 1, 1995, so long as
he can certify that it is in the U.S. national interest to do so and
that the PLO continues to abide by all its commitments made in
September 1993.
Mindful of Yassir Arafat's reticence to condemn the recent acts of
Palestinian terror and violence in Israel and the territories--a
reticence which stands in stark contrast to the heartfelt and anguished
response of Yitzhak Rabin after the Hebron massacre--we have toughened
the standard required for Presidential certification. We express our
expectation that future waivers will be conditioned on the PLO's
renunciation of the Arab economic boycott of Israel and its efforts to
dismantle the boycott, and on its renunciation of individual acts of
terrorism and violence. We also require that the President's written
policy justification in exercising his waiver authority include a
report on the PLO's response to such acts, what it has done regarding
the Arab boycott, and on the status of the PLO office in the United
States.
I also want to mention other provisions of the bill dealing with the
Arab boycott and diplomatic relations with Israel. The bill expresses
the sense of Congress that the Secretary of State make the issue of
Israel's diplomatic status a priority and urge countries which receive
United States assistance to establish immediately full diplomatic
relations with Israel. Currently, some 30 countries receiving United
States aid do not have diplomatic ties with Israel. It also prohibits
the sale or lease of any defense articles or services by the United
States to any country or international organization that is known to
have sent letters to United States firms requesting compliance with the
secondary or tertiary Arab boycott of Israel. The President may waive
this provision for 1 year only if he certifies to Congress that such a
waiver is in our national security interest or that it will promote the
objective of ending the boycott. This important provision will provide
teeth to our common goal of finally putting a stop to this
reprehensible discrimination.
A word now on the motion to recommit soon to be offered by the
gentlelady from Maine. I strongly oppose this motion, and urge my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do likewise.
The gentlelady from Maine has represented the issue at hand in terms
of the status of the United States embargo against Vietnam. With all
due respect, neither the gentlelady's motion, nor the provision it
addresses, will affect United States trade with Vietnam in any way. The
President has already lifted the embargo on Vietnam. The provision to
which the gentlelady objects is no more than sense-of-the-Senate--not
the Congress and not the House--language which at this point amounts
only to an endorsement of the President's action.
What the gentlelady's motion will do, however, is to produce an
intolerable procedural situation: Either the House will have to stay in
session--and the Senate recalled--to redo what we're doing now, or the
State Department and the other agencies with expenditures authorized by
this bill will have to shut down, worldwide, until we do our business,
at a cost to the taxpayers of at least $2 million a day. Regardless of
where Members stand on the issue of the Vietnam embargo, either of
these outcomes should be unacceptable.
This motion is unusual. We are not talking here about a provision
voted down by the House and picked up later in conference from the
Senate. In fact the House has not voted on this issue. Nor is it being
asked to do so now. Once again, this is sense-of-the-Senate language.
In practical terms, the gentlelady's motion will not accomplish her
objective. In conference last week, the Senate insisted on its position
and the House conferees voted to accept it. Recommitting the report to
conference is unlikely to change that equation.
{time} 1530
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
(Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report
on H.R. 2333, the State Department, USIA, and Related Agencies
Authorization Act for fiscal years 1994 and 1995. This conference
report authorizes the basic operations of the State Department, the
U.S. Information Agency, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. I
am pleased to report that the measure before us, returns to the House
floor with an authorization level that is $436 million below the House-
passed bill for fiscal year 1995. We also provide a key authority for
the State Department to collect and retain fees for issuing machine
readable nonimmigrant visas and to use such fees to cover the costs of
providing consular services and upgrading visa processing systems. I
strongly support the modernization of the visa processing systems and
the implementation of an upgrade of all overseas visa lookout
operations. These systems are vital to establishing a more secure
system of entry into this country.
We also authorize the administration's request for flexibility to
reorganize the State Department. However, the reorganization plan
submitted for approval by Congress eliminated the Office of the
Coordinator for Counterterrorism. I strongly objected to this proposal,
and sought to restore the primacy of this issue within the Department
by retaining the office. I was supported in this effort by a 357 to 2
vote by the House on a motion to instruct the conferees to retain my
amendment contained in the House bill which maintained the independent
and high-level Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism reporting
directly to the Secretary of State. The will of the House prevailed and
a favorable resolution was reached by the conferees. The Office of the
Coordinator for Counterterrorism will be retained for an additional 12
months.
I reluctantly agreed to a compromise on this issue, even after a very
strong House recorded vote, which was necessary because of very strong,
and in my opinion misguided, State Department opposition to my
amendment.
I especially want to thank our distinguished chairman Mr. Hamilton,
and the subcommittee chairman, Mr. Berman, for working to help
accommodate my serious concerns about doing away at this time, with
this vital office, particularly after the terrorist bombing of the
Trade Center in New York. This attack made it clear that the threat of
international terrorism, especially to Americans has not diminished.
Rather than lowering our guard, we must strengthen our defenses against
this evil.
Under the compromise proposal we will retain the Counterterrorism
Office with the same responsibilities, functions and status that it
held on January 20, 1993, when President Clinton took office. I am
urging the State Department to give that office the strong, tough and
hardline antiterrorism leadership it needs as well as to provide the
necessary resources to do the job. I also ask that the Department
clearly live up to the letter and intent of my amendment not to merge
the narcotics and counterterrorism functions during this critical
period.
Chairman Hamilton has also agreed in the interim to have hearings
along with Mr. Berman in the Foreign Affairs Committee. We need to take
testimony from the counterterrorism experts early next year. We should
for example, explore the links between drugs and terrorism if any, that
could justify a merger of the counterterrorism functions into the
antinarcotics account as the State Department desired.
I am including, at the end of my remarks and as part of this
statement an OpEd piece from the Washington Times from April 20, 1994,
captioned ``Keeping Counter-terrorism a Serious Priority'' by Peter
Flory. Mr. Flory, along with other experts he cites in this piece,
makes a persuasive and compelling case that the House position was, and
is, correct. But more importantly, he concludes that this debate about
State Department organization, truly involves much more than boxes on
an organizational chart; it involves American security and American
lives in the years to come. I commend it to my colleagues and all those
concerned about the international terrorism threat which America faces
today.
The scope of the bill was broadened in the Senate to include several
foreign policy provisions. Many of these policy provisions were
retained by the conference committee and will strengthen our foreign
policy objectives.
This is true for the Hyde provision expressing the sense of the
Congress that the President should terminate the arms embargo for
Bosnia. In addition, inclusion of Senator Glenn's Nuclear Proliferation
Prevention Act, will strengthen nonproliferation sanctions on companies
and Governments that knowingly promote the spread of nuclear weapons
through sales, transfers or financing.
On a bipartisan basis, the conferees designed stringent new U.N.
management and peacekeeping reforms. In response to overwhelming
concern about the weak U.N. management practices, the proliferation of
U.N. peacekeeping missions, and the rapid increase in U.S. financial
obligations for peacekeeping this year, the legislation sets up a
carrot and stick approach to force discipline on the United Nations. We
require a withholding of assessments to the regular U.N. budget and of
the fiscal year 1994 supplemental authorization until an independent
office of inspector general is established and an IG is appointed. We
have also included a cap of 30.4 percent on current U.S. payments for
U.N. peacekeeping which is below the increased assessment imposed by
the United Nations last year. Beginning in fiscal year 1996 the bill
prohibits the United States from paying more than 25 percent for any
U.N. peacekeeping operation.
Furthermore, we require monthly consultations with Congress on
participation of U.S. armed forces in peacekeeping operations and other
important changes in ongoing operations. There is a requirement for
written prior notification on votes in the Security Council to
establish new peacekeeping operations. And, we will be able to reduce
U.S. peacekeeping costs by allowing U.S. excess defense articles to be
provided to the United Nations and credited against the U.S.
peacekeeping assessment.
Another key initiative in this bill is the consolidation of our
international broadcasting activities. This reorganization of
broadcasting is projected to save in the future approximately $100
million a year, and increases flexibility to determine broadcasting
priorities. The bill also preserves the independent status of Radio
Free Europe and Radio Liberty and creates a new independent Radio Free
Asia [RFA]. The objective of RFA is to increase broadcasting into the
closed Asian societies where independent news and information is not
available to the people. I support the effort to increase our access to
these countries through our international broadcasting system. I also
support the continuation of broadcasting to Cuba under this
reorganization.
Another special concern to me is our policy toward Tibet. I am
pleased that this conference report contains three provisions
specifically directed toward improving and increased exchanges with,
access to, and information about Tibet.
Mr. Chairman, also contained in this conference report are two
important provisions pertaining to American involvement with the
Palestine Liberation Organization as the Middle East peace negotiations
continue. Section 728 of the Senate bill amends the PLO Commitments
Compliance Act to strengthen the reporting requirement by adding the
PLO commitment letters to Israel and Norway, and the September 13,
1993, Declaration of Principles Agreements as elements to be included
in the State Department's reports to Congress.
Because presidential certification of the PLO, as required by the
Middle East Peace Facilitation Act, occurs every 6 months, the
reporting requirements in the PLO Commitments Compliance Act is
extended from every 120 days to every 6 months. This permits Congress
to conduct the necessary oversight prior to presidential certification.
Most of the changes to the PLO Commitments Compliance Act proposed by
the State were welcome and will strengthen congressional oversight of
the act.
In conference, the Senate agreed to maintain an original reporting
requirement of a statement of whether the PLO has repealed provisions
in its covenant which call for Israel's destruction, as well as a
statement which specifically discusses the PLO's position on the unrest
in the territories. I support the conference agreement as pertains to
the PLO Commitments Compliance Act, and urge my colleagues to accept
it.
The Middle East Peace Facilitation Act, [MEPFA], which the Senate
considered in the title X, contained a number of provisions that were
removed from the conference agreement. Through the MEPFA, Congress
grants the President a waiver authority for a period of time, during
which the President can waive four laws banning or severely restricting
PLO involvement with the United States. Most prominent among the laws
is the prohibition against the PLO having an office in the United
States. The current waiver, which spans 6 months, expires on July 1,
1994.
In title X, the Senate proposed to permanently transfer the waiver
authority from Congress to the President. The President would have
eternal authority to waive the laws pertaining to the PLO as long as he
certified that the PLO was in compliance and made his certification
known to Congress every 6 months. As adopted by the Senate, the
proposal would have only permitted Congress to disagree with the
President through a joint resolution of disapproval, leaving Congress
with no oversight of the four laws covered by the MEPFA.
Congress remains deeply concerned about the PLO for many reasons.
Accordingly, it is the intent of Congress that further extensions of
the waiver authority be considered only on a periodic basis. Congress
does not intend to shirk its constitutional responsibility by relieving
itself of this crucial oversight function. The conference agreement
removed the joint resolution proposal from the bill, and returned to
the existing structure of the act. The conference agreement extends the
President's waiver authority for 1 year only, until July 1, 1995,
primarily because consideration of an extension during an election year
made an additional 6 month waiver impractical.
As adopted by the conferees, the act includes two congressional
expectations. One currently exists in law but was not included in the
Senate version. The second expectation is new. Conditional for
extending the waiver authority, the President must take into account
whether the PLO renounces the Arab League boycott of Israel, urges the
nations of the Arab League to end the boycott, and cooperates with
United States efforts to do so. The second congressional expectation
notes that any extension exercised by the President be contingent upon
the PLO, through Chairman Arafat, condemning individual acts of
terrorism and violence against Israelis and Jews committed by
Palestinians in furtherance of Palestinian political aims.
Also new to the act is a reporting requirement, stipulated prior to
Presidential certification, which details the PLO's reaction and
response to individual acts of terrorism and violence, its actions
concerning the Arab League boycott of Israel, and the status of any PLO
office in the United States.
As ranking republican member of the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, I find that the State Department's reporting about the PLO
office will be of great assistance in determining whether future
Presidential waivers should be adopted. It is therefore anticipated
that the report discuss--but not be limited solely to--whether a PLO
office is being established and when it will begin functioning, its
location, staffing levels, administrative and nonadministrative
structure, funding, diplomatic status, as well as an outline of the
issues that those affiliated with the office will be working on. It
would be even more helpful if, in advance of preparing the reports, the
State Department met with interested Members of Congress, including
myself, to discuss those items that should be included in the report.
Overall, I would have preferred to adjust the MEPA waiver date to
April 1, 1995. Yet July 1, 1995, is the alternative the conference
committee agreed upon. In addition, the committee of conference agreed
to the inclusion of the phase ``in good faith'' regarding PLO
compliance with the implementation of the Declaration of Principles.
This was at the request of the Department of State. While not a perfect
measure, it is adequate for the current task, and I support its
inclusion in the conference agreement.
Lastly, the conference report includes a Sense of Senate provision
that the President should lift the trade embargo against Vietnam and
that the two countries should move toward normalization of relations.
This provision will be the subject of a motion to recommit by the
gentlelady from Maine.
I recognize the active role the gentlelady from Maine has taken in
steering this bill through subcommittee and enabling the measure to
make it through conference. I also understand the strong views she
holds on opposing this Senate provision. The resolution of the POW/MIA
issue is of great importance to me, and has been for many years. I
intend to support the gentlelady's motion to recommit with instructions
to delete this provision. But, I also want to emphasize that I intend
to support the conference report on final passage and urge my fellow
Republicans to also vote favorably on final passage. The measure before
us has an overwhelming number of important reforms--both in the
management and the foreign policy sectors--and there are new
authorities necessary for these agencies to improve their efficiency
and effectiveness.
With respect to lifting of sanctions, I commend the gentlelady from
Maine for offering the motion to recommit and I rise in strong support
of it. The Vietnam provision in this conference report commends Vietnam
for its supposed cooperation with the United States on resolving the
fate of American POW/MIA's and recommends to the President that he lift
the embargo. Mr. Speaker, it is a well-known fact that the Vietnamese
Government continues to stonewall on providing us information on our
missing servicemen.
Earlier this year, a letter was sent to the President signed by 70
former American POW's from the Vietnam war, including our colleague,
Sam Johnson, urging him not to lift the embargo. The reason these
distinguished 70 veterans gave was lack of cooperation from the
Vietnamese and our loss of leverage.
Our ex-POW's said to the President that cooperation from the
Vietnamese is not at all about access to crash or burial sites. It is
about getting answers from the Vietnamese about those hundreds of men
they held behind at the end of the war.
Mr. Speaker, a copy of their February 3, 1994, open letter to the
President from 70 former POW's opposing the lifting of the embargo
against Vietnam will be included at the end of my remarks.
The Vietnam provision in this conference report ignores this critical
matter entirely. Let me repeat, the provision ignores United States
Intelligence assessments accepted and reinforced by more recently-
acquired information that officials of Communist Vietnam and Laos have
not provided any information about hundreds of men we know they still
held after the war. Accordingly, the provision is grossly inaccurate
and rubs salt in the wounds of those who served in Vietnam and were
held in the camps.
For this reason, not on single major veteran or POW/MIA family group
supports the provision.
Mr. Speaker, on February 23, I wrote to the Secretary of State
concerning a February 18 New York Times article reporting that the
State Department had urged Russian officials not to release anymore
information about Vietnam's holding our men after the war. I requested
from the Secretary copies of all cables referenced in the New York
Times article and an explanation of the events surrounding the story.
On March 24, a month later, I received a reply from Assistant Secretary
Wendy Sherman stating that the cables are classified and that my
request for them is being taken into consideration. I wrote again on
March 30. It has been another month and I still have not seen copies of
those cables. What is there to hide?
Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress have the necessary security
clearances to read classified material. What sort of an answer is that
to a request initiated in response to an article in a daily newspaper?
Until we get to the bottom of these unanswered questions and those I
raised earlier in my statement I'm afraid our veteran and POW/MIA
family organizations are not going to have much faith in their
government when it comes to the issue of our missing men.
Accordingly, I support the Snowe motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
[From the Washington Times, Apr. 20, 1994]
Keeping Counter-Terrorism a Serious Priority
(By Peter Flory)
Six Americans are killed and more than 1,000 injured in the
World Trade Center bombing. The bombers are found guilty,
while others await trial for plotting to destroy New York
City landmarks and murder American officials. Saddam Hussein
tries to assassinate former President Bush--compelling
President Clinton to fire his first Tomahawks in anger.
Meanwhile, the bombings in Israel underscore the
vulnerability of the Middle East peace process, a critical
U.S. interest; the unpredictable and murderous North Korean
government is under pressure; and Salman Rushdie and Iranian
dissidents are hunted down around the world. Finally, in our
most important piece of unfinished business, the Libyan
bombers of Pan Am 103 have yet to be brought to justice.
In a nutshell, this seems like an odd time to put the
``Terrorism'' file in the ``Solved'' folder, or assume that
terrorism is no longer a threat to American lives and
interests. But that is what the State Department has been
trying to do, by proposing to downgrade and marginalize its
senior counter-terrorism official, the coordinator for
counter-terrorism. This may sound like bureaucratic line-
drawing of interest only to Beltway insiders, but it could
have tragic consequences in the real world. This unwise
policy could weaken American security and endanger American
lives.
House-Senate conferees are now completing action on the
State Department authorization bill, H.R. 2333. The House
version of the bill contained an amendment by Rep. Benjamin
Gilman of New York which would have retained the independent
counter-terrorism office (known in bureaucratese as S/CT)
with the focus and clout to do its job. The Senate bill
contained the State Department proposal, cynically modified
to preserve some of the trappings, though not the substance,
of bureaucratic effectiveness. On Monday, the House voted by
an overwhelming 357-2 to instruct its conferees to insist on
the Gilman amendment. Conferees reportedly agreed yesterday
to a compromise formula that retains the counter-terrorism
office in its present form for one year, allowing Congress to
hold thorough hearings on the issue.
The State Department plan to eliminate the counter-
terrorism office is flawed for several reasons.
First, it seems to assume that terrorism is no longer a
serious threat. As recounted above, it is. While the number
of terrorist attacks is generally declining, the audacity of
terrorists and their choice of targets--a former U.S.
president and the World Trade Center--are in some ways more
alarming than ever. As long as the United States remains
actively engaged in the world--as it clearly must--there will
be governments and groups committed to the use of violence to
attack U.S. interests and further their own political goals.
And they will note that while Iraq challenged the United
States by conventional military means and was devastated,
Iran, Libya and Syria have never adequately paid for their
roles in terrorist attacks that killed many more Americans
than died in Desert Storm.
Second, there is no efficiency or symbiosis gained by
lumping the narcotics, crime and terrorism functions
together, as the State Department would like. In particular,
linking counter-terrorism to counter-narcotics is a
superficial and flawed approach. True, some Latin American
narcotics traffickers have used terrorism and some
terrorists, like Peru's Shining Path, have sold drugs. But
the over-whelming majority of terrorist attacks against
American interests is political in nature. Lumping these
related functions together will eviscerate our counter-
terrorism policy. It will also needlessly undermine our
counter-narcotics efforts, say the former deputy director of
the Office of National Drug Control Policy, John P. Walters,
and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
International Narcotics Matters William J. Olson.
Third, the proposed multi-function office is a blueprint
for bureaucratic impotence. The measures required to fight
terrorism are never popular with vested interests, whether in
our own or other countries' bureaucracies. So first, a strong
U.S. policy requires leadership at home. Since 1986, the
State Department has served as the lead counter-terrorism
agency. This requires that the department's Office of
Counter-Terrorism have sufficient clout with the regional and
economic bureaus within State, and with other agencies in
Washington, many of which may have their own priorities.
Then the policy has to be implemented abroad, with
terrorist states themselves, and with other governments who
sometimes let their own commercial and regional interests in
countries like Iran and Iraq undermine a united diplomatic
front against terrorist states.
A successful example was the critical role of the counter-
terrorism coordinator in spearheading the Pan Am 103 policy.
The conventional wisdom at the State Department was that the
United States, Britain and France would never persuade the
U.N. Security Council to condemn Libya's role in the bombing.
But we did--in a unanimous vote. Then they said we'd never
get sanctions against Libya. Wrong again, but only because S/
CT energized the State Department to make it happen.
Today, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, an oil
embargo against Libya would be the perfect occasion for
another such effort. With Libyan-grade oil from other sources
abundant and cheap, now is the time to push the Europeans to
cut their dependence on Libyan oil and impose the only kind
of sanctions left that might force Col. Moammar Gadhafi to
hand over the murderers of 270 innocent people, including 189
Americans. But even if the administration follows up on its
campaign rhetoric in this regard, neither the European
foreign ministries nor the Libyans will be impressed by the
proposed new bureaucratic lineup.
Here is what the State Department proposal would do. Until
now, the head of the counter-terrorism office, the
government's senior full-time counter-terrorism official,
reported directly to the secretary of state, and with
assistant secretary rank, could demand respect in Washington
and foreign capitals. State wants to lower the job to deputy
assistant secretary rank and put it at the bottom of a long
and cumbersome reporting chain.
First, the incumbent would report to a new assistant
secretary who is also responsible for narcotics and
international crime, and who in practice would be largely
consumed by the day-to-day budgetary, administrative,
interagency, diplomatic and congressional demands of the
counter-narcotics portfolio. This official will report, in
turn, to an undersecretary--whose other global
responsibilities include international population control,
environmental matters, refugees, human rights,
democratization, labor, oceans policy and crime--who will
report to the secretary.
This long, cumbersome chain would fool no one, least of all
terrorists and foreign governments. It could only undermine
our ability to pursue an effective counter-terrorism policy,
especially in crisis situations, and send a signal that the
United States had decided terrorism is no longer a priority
issue.
This kind of mistake has been made before, for it was into
a similar bureaucratic morass that America's counter-
terrorism policy had fallen in the early 1980s. Recognizing
the need for better high-level coordination, President Reagan
in 1985 directed the State Department to upgrade the
terrorism position to ambassador-at-large, with direct access
to the secretary of state. It worked. The policy was taken
seriously, by other agencies and governments.
Terrorism is not a partisan issue. In fact, this proposed
reorganization plan was drafted in the Bush administration.
Then, as now, it was a bad idea, one that could be costly to
American security and American lives in the years to come.
____
American Defense Institute,
Alexandria, VA, February 3, 1994.
An Open Letter to President Clinton From Former POW's
Hon. William J. Clinton,
President of the United States, The White House, Washington,
DC.
Dear Mr. President: We are deeply troubled by news reports
that you may have an announcement to make on the trade
embargo against Hanoi in a matter of days. You have also been
quoted as saying that there are many distinguished veterans
who think the embargo should be lifted. As former American
POWs of the Vietnam War, we urge you, in the strongest
possible terms, not to take further steps to restore economic
or diplomatic relations with Hanoi until you can certify that
the Communist government there is being fully forthcoming in
telling us what they know about our fellow POWs and MIAs who
did not make it home with us in 1973.
Mr. President, all of us who were held as POWs in North
Vietnam know first-hand that there are no limits to what the
Vietnamese will do to show they are ``cooperating'' with the
United States to account for our missing comrades. We
consider ourselves experts at distinguishing between
propaganda and results. As Dr. Kissinger once stated, Hanoi's
leaders are duplicitous and they will stop at nothing to
achieve their goals.
Some of our fellow POWs died in captivity in Vietnamese
prisons. Yet they have not been accounted for. Some of our
crewmates became missing during the same incidents which we
survived. They too have not been accounted for. Some were
captured and never heard from again. They have not been
accounted for. Finally, a great many of our comrades never
returned from Laos, even though we know they survived their
incidents. North Vietnam controlled Laos during the war, and
yet they still have not accounted for a single POW captured
and held in Laos during the war.
There are those in Congress who are urging you to lift the
embargo as a means to get more information. Mr. President,
such a recommendation is nothing but a submission to
blackmail by Hanoi. Do not let yourself be manipulated on
this issue. The only way to get Hanoi to unilaterally provide
what they are withholding is to be firm. Do you really think
that those of us who made it home would have been released if
the U.S. hadn't flexed its muscle during the December, 1972
bombing campaign? Of course not. And while we certainly do
not recommend military action, we do recommend that the
sanctions continue until the Communists in Hanoi decide to be
fully forthcoming in accounting for our fellow POWs and MIAs.
Mr. President, we sacrificed precious years of our lives
while in captivity. We survived because we believed our
country would hold true to principle despite the disruptions
at home. Please do not let us down by abandoning any hope we
have of firmly convincing Hanoi to account for the remaining
POWs and MIAs who came into their possession or control
during the war. And please do not tell us that crash site
excavations and fragmentary archival documents should be the
measure of success in judging Vietnam's cooperation to date.
We know better.
Sincerely,
U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson, USAF, POW 16 April 66-73;
Adm. James B. Stockdale, POW 9 Sept. 65-73; Col. Orson
Swindle, USMC, (Ret.), POW 11 Nov. 66-73; Bg. Robinson
Risner, USAF (Ret.), POW 16 Sept. 65-73; Capt. Eugene ``Red''
McDaniel, USN (Ret.), POW 19 May 67-73; Col. Larry Barbay,
USAF (Ret.), POW 20 July 66-73; Col. Jerry Marvel, USMC
(Ret.), POW 24 Feb. 68-73; LCol. Myron Young, USAF (Ret.),
POW 6 July 66-73; Cdr. Dale Osborne, USAF (Ret.), POW 23
Sept. 68-73; Col. Rudolf Zuberbuhler, USAF (Ret.), POW 12
Sept. 72-73; LCol. Keith Lewis, USAF (Ret.), POW 5 Oct. 72-
73; LCol. James Padgett, USAF (Ret.), POW 11 May 72-73; Col.
Bob White, USAF (Ret.), POW 24 Nov. 69-73; LCol. John Alpers,
USAF (Ret.), POW 5 Oct. 72-73; Capt. Cole Black, USN (Ret.),
POW 21 June 66-73; Capt. Moon Mullen, USN (Ret.), POW 6 Jan.
67-73; Capt. James L. Hutton, USN (Ret.), POW 16 Oct. 65-73;
Capt. Bill Stark, USN (Ret.), POW 19 May 67-73; Capt. Harry
Jenkins, USN (Ret.), POW 13 Nov. 65-73; Col. James Young,
USAF (Ret.), POW 6 July 66-73; LCol. Konard Trautman, USAF
(Ret.), POW 5 Oct. 67-73; Col. Laird Gutterson, USAF (Ret.),
POW 23 Feb. 68-73.
Col. Ted Guy, USAF (Ret.), POW 22 MAR 68-73; Mr. Mike
Bongs, Civ, POW 28 Jan 68-73; Col. Lee Ellis, USAF (Ret.),
POW 7 Nov 67-73; Col. Jay Jensen, USAF (Ret.), POW 18 Feb 67-
73; Maj. Jose Anzaldua, USMC, (Ret.), POW 23 Jan 70-73; Mr.
Larry Stark, Civ, POW 1 Feb 68-73; Col. Bert Campbell, USAF
(Ret.), POW 1 July 66-73; Capt. Irv Williams, USN, (Ret.),
POW 24 Apr 67-73; Maj. John Parsels, USA (Ret.), POW 5 Feb
70-73; Col. A.J. Myers, USAF (Ret.), POW 1 Jun 66-73; Col.
Steve Long, USAF (Ret.), POW 28 Feb 69-73; Col. Jack Van
Loan, USAF (Ret.), POW 20 May 67-73; Col. Bill Baugh, USAF
(Ret.), POW 21 Jan 67-73; Col. Don Burns, USAF (Ret.), POW 2
Dec 66-73; Col. Art Burer, USAF (Ret.), POW 21 Mar 66-73;
Col. Thomas Klomann, USAF (Ret.), POW 20 Dec 72-73; Col. Ken
Cordier, USAF (Ret.), POW 2 Dec 66-73; Capt. Jim Bell, USN,
(Ret.), POW 16 Oct 65-73; Maj. Mark Smith, USA (Ret.), POW 7
Apr 72-73; Maj. Dennis L. Thompson, USA (Ret.), POW 7 Feb 68-
73; Col. Bob Jeffrey, USAF (Ret.), POW 20 Dec 65-73; Col.
Julian Jayroe, USA (Ret.), POW 19 Jan 67-73; Capt. Ross
Terry, USN, (Ret.), POW 9 Oct 66-73; and LCol. Hank Barrows,
USAF (Ret.), POW 19 Dec 72-73.
Col. Wes Schiernan, USAF (Ret.), POW 28 Aug 65-73; Col.
Fred Flom, USAF (Ret.), POW 8 Aug 66-73; Capt. Gordon
Nagagawa, USN, (Ret.), POW 21 Dec 72-73; Col. Terry Uyeyama,
USAF (Ret.), POW 18 May 69-73; Col. Frank D. Lewis, USAF
(Ret.), POW 28 Dec 72-73; Col. Gobel James, USAF (Ret.), POW
15 July 68-73; Lt. Bill Robinson, USAF (Ret.), POW 20 Dec 65-
73; Col. Ralph W. Galati, USAF (Ret.), POW 16 Feb 72-73;
Capt. Ev Sothwick, USN, (Ret.), POW 14 May 67-73; Col. Ken
Wallingford, USA (Ret.), POW 7 Apr 72-73; Mr. Harry
Ettmueller, USA, POW 3 Feb 68-73; Mr. John A. Dearing, USMC,
POW 3 Feb 68-73; MSG. Donat J. Gouin, USA (Ret.), POW 3 Feb
68-73; Col. James O. Hivner, USAF (Ret.), POW 5 Oct 65-73;
Col. James L. Lamar, USAF (Ret.), POW 6 May 66-73; Col.
Thomas M. Madison, USAF (Ret.), POW 15 May 66-73; Capt.
Render Crayton, USN, (Ret.), POW 7 Feb 66-73; Capt. Brian
Woods, USN, (Ret.), POW 18 Sept 68-73; Col. Jim Bedinger,
USAF (Ret.), POW 22 Nov 69-73; Capt. Jim Hickerson, USN,
(Ret.), POW 22 Dec 67-73; Capt. Dave Carey, USN, (Ret.), POW
31 Aug 67-73; Capt. Rob Doremus, USN, (Ret.), POW 24 Aug 65-
73; Capt. Reid McCleary, USN, (Ret.), POW May 67-73; and S/
SGT. John Sexton, USA, POW 12 Aug 69-73.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kleczka). The Chair recognizes the
gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe].
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I will concentrate my remarks on a motion I will offer to
recommit the conference report for the purpose of removing section 521.
Following general debate, my motion will call for the removal of a
Senate provision which praises the Communist Government of Vietnam for
cooperation in accounting for American POW's and MIA's, despite
continued stonewalling on this issue that goes back years.
Obviously, I am deeply disappointed by this conference report. For 9
years I have been proud to serve as the ranking Republican on the
Subcommittee on International Operations, which drafts the State
Department Authorization Act. Until now, this bill has always been a
genuine bipartisan product that I have never been unable to support.
Today, that is no longer true.
Section 512 is a Senate provision that praises the Government of
Vietnam for its supposed cooperation in accounting for American POW's
and MIA's. It calls for an immediate lifting of the economic embargo
and normalization of relations. It even goes so far as to claim human
rights progress is underway in Vietnam. This is in a country where the
people are routinely persecuted and incarcerated by the Government for
all forms of unsanctioned religious and political expression.
Mr. Speaker, to adopt the conference report without first removing
this Senate provision would break our faith with America's veterans and
with the POW/MIA families. But most important, it would break faith
with all those who gave their lives or never returned from Vietnam.
These noble Americans gave everything they had to prevent the genocide
and oppression that swept through Indochina after the fall of Saigon.
President Clinton has repeatedly stated that the United States
economic embargo against Vietnam would remain in effect until Hanoi
significantly increased its cooperation in the fullest possible
accounting of American POW's and MIA's. But that has not occurred. And
now we are being asked to lend our own support to a misguided decision
by accepting this Senate provision that reaffirms the administration's
policy of lifting the trade embargo. I don't believe that is a correct
policy and I won't support it.
Maintaining the trade embargo was the only real ``stick'' the United
States Government had to compel Hanoi to cooperate on the POW/MIA
issue. In reality, Vietnam's level of cooperation has not fulfilled
even the most modest expectations. Lifting the trade embargo was
supposed to increase Vietnamese cooperation--it has not.
In 1993, only three American remains were positively identified as a
result of joint United States-Vietnamese efforts. This was the worst
year ever for the identification of remains. Moreover, American search
teams had no freedom of action to investigate either: Unearthed wartime
remains; United States aircraft wreckage; live sighting reports; or
interviews of witnesses without being accompanied by Vietnamese
officials.
In fact, earlier this month an American search team headed by a
former Member of Congress along with the daughter of an MIA and a
representative of a Vietnam veteran's organization were denied access
to Vietnamese prisons where hundreds of Americans may have been held.
One of those prison sites has been identified in declassified U.S.
intelligence documents as a prison camp where 200 Americans were held
captive in 1972, but none of those American POW's were repatriated in
1973.
Additionally, the executive director of the National League of
Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, Ann
Griffiths, recently returned from another of her many trips to Vietnam.
In her trip report, she described the new, postembargo attitude of the
Vietnamese Government. Ms. Griffiths described a Vietnam Government
attitude of complacency--they proudly paraded this Senate provision as
proof of their past cooperation, without acknowledging their on-going
responsibilities to continue to help resolve our MIA cases.
The Vietnamese Government has apparently decided that unilateral
actions on its part are no longer necessary. They now feel that
continued bilateral cooperation is the key to resolving the MIA issue.
The Vietnamese Government is content to wait for us to tell them what
to do next, instead of moving forward on their own.
In its trip report, the National League of Families note that the
most senior personnel on the U.S. full accounting joint task force
``appear to have an assigned role to create perceptions, despite
evidence to the contrary, that Vietnam is fully forthcoming.'' If this
is true, then it means that the joint task force is more concerned with
making it look like lifting the embargo was not a mistake than trying
to get Vietnam to be more forthcoming.
Mr. Speaker, if today we declare this kind of behavior to be
Vietnamese cooperation, then I fear that we will never achieve a full
accounting of our POW's and MIA's. By removing this Senate provision we
will put both the administration and the Vietnamese Government on
notice that until full and complete cooperation is achieved, no steps
should be taken toward establishing diplomatic relations.
I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to vote for the motion to
recommit. We must not go on record praising Vietnam for its years of
stonewalling on American POW's and MIA's. The Vietnamese Government
hasn't lived up to its part of the bargain since the embargo has been
lifted. We must show that the House of Representatives stands with the
families of the POW's and MIA's, as well as with all major human rights
groups who have uniformly denounced the human rights situation in
Vietnam. And finally, we must signal to the administration that we
expect genuine and substantial progress in both these areas before any
consideration is given to establishing formal diplomatic ties.
Vote to keep faith with our veterans and the POW/MIA families. Vote
for human rights in Vietnam. Vote for the motion to recommit.
The American Legion,
Washington, DC, April 25, 1994.
Dear Representative: During the week of April 25 the house
will consider the approval of H.R. 2333, the State Department
Authorization Act for FY 1995. That bill has been passed by
both Houses of Congress, has been referred to joint
conference committee and the report has now been returned to
the House and Senate for final passage.
While the intent of the Act is necessary, language has been
included that alludes to significant cooperation by the
government of Vietnam for its accounting of American POWs and
MIAs, and endorses the end of the economic blockade on
Vietnam. The American Legion finds this language
disingenuous, inappropriate and has no legitimacy in fact.
In reality, Vietnam's cooperation on the resolution of the
POW/MIA issue has not fulfilled reasonable expectations. In
1993 only two American remains were positively identified as
a result of joint U.S.-Vietnamese efforts. Moreover, American
search teams have had no freedom to investigate either
unearthed wartime remains, U.S. aircraft wreckage, live
sighting reports, or interviews of witnesses without being
accompanied by Vietnamese officials. Furthermore,
investigations by U.S. teams have not been pursued with full
vigor, e.g., live sighting report investigations are nearly
nonexistent and valid research suggestions from veterans'
groups have been ignored.
The Legion understands that the language represents the
sense of the Senate and is non-binding. However, adoption of
the provisions that address a significant increase in
cooperation and ``substantial and tangible progress'' are a
distortion of reality and a revision of the history of this
painful issue. To include this language in any bill approved
by the Congress of the United States could forestall any
future action to seek a full and complete accounting of
American POWs and MIAs and would be an obstacle to any action
to reimpose sanctions against Vietnam should events warrant.
I urge you to keep faith with the POWs and MIAs, their
families and members of the military services and recommit
this bill back to conference committee to eliminate those
provisions that Americans will find objectionable and
erroneous.
Sincerely,
Bruce Thiesen,
National Commander.
____
National League of Families of American Prisoners and
Missing in Southeast Asia,
Washington, DC, April 27, 1994.
Dear Representative: I understand that tomorrow, the House
will consider final approval of H.R. 2333, the State
Department Authorization Bill for 1995. Now is not the time
to signal the Vietnamese leadership that the Congress of the
United States is satisfied with the results thus far
obtained. To the contrary, a helpful signal would be for H.R.
2333 to contain language which calls on Vietnam to move now,
unilaterally, to repatriate remains and provide relevant
documents which would account for hundreds of missing
Americans.
Included in the text, as amended, is inaccurate language
praising Vietnam's POW/MIA cooperation. A National League of
Families delegation just returned from Vietnam. When
confronted with U.S. documentation, supplied by the League,
Vietnamese officials acknowledged that they could do more,
unilaterally, to cooperate.
Please stand with the POW/MIA families and our nation's
veterans by supporting Representative Olympia Snowe's efforts
to remove this misleading language. You can signal Vietnam
that the House of Representatives wants the fullest possible
accounting without further delay. You can urge Vietnam to
honor its commitments to the families and the President to
follow through on the League delegation's findings.
Unwarranted praise at this crucial point could impede all
we have worked to achieve in terms of accountability.
Sincerely,
Ann Mills Griffiths,
Executive Director.
____
National League of Families of American Prisoners and
Missing in Southeast Asia
Washington, DC.
report on national league of families trip to vietnam, laos and
cambodia--vietnam: March 22-24, 1994
The U.S. Government's current approach of commending
Vietnam for full POW/MIA cooperation despite evidence to the
contrary has signaled Vietnam that unilateral actions on
their part are not expected nor required to achieve their
political and economic objectives. After a series of meetings
with very senior Vietnamese officials, the League
delegation's consensus is that the leadership of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam is quite confident of its
position. The ``new environment'' post-embargo-lift, though
cited by SRV officials as a basis for renewed energy to
continue and increase both unilateral and joint efforts, has
not yet brought increased results in terms of accountability.
While pledging that their long-standing humanitarian policy
of full cooperation would continue regardless of what the
U.S. may decide regarding further steps forward, recent U.S.
moves were cited as having improved the climate throughout
Vietnam which would help ensure continued bilateral
cooperation. The underlined rhetoric says it all. Vietnam
asserts full cooperation in the past, which is provably
untrue, while also asserting that the embargo lift will
ensure continued bilateral cooperation which is as yet
achieving little accountability. Again, since the embargo was
lifted on February 3, 1994, results do not demonstrate any
shift in Vietnam's behavior, rather more of the same. Unless
U.S. policy is changed to focus on pursuing unilateral SRV
actions, the League delegation does not foresee any real
basis for optimism that results, in terms of accountability,
will increase significantly.
Quoting recent U.S. Government accolades as evidence that
satisfactory progress is being made, Vietnam's rhetoric
paralleled that heard in the early to mid-80's. SRV officials
initially asserted that they are cooperating fully, providing
all relevant archival documents as they are located,
withholding no remains or live POWs, and are deeply concerned
about their own 300,000 ``MIAs,'' a subject they dropped in
the mid-1980's and refurbished in the early 1990's. The
League provided SRV officials a book containing U.S. data on
why more documents and remains are expected from unilateral
SRV actions. The Vietnamese admitted that more can be done
and committed to increase unilateral and bilateral efforts;
however, the delegation is not optimistic in view of the
SRV's longstanding record of breaking agreements and failing
to honor pledges.
Confronted with League-provided U.S. Government facts on
last known alive and remains discrepancy cases, SRV officials
claimed that the ``easy cases'' had already been solved, a
statement not supported by the evidence. Nevertheless, they
pledged to continue efforts to resolve the discrepancy cases,
noting that many of the cases have been repeatedly
investigated by the JTF-FA. We noted that many of these
investigations point to Vietnam's unilateral ability to solve
the cases.
In response to League requests for specific documents
believed available by the U.S. Government, SRV officials
pledged to initiate rapid steps to locate and provide the
requested documents. Senior Vietnamese officials were
generally receptive to considering a simultaneous two-track
approach, to include unilateral efforts on Vietnam's part
while continuing the process underway with JTF-FA, i.e. field
activities and joint research.
JTF-FA's efforts in Vietnam are positive in some areas,
i.e. the Priority Case Investigation Team (PCIT), but the
League delegation has serious concerns in others. We found
dedicated, talented individuals in, or on loan to, Detachment
2 who are pursuing the current policy-approved JTF-FA
operational approach, while searching for alternatives to
obtain greater results. We maintain that the team would be
better served without the removal of experienced personnel.
The JTF process in Vietnam appears geared toward initial
surveys and investigations of all cases, with little focus on
achieving real accountability and no focus on pursuing
unilateral SRV efforts. This focus signals Vietnamese
officials that there is no need or desire on the U.S. part
for unilateral SRV efforts. Smooth logistics execution of
field activities and public relations appear to be of
paramount importance. These problems beg correction by
policy-level U.S. Government officials.
The highly publicized Joint Document Center appears
constructed more for propaganda value than substance;
however, there are some talented personnel intent on greater
access and results. Here again, publicly expressed opinions
by U.S. officials are reflected in statements by Vietnamese
counterparts. This is a serious problem; it alleviates the
burden on Vietnam for unilateral provision of archival
documents and further research efforts.
The most senior personnel at JTF-FA Detachment 2 appear to
have an assigned role to create perceptions, despite evidence
to the contrary, that Vietnam is fully forthcoming. This
approach is not only unwarranted, but detracts from objective
evaluation of Vietnamese knowledgeability. A consistent theme
from some in JTF is that long-held U.S. Government
expectations concerning Vietnam's knowledge and ability to
unilaterally provide accountability were likely based on
invalid assumptions. This leads to their faulty conclusion
that accountability must be a lengthy process from which
little can reasonably be expected of the SRV in terms of
unilateral actions.
In view of evidence available to the U.S. Government, the
approach on archival documents/research should be based on
the assumption that more are available and can be provided
with political will on the part of the SRV leadership. If the
Vietnamese do not provide expected documents, credible
explanations should be provided as to why. Such an approach
would be consistent with U.S. policy on the live prisoner
issue.
As a result of our trip, we are working on specific
recommendations for the U.S. Government, based on a two-track
approach, which we believe will motivate Vietnam to provide
more unilaterally and give greater credibility to the
President's public statements of commitment and expectations,
post-embargo.
laos: march 25-28, 1994
Bilateral POW/MIA efforts in Laos are encouraging, despite
greater obstacles, i.e. nearly 85% of all of the 504 U.S.
losses occurred in areas then under Vietnamese control, and
remoteness of areas of loss, as well as displacement of
potential witnesses along the border with Vietnam.
The basis for the League delegation's positive assessment
included the Lao Government's history of seriousness in
implementing POW/MIA commitments made to the United States.
It was evident from discussions that during the ``run-up'' to
U.S. lifting of the embargo with Vietnam, Lao cooperation on
the POW/MIA issue was downplayed and characterized
inaccurately, likely to generate a perception of greater
Vietnamese cooperation. In the context of POW/MIA
accountability, any comparison between Laos and Vietnam is
irrelevant and misplaced.
With high level guidance, the Foreign Ministry is clearly
the ``designated hitter,'' assisted actively by the Ministry
of National Defense, with the Interior Ministry in a
supportive role, but excluded from joint field activities.
The Lao Government's commitment to continue and increase
their POW/MIA efforts was made clear, as was willingness to
consider suggestions provided by the League in advance of the
trip. The Foreign Ministry spelled out the Lao Government's
approved method for handling aspects of the POW/MIA process,
such as ``trilateral'' cooperation between Laos, Vietnam and
the U.S. It was made clear that permitting Vietnamese
witnesses to participate in field operations in Laos was a
second step, to follow initial receipt of information from
Vietnamese witnesses for use by the U.S. and Laos in the
bilateral effort. The lack of SRV responses to Lao and U.S.
requests for documents helpful to the POW/MIA accounting
effort in Laos is a source of frustration which continues to
impede results.
On joint field activities, the Lao defined the need to
pursue the effort province by province, expanding excavation
teams as necessary to ensure remains recovery is achieved as
rapidly as possible. The Lao priority is to exhaust all
possibility of results in each area before extending field
operations beyond their government's relatively limited
resources. Overall JTF-FA strategy is clearly not in
consonance with Lao desires on how to proceed; however,
Vientiane-based JTF-FA personnel appear to recognize the need
to tailor an approach necessary to facilitate field
operations in Laos.
Despite the greater problems faced by Laos and the U.S. in
terms of accounting for Americans missing in Laos, including
lack of information and records from Vietnam, there is an
apparent dedication to achieving valid answers on individual
cases. This is aided by the Lao policy that actions (though
sometimes slow) speak louder than words.
Another positive, but until now unpublicized, development
in Laos is the ongoing archival film project. Lao and
American personnel are working together to review film
footage, albeit thus far without significant results in terms
of accountability. Whether governmental or private, a small
amount of assistance to the Lao Government for preservation
and location of additional film is crucial to expanding this
aspect of the bilateral effort. The practical definitions
provided by the Lao regarding the approved manner in which
the POW/MIA accounting process could proceed were understood
and accepted by the U.S. Ambassador to Laos and the
Detachment 3 Commander. Policy level endorsement and
direction to JTF-FA headquarters on implementation are
needed.
Accountability is anticipated more reliably in Laos on
those cases under Lao control; but, clearly without full
provision of war time data and records by Vietnam, the
majority may not be resolved except by serendipity.
U.S. Ambassador to Laos Victor Tomseth was extremely
helpful during the League visit. His policy-level interface
with Lao officials has been and is extremely important, and
it is clear that he is well liked and respected by the Lao
leadership which is gratified by his ability to speak their
language. The delegation found the Vientiane-based JTF-FA
Commander sensitive to the Lao environment and the
differences between Vietnam and Laos in the context of POW/
MIA. Unfortunately, as in most JTF assignments, LTC Mike
Kendall, USA, an active duty military officer, will depart
soon. Bill Gadoury, one of the few ``old hands'' still in
JTF-FA, will remain; his knowledge of the issue and Lao
culture, as well as language capability, are vital to the
effort.
cambodia: march 28-29, 1994
The accounting effort in Cambodia is proceeding with the
full support of the newly established Royal Cambodian
Government, but without necessary provision of records and
data from Vietnam. Cambodian officials were extremely
supportive and made commitments to pursue every suggestion
and take any action deemed potentially helpful to account for
missing Americans.
Of particular interest was the commitment of the Defense
Ministry to raise with their Vietnamese counterparts the need
for SRV provision of records to help account for the 78
Americans still unaccounted for in Cambodia. This step was
implemented immediately based on suggestions provided by the
League.
Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, with a history of
helpfulness since 1986, also offered full support and pledged
to raise the need for SRV archives directly to his Vietnamese
counterpart, Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, during the latter's
official visit immediately following the League delegations'
departure. During the war, both Prime Minister Kiet and SRV
President Le Duc Anh were senior commanders in the areas of
Cambodia where most Americans were lost. (Reportedly, Prime
Minister Hun Sen made the request of SRV Prime Minister Kiet
who agreed to respond.)
JTF-FA Detachment 4 has an excellent working relationship
with Cambodian officials. There is a discernable
understanding between officials of both governments which
enhances bilateral ability to pursue accounting efforts under
difficult circumstances. Suggestions made by the League, many
of which were made earlier by the Defense POW/MIA Office,
were well received by all involved, including the need for an
oral history program and unilateral Cambodian efforts to
locate potential witnesses who served in the border areas or
Vietnam and Cambodia during the war. Implementation by both
countries will demonstrate seriousness.
Noting that even documents such as birth certificates were
destroyed during the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodian officials
agreed to the League delegation's request to permit
investigation of a military archive in Phnom Penh in an
effort to locate possible POW/MIA related material.
Ambassador-designate Charles Twining is obviously held in
high esteem by all Cambodian officials with whom the League
delegation met. The U.S. role in achieving a political
settlement was noted repeatedly, as was continuing U.S.
assistance in overcoming current problems.
Thailand: March 20-21, 29, 1994
The League delegation's focus during stop-overs in Thailand
was to meet with U.S. officials directly related to POW/MIA,
particularly those in the Defense Intelligence Agency's Stony
Beach team, headquartered in Bangkok. With his many years of
background and direct involvement in POW/MIA matters, U.S.
Ambassador to Thailand David Lambertson provided not only
valuable insights, but tremendous support for the League
delegation. The discussion with State Department officer Scot
Marciel, assigned in Hanoi and temporarily in Bangkok,
regarding the current situation in Vietnam was also
enlightening, and his assistance in facilitating meetings in
Vietnam was most helpful.
The Stony Beach briefing was informative and professional;
however, their debriefing operations continue to be
circumscribed by direction of Commander, JTF-FA. The League
delegation continues to hold the view that greater in-country
participation by the Stony Beach linguists and investigation
specialists would enhance valid results from field
operations.
NOTE OF APPRECIATION: Although the League has differences
on approach and policy, principally with regard to Vietnam,
the League delegation received tremendous logistics support
from the JTF-FA Detachments and personnel in Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia. Stony Beach (DIA) was extremely supportive and
helpful in Bangkok. The courtesy and assistance were most
helpful and deeply appreciated.
Participants in the League delegation were Chairman of the
Board Sue Scott, Executive Director Ann Mills Griffiths and
Board Member Colleen Shine. All are family members of
Americans still missing from the Vietnam War.
During the League delegation's trip to Thailand, Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia, meetings were held with the following
individuals.
Vietnam: Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet; Deputy Minister of
Defense Nguyen Thoi Bung; Deputy Minister of Interior Le Minh
Huong; Deputy Chief of the National Assembly Foreign
Relations Committee Van Phac; Deputy Foreign Minister Le Mai;
Director of the Vietnam office for Seeking Missing Persons
(VNOSMP) Vu Chi Cong; Members of the VNOSMP from Defense,
Interior and Foreign Ministries; Commander, U.S. Joint Task
Force Full Accounting (JTF-FA) MG Thomas Needham, USA; LTC
John Cray, USA, JTF-FA Detachment 2 Commander; U.S. Archival
Research Chief Robert Destatte; Other Members of the JTF-FA
MIA Office in Hanoi.
Laos: Deputy Prime Minister Khamphoui Keoboualapha; Foreign
Minister Somsavat Lensavad; Vice Foreign Minister Soubanh
Srithirath; Former Lao Ambassador to the U.N. Saly Khamsy;
Assistant to the Foreign Minister Linthong Phetsavanh;
Director of Foreign Relations Department, Ministry of
National Defense, COL Sy Inthavong; Deputy Director
Department of Europe/Americas, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Mr. Ouan Phommachack; U.S. Ambassador to Laos Victor Tomseth;
Deputy Chief of Mission Allen Barr; LTC Mike Kendall, USA,
Commander of Detachment 3, JTF-FA; Other Members of the JTF-
FA and Embassy staff.
Cambodia: His Excellency Hun Sen, Second Prime Minister;
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng;
Generals Tea Chamrath and Tea Banh, Ministers of National
Defense; Special Representative of First Prime Minister
Prince Ranariddh Mr. Nady Tan; Mr. Uch Kiman, Acting Foreign
Minister; Dr. Chem Widhya, Secretary General, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation; MG Men Than
Ly, Director of Interpol, Ministry of Interior; MG Ou Kim
Nouen, External Relations, Ministry of Defense; COL Chandy
Mucharang, Ministry of National Defense; Mr. Theam Chuny,
Director of Americas Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and International Cooperation; COL Chum Soyath, Ministry of
Interior; U.S. Ambassador-Designate to Cambodia Charles
Twining; Deputy Chief of Mission Mr. James Bruno; JTF-FA
Detachment 4 Commander Major Tony Lowe; Other JTF-FA members.
Thailand: Lao Ambassador to Thailand Bounkeut Sangsomsak;
U.S. Ambassador to Thailand David Lambertson; Deputy Chief of
Mission Matt Dailey; Chief, Stony Beach POW/MIA Office,
George Scearce; Defense Attache COL Ed Corcoran, USA; Mr. Ken
Urquhart, Stony Beach; LTC Dave Geraldson, USAF, Chief, JTF-
FA Detachment 1.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Slaughter].
Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the
conference report to accompany H.R. 2333, particularly the provisions
of section 515(6), urging the President of the United States to
pressure the Government of Thailand to prosecute those responsible for
the trafficking, forced labor, and physical and sexual abuse of Thai
and Burmese women and children in Thailand. I commend my colleagues on
the Foreign Affairs Committee for recognizing the significance of human
rights violations against women.
I was appalled and disgusted to discover that the Government of
Thailand has permitted the trafficking of women, who are then used as
sex slaves. Recent credible reports have indicated that thousands of
Burmese women and girls are being led into Thailand with false promises
of employment, only to be forced to work in brothels under conditions
which include sexual and physical violence, debt bondage, exposure to
HIV, passport deprivation, and illegal confinement. In addition,
members of the Thai police are often actively involved in this
barbarism. This is a practice the U.S. Government must not support or
fund and we must work to stop it.
In too many places around the world, gross human rights violations
against women occur and the world community has for too long ignored
them. I am pleased that with this bill, the first steps in recognizing
this particular horror have been made. Now we must do whatever we can
to make sure it doesn't continue. This is an issue of fundamental human
rights.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Rogers].
(Mr. ROGERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, the conference report contains
authorizations for both the United Nations' general budget, the United
Nation's peacekeeping for fiscal year 1994 and fiscal year 1995. It
also contains an authorization for a fiscal 1994 peacekeeping
supplemental totalling $670 million to pay averages.
I want to continue to make the Members aware of the impact the United
Nations' ever-growing budget is having on the taxpayers of this
country.
Mr. Speaker, in the last 2 years, the number of peacekeeping
operations has exploded to a record high--16 on-going operations. U.N.
peacekeeping has evolved beyond the traditional role of ensuring the
implementation of a truce, to imposing that truce with an international
militia of which we are assessed 32 percent of this total cost. U.S.
dollars and U.S. manpower are being put on the line in great numbers,
in settings that are remote, at best, to this Nation's security
interests.
Aside from the critical policy issues that this poses for us, I want
to turn your attention to the fiscal crisis this is creating. Last
year, the Congress provided almost half a billion to the United Nations
for peacekeeping for 1994. Yet, because the United Nations, with the
agreement of the United States' Mission, continued to vote for new
missions, and expanded missions, the United Nations is now sending the
American taxpayer a bill for over $1 billion for shortfalls for 1994
alone--a bill we may not be able to pay. This conference report
authorizes these shortfalls to be paid, but let me say to my
colleagues, this may be a bill we may not be able to pay.
Further, at a time when we are facing a hard freeze on discretionary
spending--meaning real cuts in important domestic programs--it is
difficult to justify how we can send another $1 billion to the United
Nations. Moreover, it is impossible for me to ask my constituents to
foot this bill when the United Nations continues to refuse to lower our
share now almost 32 percent. It is impossible for me to support paying
our peacekeeping arrears until the United Nations creates a strong
inspector general to end the waste, fraud, and abuse plaguing the
United Nations.
I am glad to see provisions to continue withholding of funds until an
inspector general is created. Further, I am glad to see that the
authorization places a cap of 25 percent on U.S. peacekeeping
assessments beginning in fiscal 1996. However, I believe we should
begin capping U.S. assessments at 25 percent immediately.
Mr. Speaker, for the last 20 years this Congress has cried for United
Nations' reform--cries which continue to fall on deaf ears. It's time
we rein in the United Nations' purse strings. I am convinced it is the
only action the United Nations understands. It is time we let them know
Uncle Sam will not continue to foot the bill for U.N. peacekeeping
until we see real reform.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Hunter].
(Mr. HUNTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, we, along with the President, have the right
to take young men and women from their families and put them in the
uniformed services to fight the Nation's conflicts. Along with that
right, we have certain obligations.
Our first obligation is to train and equip those young people well.
It is to provide them with good leadership. When we take them into
battle, we must do everything we can do politically to see to it that
they are successful.
We have another obligation, and that obligation runs to them and to
their families, and that is to account for those that fall in battle,
[KIA], killed in action, [WIA], wounded in action, and those who are
missing in action and who become prisoners of war.
Now, I think the services carry out that obligation fairly
effectively when they have the power to do it. When young men and women
are killed in action, the services act with compassion with the
families, with the communication, trying to work with the friends and
the family members to see to it that they adjust to death in combat, to
see to it that they adjust to the missing, the absence of their member
of the service who is in their family.
{time} 1550
But in the case of Vietnam, that obligation shifted. Because of the
closed society that North Vietnam holds, only the Government of North
Vietnam really knows what happened to the thousands of Americans who to
date are unaccounted for. I would suggest that there may be a
difference of opinion as to how many Americans were left behind, if
any. Members do not have to necessarily believe the memorandum from
General Cam, the member of the North Vietnamese politburo reporting to
the Soviet Union, when he said, we are keeping half of these members.
My colleagues do not have to believe that. They do not have to believe
that any of the 800 reported sightings are accurate.
There is, I admit, room for difference of opinion on that issue.
There is no difference of opinion on the fact that the Vietnamese
dragged their feet on counting. There is no difference of opinion that
they at times were extremely deceitful to Americans, to the family
members and to the Government members who wanted to know what had
happened to Americans who were missing in action. And we are rewarding
those people by lifting this embargo.
There is no doubt that this is a very important economic benefit. We
are proving to our adversaries and our future adversaries that if one
just waits long enough, one can count on our capitalistic tendencies to
override this solemn obligation that we have to the families of the
people who serve us in combat in Vietnam and in wars to come.
I think that is a dreadful mistake. The President of the United
States has capitulated, and this House should not join him.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from New York [Mr. Torricelli].
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time
to me.
I would like to engage the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman] in
a colloquy to clarify some language in the conference report and joint
explanatory statement relating to subsection (a) of section 525.
The conference report expresses the sense of the Congress regarding
travel or exchanges for informational, educational, religious,
cultural, or humanitarian purposes, or for public performances or
exhibitions. I would like to ask Mr. Berman whether he understands this
language to allow tourist travel.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. TORRICELLI. I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, As the gentleman knows, I personally believe
that the right to travel is a constitutional right, and that Americans
should be free to travel wherever they wish except in cases recognized
in the Passport Act, where there lives or health might be in danger. It
was for that reason that I offered the amendment to the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act [IEEPA] which appears as the latter part
of subsection (c). We did not apply those protections either to
embargoes against Cuba or North Korea under the Trading With the Enemy
Act, or to the existing embargoes against Iraq and Libya under IEEPA.
However, notwithstanding my personal conviction, I think it clear
that the sense-of-the-Congress language in subsection (a), which
originated in the Senate, and which covers activities other than those
covered by subsections (b) and (c), only covers the specific purposes
mentioned, namely informational, educational, religious, cultural,
humanitarian, public performances, and exhibitions. It does not
authorize travel for purely recreational purposes, and it would not be
wise for persons to justify such travel on the basis of this provision.
I do not read this language as encouraging the administration to permit
such recreational travel. It would also be appropriate for the
executive branch to permit travel for the purposes in subsection A
either by means of well-defined general licenses or by means of
specific licenses, as long as the licensing procedures were applied in
a non-discriminatory manner, and to permit rather than restrain travel
for these specific purposes.
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Speaker, finally, I would like to seek
clarification of language in the joint explanatory statement which
states the committee of conference understands it to be the policy of
the executive branch to undertake to remove currency restrictions on
the activities enumerated in the sense of the Congress. Does this
suggest that the executive branch could in no way place limits on
currency transactions for travel for such purposes?
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, one
of the principal ways in which restrictions are maintained on the
activities enumerated in subsection (a), particularly on travel, are by
means of currency restrictions. Hence, the language of the joint
explanatory statement refers to removal of currency restrictions. That
said, I believe that reasonable per diem limits on expenditures for
such travel would be in order.
I should also note that the administration, while it supports the
principle of free trade in ideas, has made no commitment to removing
currency restrictions, but still has under review the questions of
whether current restrictions serve to inhibit the travel described in
subsection (a), and precisely how it will implement its commitment to
free trade in ideas.
Mr. TORRICELLI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his
explanation.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], a member of our committee.
(Mr. DIAZ-BALART asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I am cognizant of and am going to
support the motion of the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] to
recommit. I think it is extremely unfortunate that that Senate Vietnam
language was included in the conference report. It should not have been
included in the conference report. It may jeopardize the conference
report.
But it is very important that the issue be brought out, and the way
in which the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] has done so, I think,
is extremely important. So I hope that we will support her motion to
recommit.
There are a number of items within the conference report that are
very important and that I think are very positive. It was a painstaking
negotiation that took place and, I think, a very serious one during the
conference committee meetings.
One of the items that I would like to bring out to the attention of
my colleagues, which I think is very appropriate and very timely, is a
sense of the Congress resolution, a statement that it is the sense of
the Congress that the President should advocate and speak a mandatory
international U.N. Security Council embargo against the dictatorship of
Cuba. We are in the midst this week of seeking to tighten the embargo
against the 2-year old Haitian dictatorship. Just a few miles from that
dictatorship is a 35-year old, ruthless totalitarian dictatorship.
Some of us here believe, and I am confident that it is the majority
sentiment of Congress and we can so state today, as we did during the
foreign aid authorization bill where this language was already included
last year, that the time for double standards has ended and that it is
time that we seek and advocate formally in the international community
the application of international sanctions against not only the most
brutal dictatorship in this hemisphere but one of the most brutal
dictatorships in the entire world.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New
York [Mr. Solomon].
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time
to me.
Members, I strongly support the motion of the gentlewoman from Maine
[Ms. Snowe] to be offered at the end of this debate. I congratulate her
for offering it. Her motion will give Members of this House the
opportunity of being heard on the question of lifting the United States
trade embargo with Vietnam and pursuing normal diplomatic relations
with that country.
It is regrettable, indeed, that we did not have this debate prior to
the President's decision to lift that embargo. We should have had it,
Mr. Speaker. Suffice it to say, I am opposed to that action and I would
simply ask, how has the Communist regime in Vietnam changed? What is
different now?
I will tell my colleagues what has changed. With the collapse of the
Soviet bloc and other changes in the Communist world, the Vietnam
Communists are shopping around for trading partners and anybody else
who can bail them out of the mess that they created over there.
Make no mistake about it, United States trade with Vietnam is only
the prelude to Vietnamese demands for United States aid, demands for
United States aid like they have been making right along. That will be
the next bill out here at this rate.
The sudden and supposed willingness of the Vietnamese regime finally
to come clean on the POW-MIA issue is about 15 years too late. Speaking
as a former chairman of that POW-MIA task force, who went to Vietnam
and begged those communists on hands and knees practically, with many
of my colleagues sitting here in this room, to give us back just the
remains of our soldiers, I can tell you that they refused to do it.
They arrogantly turned their noses up to us.
Now some colleagues contemplate giving diplomatic relations to them
when the League of Families still says the Vietnamese are not
cooperating. What is the matter with this body?
Members had better recognize the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe]
and they had better take her motion to recommit and adopt it. The new
policy toward Vietnam is a disgrace to the families and to the American
soldiers who have fought this battle over and over again.
Please support the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] when the time
comes for her motion to recommit.
{time} 1600
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Michigan [Mr. Bonior].
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to
recommit, when it will be offered. I regret that my rapprochement with
my dear friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], who feels
passionately about this, has ended on this today, since we agreed on
three other issues, which is unusual for us.
However, I feel strongly about this, as well, Mr. Speaker. This
Saturday it will have been 19 years since the last helicopter left the
United States Embassy in Vietnam. We owe it to our children and
grandchildren to find out the truth about our POW's and MIA's. It is
the highest honor we can pay.
In an effort to obtain the truth we imposed, as Members know, the
trade embargo on Vietnam. The President has lifted that embargo. While
we may have disagreed at that point if that was the correct step at the
time, it is done. Many of the families, however, who have the most to
gain, who have loved ones at stake here, support this decision. NATO
supports it. The Pentagon supports it. In a bipartisan effort, many of
our most distinguished veterans who serve in this institution, people
like Senators John Kerry and John McCain and Bob Kerrey and the
gentleman from Florida, Pete Peterson, believe it is time to take this
step.
In just one exercise since the lifting of the embargo, nine sets of
remains have been returned. We were given access to do investigations
in militarily sensitive areas. We were given access to 10 prison sites.
Just last week another exercise began. Some of our questions are
beginning to be answered. These are important steps, but we know we
have much to do in the tasks that lie ahead for this country with
regard to the rest of our POW's and MIA's, and we have to pursue that.
We have started a new chapter. Let us not turn our clock back.
I know there are many of my fellow veterans, many in the chapter that
I belong to, the Vietnam Veterans Chapter 154 in Mount Clemens, who
have a different view on this, but we are making progress. We are
moving ahead, and I ask that we stay with the policy. I oppose the
motion to recommit.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], a member of our committee.
(Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend
her remarks.)
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I am in favor of the motion of the
gentlewoman from Maine [Mrs. Snowe], but I am here to speak about a
part of the bill that is being sponsored by the gentleman from Florida
[Mr. Diaz-Balart].
This past weekend a conference took place in Havana, called by
Castro, between the Cuban exile community and the Cuban regime, but
only those who opposed the United States embargo on Castro were
invited. As expected, no major accomplishments took place, but many
embarrassing moments were there for all of us to see as these so-called
political exiles waited in line to grovel at Fidel's feet. Kisses and
hugs were exchanged, and then Castro stabbed his political friends in
the back by actually selling the videotape to the media.
This is not surprising, Mr. Speaker, given the history of lies and
deceit which Castro has us accustomed to. If we look at the past 35
years of Castro's regime it is increasingly clear that democratic
change is not part of Castro's vocabulary here. Instead of a dialog, we
should increase political and economic pressure against Castro by
further isolating him. That is why I support the part of the bill
offered by Mr. Diaz-Balart.
Mr. Speaker, instead of a dialog, we should be increasing political
and economic pressure against Castro by further isolating him. The
United States should be lobbying for an international embargo against
Castro similar to the one implemented against other undemocratic
regimes.
Let us not kid ourselves into believing that any democratic change in
Cuba is possible, as long as Castro and his thugs hold power.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Burton].
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Indiana [Mr. Burton], a member of our committee.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] is
recognized for 4 minutes.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
Maine [Ms. Snowe] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for
yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I hope everybody will pay attention to what I am about
to read, because I think it is very, very important. We should support
the recommittal motion of the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe].
First, while it is true the Government of Vietnam has returned about
120 remains, those remains have not been proven to be any of the names
on the United States Government's roster, the so-called discrepancy
list of American soldiers which the United States Government believed
to have been captured during the war. Of the 120 that have been
returned, it does not include the names of any of the 2,300 POW-MIA's
that are unaccounted for.
Second, many POW-MIA activists believe the paramount issue at stake
in Vietnam is whether the Hanoi regime continues to keep in detention
living American soldiers. Former U.S. Congressman Billy Hendon was over
there recently, and he wanted to go to a prison to investigate, and the
Hanoi regime would not let him go into Vinh Phu Province prison,
because he believes there may be some alive U.S. POW's still there.
Third, an article in the February 17 Baltimore Sun, ``You'll Wish
You'd Never Been Born,'' by Peter Jay, argues that Vietnam will have to
be pried open if the United States is ever to learn the fate of the
2,300 POW-MIA's.
Former New York Times reporter John Corry, who tracked the MIA issue
for the Senate Select Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, concluded,
``American prisoners of war have been held continuously after Operation
Homecoming and remain(ed) in captivity in Vietnam and Laos as late as
1989.'' that language was not included in the select committee's final
report on the matter.
Corry later said that Senator Kerry, who chaired the select
committee, told a POW-MIA investigator that if the above quotation was
leaked, ``You'll wish you had never been born.''
Finally, a February 18 New York Times article, ``New Doubts Cast on
POW Effort,'' is cause for more heartburn for POW-MIA families.
According to this press report, ``Russian officials complained last
November that State Department officials were discouraging them from
releasing documents about prisoners of war in Vietnam.'' Our State
Department was discouraging Russian officials from giving out
information on POW-MIA's left behind in Vietnam. The New York Times
piece also said that,
Several Americans who used to work on Task Force Russia
(established to seek information from Russia about POWs from
Vietnam) said that the cable showed that some State
Department officials were so eager to have that embargo
lifted that they would even urge Moscow not to release
documents that put Vietnam in a bad light.
We had the Ron Brown affair, and we believe that was whitewashed. We
have 2,300 POW-MIA's still unaccounted for. Their families still go to
bed at night not knowing what happened to their loved ones, not knowing
whether they are dead, alive, in some God-forsaken prison over there,
and we are normalizing relations with those cutthroats, and they will
not even cooperate with people going over there. It is a whitewash, and
I wish people across this country would rise up and complain to the
Congressmen and Senators about what is going on.
There needs to be a complete accounting, which every single President
has asked for since the Vietnam war, on our POW-MIA's, before we
normalize relations with those cutthroats.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Peterson].
Mr. PETERSON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report and oppose
the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I think I probably know about as much about Vietnam as
anybody in this body, with one exception, and I feel very strongly
about this motion to recommit. We are doing the right thing by lifting
this embargo. Twenty years is long enough. Twenty years is long enough.
We have extracted maximum effort from this embargo.
Regardless of all the comments Members have heard today, and some
more we are going to hear, we have made progress. We have made
movement. Things have happened that we never dreamed of happening. In
fact, the Russians are helping, too, as opposed to what some of our
speakers have said.
Mr. Speaker, this is the right thing to do. We must move forward.
None of us can keep this Nation from marching into the future, any more
than we can change the history of this Nation. We have to do the right
thing. The President has shown the courage to do the right thing.
It is no longer acceptable to just do retribution.
It is time for resolution. It is time to find solutions, and the
Vietnamese have agreed to do that. Contrary, again, to what people have
said, since the embargo has been lifted we have had additional
cooperation.
Are we going to find every American that was lost in Vietnam?
Absolutely not. Have we found all of those that were lost in the past
wars? Absolutely not. Let us not ask for the impossible, let us ask for
what is real. Let us do the fullest possible accounting. That is what
we have promised the families. We are working toward that.
Lifting the embargo will enhance our search. The potential for
discovery, with all of the American feet that will be in that country
now, is so far greater than the 30 individuals that are in the country.
I ask the Members, do not let us move backward. Take this Nation
forward. Move toward resolution of this very painful issue. It is the
right thing to do. Support the resolution to confirm this conference.
Reject the motion to recommit.
{time} 1610
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from
New York [Ms. Molinari].
Ms. MOLINARI. Mr. Speaker, I rise to also support the motion to
recommit based on the embargo to Vietnam and the situation just
described.
Mr. Speaker, with due respect, and I mean that sincerely, to the
prior speaker as someone who barely remembers the implications of the
Vietnam war, I know quite clearly that there is a generation of Vietnam
veterans that subsist and exist in my district who say that they cannot
rest until they know where all the remains are, not ending an embargo
toward compromise but toward resolution, and then it is time to deal
with the Vietnamese.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak, however, for ending the arms
embargo against Bosnia. Had such action been taken 2 years ago--when
many in this body had originally called for--perhaps the nearly 200,000
perished Bosnians might have been able to simply defend themselves and
their loved ones.
Bosnia is not just a victim of Serbia's bloody aggression against an
innocent, democracy seeking, ethnic population. It is also a victim of
international delaying tactics and cowardly foreign policy that ties
the hands of the Bosnians by refusing to allow them to protect
themselves. The empty gestures and idle threats from the West have only
worsened the situation and signaled to the Bosnian Serbs that they have
nothing to fear in response to their bloody aggression.
If the last 2 years are any indication, it is likely that in the wake
of the bloody siege on the safe area of Gorazde, Bosnian Serbs will
only transfer their terror to other unprotected Moslem enclaves.
Meanwhile, the United Nations and NATO cavalry will arrive much too
late, in time only to help mopup the spilled blood and transfer the
displaced refugees out of their home surroundings.
Let us pray that today's vote to lift the arms embargo may prod our
administration and the United Nations to aggressively pursue the same
course of justice. For those who are still alive, it is not too late.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Dornan]
Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, with all the respect that I have for my
colleagues on the majority side who believe that this conference report
should go forward, it is not perfect. We hear speaker after speaker
getting up to support the motion to recommit offered by the gentlewoman
from Maine [Ms. Snowe], and most of it is based on human rights
violations.
Mr. Speaker, as much as I respect the gentleman from Florida [Mr.
Peterson], when the 24 POW's came home and ran for office in 1974 and
1976, every one of them lost because people stupidly said, ``They've
been locked up for years. What do they know about what is happening in
the world?'' They are experts on the mind of their Communist captors,
but very few had ever been to Laos, Cambodia, traveled outside of their
own core area where they had been assigned to an Air Force base, or if
they flew off Yankee or Dixie station, most of them had ever set foot
on Vietnam soil until they bailed out of the airplane.
Mr. Speaker, this is a complex issue. Although many of the former
POW's are now going back to Vietnam, good men and women of conscience
come back with totally different stories. The Vietnamese are
professional liars, they are master human rights violators, and the POW
question remains agonizingly unresolved.
Please vote to recommit. This is not perfect.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
New Jersey [Mr. Menendez].
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference
report to H.R. 2333. I want to thank Chairman Hamilton and Subcommittee
Chairman Berman for their outstanding leadership on this bipartisan
bill.
This bill contains a very important measure that I sponsored to
provide for the recruitment by the State Department of Americans of
Hispanic descent with funds already available. I hope that the State
Department and the other foreign affairs agencies will begin earnestly
to rectify the problem of underrepresentation of Hispanics in their
organizations.
Many talented young Hispanic-Americans are ready to serve their
country. They and the country will benefit from this program. An
appallingly low number of Hispanic-Americans now serve in America's
Senior Foreign Service--only 10 out of more than 860, not one of which
is a woman. And sadly, only 2 Ambassadors out of more than 160
worldwide are Americans of Hispanic descent. This inequity must change.
Next we are committed in this bill to maintaining intact the valuable
services of both Radio and TV Marti. These services broadcast the truth
to the freedom-loving people of Cuba in the best tradition of Radio
Free Europe and Radio Liberty.
As the clock ticks on the Cuban dictatorship, Radio and TV Marti are
more important than ever. America will have to communicate to the Cuban
people her peaceful intentions during a transition to a free and
independent Cuba. When the nightmare of the 35-year-old Castro
dictatorship finally ends, broadcasting to Cuba will be even more
important. Hopefully, the initiative of my colleague, Lincoln Diaz-
Balart to seek an international embargo on the Cuban dictatorship will
help bring us closer to that day.
Finally, this bill includes two major accomplishments on
peacekeeping. First, the bill requires that by 1996, the United States
share of U.N. peacekeeping funds be cut by more than 6 percent. That
will save America millions of dollars. Next, the bill incorporates the
suggestion that the United Nations appoint an independent inspector
general. And the bill goes even farther: it withholds much of the U.S.
peacekeeping contribution until the United Nations appoints an
inspector general.
I urge my colleagues to support the conference report.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher], a member of our committee.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I also yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Rohrabacher].
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Durbin). The gentleman from California
[Mr. Rohrabacher] is recognized for 3 minutes.
(Mr. ROHRABACHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend
his remarks.)
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, title XII of this bill would have
rewarded those coming to the United States illegally by allowing them
to apply for permanent visas, then to remain in the United States for
years as they endlessly adjudicated and appealed their cases. Access to
this preferential process would have cost them, had title XII not been
dropped, a mere $600.
What this section would also have done is to undermine both the quota
system that has been in place for decades and the process in which the
State Department screens visa applicants. That responsibility, for all
practical purposes would have been shifted to the INS. The INS simply
doesn't have the ability to determine if the person already in the
United States is a terrorist, a felon, or otherwise excludable, and the
$600 fee would not allow a proper investigation of these illegal
immigrants.
I am convinced that these provisions would have seriously undermined
our efforts to control illegal immigration, and would have been
completely unfair to those seeking to immigrate to the United States
who have patiently waited their turn. It would have precipitated a
massive flow into our country of people who planned to overstay their
tourist visa, or come illegally and get a visa for $600.
I remind my colleagues that we have overwhelming problems with the
costs of millions of new illegal aliens annually. U.S. Embassies now
receive between 7 and 8 million visa applications each year. Most of
these are tourist visas that are routinely investigated and approved.
Inclusion in this bill of title XII amendments would have doubled or
tripled the number of illegal aliens coming each year.
These provisions that I am talking about have been deleted in the
conference report. We dodged this bullet. This is a victory for keeping
some sanity in our immigration process.
That said, due to provisions of this bill concerning Vietnam I am
supporting Congresswoman Snowe's motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, the language contained in the report concerning Vietnam
should not be a part of this bill, and that is why I am talking today.
Mr. Speaker, the House receded to language proposed by the Senate
which commends Vietnam for its cooperation with American POW-MIA
efforts. It also supports the President's decision to lift the embargo.
Mr. Speaker, this issue should not be tucked away in a conference
report. We have not debated this issue on the floor of the House. An
issue of this magnitude should not be handled in such a below-the-board
fashion. The process is wrong, and I say also the substance is wrong.
Mr. Speaker, how can we say that the Vietnamese are cooperating with
us about POW-MIA efforts when they have not released the records of the
prisons in which our returned POW's were held? Let me make this clear.
Mr. Speaker, our colleague, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Peterson]
who was held in Vietnam in prison for 7 long years just spoke, the
records for the prison in which he was held have not been made
available to us by the Vietnamese Government. They are not cooperating
as long as they do not release those records. As far as we know, those
records will tell us what we need to know about our MIA's and POW's
that may have been left behind. How can we condone lifting the embargo
when they do not give us those kind of records and that kind of
cooperation and they do not even permit us to go where we need to go in
Vietnam to investigate?
Mr. Speaker, a few month ago we heard testimony from General Needham,
the Pentagon's point man on this issue, and he confirmed that there are
a number of areas his investigators cannot go in Vietnam. That is after
the embargo has been lifted.
Mr. Speaker, one of the conditions of lifting the embargo was
cooperation with the Vietnamese in our search for POW-MIA's. The
embargo is reversible, and if anything right now because they have not
permitted us to go into areas and have not released these documents, we
should be talking about reimposing the embargo rather than commending
Hanoi for its cooperation.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I met with Americans who were thrown out of
Vietnam because they wanted to visit a prison just north of Hanoi. Let
us get that. Yesterday I met with Americans who wanted to go someplace
in Vietnam to investigate POW-MIA's, and they were not permitted to go
to those areas. Would that be called cooperation? The attitude in
Vietnam is not of cooperation but it is one of doing as little as
possible without making it obvious that they are not cooperating.
Mr. Speaker, last December I visited Cambodia to watch our joint task
force at work in the field. Our troops were doing a wonderful job and
they were searching for a POW camp along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in thick
jungle. That whole effort would have been unnecessary had we had
cooperation from the Vietnamese. They knew exactly where that camp was,
yet our guys were sloshing away in the jungles, beating themselves up
to find a camp. That is not cooperation.
Mr. Speaker, on another side issue, I asked the President personally
to make Hanoi's abuse of human rights a factor in deciding the lifting
of the embargo. He did not do that. Now we are asked to congratulate
Hanoi for their POW-MIA cooperation as several American citizens at
this moment sit in prison in Vietnam for trying to organize a democracy
conference.
I ask for my fellow colleagues to support the motion to recommit
offered by the gentlewoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe]. They are not
cooperating with us. it is still a dictatorship. They are laughing at
us in Hanoi.
{time} 1620
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the
gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney].
Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference
agreement,and wish to discuss one important aspect of it.
Mr. Speaker, the conference report includes an amendment that tracks
legislation that I introduced early in this session.
My bill, the Arab Boycott Arms Sales Prohibition Act, would bar
United States weapons sales to countries that participate in the Arab
boycott of Israel.
I am pleased Congressman Tom Lantos offered a version of my bill as a
successful amendment to the foreign aid bill which passed the House,
and that this language is included in the bill that we are considering
today.
Mr. Speaker, the economic boycott has always been one of the most
pernicious weapons in the Arab arsenal against Israel.
And since this discriminatory policy also targets firms that do
business with Israel, United States companies have lost countless jobs
and untold dollars.
It is particularly noteworthy that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia--two
countries for whom American soldiers lost their lives only 3 years
ago--still participate in the boycott.
The well-publicized account of Kuwait's ban of the film ``Schlinder's
List''--because Stephen Spielberg is Jewish--is but one illustration of
the backwardness of this policy.
Arab countries which still backlist American firms cannot be
rewarded.
The provision in the conference agreement represents a solid step
forward in our efforts to end the boycott.
I urge the adoption of the conference report.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from
Texas [Mr. Combest].
Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Speaker, I find myself in somewhat of an unusual
position in differing with people I have tremendous respect for and
that I rarely differ with. I do however, have grave reservations about
the issue of the call for lifting the arms embargo on the Bosnian
Moslems.
It might appear this is an easy vote, give the Bosnian Moslems the
right to arm themselves and fight. If it were that easy, I would be
supporting it. I predict that while it may not seem to be difficult
today, in the future many may find this vote haunting them. There are
too many uncertainties. And from past experience, I do not believe the
administration has the answers.
This resolution does not make it clear what we are to do if there is
no support from our allies in the United Nations. Are we to ``go it
alone''? Do we unilaterally provide arms? Even if the United Nations
agrees, where are the weapons to come from? How long will it take to
supply them and train them to fight? And, who trains them? I would
predict it will take a minimum of 60 to 90 days to deliver the arms and
train for their use. The more independent the role the United States
takes in this arming, the more American sons and daughters are placed
in Bosnia and in harm's way.
What happens if--in recognizing the potential problems of the Moslems
being armed--the Serbs launch an all out preemptive strike in an
attempt to end the conflict prior to the Moslems' ability to strike
back? What happens to the Americans who we have stationed there in
their new role? What do we do then?
Some military leaders on the scene have observed that an end to the
arms embargo months ago would have been a different story. But ending
that embargo now would create havoc.
The Easier Ways Fallacy: Lift the arms embargo on the
Muslims and/or turn the whole problem back to the Europeans.
To a growing number in Congress, it may seem easier for us to
lift the arms embargo than to involve ourselves in the
fighting. This may, indeed, prove desirable if the current
efforts fail. But it isn't easy; it offers no quick fix. We
would have a moral obligation to ensure that the Bosnian side
actually receives the heavy weapons it needs, whether across
Serbian-controlled terrain from Croatia or airlifted above
Serbian surface-to-air missiles. We would also have to ensure
the Bosnians the time needed to train on the new weaponry.
Since the Serbs would have every incentive to pre-empt, we
might have to use air power to prevent larger-scale attacks.
In short, lifting the arms embargo, if we're not cynical
about it, could involve us even more deeply than air strikes
alone.
Mr. Speaker, the American people have never lost their resolve for
peace and freedom. But they do expect that before our soldiers are
placed in danger, every possibility has been predetermined and plans
have been made. I do not see that in this case.
Several years ago when the House considered the authority to go to
war in the gulf. I did not cast my vote blindly as a noninterested
bystander. At that time, my son went to work every day in a Marine
uniform and it was almost certain he would go to the gulf. I supported
that effort then and today I am totally convinced that was the right
decision.
I do not share the same conviction regarding American involvement in
Bosnia today. Until we know the specific result of our actions and
until we have planned for the potential reactions to our actions I
would not vote to send my son to Bosnia, and my friends and I will not
vote to send yours.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New
York [Mr. Levy].
(Mr. LEVY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. LEVY. Mr. Speaker, Duncan Hunter was right when he spoke here a
couple of minutes ago. By agreeing to the conference report in its
present form, we send a signal that we are prepared to sell out, that
we are ready to abandon our principles when there is a business reason
for doing so.
We are also demonstrating how far removed so many of us in Congress
are from the people that we represent. You know, when President Clinton
lifted the Vietnam embargo several weeks ago, there was a hue and cry
within my district and many other districts that were exceeded only by
the hue and cry that followed passage of the Clinton tax package a
couple of months ago.
If it is the sense of Congress that lifting the Vietnam embargo is
correct, then Congress is out of touch. The embargo has been lifted.
By including embargo language in the conference report, some in
Washington are attempting to give the President the political cover
that he needs to cover the fact that he made the wrong decision. The
conference report should not be used for that purpose.
Support the motion to recommit. Let us not abandon those who are
missing in Vietnam.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Mollohan].
(Mr. MOLLOHAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. MOLLOHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference
report.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report on the
Department of State, U.S. Information Agency and other foreign affairs
agencies authorization bill for fiscal year 1994 and fiscal year 1995.
The authorization levels contained in the bill for fiscal year 1994
will cover the amounts appropriated for the State Department, USIA, the
Board for International Broadcasting, and the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency in the fiscal year 1994 Appropriations Act. In
addition, the authorization amounts contained in the conference report
for fiscal year 1995 for the State Department and the other foreign
affairs agencies, generally conform with the appropriations requests
for the Department and these agencies in the President's 1995 budget.
There is one provision of the conference report, however, that is of
concern to our Appropriations Subcommittee. Section 101(b)(2)(B) of the
conference report states that of the amounts authorized to be
appropriated for the State Department's diplomatic and consular
programs, $11.5 million is authorized to be available for fiscal year
1994 and $11.9 million is authorized to be available for fiscal year
1995 only for administrative expenses to carry out the purposes of the
Migration and Refugee Assistance Act.
This provision has a significant and serious impact on the State
Department. For fiscal year 1994, the provision will require that $11.5
million already provided for State Department operations in the fiscal
year 1994 Appropriations Act be transferred to the Migration and
Refugee Assistance Program for administrative expenses of the program.
Expenses of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Program normally are
funded in the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. The State
Department has already had to absorb $60 million worth of unanticipated
costs and this transfer of $11.5 million will just add to the burden.
With respect to the fiscal year 1995 provision, no matter how much
funding our Committee includes for State Department operations in the
fiscal year 1995 appropriations bill, the first $11.9 million will be
available only for transfer to the Migration and Refugee Assistance
Program for its administrative expenses.
I have talked with the gentleman from California about this
provision, and he has assured me he does not plan to include this or
any similar provision in any future State Department authorization
bill. I appreciate the gentleman's consulting with me on this matter
and his assurance that this provision will not be repeated in any
future State Department authorization bills. I also want to assure the
gentleman that we will work with him and his committee to try to secure
an adequate level of funding for the State Department for fiscal year
1995.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer].
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I commend the bill's manager, Mr. Hamilton,
and rise today in support of the provision of the pending conference
committee report which urges the lifting of the arms embargo against
Bosnia and Herzegovina, in keeping with that country's right to self-
defense. In the absence of adequate measures to maintain international
peace and security, continued application of the embargo, imposed by
the United Nations Security Council prior to the armed attack on Bosnia
and Herzegovina, undermines that Government's right of self-defense
and, therefore, contravenes article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
The continued imposition of an arms embargo against Bosnia and
Herzegovina, which faces a well-armed aggressor, is reprehensible and
should be ended without further delay.
The Helsinki Commission has followed developments in the former
Yugoslavia closely and both Senator DeConcini and I have advocated
resolute action, under United States leadership, to stop the genocide
in Bosnia. Through its inaction and half-hearted measures, the
international community has allowed the situation in Bosnia and
Herzegovina to deteriorate to the point it has reached today. Hundreds
of thousands of civilians have perished over the past 2 years. Over 2
million have been driven from their homes through a policy of ethnic
cleansing, resulting in the worse humanitarian crisis in Europe since
World War II. Despite a flurry of diplomatic initiatives and countless
cease-fire agreements, aggression, and genocide continue.
While I applaud President Clinton's initiative to secure NATO cover
for the so-called safe havens in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there is broad
recognition that air strikes alone may not succeed in stopping the
conflict completely. For over a year now I have advocated a strike and
lift approach in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Clearly, this two-staged
approach is preferable to trying anyone of them alone.
The Bosnians have demonstrated their determination and courage to
fight, against all odds, to defend their country and all that it stands
for--which--Mr. Speaker, is a Government that respects the principle of
equal rights for all peoples regardless of ethnicity, religion, or
race. The current embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina has seriously
impeded their ability to secure the necessary means to defend
themselves against force that seeks to build a new nation upon the
principle of ethnic exclusivity. It is apartheid European style.
And let's be clear that this is not a classic war in which opposing
military forces directly engage each other.
This is the massacre, daily, of innocent civilians huddled in
overcrowded and undersupplied enclaves by some brazen thugs lobbing
shells from the mountains above.
Two years into the conflict, they continue to do this because no one
on the ground has the means, thanks to this embargo, to stop them and
the international community has lacked the will. This must change.
As a matter of principle, Bosnia has the right to its own self-
defense. It is time that the United States uphold that right by
unilaterally lifting the arms embargo against Bosnia and Herzegovina, a
sovereign and independent State.
If it means going alone--lifting it unilaterally, then we must or we
shall simply share in the collective guilt of watching as a Nation
dies.
It is time for us to act. It is time for us to say if we will not
take action at least we will allow an independently recognized Nation
of the international community to defend itself.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HOYER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Michigan.
Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague and friend,
the gentleman from Maryland, for his eloquent statement.
I cannot think of anything we could do to correct this horrendous
situation that has gone on in Europe and in Bosnia than to let the
people defend themselves, the right to determine their own destiny, and
I thank the gentleman for his forceful statement on this issue.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the majority whip.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from
California [Mr. Berman], the chairman of the subcommittee.
Mr. BERMAN. I thank the gentleman from New York, for whom I have
great respect, for yielding this time to me.
There are two points I would like to make. No. 1, the very many
strong reasons to support this bill, you just heard one discussion, the
question of getting Congress on record in support of lifting the arms
embargo on Bosnia. We have heard some talk about human rights in
Vietnam. Let me tell you about human rights in Vietnam.
This bill creates Radio Free Asia, a surrogate radio that would be
broadcasting into authoritarian and totalitarian, government-controlled
states in Southeast Asia, providing an independent basis for
information. That is going to do more to promote the notion of
pluralism, of democracy, of free markets, than any other thing we could
possibly do. That is in this bill, language toughening up the test for
the PLO's commitment to the peace process. You have heard about the
Arab boycott.
In one other area I want to make specific reference: In reorganizing
international broadcasting, we take the Voice of America charter and we
include those standards in a broader charter for all our broadcasting,
including the requirement for a balanced and comprehensive projection
of U.S. thought and institutions reflecting the diversity of U.S.
culture and society.
I suggest this bill has so many good reasons to vote for it, and I
urge the body to do so.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Stump].
(Mr. STUMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. STUMP. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the motion to recommit.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the motion to recommit H.R.
2333, the State Department Authorization Act. My distinguished
colleagues, Olympia Snowe and Ben Gilman, have clearly exposed the
Senate language that wrongly claims the Government of Vietnam has
increased its cooperation over the last 3 years on POW/MIA issues. I
commend them for challenging this pernicious fiction. It does not
belong in our Nation's laws.
We must continue to insist on the full accounting of all POW/MIA's
and on the highest priority efforts to resolve all cases. The Clinton
administration has made a serious mistake in relying on the good faith
of the Communist dictators of Vietnam. Such reliance is grossly
misplaced, given their long history of human rights abuses, broken
commitments, and cynical dealings with these very issues.
I urge my colleagues not to provide the Government of Vietnam the
political cover it seeks so that economic and diplomatic relations with
our country can be normalized. It would be an enormous disservice to
the families who only want to know the fates of their loved ones.
Support the motion to recommit H.R. 2333.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that materials from
the National League of Families and the American Legion be inserted
into the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Durbin). Is there objection to the
request of the gentlewoman from Maine?
There was no objection.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas
[Mr. Johnson].
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of
the gentlewoman from Maine's [Ms. Snowe] motion to recommit. This is
the first opportunity this body has had to vote on this issue, and I
commend my colleague from Maine for challenging the other body.
You know, to commend Vietnam for being an enemy, for being a
Communist nation, is plain wrong. The decision of President Clinton to
lift the trade embargo on Vietnam was ill-timed and, I think,
deceptive. United States policy clearly stated at that time that
certain actions were to have been taken by the Vietnamese in order for
the embargo to be lifted. Servicemen still missing in action were not
accounted for. We had guaranteed that to our servicemen, to our Nation,
and to their families.
While the President might claim that the Vietnamese provided more
than 21,000 documents, photos, and artifacts since 1992, only 1 percent
pertained to missing Americans. Think about that. One percent. The
bottom line is the Vietnamese did not hold up their end of the bargain,
and we allowed them to get away with it. Just like most U.S. foreign
policy decisions as of late, and it made us look weak and sent that
message to the world.
More importantly, the President betrayed the trust of the American
people. He promised during the campaign that there would be ``no
normalizing of relations with any nation that is at all suspected of
withholding any information on the POW-MIA issue. POW-MIA families
relied upon the President and now have nothing left to hold onto.
Ironically, those in the administration who pushed for lifting the
embargo were never personally involved either through direct captivity
or through family members, and that includes those members of both the
Defense and State Departments.
I was moved by the words of CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who said:
Politicians break campaign promises all the time. But this
time the President's hand wasn't forced. He did this on his
own initiative.
Dan Rather goes on to say:
This reporter wonders: Did it occur to President Clinton
that night, February 3, to go to the Wall?
That is the POW Wall.
It's only a short walk from the White House to the Wall,
the Vietnam Memorial, where 58,000 Americans' names are
carved in the Garden of Stone. Those Americans may have gone
to the wrong war, but they went for the right reason.
Out of respect for those who served and a lack of that respect from
the executive branch, we here in this body must do what we can to
insure a full accounting of those who fought to protect this country
and our rich freedoms which we so often take for granted.
Vote ``yes'' to recommit.
Mr. PETERSON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman from Texas
yield?
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. PETERSON of Florida. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Would the gentleman state, though, the fact that we lifted the
embargo, and we did not normalize relations with Vietnam? That is a
major difference in this context in which we are presenting this. We
lifted the embargo, we are not normalizing relations with Vietnam. If,
in fact, the Vietnamese go back on their cooperative efforts, we will
reimpose the embargo. The President has stated that. It is the policy
of this Nation.
Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. I concur with what the gentleman from
Florida says, but he also said he would not lift the embargo until we
had the full accounting.
So how can we believe what we hear?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Texas has
expired.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe].
Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, I will confine my remarks to the issue of the
motion to recommit. I do oppose the motion to recommit. I have the
greatest respect for the gentlewoman from Maine, and I think we have
listened to the gentleman from Florida and the gentleman from Texas,
both of them POW's, both of them veterans who have a different point of
view. A few years ago I had an opportunity to go with five of my
colleagues, all of us Vietnam war veterans, to Vietnam, and I think all
of us came back, some with different opinions, but most of us committed
to the idea that we need to move toward lifting the embargo as we have
now done at this point.
I will yield to no one in my concern about a full accounting for our
MIA's, our missing-in-action, and that was the point that we all made
when we were in Vietnam meeting with officials in Danang, Hanoi, in
Saigon, and in other parts of Southeast Asia. But the point is that we
will have the best opportunity to have progress on this issue if we
continue to work with the Vietnamese, if we continue to make progress
in other areas, including trade. Just since lifting the embargo, we
have had substantial improvement, and I believe those improvements can
be best continued by doing this. This is not an issue of closing doors,
of healing; this is simply an issue of continuing progress on a full
accounting for our MIA's. And that is why I would vote against the
motion to recommit.
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me.
Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to know exactly what to do on the issue.
Many of us go with gut feelings. A lot of us have spent time in
Vietnam, some have been on the ground, like my colleague on the other
side, and Mr. Johnson as well. But I support the motion to recommit,
and I will tell you why.
I have a lot of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian-Americans in my
district, and to a man, and to a family, they have asked me, please, do
not support MFN and do not lift the embargo.
Many of them have issues of human rights just like the same rights we
had in China. They have asked us to not do it. I think when you take a
look at what the Vietnamese are doing today, waving the Senate
resolution, saying, ``Look, we are, we are adhering to the MIA issue
and trying to solve it,'' I do not think if we brought three or four
people back alive today that we would resolve that, and I do not think
we would ever resolve the MIA issue. But I do believe North Vietnam--
Vietnam, there is no such thing as North Vietnam anymore--that Vietnam
could do a lot better job in the accounting of our missing-in-action.
{time} 1640
The same day I was shot down, Mr. Speaker, Commander Blackburn was
shot down, and his son used to ask me about once a month; said, ``Duke,
tell me about my dad,'' and it was the same questions, same answers
every day. Well, just 2 years ago they brought Commander Blackburn's
body back, but I know it had been like a 1,000-pound weight had been
lifted off that boy's back.
Mr. Speaker, we owe that resolve to those families. Vietnam has not
been contributing to the issue. I rise in support of the motion to
recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Durbin). The gentleman from Indiana [Mr.
Hamilton] has 3 minutes remaining to close debate.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton].
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, first I want to say a word of appreciation
to the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman], and the gentlewoman from
Maine [Ms. Snowe], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for
their work on the conference report. We have some disagreement, of
course, on the motion to recommit, but very, very good work has been
done by them and others on this report.
The first point I want to make is to oppose the motion to recommit.
The effect of the motion to recommit would be to require the reopening
of the conference committee to secure approval of the removal of the
Kerry provision.
The Senate is going out of session. The State Department
authorization runs out on April 30. So, the practical effect, if the
motion to recommit is adopted, is simply to shut down the State
Department and embassies all over the world, doing enormous damage to
the United States international presence, Mr. Speaker.
Not only would the State Department shut down, but every embassy in
the world would have to shut down. There would be no communication
between Washington and our negotiators in the Middle East or our
negotiators in Bosnia. Officers, like those in the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Commerce Department and all others, would have to
quit. The practical effect of approving the motion to recommit, with
the Senate out, is to simply shut down the foreign operations of the
United States.
That is a very important thing to remember.
Second, Mr. Speaker, the motion offerd by the gentlemwoman from Maine
[Ms. Snowe] is unnecessary because the language she objects to is
nonbinding on Members of the House. It is Senate language.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlemwoman from Maine [Ms. Snowe] threatens to
bring the Government operations around the world to a conclusion on a
nonbinding recommendation. The conference report does not commit any
Member of the House of Representatives to any position with respect to
the Vietnam embargo. The language is not sense-of-the-Congress
language. It is sense-of-the-Senate language, and that passed the
Senate by about a 3-to-1 margin in January.
Mr. Speaker, it is not appropriate for Members of the House, through
this motion to recommit, to tell the Senate what position they should
take. We are simply respecting the right of the Senate to express its
view on the Vietnam embargo.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the second point I want to make simply is that this
is a very, very important bill. It has many features to it, and I hope
Members will vote their approval of the conference report after
opposing the motion to recommit.
The most important thing to say with regard to funding is that we are
$400 million below the amount in the House bill, and we are $150
million below the 1993 appropriated level. So, it is a tight, fiscally
responsible bill.
And the other point I want to make in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, is
that we provide in this bill leverage to get the kind of reforms we
need in the United Nations. We all recognize the importance in the
United Nations in peace keeping through withholding the U.S.
contributions. We are going to force the United Nations to make the
kinds of changes that we think are necessary to make it more effective.
I urge opposition to the motion to recommit, and I urge approval of
the conference report.
Mr. FRANKS of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, although I voted against the
House version of the State Department Authorization Act last June, I am
pleased to say that the conference report is improved from that
original bill, and I will support it. The conference version is $434.2
million less than the House version of this bill. It sets the United
States share of United Nations peacekeeping operations at 25 percent,
less than the current 31 percent. It keeps funding for the
counterterrorism office. Especially noteworthy is the provision
expressing the sense of Congress that the President should lift the
arms embargo on Bosnia and allow the Bosnian people to defend
themselves from Serb attack.
There is one aspect of the bill that I do not support, and that is
the language stating that the government of Vietnam has cooperated with
the efforts of the United States to account for missing servicemen. The
bill also calls for lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam. The
Senate added this language to the bill last January, and President
Clinton used their vote on it to justify his order lifting the trade
embargo against Vietnam.
The House was never given the opportunity to vote on the wisdom of
lifting the embargo, so I have not been able to vote on this important
issue before now. I have always felt that the United States should not
grant Vietnam the privilege of normalized relations before the fate of
every single missing American is known. We should not surrender the
only leverage and incentive we have to encourage the Vietnamese to be
even more forthcoming. Therefore, I will vote to recommit this bill
with instructions to remove the language praising and rewarding
Vietnam.
Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding to
me and I urge members to support this conference report, which I
believe moves the United States boldly into the post-cold war period.
I am particularly supportive of the provision in this conference
report that create an authorization for Radio Free Asia. Representative
Bentley and I sponsored a bill in the 103d Congress that would create
Radio Free Asia. I am very pleased that this conference report
implements the intent of that bill and creates a separate Radio Free
Asia which would be a grantee of a newly formed Board for Broadcasting,
which would make grants to all the independent radios. I believe that
the independence of Radio Free Asia is essential in its successful
operation and I support this approach.
As you know, Asia has half of the world's population and some of the
fastest growing economies. It also has some of the world's worst
political situations, like the terribly repressive situation in Burma
that sees the Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, and
some of the last holdouts of communism, North Korea and the People's
Republic of China.
Mr. Speaker, the United States has a great national interest in
promoting human rights and democracy in China, North Korea, Burma,
other Asian nations. Free nations are historically less aggressive and
more cooperative internationally. Free nations also tend to have
greater respect for the fundamental freedoms on which our own Nation is
founded. Human rights are universal. We have a moral responsibility to
promote human rights in every nation on earth.
Some Asian nations are closed to information including news of the
changes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the
strengthening of democratic institutions and free markets around the
globe as well as their own domestic news. Information is tightly
controlled by dictators and authoritarian governments because they know
the power of information to liberate people. Radio Free Asia proposes
sharing information with every man and every woman in these closed
societies.
The Washington Post today reports growing unrest among China's
peasant population. The vast majority of China's people live in the
interior of the country, away from the reach of Hong Kong's broadcast
signals or other outside influences. They must rely on news provided
them by the government in Beijing or Voice of America broadcasts on
general issues, mostly regarding the United States. Imagine if Shi
Jingxuan and his wife, Pan Fuying, who were beaten by local authorities
in their village after criticizing the Communist Party Secretary in
Yuanzhuang, knew the truth. Imagine if they knew that not only did 400
villagers on tractors and bicycles ride into the county seat in Anhui
Province to protest local corruption, but that police had dispersed
3,000 protesters hundreds of miles away, outside Guangzho, 2 weeks ago,
who were angry about land confiscation without proper compensation.
Simply knowing that they are not alone would give a tremendous burst to
the democracy movement in China.
The 1992 Commission on Broadcasting to the People's Republic of China
said broadcasting to communist nations in Asia was ``desirable,
feasible, and in the national interest'' and I agree.
With the uncertainty of the China MFN situation, the United States
needs alternatives to promote human rights and democracy in China.
Radio Free Asia will be a cost-effective way to promote the democratic
spirit, much the same as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty helped
liberate Eastern Europe.
After intense debate on this issue in the Senate, it was determined
that an authorization level of $30 million would create the leanest
Radio Free Asia possible while still meeting the goals set out for it.
This conference report also requires review of Radio Free Asia's
effectiveness after 3 years. I believe this is a very sound requirement
and I am confident that the review will find that funding RFA is a good
investment for our country.
I believe that this is a very important issue and I urge all members
to support the conference report.
I would particularly like to thank the chairman of the International
Operations Subcommittee, Mr. Berman, for his efforts regarding Radio
Free Asia. I have been working closely with him for the past several
years to make Radio Free Asia a reality and I want to thank him for his
invaluable advice and assistance.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the conference report before
the House includes a number of provisions which are commendable and
deserve our support. Many initiatives on which I have been active over
the years are addressed in this legislation:
Calling for the termination of the United States arms embargo of
Bosnia and Herzegovina and the subsequent provision of military
assistance to Bosnia;
Establishing a Radio Free Asia which would broadcast accurate and
timely information, news, and commentary to the People's Republic of
China, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, North Korea, Tibet, and Vietnam;
Withholding of a percentage of assessed funds from the United Nations
until the United Nations has established an independent office of
inspector general to conduct and supervise objective audits,
inspection, and investigations of U.N. programs;
Continued funding for broadcasting to Cuba, and promotes the idea
that the President should seek a mandatory international U.N. Security
Council embargo against Cuba;
Insisiting that the Secretary General of the United Nations comply
with article 100 of the U.N. Charter, restricting the Secretary General
or any of his staff from seeking or receiving instructions from any
government or authority external to the United Nations. This provision
was added in response to the Secretary General's decision last year to
prohibit Chinese dissident Shen Tong from meeting with the press corps
at the United Nations;
Creating a permanent Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
within the Department of State; and
Reiterating the President's Executive order of May 28, 1993, which
outlined the human rights conditions for granting most-favored-nation
status for the People's Republic of China in 1994, including compliance
with bilateral agreement on prison labor, and overall significant
progress in taking steps to adhere to the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, the release and accounting for those who are imprisoned
or detained for nonviolent expression of political and religious
beliefs, ensuring humane treatment of prisoners by allowing human
rights organization access to the prisons, protecting Tibet's
distinctive religious and cultural heritage and permitting radio and TV
broadcasts to China. The Executive order also calls on the
administration to abide by commitment to fair, nondiscriminatory trade
practices and adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and the
Missile Technology Control Regime.
Having outlined each of these positive provisions I must, for the
record, state my profound disappointment that the conference committee
dropped one of the key humanitarian provisions which had been added by
the Senate. I was supportive of the Senate amendment which prohibits
the Attorney General from deporting nationals of the People's Republic
of China who demonstrate a reasonable likelihood that upon their return
to the PRC they will be forced to abort their baby or will be subjected
to forced sterilization. In addition, the amendment would have required
the Attorney General to grant asylum to those Chinese nationals who
demonstrate that they have experienced severe harm because of their
refusal to comply with China Government coercive population control
directives.
It is my understanding that conferees agreed to drop most of the
language which came under the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee.
For this reason, the Senate amendment was dropped.
Mr. Chairman, President Clinton and others in his administration have
repeatedly expressed concern that the coercive tactics of the Chinese
regime are ``really very abhorrent'' in the words of Secretary of State
Warren Christopher. But, when the time comes to protect those
individuals who face the long and cruel arm of China's policies, Mr.
Clinton and his appointees administer an unsympathetic asylum policy.
Mr. Chairman, I want the record to indicate clearly my disappointment
that the Congress is unable to reiterate its support for granting
asylum and protecting those who are the victims of China's coercive
policy.
Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support H.R. 2333, the State
Department Authorization Act, which contains landmark legislation to
help stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Today, the United States and the international community face a
frightening array of emerging nuclear threats, including North Korea,
the breakup of the former Soviet Union, the India-Pakistan rivalry on
the subcontinent, and Iran and Iraq. The Nuclear Proliferation
Prevention Act of 1994, introduced by Senator Glenn, will help the
United States combat these proliferation threats in several important
ways.
First, it imposes sanctions on individuals, companies, banks, and
countries that contribute to the global spread of nuclear weapons.
India, Pakistan, and Israel all developed nuclear weapons with
substantial foreign assistance. The United Nations inspections of Iraq
showed that Saddam Hussein relied heavily on help from foreign
companies for his secret bomb program. China has provided Pakistan with
a nuclear weapons design, and other important assistance, and has
questionable nuclear contacts with Iran.
The sanctions in H.R. 2333 will stop these illicit nuclear transfers.
Foreign companies promoting proliferation will face a ban on
procurement contracts with the U.S. Government. Banks will face a ban
on doing business in the United States. Countries that substantially
contribute to proliferation face a wide array of sanctions, including a
cutoff in foreign aid, loss of arms sales, and a ban on loans and
exports to the country.
Under current law, there are sanctions for companies and countries
that contribute to the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons
or ballistic missiles. H.R. 2333 fills an important gap by imposing
tough sanctions for nuclear proliferation as well.
The next step is to expand these sanctions to include an import ban
on the products of companies and countries that promote proliferation.
In 1992, the House passed my amendment to impose such an import ban.
Hopefully there will be an opportunity to enact import sanctions later
in this Congress.
Second, the bill sets forth 24 measures to strengthen International
Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] safeguards. These proposals were drawn from
legislation originally introduced by myself and Senator Glenn in the
102d Congress. As the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA is
responsible for ensuring that countries are complying with the Non-
Proliferation Treaty. Historically, the international community has not
given the IAEA the support it needs to function completely effectively.
As a result, the Agency failed to detect Saddam Hussein's elaborate
clandestine program, despite its regular safeguard and inspection
activities. But lessons were learned from the Iraq experience, and the
IAEA has developed a more activist approach to its safeguards
responsibilities. It was the IAEA that uncovered evidence that North
Korea had produced more plutonium than it had officially declared,
giving it a potential nuclear weapons capability. The Agency deserves a
great deal of credit for doggedly pursuing full access to all of North
Korea's nuclear facilities, as the NPT requires. The Nuclear
Proliferation Prevention Act establishes a broad agenda for
strengthening the IAEA further. The Clinton administration should
aggressively pursue these proposals.
Finally, the bill requires the administration to submit an annual
report summarizing nuclear dual-use exports that have been approved.
This will help improve oversight of U.S. nuclear export controls and
will give an early warning if large numbers of nuclear exports are
going to countries that are suspected of building nuclear weapons.
This legislation is an important milestone in U.S. efforts to prevent
nuclear proliferation, strengthening policy in three key areas:
Sanctions, export controls, and IAEA safeguards. As a next step,
Congress and the President should build on each of these policy areas.
We should expand the sanctions to include import sanctions. We should
strengthen the nuclear export control licensing process to give the
Department of Defense and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency a
larger role in approving licenses. Finally, the IAEA should receive
enough funding so that it can undertake the reforms H.R. 2333
recommends.
The Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1994 will help stop the
global spread of nuclear weapons. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr.
Hamilton] who is the distinguished chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, and the gentlemen from California, Mr. Berman and
Mr. Lantos, who are both distinguished chairmen of Foreign Affairs
Subcommittees, deserve great credit for their support and leadership on
this important legislation, as do the gentleman from the other body,
Senators Glenn, Pell, and Helms. When President Clinton signs H.R.
2333, he will have further fulfilled his campaign promise to strengthen
and improve U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the
conference report.
The previous question was ordered.
Motion to Recommit Offered by Ms. Snowe
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Clerk will report the motion to
recommit.
The Clerk read as follows:
Ms. Snowe moves to recommit the conference report on the
bill H.R. 2333 to the committee of conference with
instructions to the managers on the part of the House to
disagree to section 521 (relating to relations with Vietnam)
in the conference substitute recommended by the committee of
conference.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion to recommit.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to recommit.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the noes appeared to have it.
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
Pursuant to the provisions of clause 5 of rule XV, the Chair
announces that he will reduce to a minimum of 5 minutes the period of
time within which a vote by electronic device, if ordered, will be
taken on the question of the adoption of the conference report.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 195,
nays 209, not voting 29, as follows:
[Roll No. 147]
YEAS--195
Allard
Applegate
Archer
Armey
Bachus (AL)
Baker (CA)
Baker (LA)
Ballenger
Barca
Barcia
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bateman
Bentley
Bereuter
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blute
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Browder
Brown (OH)
Bunning
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Camp
Canady
Castle
Chapman
Clinger
Coble
Collins (GA)
Combest
Cooper
Costello
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cunningham
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dornan
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Emerson
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Fields (TX)
Fish
Fowler
Franks (CT)
Franks (NJ)
Gallegly
Gallo
Gekas
Gillmor
Gilman
Gingrich
Glickman
Goodling
Goss
Grams
Gunderson
Gutierrez
Hall (TX)
Hancock
Hansen
Hastert
Hayes
Hefley
Herger
Hobson
Hochbrueckner
Hoekstra
Hoke
Holden
Horn
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Johnson, Sam
Kasich
Kildee
Kim
King
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Lancaster
Lazio
Leach
Lehman
Levy
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (FL)
Lightfoot
Linder
Lipinski
Livingston
Machtley
Manzullo
McCandless
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
McMillan
McNulty
Meyers
Mica
Michel
Miller (FL)
Molinari
Moorhead
Morella
Myers
Nussle
Oxley
Packard
Pallone
Paxon
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pombo
Pomeroy
Porter
Portman
Poshard
Pryce (OH)
Quillen
Rahall
Ramstad
Ravenel
Regula
Roberts
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roth
Roukema
Royce
Santorum
Saxton
Schaefer
Schiff
Sensenbrenner
Shaw
Shepherd
Shuster
Skeen
Skelton
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Snowe
Solomon
Spence
Stearns
Stump
Stupak
Sundquist
Talent
Tauzin
Taylor (MS)
Taylor (NC)
Tejeda
Thomas (CA)
Thomas (WY)
Thurman
Torkildsen
Traficant
Upton
Walker
Walsh
Weldon
Williams
Wilson
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Zeliff
Zimmer
NAYS--209
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Andrews (ME)
Andrews (NJ)
Andrews (TX)
Bacchus (FL)
Baesler
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Beilenson
Berman
Bevill
Bishop
Blackwell
Bonior
Borski
Boucher
Brewster
Brooks
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Byrne
Cantwell
Cardin
Carr
Clayton
Clement
Clyburn
Coleman
Collins (IL)
Collins (MI)
Conyers
Coppersmith
Coyne
Cramer
Danner
Darden
de la Garza
Dellums
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Dooley
Dreier
Durbin
Edwards (CA)
Edwards (TX)
Engel
Eshoo
Evans
Farr
Fazio
Fields (LA)
Filner
Fingerhut
Flake
Foglietta
Foley
Ford (MI)
Ford (TN)
Frank (MA)
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Geren
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gonzalez
Gordon
Hall (OH)
Hamburg
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hoagland
Houghton
Hoyer
Hughes
Hutto
Inslee
Jacobs
Jefferson
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (SD)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnston
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy
Kennelly
Kleczka
Klein
Klink
Kolbe
Kopetski
Kreidler
LaFalce
Lambert
Lantos
LaRocco
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Long
Lowey
Maloney
Mann
Manton
Margolies-Mezvinsky
Markey
Martinez
Matsui
Mazzoli
McCloskey
McCurdy
McDermott
McHale
McKinney
Meehan
Meek
Menendez
Mfume
Miller (CA)
Mineta
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Montgomery
Moran
Nadler
Neal (MA)
Neal (NC)
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Orton
Owens
Parker
Pastor
Payne (NJ)
Payne (VA)
Pelosi
Penny
Peterson (FL)
Pickle
Price (NC)
Rangel
Reed
Reynolds
Richardson
Ridge
Roemer
Rose
Rostenkowski
Rowland
Roybal-Allard
Sabo
Sanders
Sangmeister
Sarpalius
Sawyer
Schenk
Schroeder
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sharp
Shays
Sisisky
Skaggs
Slaughter
Smith (IA)
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Studds
Swett
Swift
Synar
Tanner
Thompson
Thornton
Torres
Torricelli
Towns
Tucker
Unsoeld
Valentine
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Washington
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Whitten
Wise
Woolsey
Wyden
Wynn
Yates
NOT VOTING--29
Barlow
Bryant
Calvert
Clay
Condit
DeFazio
DeLauro
Derrick
English
Frost
Goodlatte
Grandy
Green
Greenwood
Huffington
Inhofe
Istook
Kyl
Laughlin
Lloyd
Murphy
Murtha
Pickett
Quinn
Rush
Slattery
Volkmer
Vucanovich
Wheat
{time} 1707
The Clerk announced the following pair:
On this vote:
Mr. Quinn for, with Mr. DeFazio against.
Mr. HUTTO, and Mr. NADLER changed their vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
Messrs. POSHARD, EMERSON, and LANCASTER changed their vote from
``nay'' to ``yea.''
So the motion to recommit was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
The conference report was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________