[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3545-H3547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Brown] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I visited or 2 days ago I 
visited in Sheffield Lake in Lorain County in my district the Tennyson 
Elementary School to see the School Lunch Program up close and to talk 
to students and teachers and parents and administrators and cafeteria 
people.
  I was taken around by a couple of third graders, Will Emery and Zach 
Russell, and met with lots of students, Jennifer Ward and her two 
sisters, who had some things to tell us, with Mrs. Armstead, the 
principal, and with several other people that all agreed on one thing. 
People, whether it is from a PTA or from school administrators or 
teachers or parents, the one thing they agree on about the School Lunch 
Program is that if it ain't broke don't fix it.
  And perhaps I shouldn't use grammar like that talking about a grade 
school, but when you think about all the talk, that the Republicans say 
it is block grants and the Democrats say that these are very real cuts 
as they are about nutrition programs for children and about school 
lunches, the fact is, as my friend from North Carolina [Mrs. Clayton] 
said a few minutes ago this has been a program in existence for 49 
years.
  It works. There is simply no reason to fix something that is not 
broken. It is a government program that works. It is for the future of 
our children.
  Why mess with it? Why make these radical, divisive kinds of changes 
that Republicans are suggesting about school lunch? It simply doesn't 
make sense.


                           pressler amendment

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I would like, Mr. Speaker, to shift gears and talk 
about another matter, different from the school lunch issue that people 
have been debating tonight.
  In 10 days, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, is coming 
to Washington to meet with the President.
  Business Week magazine reports that one of Bhutto's key goals in 
courting President Clinton is to ease enforcement of the Pressler 
amendment. The Pressler amendment, Mr. Speaker, prevents Pakistan from 
obtaining 60 F-16 fighter jets.
  The Pressler amendment made good sense when it was enacted, and it 
makes better sense today because of the political and social upheaval 
that is wracking Pakistani society and threatening the stability of the 
Bhutto government.
  Pakistan is in a chaotic state. Just in recent weeks, we have 
witnessed:
  The murder earlier this month of two American diplomats in Karachi;
  A show trial in which two Christians, one of them a 14-year-old boy, 
were sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam and narrowly 
escaped Pakistan with their lives; and
  A stunning piece of journalism by the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-
winning reporter, John Burns.
  Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record the article from the New 
York Times by Mr. Burns.
  At considerable risk to himself, John Burns has traced a good deal of 
the world's terrorist activity to the University of Dawat and Jihad in 
Peshawar, Pakistan. Roughly translated, it is the University of the 
Community of the Holy War. It is simply a school for terrorism.
  According to Mr. Burns, ``Just about everyone has a hidden 
Kalashnikov assault rifle.''
  The university is a haven for Muslims militants from throughout Asia 
and the Arab world. The University of Dawat and Jihad is under 
investigation as a possible training ground for terrorists who have 
struck in the Philippines, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa 
and now investigators believe the World Trade Center bombing in New 
York 2 years ago.
  Burns says that the area in and around Peshawar represents, ``One of 
the most active training grounds and sanctuaries for a new breed of 
international terrorists.''
  According to high-ranking U.S. diplomats, students are taught that 
the Islamic renaissance has to be born out of blood and by only 
striking at the West will Islam ever be able to dictate events in the 
world and events have 
[[Page H3546]] been dictated up to now by the West. Burns says 
intelligence reports in recent years have suggested that militants 
trained here have taken part in almost every conflict where Muslims 
have been involved. For instance, the Philippines, where there was an 
attempt on Pope John Paul II's life; the Middle East; of course, 
Bosnia; Tajikistan; and certainly in Kashmir, where the Kashmiri 
Pandits have been the target of ethnic cleansing carried out as part of 
a campaign of terrorism.
                              {time}  2245

  Pakistan supporters cite the threat posed by Islamic terrorists as a 
reason not to pressure from us the Bhutto government. But then they 
turn around and say that Pakistan is a stable government and that the 
extremists represent only a tiny fraction, a tiny minority of the 
population.
  Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that supporters of Pakistan can have it 
both ways. We should insist that Prime Minister Bhutto stand up to 
Islamic extremists and repeal the biasphemy laws that are the method of 
choice for abusing the human rights of Christians and abusing the human 
rights of other Pakistani minorities.
  We should insist that Pakistan bust up the terrorist network 
operating on Pakistani soil, a network that is spreading violence and 
frustrating political solutions throughout South Asia, the Middle East, 
North Africa, and even here in the United States.
  We should insist that Pakistan crack down on extremists. And, Mr. 
Speaker, in closing, until Pakistan demonstrates that it is ready to 
participate in the world community as a responsible player, any 
consideration of waiving the Pressler amendment must simply be out of 
the question.
  The article referred to follows:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 20, 1995]
     A Network of Islamic Terrorism Traced to a Pakistan University

                           (By John F. Burns)

       Peshawar, Pakistan, March 19.--Glimpsed from a taxi, there 
     is nothing obviously sinister about the University of Dawat 
     and Jihad. Like much of the sprawling Afghan refugee camp 
     that surrounds it, the campus crouches unobtrusively behind 
     high walls of sun-baked clay. Beyond a guardhouse, clusters 
     of young men in Afghan tribal garb move about languidly.
       The scene could be anywhere in this tense and often lawless 
     region along the frontier with Afghanistan. There is no 
     police presence for miles around, and no sign of any other 
     Government authority. In the bazaars that line the road 
     running past the university, the name of which translates 
     roughly as ``University of the Community of the Holy War,'' 
     just about everybody has a hidden Kalashnikov assault rifle, 
     and a sharp eye for anything deemed intrusive, especially 
     Westerners.
       But nothing in this atmosphere of suspicion and imminent 
     violence compares with the university, which for years has 
     had a reputation as a haven for Muslim militants from Arab 
     and Asian countries. Now, top Pakistani police officials say, 
     it is under investigation as a possible training ground for 
     terrorists who have struck in the Philippines, Central Asia, 
     the Middle East, North Africa and even, investigators now 
     believe, in the 1993 explosion of a 500-pound bomb in the 
     basement of the World Trade Center in New York that killed 
     six people and wounded more than 1,000.
       This weekend, American investigators were working behind 
     the scenes here with Pakistan's intelligence services, 
     scouring for links to the bombing as well as the recent 
     attack on Americans by gunmen who leapt from a taxi 12 days 
     ago in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, shooting to death 
     two Americans who were driving to work at the United States 
     Consulate.
       Officials interviewed here said today that the questioning 
     of six suspects captured a week ago has led to further 
     arrests. A top police official said details of the newest 
     arrests would not be made known for ``a couple of days.''
       ``But,'' he said, ``these are not innocent citizens, I can 
     tell you.''
       So feared has the university become that even men reared in 
     the harsh gun culture of the Afghan frontier wilt at the 
     sight of its gates.
       ``Don't go in there, sir, it is too dangerous. They can 
     kill you,'' said Syed Gul, the taxi driver, watching 
     anxiously in his rearview mirror for any sign that a black 
     pickup truck idling at the campus gates might
      decide to give chase. Mr. Gul, one of 1.5 million Afghan 
     refugees living around Peshawar, then sped away from the 
     campus at Babbi, 20 miles east of Peshawar.
       With its obsessive secrecy and hostility to outsiders. Al 
     Dawat, as it is known, remains little but a name to most 
     people in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. But what 
     has not been so much of a secret is that Peshawar, and the 
     wild valleys and passes of the tribal areas along the Afghan 
     border, have emerged as one of the most active training 
     grounds, and sanctuaries, for a new breed of international 
     terrorists fighting a jihad--a holy war--against Governments 
     and other targets they regard as enemies of Islam.
       Until the 1990's, Peshawar received scant notice among 
     known terrorist training centers like Beirut, Teheran or 
     Tripoli in the search for groups who hijack aircraft, 
     assassinate public figures, and plant bombs.
       But the two terrorist attacks involving American targets, 
     have swung the spotlight on this ancient city at the eastern 
     end of the Khyber Pass, where violence and intrigue are as 
     much a part of the city's legacy as the towering battlements 
     of its 19th-century fort.
       Investigators, including a 50-member team from the F.B.I., 
     are working in the knowledge that almost all the groups that 
     have punctuated life in Karachi with drive-by shootings and 
     mosque bombings have ties to Peshawar, either to the Arab-led 
     terrorist underground or to gangs of gun-runners and heroin-
     traffickers who are based in the frontier province's tribal 
     districts, historically ungovernable areas along the border 
     with Afghanistan.
       In the World Trade Center bombing, the clues being followed 
     by the investigators are clearer. Beginning last weekend, 
     Pakistani police working with officials of the C.I.A. and the 
     F.B.I. began a round of arrests in Peshawar that have flowed 
     form the discovery that Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a prime suspect 
     in the New York attach, used Peshawar as a base for several 
     years. He was seized in a joint American-Pakistan's capital, 
     on Feb. 7, and immediately deported to face trail in New 
     York.
                   Raid in Islamabad shakes militants

       The arrest of Mr. Yousef in Islamabad set off a chain of 
     events that
      has rocked the Peshawar underground and resulting this 
     weekend in the issuing of a police alert for two men 
     identified as Abdul Karim and Abdul Munim, who the 
     officials said are Mr. Yousef's brothers.
       The six men seized a week ago are being held at a jail at 
     Adiala, outside Islamabad, on suspicion of involvement in the 
     World Trade Center bombing and a botched attempt to 
     assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit in January in 
     Manila, the capital of the Philippines. They included three 
     Arabs, an Iranian, a naturalized Pakistani born in Syria and 
     a native-born Pakistani.
       Nervousness among American officials over the possibility 
     of revenge killings led the top diplomat at the United States 
     Consulate in Peshawar, Richard H. Smyth, to announce on 
     Friday that the American Club in the city, long a favorite 
     gathering place for diplomats, relief workers and others, 
     would be closed temporarily, as would the American school. 
     Similar steps were taken in Karachi.
       The risks for Americans seem unlikely to diminish, at least 
     in the short run, especially if Pakistan follows through on 
     another move that top officials here hinted at today--closing 
     Al-Dawat University.
       ``It has to go,'' one official said, noting that the 
     questioning of Mr. Yousef, and of others seized since, have 
     confirmed that his links in Peshawar were mainly to an Afghan 
     group headed by Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf, the university's 
     founder. Mr. Sayyaf, a militant Muslim with strong anti-
     American leanings, established the school and recruited its 
     staff and students in the mid-1980's.
       In many ways, Al-Dawat serves as a symbol for the events 
     that turned Peshawar into a terrorist haven. The
      a law-abiding reputation, going back to the days when 
     Britain, as the colonial power in what was then India, 
     fought fierce battles against the Pathans who dominate 
     both sides of the border with Afghanistan, and eventually 
     allowed them a broad degree of autonomy. In the idiom of 
     19th-century Britain, ``the frontier'' became synonymous 
     with fierce warriors, banditry, and a culture of guns and 
     revenge.


                   a flood of arms after soviet sweep

       But the uneasy balance with the border tribes that was 
     achieved by Britain, and later Pakistan, tipped after the 
     Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. The huge amounts 
     of weapons and money that the United States, Saudi Arabia and 
     other nations poured into supporting Afghan groups 
     established in Peshawar unleashed new levels of lawlessness 
     on the frontier.
       This anything-goes atmosphere encouraged large numbers of 
     foreigners--mainly Arabs but also Asians, Europeans and some 
     Americans--to volunteer to fight with the Afghan guerrilla 
     groups. According to a high-ranking Pakistani military 
     officer, 25,000 of these volunteers were trained with 
     assistance from Pakistan's military intelligence agency, 
     Inter-Services Intelligence, during the 1980's.
       Some died in Afghanistan, and some went home after Soviet 
     troops withdrew in 1989, but others remained in and around 
     Peshawar or across the border in Afghanistan, ``looking for 
     other wars to fight,'' as the Pakistan's Prime Minister, 
     Benazir Bhutto, put it in Karachi last week.
       According to Western diplomats familiar with the 
     investigations, current American estimates of the number of 
     Arabs, Asians and others currently active in terrorist groups 
     with bases here run to about 1,000. Of 
     [[Page H3547]] these, some are believed to have taken 
     sanctuary inside Afghanistan, with Afghan armed groups that 
     have Muslim fundamentalist leanings, including Mr. Sayyaf's. 
     Police officials in Peshawar said this appeared to have been 
     the pattern with Mr. Yousef.
       ``He'd stay here for a few days, then disappear into 
     Afghanistan for months, then come back,'' the official said.
       Others are said to have taken refuge in what are known here 
     as the
      ``inaccessible'' areas of the frontier, meaning regions 
     where no Pakistani laws apply. But a large number, 
     according to diplomats and police officials, still live in 
     and around Peshawar, using as cover some of the 18 Arab 
     educational and relief organizations that registered with 
     the Pakistani authorities during the Afghan war, among 
     them the Al Dawat University. ``Some of these 
     organizations actually do what they are supposed to be 
     doing,'' one diplomat said, scanning a list of the groups. 
     ``But others are just fronts for terrorism.''
       Another high-ranking diplomat said that Pakistani officials 
     had been aware for years that at Al Dawat and other training 
     centers, youths were being taught that Muslims had a duty to 
     join in an international brotherhood that could avenge the 
     humiliations Muslims are said to have suffered at the hands 
     of the west.
       ``They are taught that the Islamic renaissance has to be 
     born out of blood, and that only by striking at the West will 
     Islam ever be able to dictate events in the world, as events 
     have been dictated up to now by the West,'' the diplomat 
     said.


                a flow of guerrillas to other conflicts

       According to the diplomats, intelligence reports in recent 
     years have suggested that militants trained here have taken 
     part in almost every conflict where Muslims have been 
     involved. The diplomats said Muslims trained here have fought 
     in places including Mindanao, the largest of the Philippine 
     islands, where Mr. Yousef is said to have had links with a 
     Muslim insurgency; the Indian-held portion of the state of 
     Kashmir, where 500,000 Indian troops and police officers are 
     tied down by a Muslim revolt; the former Soviet Republic of 
     Tajikistan; Bosnia; and several countries in North Africa 
     that face Muslim rebellions, including Egypt, Tunisia and 
     Algeria.
       Like previous Pakistani Governments, Ms. Bhutto's has 
     responded to Western pressures cautiously, fearing a backlash 
     from powerful Muslim groups within Pakistan.
       But many senior Pakistani officials resent Western 
     pressures, saying that the terrorist groups that became 
     established here got their start under politics that the 
     United States and other Western countries eagerly supported, 
     so long as the target was the Soviet Union.
       ``Don't forget, the whole world opened its arms to these 
     people,'' one senior official said. ``They were welcomed here 
     as fighters for a noble cause, with no questions asked. They 
     came in here by the dozens, and nobody thought to ask them: 
     when the Afghan Jihad is over, are you going to get involved 
     in terrorism in Pakistan? Are you going to bomb the World 
     Trade Center?
       ``The Afghan War was a holy war for everybody, including 
     the Americans, and nobody bothered to think beyond it,'' the 
     official said.
     

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