[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 26 (Friday, February 12, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1652-S1655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENATE RESOLUTION 44--RELATING TO THE CENSURE OF WILLIAM JEFFERSON
CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Chafee,
Mr. Kohl, Mr. Jeffords, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Smith of Oregon, Mr.
Daschle, Ms. Snowe, Mr. Reid, Mr. Gorton, Mr. Bryan, Mr. McConnell, Mr.
Cleland, Mr. Domenici, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Wyden, Mrs.
Lincoln, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Kerrey, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Murray,
Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Breaux, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Dorgan, Mr. Baucus, Mr.
Reed, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Levin, Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Robb,
Mr. Inouye, and Mr. Akaka) submitted the following resolution; which
was referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration:
S. Res. 44
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United
States, engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a
subordinate employee in the White House, which was shameful,
reckless and indefensible;
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United
States, deliberately misled and deceived the American people,
and people in all branches of the United States government;
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United
States, gave false or misleading testimony and his actions
have had the effect of impeding discovery of evidence in
judicial proceedings;
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton's conduct in this matter
is unacceptable for a President of the United States, does
demean the Office of the President as well as the President
himself, and creates disrespect for the laws of the land;
Whereas President Clinton fully deserves censure for
engaging in such behavior;
Whereas future generations of Americans must know that such
behavior is not only unacceptable but also bears grave
consequences, including loss of integrity, trust and respect;
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton remains subject to
criminal actions in a court of law like any other citizen;
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton's conduct in this matter
has brought shame and dishonor to himself and to the Office
of the President; and
Whereas William Jefferson Clinton through his conduct in
this matter has violated the trust of the American people;
Resolved
The United States Senate does hereby censure William
Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States, and does
condemn his wrongful conduct in the strongest terms; and
The United States Senate recognizes the historic gravity of
this bipartisan resolution, and trusts and urges that future
congresses will recognize the importance of allowing this
bipartisan statement of censure and condemnation to remain
intact for all time; and
The Senate now move on to other matters of significance to
our people, to reconcile differences between and within the
branches of government, and to work together--across party
lines--for the benefit of the American people.
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SENATE RESOLUTION 45--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE REGARDING THE
HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
Mr. HUTCHINSON (for himself, Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Mack, Mr. Feingold,
Mr. Abraham, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Helms, Mr. Torricelli, Mr. Lott, Mr.
Inhofe, Mr. Sessions, Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Kyl, Mr. Brownback,
and Mr. Lugar) submitted the following resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
S. Res. 45
Whereas the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, provides a forum for
discussing human rights and expressing international support
for improved human rights performance;
Whereas, according to the United States Department of State
and international human rights organizations, the Government
of the People's Republic of China continues to commit
widespread and well-documented human rights abuses in China
and Tibet and continues the coercive implementation of family
planning policies and the sale of human organs taken from
executed prisoners;
Whereas such abuses stem from an intolerance of dissent and
fear of unrest on the part of authorities in the People's
Republic of China and from the absence or inadequacy of laws
in the People's Republic of China that protect basic
freedoms;
Whereas such abuses violate internationally accepted norms
of conduct;
Whereas the People's Republic of China is bound by the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recently signed the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but has
yet to take the steps necessary to make the covenant legally
binding;
Whereas the President decided not to sponsor a resolution
criticizing the People's Republic of China at the United
Nations Human Rights Commission in 1998 in consideration of
commitments by the Government of the People's Republic of
China to sign the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and based on a belief that progress on human
rights in the People's Republic of China could be achieved
through other means;
Whereas authorities in the People's Republic of China have
recently escalated efforts to extinguish expressions of
protest or criticism and have detained scores of citizens
associated with attempts to organize a legal democratic
opposition, as well as religious leaders, writers, and others
who petitioned the authorities to release those arbitrarily
arrested; and
Whereas these efforts underscore that the Government of the
People's Republic of China's has not retreated from its
longstanding pattern of human rights abuses, despite
expectations to the contrary following two summit meetings
between President Clinton and President Jiang in which
assurances were made regarding improvements in the human
rights record of the People's Republic of China: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that at the
55th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in
Geneva, Switzerland, the United States should introduce and
make all efforts necessary to pass a resolution criticizing
the People's Republic of China for its human rights abuses in
China and Tibet.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Mr. President, today I, along with Senators
Wellstone, Mack, and Feingold, submit a simple sense of the Senate
resolution. This resolution urges the Administration to take the
necessary steps to introduce and pass a resolution criticizing the
People's Republic of China for its human rights abuses in China and
Tibet at this year's meeting of the United Nations Human Rights
Commission. With this resolution, we send a clear signal to the
Administration that the U.S. must not be silent on the human rights
abuses perpetrated by the government of the People's Republic of China.
The U.N. Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, will
take place in March and April this year. The Commission is the most
valuable multilateral forum for monitoring and investigating human
rights abuses around the world. Resolutions offered at the Commission
both highlight human rights abuses and pressure governments to correct
them. The U.S. has appropriately supported resolutions critical of
China eight times in recent years.
The Communist government of China has long committed a litany of
human rights abuses. Thousands of political prisoners remain in prison,
many sentenced after unfair trials, others without any trial. At least
two hundred of these prisoners are still suffering because of their
participation in or support of the 1989 Tiananmen Square
demonstrations. Religious persecution runs rampant in China. People who
dare to worship outside the aegis of officially sponsored religious
organizations face fines, detention, arrest, imprisonment, and torture.
Thousands of peaceful monks and nuns have been detained and tortured in
Tibet, where the Chinese government is imposing a harsh patriotic
education campaign. Under China's one family, one child policy, couples
face punitive fines and loss of employment for having unapproved
children. But it doesn't stop with monetary penalties. Local
authorities, with or without the approval of the Communist Party cadre,
forcibly perform abortions or sterilizations on women who are pregnant
with their second child. Relatives are held hostage until couples
submit to this coercion. Furthermore, prisoners are executed after
grossly unfair trials, their organs sold on the black market. What do
these people all have in common? They oppose the Chinese Communist
government or its policies. Opposition bears a high price.
What has been the Administration's response? Last year, President
Clinton decided not to pursue a resolution critical of China at the
U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, citing China's
commitment to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), as well as other avenues for change. In July, President
Clinton granted the Communist government undeserved legitimacy by
making a state visit to China. China did sign the ICCPR, a covenant
which affirms free speech and free assembly, in October, only to turn
around and violate its every principle.
Since July 1998, the Communist government of China has renewed its
crackdown on all who would dare to oppose the Communist Party. Some 100
members of the fledgling Chinese Democracy Party (CDP) have been
detained. Some have been released, others await trial, and the most
unfortunate have been sentenced to long prison sentences. Three visible
leaders of the CDP, Xu Wenli, Qin Yongmin, and Wang Youncai were
sentenced to 13, 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively, on charges of
subversion and endangering state security, after dubious trials. In
reality, these democracy activists exercised their legal rights under
Chinese law to form a political party. There true crime, in the eyes of
the Communist Party, was their love of democracy.
But the crackdown does not end there. In fact, incidents of
harassment and imprisonment are almost too numerous to list here. I
will highlight a few examples. The Communist government sentenced
businessman Lin Hai to prison for two years for providing email
addresses to a pro-democracy internet magazine based in the U.S. Zhang
Shanguang is in prison for ten years for providing Radio Free Asia with
information about farmer protests in Hunan province. The government
sentenced poet and writer, Ma Zhe, to seven years in prison on charges
of subversion for publishing an independent literary journal. In
addition, the Communist government has cracked down on film directors,
artists, computer software developers, and the press, and continues to
harass and detain religious activists. In November 1998, police
imprisoned 70 worshipers from house churches in Henan province. The
pattern of human rights violations is undeniable. It must be stopped.
In light of these abuses, it is critical that the U.S. push for a
resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Commission highlighting these
abuses. Last year, the Administration chose not to pursue a resolution,
despite clear signals from Congress. In this body, we passed a
resolution similar to the one before us today by a 95 to 5 vote. We
cannot afford to stand by idly as the Chinese Communist government
thumbs its nose at internationally accepted norms--norns to which it
claims to subscribe.
There are some in the Administration who argue that a resolution
critical of China at the Human Rights Commission is pointless because
it is certain to fail. This very sentiment is self-fulfilling. The more
half-hearted the Administration is in its attempts to advance such a
resolution, the less chance it has to pass. The longer the
Administration refrains from exercising leadership in the international
community on this matter, the less likely it is that the resolution
will be successful.
[[Page S1654]]
Bringing forth a resolution at the Commission is a matter of
principle. Success will be measured by the statements of truth that
flow from debate at the Commission. A resolution at the Commission will
proclaim boldly that the human rights abuses in China are an affront to
the international community.
I urge all of my colleagues to support this bipartisan sense of the
Senate resolution.
I further ask unanimous consent that any statements by Senators
Wellstone, Mack, or Feingold regarding this resolution be inserted at
the conclusion of my remarks.
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today as an original co-sponsor
of S. Res. 45 with regard to human rights in China.
The resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that the United
States should initiate active lobbying at the United Nations Commission
on Human Rights for a resolution condemning human rights abuses in
China. It calls specifically for the United States to introduce and
make all efforts necessary to pass a resolution on China and Tibet at
the upcoming session of the Commission, which is due to begin in March
in Geneva.
This resolution makes a simple, clear statement of principle: The
Senate believes that there should be a China resolution in Geneva,
period.
Mr. President, the Commission on Human Rights first met in 1947,
spending its first year drafting the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Over the next two decades, the Commission was responsible for
drafting an impressive body of international human rights law and set
the global standards for human rights. In the 1990s, the Commission has
increasingly turned its attention to assisting states in overcoming
obstacles to securing human rights for their citizens. It has been a
focal point for protection of human rights for vulnerable groups in
society, and as such, the Commission serves as an ideal multilateral
forum for a resolution and debate on China's human rights practices.
The effort to move a resolution is particularly important this year,
in light of the Administration's decision, contrary to the nearly
unanimous sentiment of the Senate, not to sponsor such a resolution
last year. Their misguided belief that progress could be achieved by
other means was clearly not borne out by events in 1998, when,
particularly in the last quarter, China stepped up its repression.
As we all know, for the past few years, China's leaders have
aggressively lobbied against efforts at the Commission earlier and more
actively than the countries that support a resolution. Last year,
Chinese officials basically succeeded in getting the European Union
Foreign Ministers to drop any European cosponsorship of a resolution.
In the past, China's vigorous efforts have resulted in a ``no action''
motion at the Commission, however, in 1995 a ``no action'' motion was
defeated and a resolution almost adopted, losing by only one vote. I
sincerely hope we will not have the same results again at this year's
meeting.
It is essential to have a resolution on China under the auspices of
the Commission on Human Rights. The multilateral nature of the
Commission makes it a very appropriate forum to debate and discuss the
human rights situation in China. The Commission's review has led to
proven and concrete progress on human rights in other countries, and
the expectation is that such scrutiny could also lead to progress on
human rights in China. Under the pressure of previous Geneva
resolutions, China signed in 1997 the UN Covenant of Social, Economic
and Cultural Rights and in October 1998 the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights. Neither has yet been ratified or
implemented.
Nearly five years after the President's decision, which I deeply
regretted, to delink most-favored-nation status from human rights, we
cannot forget that the human rights situation in China and Tibet
remains abysmal. While the State Department has not yet provided its
most recent human rights report, I have no doubt it will be as critical
of China as the 1997 report was when it noted that ``the Government of
China continued to commit widespread and well-documented human rights
abuses in violation of internationally accepted norms, including
extrajudicial killings, the use of torture, arbitrary arrest and
detention, forced abortion and sterilization, the sale of organs from
executed prisoners, and tight control over the exercise of the rights
of freedom of speech, press, and religion.''
According to testimony to Congress by Amnesty International, the
human rights situation in China shows no fundamental change, despite
the recent promises from the government of China. At least 2,000 people
remain in prison for counter-revolutionary crimes that are no longer
even on the books in China. At least 200 individuals detained or
arrested for Tiananmen Square activities nearly a decade ago are also
still in prison. By China's own statistics, there are nearly a quarter
of a million people imprisoned under the ``re-education through labor''
system. One of these, Yang Qinheng, received a three year term in March
after he was arrested for reading an open letter on Radio Free Asia
citing workers' right to unionize.
The litany of specific violations of human rights also has continued
unabated in the last several months. Attempts to register the fledgling
opposition China Democratic Party resulted in at least six arrests of
opposition political leaders. In December, Wang Youcai, a student
leader during Tiananmen Square protests, Xu Wenli, and Qin Yongmin were
each sentenced to over 10 years in prison allegedly for ``attempting to
overthrow state power'' because of their roles in the Democratic Party.
China took great strides to keep overseas dissidents out of China. In
April, less than an hour after her arrival at her parents home, Li
Xiaorong, a research scholar at University of Maryland, who was
traveling on a US passport with a valid visa, was taken into custody.
Her crime, according to police, was that her work in the US on behalf
of human rights in China was unacceptable. Similarly, in October, Shi
Binhai, a journalist at the state-run China Economic Times and co-
editor of a book on political reform was indicted for collusion with
overseas dissident organizations. As recently as February 4, Wang Ce
was sentenced to four years in prison for illegally reentering China
and providing financial support to the banned Democratic Party.
Demonstrating that the range of potential crimes has moved into the
computer era, this year in late January, Lin Hai received the
distinction of being sentenced to two years in prison for providing e-
mail addresses to an Internet pro-democracy magazine. These are but a
few of the many detentions, arrests, and assignments to forced labor
that befell individuals for expressing their views since the
President's human rights dialogue at the June 1998 summit in Beijing.
Mr. President, the situation is just as bad in Tibet, where,
according to Human Rights Watch, at least ten prisoners reportedly died
following two protests in a prison in the Tibetan capital in May. In
the weeks following, scores of prisoners were interrogated, beaten and
placed in solitary confinement. Other deaths in prison reportedly
occurred in June, with Chinese authorities claiming that many were
suicides. Further, during the 1998, Chinese officials continued the
``patriotic education campaign''' designed to force Tibetans,
especially Buddist monks and nuns, to denounce the Dalai Lama and to
attest that Tibet has always been a part of China. As a result of the
campaign, authorities reported that 76 percent of Tibetan monasteries
and nunneries had been ``rectified''.
In a December speech Secretary Albright said, ``As we look ahead to
the new century, we can expect that, perhaps, the greatest test of
democracy, human rights and the rule of law will be in China.'' If the
Administration believes this, perhaps it should use the time left in
this century to take positive steps to encourage international
condemnation of China's human rights practices.
In January, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights
and Labor, Harold Koh held a bilateral human rights dialogue with the
Chinese, the first such discussions in four years, and notified them of
the possibility that the United States would sponsor a resolution in
Geneva. In testimony to Congress following these discussions, he
further promised that
[[Page S1655]]
``The Administration supports the Geneva process, and intends to
participate vigorously in this year's Commission activities.'' I was
encouraged to hear these words and I hope they will translate into
determination by the Administration actively to pursue this issue, in
this forum, this year.
I urge the Administration to make a decision to sponsor a resolution
and to begin high level lobbying of governments around the world to
support a resolution before Secretary of State Albright travels to
Beijing on March 1 and 2.
Mr. President, the situation in China indeed remains troubling. The
United States has a moral responsibility to take the lead in sponsoring
and pushing for a resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights. I believe that there is a strong bipartisan consensus in the
Foreign Relations Committee--and I predict on the floor--that we must
send a message to China and that this is the appropriate time and place
in which to do it.
I strongly commend my friends, the Senator from Arkansas and the
Senator from Minnesota, for their leadership on this terribly important
issue.
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