[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 100 (Thursday, July 23, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8946-S8947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                    SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 105

 Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I rise to co-sponsor S. Con. Res. 
105, a resolution which I hope will bring justice to the many suffering 
people of the former Yugoslavia. For over a decade now Serbian leader 
Slobodan Milosevic has executed his policies of hatred, policies which 
have led to oppression and murder. And I am sorry to say that 
Milosevic's brutal assaults against the people of Bosnia and Croatia 
have gone unpunished.
  Milosevic now seeks to extend his reign of terror over greater 
Serbia. His efforts already have destroyed the peace, security, and 
very lives of the people of Kosovo. He has turned Kosovo, once an 
independent state within Yugoslavia, into a virtual prison for non-
Serbs. He has driven Kosovo's native Albanians, who have lived in the 
Balkans longer than any other ethnic group and who comprise 90 percent 
of the region's population, to flee the area out of fear for their 
lives and the lives of their families.
  Mr. President, I believe it is important for us to keep in mind that, 
while the United States continues to offer peaceful and diplomatic 
support to the victims of Milosevic's campaign of terror, Serbian 
leaders continue their heinous policies. I am convinced that we must 
send a strong signal to Milosevic

[[Page S8947]]

and his cronies in order to stop the violence and oppression they are 
inflicting on the people of Kosovo.
  Mr. President, I believe that we in the United States, the birthplace 
and homeland of freedom, have a responsibility to bring Milosevic and 
his fellow perpetrators to the Hague and make them answer for their 
crimes. It grieves me that so many people in the Balkans have suffered 
from Milosevic's policies of racial cleansing. I hope that a trial will 
end the suffering of countless civilians in Kosovo. I also hope that 
Milosevic's trial will send a message to other dictators that crimes 
against humanity will not be tolerated by the world community.
  I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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