[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 17, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H7487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        U.S. POSITION IN BOSNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Poshard] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, a couple of years ago I was asked to go to 
Bosnia with 14 other Members of the United States Congress here to 
ascertain for our colleagues here what America's position should be in 
that war-torn country. I was honored to go there.
  The first day we flew over to Serbia and met with President Milosevic 
and his people, and the second day we went to Croatia and met with 
President Tudgman and his folks. The third day we flew into Sarajevo, 
and not since I had been an 18-year-old kid walking around the hills of 
Korea with the First Division had I witnessed such devastation in a 
country.

                              {time}  1700

  We landed at the airport, and guards picked us up at the edge of the 
airport property. They began to take us through town. People lived in 
burned-out buildings and shells and bunkers and basements, anywhere 
they could live. Eighty-six percent of the water supply was gone in the 
city. Very little food was getting in except through the United 
Nations.
  But I noticed as our bus was traveling under heavy security 
throughout state of Sarajevo, people began running up from the bunkers 
and clapping, because they understood that there were 15 United States 
Congressmen visiting their country who were going to have something to 
say about their future.
  We eventually prevailed upon security to let us stop in a little 
square where just a few months before a mortar round from the 
surrounding mountainside had killed 57 people. The security said, no 
one will come out and talk to you. They are too afraid. But by the time 
we got off the bus, every street filtering into that little square was 
filled with hundreds of people rushing to the square to surround our 
bus.
  This one elderly gentleman, in the press of that crowd, grabbed me by 
the arm and said something to me that made such an indelible imprint 
upon my mind I have never forgotten it to this day. He said to me, 
after telling me that he had lost every member of his family, his wife 
was gone, his brothers and sisters, his children, he was alone in the 
world, he said to me, with tears streaming down his eyes, Congressman, 
do you not understand that we only trust America? We only trust 
America.
  In the press of the crowd, I did not think too much about his words. 
We got back on the bus and went to our appointed rounds, and as we were 
flying up to Germany to see the troops, I began to think about the 
words of that old man. Some things in this business you know innately 
in the gut.
  He was not saying to me, Congressman, we only trust America's 
military prowess, or America's economic strength. What he was saying to 
me was, Congressman, we only trust the experience of America.
  We live here in a multiracial, multiethnic, multireligious society, 
and because we have chosen not to tolerate each other's differences, we 
have killed or maimed 200,000 of our people beyond repair.
  But we know America, and we know the message of America to all of the 
world, because you are like us. You came from every corner of the 
world, with different values, different cultures, different ethnicity, 
different religions. But for some reason or another, not perfectly so, 
you have made it work better than anybody else in the world, because 
you tolerate the differences among you. We trust you.
  Two weeks to the day after I left that old man in the streets of 
Sarajevo, I stood before a college class of 25 21-year-old students in 
this country, who, one by one, rose and looked me square in the eye and 
said to me in no uncertain terms, Congressman, we do not trust any of 
you people. You are all in it for the special interests.
  Mr. Speaker, to restore the trust in this country between the 
Representative and the represented, we must enact campaign finance 
reform to restore confidence from our own children and our government 
here.

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