[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 19, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H251-H252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              AMERICA MUST ENSURE THAT GENOCIDE IS STOPPED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise with a combination of deep sorrow and 
great anger. Numerous times on the floor of this House I have risen and 
talked

[[Page H252]]

about war crimes in Bosnia. I have talked about Slobodan Milosevic 
branded by the State Department under George Bush as a war criminal. I 
have talked about the necessity of us confronting Slobodan Milosevic, 
not the Serbian people, but the leader of the Serbian Government, 
confronting him in a way that he clearly understood the West was 
serious; that the West would not tolerate genocide in Europe.
  Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, in Bosnia, as all of us know, some 
250,000 people lost their lives, over 2 million refugees were created 
by ethnic cleansing--the greatest tragedy in Europe since the Second 
World War.
  Mr. Speaker, tragically, when dictators and despots are are not 
confronted effectively, the lesson of history is that they repeat their 
atrocities. Just the other day we saw such atrocities committed. When 
Ambassador Walker called it genocide, which truly it was, a crime 
against humanity--people lying on the ground, children, women shot at 
close range, in their faces and in the backs their heads--Slobodan 
Milosevic told Ambassador Walker to ``Get out of my country''.
  Mr. Speaker, as you may know, I'm the ranking member on the 
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Helsinki 
Commission. In that capacity, I have traveled to Bosnia and to Kosovo, 
been to Pristina, talked to leaders, Albanian leaders and Serbian 
leaders. Tragically, there was no avenue for communication offered by 
the Serbian authorities. They would say that there are atrocities 
committed on both sides, and they would be correct. But, Mr. Speaker, 
as was the case in Bosnia, the overwhelming responsibility for the 
crimes against humanity which were committed in Bosnia, and are now 
being committed in Kosovo, are the responsibility of Slobodan 
Milosevic.
  Now, you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that when I and others made those 
accusations, the response was, ``Oh, no, that is in Bosnia, not in 
Serbia. That is Karadzic, Mladic, and other Serbian leaders in Bosnia 
itself, not me,'' said Slobodan Milosevic. ``I am not responsible. I 
want to stop the war. I want to ensure the safety of people.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, there is no mask, there is no curtain, there is no 
veil. In point of fact, the world has seen the reality of Slobodan 
Melosevic's determination to accomplish his ends by whatever means 
possible--no matter how illegal they may be, no matter how evil they 
may be, no matter how many opponents' lives are lost, no matter that 
they are innocent women and children, old men, noncombatants. Slobodan 
Milosevic does not care.
  Mr. Speaker, we focus on a lot of things in America, but we need to 
focus on the fact that we are the leader. And in that position we have 
a responsibility to come together with the rest of Europe to make sure 
that genocide has a consequence, that genocide is stopped, that people 
are saved.

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