[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H484-H493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                BIPARTISAN CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TRIP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.

[[Page H485]]

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take the 1-
hour Special Order to highlight a congressional delegation trip that 
transpired last week traveling to Moscow, Russia; Kiev, Ukraine; and 
Kishinev, Moldova. One of the areas that perhaps presents the greatest 
challenge to us over the next several years is our relationship with 
those critical countries.
  The delegation that traveled to those countries was a bipartisan 
delegation. In fact, I was outnumbered. There were four Democrats and 
three Republicans. But it was a solid bipartisan effort. We had no 
disagreements and we had, I think, one of the most exciting series of 
meetings that any delegation has had in that part of the world.
  It was a delegation that hit the ground running. We were hosted by 
the chairman of President Putin's political party in Moscow, the Unity 
Party, Boris Gryzlov. Even though our plane was late because of 
problems with the weather, we left on Saturday, we were hoping to 
arrive Sunday afternoon, we arrived in our hotel in Moscow at 12:30 
a.m.; and there waiting for us was the Deputy Minister for Housing and 
Construction in Moscow.
  So we had our first meeting at 12:30 in the morning until 1:30 in the 
morning. So those who say Members of Congress do not work, I would say 
this delegation worked. That was to set the tone for the trip. That was 
the first of 41 meetings that occurred during 5 days in the capital 
cities of Moscow, Kiev and Kishinev.
  It was a very historically significant time because each of those 
countries are going through some very difficult turmoil. As we all 
know, Russia has been drifting away from the West. In fact, while we 
were there, we got an update on a new strategic partnership that Russia 
is now aligning itself with China.
  In the Ukraine, we were there in the midst of a crisis as the 
President of that country, President Kuchma, was under severe criticism 
for having allegedly been taped in ordering the assassination of a 
prominent journalist in Ukraine. The people in many regards were 
demanding, not just free press, but were demanding that President 
Kuchma be held accountable and be removed from office.
  In Moldova, the meetings were equally significant because, 2 days 
after we were in Moldova, they had their parliamentary elections. 
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the Communists won control of the Moldovan 
parliament with 71 percent of the vote, a major shift in that country, 
a very strategically important country, a major shift away from the 
democratic reforms that have been occurring in Moldova over the past 8 
years.
  So that underscores the importance of the reason why our trip was 
significant.
  I want to go through the trip in a great amount of detail, but I 
would like to call on my colleagues while they are here to make 
whatever comments they would like to make.
  The cochair of the delegation is someone who I have the highest 
admiration for in this institution. He and I worked together on a 
number of issues, Russia being one of them. Seven years ago, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and I were able to convince our 
leadership, then Speaker Gingrich and Minority Leader Gephardt, that we 
should institutionalize the relationship between the Russian Duma, 
their parliament, and our Congress.
  The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and I have co-chaired that 
initiative for the past 7 years, and we have had dozens of meetings in 
America and in Russia trying to build a closer sense of cooperation 
with the parliamentarians in the Russian Duma in all fashions.
  The gentleman from Maryland also is the first vice president of the 
Committee for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and so he represents 
our country on issues affecting the European community as it relates to 
Russia and other Nations. He also is the former chairman of the 
Helsinki Commission, so he has worked tirelessly for human rights 
throughout the world.
  So it was a real pleasure to have the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer) on this trip.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my 
good friend and colleague, for his own summation of our trip.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time and for his leadership. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon) and I have been friends since he came to the Congress many 
years ago.

                              {time}  1500

  He serves on the Committee on Armed Services and is one of the most 
knowledgeable Members in the Congress on matters related to our 
national defense. But probably less well known is his extraordinary 
depth of knowledge of Russia, of the former Soviet Union, of former 
Soviet officials, and present leaders in Russia itself. He is a friend 
of many, a colleague of others, and an interlocutor of many more.
  Obviously, our relationship to Russia is one of the most important 
relationships that we have as a Nation. The relationship between Russia 
and the United States is one critical to international security and 
stability. As vice president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the 
Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I have the 
opportunity to meet regularly with members of the Duma. However, under 
the leadership of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), and 
with the concurrence, as he pointed out, of then-Speaker Gingrich and 
minority leader Gephardt, we established a formal relationship.
  It is interesting to note that the supreme Soviet, when the Soviet 
Union was still in existence, sought a formal relationship with the 
Congress. We demurred and did not want to enter such a relationship. 
The reason for that, of course, is they were not a democratically 
elected parliament. We have seen historic changes, revolutionary 
changes as Russia emerged as a new democracy. It is a democracy, 
obviously, struggling with its economy and struggling with a developing 
democracy. It was the thought of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon), with which I strongly agreed, that the better and closer 
relationship they had with representatives of the people's House and of 
the United States Senate, really the examples for democratic 
parliamentary bodies in the world, it would assist them in their 
developing democracy and would assist us as well in establishing a 
relationship which would lead to better understanding and, therefore, 
more cooperation.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned that I chaired 
and am now the ranking member of the Helsinki Commission. That 
commission focuses on human rights. I kidded when we were in Moscow, 
when Viktor Chernomyrdin was at dinner with us, that I was coming back 
to the United States and raising a human rights issue about the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania making us work so hard. Forty-one meetings 
in 4 days is quite a schedule. But I found the meetings extraordinarily 
productive, worthwhile, and I think establishing a better relationship 
between our two countries and, indeed, between the leaders in Moldova, 
although they are now new, and the leaders in the Ukraine, although now 
troubled.
  I had to leave the trip early and go to Vienna for a meeting of the 
standing committee of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in 
Europe where I have the privilege of representing our country, but I 
know from talking to Members who concluded the trip that it was an 
extraordinarily worthwhile trip.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) is going to speak after 
me. He is a new Member of Congress. This was, I think, his first visit 
to Russia and to some of the former Soviet states. It was my 15th or 
16th visit. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) has been 
there, as I recall his saying, 23 times.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to continue these visits. We need to continue 
this conversation. We need to continue with cooperation. There will, of 
course, be and are times when we disagree; but we need to disagree 
while talking to one another. We need to disagree while understanding 
the perspective of one another. It is critical for our own countries 
and critical for all the world, and I want to thank the gentleman for 
his leadership and to tell him how much I appreciate co-chairing the 
Congress-Duma committee with him and the worthwhile work that we and 
other Members of the House of Representatives and the United States 
Senate and

[[Page H486]]

the Duma are doing to establish an ongoing, continuing, positive 
relationship with this great merging democracy, Russia.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Maryland for 
his leadership on this delegation and in the Congress and, actually, in 
the world. He is extremely well respected around the world for his 
commitment to principles that are important to any democratic nation.
  Just to give our colleagues one example of one of the issues that the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) raised repeatedly in Russia was 
freedom of the press. He arranged a meeting with one of those, a fellow 
by the name of Mr. Kiselov, who is the equivalent to our Dan Rather or 
one of those kinds of people, Ted Koppel. The gentleman from Maryland 
was very adamant in pressing the Russians on the freedom of the press 
as a key part of any democracy. In fact, he challenged them on the 
rumored threats to shut down one of the TV stations and to further 
censor their media.
  Perhaps the gentleman would like to elaborate on that point.
  Mr. HOYER. I will take a little more time. I know the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) has a meeting to go to, and I want to get to 
him, but I did have the opportunity to meet with Mr. Kiselov, who, as 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) pointed out, is sort of 
our Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Walter Cronkite, and Dan Rather rolled 
up into one. Media-MOST and NTV is the only independent TV station in 
Russia. It is funded by, in part at least, by a gentleman named 
Gusinsky. We urged the members of the Russian Duma and other officials 
with whom we met to ensure that they would continue to be free and 
independent.
  It is interesting that Ted Turner, who has so successfully opened up 
the eyes of the world to other lands through CNN, an extraordinary 
contribution to the interchange of peoples and the knowledge of one 
people of another, it is interesting that he has made an offer, along 
with partners, George Soros and others, to participate at the level of 
$30 million in helping to finance this independent TV station. We urged 
the leaders in Russia to ensure that that station would remain 
independent, because we know that a democracy cannot flourish without 
an independent press, without independent criticism, without an 
independent voice letting the people of that democracy know what their 
government is doing. If it is only a government-owned station, or if it 
is only a station owned by an organization like Gasprom, dependent on 
the government, then it will not be a free and objective voice. It will 
not be an alternative voice.
  So that was one of the issues that we had the opportunity to raise. I 
know that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), who is probably 
the expert in this Congress on national missile defense, will relate 
the numerous discussions we had on that issue to ensure that there is 
not a misunderstanding on either side as to what the objectives are and 
what the sense of responsibility is with respect to defending our 
peoples, both in Russia and in the United States, from those who would 
terrorize our peoples by ballistic missile attacks from a Third World 
nation.
  So the issue of independent media outlets, the issue of defense and 
security arrangements between our two peoples, were very important 
issues among many, many others that we raised. I am not going to go 
into them all, because I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Weldon) will as well. But we talked about health issues, we talked 
about the environment, we talked about fighting drugs, and we talked 
about confronting terrorists in a cooperative way, because all of those 
issues were convergent in the best interests of both of our citizenry. 
Again, the discussions that we have that lead to better understanding 
and more cooperation will certainly result in a more stable and secure 
international environment.
  Again, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak briefly about 
the importance of NTV and Media-MOST to the growth of the democracy in 
Russia. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank my colleague again for stopping 
by this evening. He is extremely busy.
  Joining us from the delegation, Mr. Speaker, among the seven Members 
of Congress who were with us besides the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer) and the gentleman I am going to introduce next were, on the 
Republican side, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) and our 
freshman Republican, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw). Joining 
us on the Democrat side were the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), 
and also a senior member of the Committee on Appropriations, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). So it was a strongly bipartisan and 
well-balanced delegation that gave the people that we met with a 
complete picture of the political landscape in America.

  It was a pleasure to have one of our more junior Members of Congress 
with us. He is now in his second term. He hit the ground running. It 
was his first trip to Moscow, and he did the people of Montgomery 
County well by showing the very positive side of America, yet 
confronting the Russians where needed as well as the other countries 
that we visited on the important issues that face our two societies.
  I would like now to recognize my colleague, the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel).
  Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me; and I want to 
thank my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), for 
his extraordinary leadership in this Congress and on this trip due to 
his vast knowledge of Russia and the former Soviet Union, the 
extraordinary contacts he has as a result of those 23 visits. I can 
report to the House that the gentleman is well known and well regarded 
among Russian officials, members of the Duma, as well as members of the 
Putin cabinet and members of the Russian military.
  My colleague has devoted years and years to the study of Russia. And 
with his relationships and in developing relationships with people in 
Russia, that reflects so well on this Congress and provided such great 
guidance to us on this trip. And, of course, he will agree that we were 
blessed to have as a co-chair on the trip the gentleman from Maryland 
(Mr. Hoyer), who just spoke, who also has a marvelous background with 
his many visits to Russia. I cannot imagine a delegation that could 
possibly be better led than this one led by my colleague, the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. 
Hoyer).
  I wanted to thank my colleague for his foresight in establishing with 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) the Congress-Duma committee. I 
wanted to say just a few words about how interesting I found this 
relationship during our visit to Moscow; how useful I found it to be to 
have an established format and framework in which Members of Congress 
could talk with Members of the Russian state Duma and have a very free 
flow of information and questions back and forth.
  In fact, we had that free flow of information. I was able, along with 
the members of our delegation, to ask some tough questions of our 
Russian guests regarding, first off, the question of freedom of the 
press that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) has just eloquently 
addressed. We were able to ask the members of the Duma why this 
crackdown is occurring against the independent media in Russia. We 
asked about the background for it, the reasons for it, and we got some 
mixed results.
  Some of the members on the Russian side denied that there was any 
serious crackdown or infringement of freedom of the press in Russia. 
That is not the information that we have been given by human rights 
advocates, by our embassy personnel and by others. We did not resolve 
this dispute in our discussions, but we had a good opportunity to talk 
about it and to raise the issue and to make sure that the members of 
the Duma understand that the Members of Congress are well aware of this 
issue.
  I and other members of the congressional delegation were able to 
raise questions about legislation the Duma is considering that would 
restrict religious practices in Russia by regulating organized 
religion, and legislation that would restrict and limit political 
parties in Russia. Both of those restrictions are of great concern to 
those of

[[Page H487]]

us in this country who understand how important it is not just to have 
a free and independent media but also, obviously, to have a free 
exercise of religion and a political system that allows political 
parties to organize free of government control.

                              {time}  1515

  There is no doubt that while Russia is moving toward a more 
democratic society, dedicated to free enterprise and the development of 
free markets, there are still some efforts involved to centralize 
society and government, efforts that we do not fully support here in 
this country. We were able to raise these issues with our colleagues 
from the Russian Duma in a way that I think was very positive. In turn, 
as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) knows, this format gave 
members of the Duma the opportunity to raise issues with us. I and 
members of our delegation asked them about the arms transfers to Iran 
which concerned us. Their reply was that this was an economic matter, 
that the budget problems they have in Russia leads them to sell their 
arms technology and the ability to establish nuclear reactors, for 
example, to Iran to help with their budget problem. And so they asked 
us, in turn, to help them with their debt, to help the Paris Club of 
Nations to understand the need to either forgive or restructure some of 
the Russian debt that is owed that is a crushing burden on that 
economy. Much of that debt is Soviet era. Some of that debt is World 
War II era. The Russians made a good argument for the need for some 
debt relief. But that, of course, did not change our belief that these 
arm sales and technology transfers to Iran is not something that we 
view as simply an economic issue as the Russians do but something that 
we consider to be a security threat to this country and a political 
problem for this country that must be addressed and must be changed.
  And, of course, the issue that we discussed the most with our Russian 
hosts was the question of arms control and missile defense. While we 
did not have a complete meeting of the minds on that issue and while in 
fact our own delegation had several different views on the question of 
missile defense in particular, we did have a good discussion which I 
think would be summarized that the Russian officials as well as the 
Russian military would like to see continued arms negotiations, 
bilateral negotiations as opposed to unilateral reductions, because the 
process of going through bilateral negotiations allows confidence and 
trust to be developed on both sides and allows the negotiations of 
verification provisions that would make sure that through inspections 
and other mechanisms, we can be sure that the reductions in arms that 
are being negotiated are actually implemented, something that is not 
available when one country unilaterally cuts its weapons.
  On the question of missile defense, the Russians are very alarmed by 
the possibility that this country will unilaterally deploy a national 
missile defense. They seem anxious to work with Western nations on the 
notion of missile defenses. They recognize that the biggest threat to 
them as the biggest threat to us is the concern about rogue nations, 
terrorist use of weapons and of course the possibility of accidental 
launches. I think while we certainly did not come to a meeting of the 
minds, there is a greater understanding, I think, as a result of this 
visit regarding the potential for the United States and Russia and our 
European allies and NATO to work jointly to develop a joint missile 
defense system that would protect all of the Western democracies and 
our emerging democracies, such as Russia, against the very real threats 
that our President has quite rightly pointed out that are posed by 
rogue nations and others.
  I thank the gentleman for this opportunity to speak. I did not mean 
to talk this long this afternoon, but the gentleman has given me an 
opportunity to learn a great deal about Russia and the former Soviet 
Union. It was a fascinating trip. I believe that this kind of travel is 
very useful for Members of Congress. And when there is an organization 
in place, such as the Congress-Duma Committee, it gives a wonderful 
opportunity for a better understanding between parliamentarians of 
different countries. I thank the gentleman for the work he has done 
over the last decade or so here in Congress dealing with Russia, I 
thank him for his leadership on the trip, and I thank him for his time 
this afternoon.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank my colleague for his outstanding 
contributions to the trip. He was a valuable partner, he was an 
aggressive representative of the American position, and yet he was open 
and aware of the need to listen to the Russian-Ukrainian-Moldovan 
perspective of world issues and the relationship to our relationship 
with those countries. I thank my colleague for being here this evening.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time before I introduce one of my other 
colleagues who was on the trip, I would like to go through and just 
highlight the kind of meetings we held and give the overall themes of 
what the purpose of our trip was all about.
  First of all, since we formed the Duma-Congress initiative 7 years 
ago, I have had two overriding purposes in our relationship with 
Russia. We tend to want to rely on the Presidents of our two countries 
to work out our relationship. As we all know, they are the heads of 
state and they are the ones who set the overall policy. But there is a 
constructive role for the parliaments to play. There is a very 
important role that we can do to assist emerging democracies like those 
we visited. The two overriding purposes I have had in forming the 
interparliamentary dialogue with the Russians was to empower the 
parliament to show the emerging Duma and its leaders how they can 
accomplish the same kinds of checks and balances that we provide in our 
government here in America. By interacting with committee chairs, by 
sharing staffs, by having regular meetings on issues that are both 
common to us like the environment, health care, social issues, economic 
issues, we also can confront the more difficult issues, strategic 
issues, defense issues, multilateral relationships. So our overriding 
purpose is to empower the parliament, make it more of a constructive 
force in the democracy so it can in fact achieve the same kind of role 
that our Congress plays in America, one that only makes the democracy 
in Russia stronger.
  The second purpose is to help Russia build a middle class. Because if 
Russia is to survive over the long haul, we can do all that we want to 
encourage relationships but we have to help Russia understand what it 
is going to take to build a middle class. The strength of America is 
our middle class. I am convinced that what has largely empowered that 
middle class has been the ability of people to own and buy their own 
homes, to own a piece of America, if you will, and what we have been 
doing for the past 5 years is working with Russia to put into place a 
mortgage financing system for average Russians. These discussions were 
a major part of our efforts in Russia. We also had similar discussions 
in the other countries. So focusing on empowering the parliament and 
building a middle class, they were the overriding themes of our talks, 
but we had a wide range of talks.

  I think, Mr. Speaker, we took the right approach. In visiting Russia, 
we did not go over there as if they were our enemy. Unfortunately, the 
presidential visit that took place last May between President Clinton 
and President Putin had the two of them come together and focus on 
things that we totally disagree on; namely, how many missiles should we 
point at each other. We took the exact opposite approach. The major 
thrust of our meetings were positive. They were about health care 
initiatives. They were about environmental initiatives, economic 
initiatives, technology initiatives, a mortgage system, ways that we 
could further cooperate and allow Russia to build a stable society and 
one that is closely interconnected with an American society. That 
reflects the kinds of meetings that we had.
  I mentioned our first meeting was at 12:30 a.m. on Monday morning 
when we arrived and our plane was late, we drove to the hotel and there 
in our hotel in downtown Moscow was the Deputy Minister of Housing and 
Construction Mr. Ponomorof waiting for us. And so the Members of 
Congress, even though they had been flying for over 24 straight hours, 
sat up for another hour until 1:30 in the morning and had our first 
meeting.

[[Page H488]]

  On Monday morning, we arose at 8 a.m. and we had meetings with the 
deputy minister of the economy, the housing minister for all of Russia 
and the finance minister. We met with our Ambassador, Jim Collins, to 
get a briefing from the State Department there. For lunch we were 
hosted by the American business leaders, the executives of American 
companies who have set up operations throughout Russia, and we heard 
from them about what we should be doing to better improve the 
relationship economically between Russia and America. We then traveled 
to a hospital on the outskirts of Moscow, Hospital No. 7. We were 
joined by representatives of cancer institutes in America who had flown 
over separately from the Fox Chase Cancer Center and from the National 
Cancer Institutes, we took a delegation and traveled out to the largest 
hospital in Moscow, a 1,500-bed hospital that focuses on cancer and 
cancer research. Right adjacent to this hospital is the Blokhin Cancer 
Center. Our purpose was to build on a memorandum of understanding that 
had been signed 2 weeks earlier by the Russian and American Cancer 
Research Centers. So our first serious meeting outside of the 
government was with ties to establish closer relations between our 
health care system.
  After the meeting at Hospital No. 7, we went to the Nuclear Safety 
Institute, where again we ceremoniously signed memorandums of 
understanding that were agreed upon by our Department of Energy earlier 
to establish joint projects between the Kurchatov Institute, an 
institute in downtown Moscow, and the Nuclear Safety Institute, to 
bring our two countries closer together to protect the people in both 
countries from the threat of nuclear problems, the theft of nuclear 
material, the disintegration of nuclear material, the illegal dumping 
of nuclear waste and establishing a new framework of cooperation.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, one of the most interesting discussions on the 
trip was with our Russian counterparts who floated the idea that 
perhaps we can create a new way of disposing or actually storing our 
spent nuclear fuel.
  As we all know, Mr. Speaker, in America, Yucca Mountain is very 
controversial, which is the site where we would ultimately store our 
spent nuclear waste. What the Russians are beginning to talk about is 
America and Russia joining together and having a common site, probably 
in Siberia or in the Ural Mountains that would be managed by an 
international organization where America and Russia together would 
store their spent nuclear fuel so that we could work together on 
research over the next several decades of how to eliminate that spent 
nuclear fuel and how to develop new peaceful solutions and new peaceful 
uses of spent nuclear fuel, an interesting concept that we invited the 
Russians to come back to us with some specific ideas on.
  With Kurchatov we continued our discussions about cooperation, in 
particular some measures of providing a new form of energy that could 
be floated on barges involving nuclear power plants, to assist where 
there are energy shortfalls like that that we have just seen 
experienced in California.
  Our final major event on Monday was a dinner hosted by the executives 
of UKOS Oil Company, the second largest oil company in Russia, and 
there we talked about economic interaction, we talked about ways that 
American companies can more aggressively engage with the energy giants 
that are developing inside of Russia. As President Bush outlined to us 
last night, that developing an national energy strategy is critically 
important, our goal was to see whether or not Russia can become a key 
strategic ally in terms of offering us other energy resources.
  On Tuesday at 8 a.m. we started our meetings with the Ministry of 
Atomic Energy. Minister Adamov hosted us for an hour. We discussed the 
broad range of nuclear issues involving both Russia and America. There 
are productive opportunities that are arising from that meeting. I will 
outline them in more detail in a report that I will file.
  The rest of Tuesday was spent in the Duma. We met with the Deputy 
Speaker, all the factional leaders and the major committees in the 
Duma, including international affairs, foreign affairs, housing and 
mortgages, ecology, all the major interest areas in the Russian Duma 
that we could work together on. In fact, a part of our meeting with the 
Ecology Committee of the Duma, which is chaired by Chairman Grachev, 
was to sign an agreement to assist the Russians in building a 
cooperative effort to deal with their environmental issues and 
concerns. Working with a London-based group, the Advisory Council on 
Protecting the Seas, over the past 4 years, Russia has developed a 
strategy to begin to address its environmental concerns. At our meeting 
with Chairman Grachev, we affirmed our support to help Russia through 
the U.N. acquire the money to implement that environmental plan of 
action.
  Also on Tuesday, we had a dinner with the Moscow Petroleum Club. 
Former Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, former Ambassador to the 
U.S. Yuli Vorontsov, our Ambassador and a host of other dignitaries 
joined us for a solid evening of both social interaction and, more 
importantly, constructive dialogue about U.S.-Russian relations.
  On Wednesday we traveled to Moldova. In Moldova the delegation met 
individually with all the senior leaders of the Moldovan government, 
the President, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, the Speaker of 
the Parliament and we met with the parliamentary members themselves, 
including the Communist faction.

                              {time}  1530

  Now when we arrived in Moldova, they were controlled by a western 
faction. Unfortunately, two days later, Moldova's parliamentary 
elections turned the control over to the communists who now control 71 
percent of the Moldovan parliament.
  One of our prime purposes in going to Moldova was to establish a new 
interparliamentary linkage between the Moldovan parliament and the U.S. 
Congress. Chairing the American side of that interparliamentary linkage 
is the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) and the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).
  At this point in time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to turn to my 
colleague, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who is the co-chair 
of the Moldovan American Interparliamentary Assembly, who was on the 
trip, for his comments both about Moldova and more broadly about the 
trip in general. So I yield to my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kucinich).
  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Weldon) for yielding. I want to thank the gentleman for his 
outstanding leadership in reaching out to people in Russia and the 
Ukraine, Moldova and throughout Europe. I think that I can speak for 
everyone on the trip in saying that we believe that the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) has brought a level of stature to his 
position as a Member of Congress where one can see the respect with 
which he is held by leaders of all the nations who have met with him 
many times concerning their movement towards democratization. So I can 
say what an honor it was for me to be on the trip and to share in the 
dedication of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), and his 
knowledge and his passion for bringing people together, particularly at 
a parliamentary level.
  Since the gentleman left off mentioning with Moldova, we went to 
Moldova in the hope of encouraging the rule of law, democratic order, 
market economy and as the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) may 
have recounted or has been recounted early, Moldova made a choice a few 
days ago for the Communist Party to be involved in the organization of 
its government and actually direct the organization of its government.
  The notes that I have from the meeting indicate that the leader of 
the party in Moldova stated that they appreciated the contacts with the 
U.S. Congress and they look for those contacts to become stronger and 
that they respect the United States as a world power and they hope that 
our government will work with them and respect the choices that have 
been made by the people and that they hoped that the relations will 
develop between the U.S. Congress and the Moldovan government. This was 
done, of course, prospectively because as it turns out Moldova did vote 
for the Communist Party.

[[Page H489]]

  The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and members of our 
delegation actually laid the groundwork for a dialogue with a 
government which now may have a totally different perspective than we 
do about how things should be done, but at least we are in a position 
where we can be talking.
  Furthermore, the opening that made with Russia, we had, I thought, 
very important discussions with parliamentarians about issues of 
financial aid and the International Monetary Fund, the need for further 
economic reforms, discussions about privatization, discussions about 
the role of NATO, which a number of parliamentarians were concerned 
about, the bombing of Serbia, which, by the way, it was almost 2 years 
ago that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) led a delegation 
to Vienna, which I was privileged to participate in, that created a 
framework for ending the bombing in Serbia. Actually, as we met with 
the members of the Russian parliament there, we created more of a 
structure for increased exchange and confidence building, and I thought 
that was very important.
  In our discussions with Lubov Sliska, who was the first deputy of the 
Duma, she pointed out how important it was to have productive 
discussions with NATO; that she wanted to see trade and economic growth 
emphasized in our relations, agriculture, energy, foreign affairs, 
internal security, defense and disarmament, cooperation on crime 
investigations, culture and health.
  Our meeting with Sergey Kiriyenko, who was at one time the prime 
minister of Russia and is now one of the super governors appointed by 
President Putin, I thought was very productive. He pointed out among 
other things how grave is the threat of chemical weapons. They have 
40,000 tons of chemical weapons they want to dispose of, and how he had 
hoped we could bring a level of cooperation through parliamentary 
contact to help raise the issue of these chemical weapons, increase the 
awareness of the need for U.S. and Russian cooperation, sponsor 
colloquia in the U.S. Congress on this; that we as Members of Congress 
could write letters to our fellows urging them to get involved; sign a 
letter to the President talking about the need to do something 
about these chemical weapons and to generally pursue a course that 
would enable Russia to get some assistance on trying to dispense with 
this.

  One final comment, if I may, I think our visit to Ukraine was 
momentous because we were able to get the Kuchma administration to 
recognize how serious our commitment is to freedom of press, freedom of 
speech and freedom of assembly in this country. We take it quite 
seriously.
  In an unprecedented 2 hour and 15 minute meeting with the President 
of Ukraine, we got him to agree to an F.B.I. independent investigation 
and assistance on the forensics of a case that involves the murder of a 
journalist, H.E. Khandogiy, whose death has unfortunately been linked 
to people in power in Ukraine.
  So what we did on our trip was to affirm support for democratization; 
was to show people all over the world that they can benefit by taking a 
course of market economics that are tempered by respecting the systems 
of power that exist in a country. One of the things that I thought was 
quite telling that was said by Mr. Kiriyenko, and I would like to close 
with this thought, is the importance of paying attention to people and 
developing people. He said that in the future we will compete not just 
with price or quality but with respect to who will be first to 
introduce innovation.
  He spoke of the significance of human capital, people, investing in 
people. He said this is not just a financial issue, it is not a 
technical issue, it is a problem of culture, and it is not incidental 
that we talk of culture. He talked of the importance of us learning 
other cultures, the importance of us understanding the results of 
culture and transitional economies, and I think that message that we 
bring back here is one that shows that we as Members of Congress can 
help to improve exchanges with other parliamentarians around the world, 
can be vessels for freedom and justice and can continue the work of 
this country as being the light of the world.
  I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) for his 
indulgence here, and I thank him for giving me the privilege of 
assisting him and other Members, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) 
and others of the delegation, in this very important mission.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I want to thank my friend and colleague, 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) for his remarks. He played an 
absolutely unbelievable role in this trip. He has kicked off, along 
with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), a new initiative with 
the Moldovan parliament. Nothing could be more important right now 
because of Moldova's strategic location, because of Moldova's issues. 
Part of our visit to Moldova, besides the formal meeting, including a 
trip to Trans-Dniester, which is an independent enclave where the 14th 
Army Division of the Russian military is still located. In fact, there 
are so many units there that we were told it would take days and days 
and over a year, if you had four train loads a day hauling armaments 
out of Moldova it would be over a year and you still would not have 
removed all of the 14th Army Division. So we traveled up there, and we 
met with someone who calls himself President, the leader of this 
breakaway public, Mr. Smirnov, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kucinich) joined us in a dialogue with this breakaway group saying it 
is important that you reunify with Moldova and the West and the U.S. 
wants to help you.
  We also visited a collective farm or a former collective farm on 
perhaps one of our most emotional visits on the trip to see young 
children and adults who have been given the opportunity to take over 
the land that used to be owned by the state and now own it privately; 
to see the pride in their faces as they stood up before us and they 
told their personal stories of having taken back land that their 
grandfathers and grandmothers had had decades ago that now is 
controlled by them; and the products they are producing with no 
pesticides, no fertilizers, organic farming at its best. This is a part 
of the Moldovan experience, and the groundwork we laid will allow our 
Congress to play an integral role with this new communist-controlled 
parliament which won the elections in Moldova this past Monday.
  So I would say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), he was a 
very important addition to the trip and we thank him. It was really 
good because all of them got to see that in America there are two sides 
on missile defense. Every time I would give one position, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) would give the other. We said that is healthy, 
that is America. It was a good dialogue, and I thank the gentleman for 
being with us on the trip.
  Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. The other important part of our trip, Mr. 
Speaker, was Ukraine. Arriving in Ukraine 3 days ahead of us, after 
having left us in Moscow, were our two Members of Congress who know the 
most about Ukraine. In fact, they are both of Ukrainian ancestry. They 
are the new cochairs of the Ukrainian Rada American Congress initiative 
coming together on behalf of our two countries. The gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) has traveled to Ukraine a number of times. She has 
been out on the farms, outside of the big cities, looking for 
strategies to help the Ukrainian people.

  She is our Democrat co-chair. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Schaffer) is our Republican co-chair. The gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur) is just the person to talk to when it comes to that part of the 
world, and if anyone wants to know anything about Ukraine, they cannot 
know anything without talking to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur). So our good friend and colleague on the trip and leader in the 
Congress, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend and most able 
colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), for arranging 
for this special order. I wanted to publicly acknowledge the incredibly 
important role he is playing in helping to build bridges to nations 
that were our former enemies. I think as history is

[[Page H490]]

written, as surely it will be, and we look back at the challenge to 
building the peace as opposed to only fighting either hot or cold wars, 
the role of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) will be 
absolutely essential and recognized, and I hope the American people as 
they listen to this special order today will understand that it is in 
America's interest to build functioning democracies in that part of the 
world; that we cannot afford to ignore the millions and millions of 
people that live there and still need to learn about the institutions 
of freedom, certainly in the management of their own instruments of 
governance. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) has been the 
leader in establishing the Congressional Duma exchange in Russia.
  For the last 8 years, sometimes I am sure it was a lonely task trying 
to make friendships with people who had just recently been some of our 
most harsh critics and bitter enemies, and yet the gentleman has 
pursued this year after year after year. To me, that is the test of 
true leadership, and I wanted to say that.
  I hope the gentleman's constituents are listening to this. I hope the 
American people are listening because truly we have to figure out how 
to build a peace that will last, and it can only come through 
communication with the leaders of those countries and with the people 
institution of those countries.
  In the brief time I have to say something tonight, I also wanted to 
acknowledge, in terms of Ukraine, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Schaffer), who is our partner in this effort, Republican and Democrat 
working together on behalf of the interests of freedom, in signing the 
agreement that we would like to submit to the Record this evening for 
the new Congressional Rada exchange for Ukraine.
  It is modeled on the impressive work that the gentleman has done, 
along with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), in Russia for these 
past several years. We have a lot of work to do in Ukraine and we 
arrived at a most delicate moment, and I will say a word about that in 
a second. But I wanted to say to my colleagues here this evening, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), what a great thrill it was for 
me to be able to travel with him, with his wife; the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel); the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), who 
was with us a little earlier this evening; and the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer); and certainly the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Pitts), who has a major responsibility on the Moldovan 
Parliamentary Exchange.
  To be there particularly at this time and to experience the 
ambassadors' wisdom really, the ambassador of the United States to 
Russia, Mr. James Collins, the ambassador from the United States to 
Ukraine, Ambassador Carlos Pascual. Honestly, they are among the most 
able citizens that we could send into that most complex part of the 
world.

                              {time}  1545

  As an American, I was just very proud to be there and to be able to 
listen to them and to learn from them, and to have their help in 
meeting the people that we needed to in those countries.
  At the urging of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), 
several of us attempted to put the beginnings of an agreement on 
housing, helping Russia to begin, begin the first mortgage system. It 
will not be easy. It is a vast country with 13 time zones, no sense of 
free enterprise, no institutions in place, either financial or in terms 
of the substantive work that needs to be done to create a mortgage 
system based on collateral, including land. There is no system of 
collateralizing land to borrow against.
  But America must help in this endeavor. We cannot be like ostriches 
with our heads in the ground. We have to use the instruments of 
freedom, all the institutions we have available to us, to try at this 
moment in history to make a difference.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for leading us down 
that path, recognizing that community development is an equal partner, 
along with a strong defense, in order to help nations remain at peace.
  In terms of Ukraine, I just wanted to say that we arrived at a time 
when the President of the country obviously is under extreme duress. 
There are charges and countercharges, and the institutions of that 
country are not strong enough to conduct a full and thorough 
investigation of the actual criminal acts that were involved in the 
beheading of a very well known journalist in that country who had been 
a critic of many aspects of the current government.
  I wish to submit to the Record also this evening the press statement 
that all of us created in Ukraine and released to the international 
press encouraging that there be a full investigation, and in fact, even 
engaging other partners from the West, from Europe, from the United 
States, in trying to get at the true facts in this case.
  The press statement referred to is as follows:

   U.S. Delegation Conducts Whirlwind Fact-Finding Visit of Russia, 
                          Moldova and Ukraine


  delegation urges peaceful, democratic resolution to current crisis; 
     delegation establishes historic u.s. congress-verkhovena rada 
                         parliamentary exchange

       A Congressional delegation of seven members of the U.S. 
     Congress led by the Honorable Curt Weldon (R-PA) is 
     completing a three-nation visit including Russia, Moldova, 
     and Ukraine. The purpose of this visit was to continue the 
     relationships established seven years ago between the United 
     States House of Representatives and the Russian Duma, and to 
     establish similar relationships with the parliaments of 
     Moldova and Ukraine. The other members of the delegation 
     include: Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Representative 
     Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Representative Bob Schaffer, (R-CO), 
     Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Representative Joe 
     Hoeffel, (D-PA), and Representative Ander Crenshaw, (R-FL).
       The Congressional delegation participated in over 40 
     scheduled meetings in the three countries that included 
     meeting with the Presidents of Moldova and Ukraine, as well 
     as the leadership of the parliaments, senior civilian cabinet 
     level officials and military leaders in all three countries. 
     In Russia and Ukraine, the delegation met with prominent 
     media figures concerned with press freedoms in their 
     respective countries.
       While meeting with President Leonid Kuchma and other 
     officials in Kyiv, the delegation expressed its serious 
     concerns with the Heorhiy Gongadze incident, and believes the 
     subsequent investigation must be pursued irrespective of 
     where it may lead. That pursuit must be compatible with the 
     following principals: The freedom of speech, press, and 
     assembly; the rule of law; and nonviolence.
       The delegation believes that any settlement of the Gongadze 
     crisis not taking the above points into account would 
     adversely affect future Ukrainian/American relations.
       The delegation also: Extends its sincere sympathy to the 
     families and associates of Mr. Gongadze; reiterates the offer 
     of technical support from the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation; expresses its strong belief and insistence 
     that a credible and independent investigation is essential in 
     order to earn the confidence of Ukraine and the rest of the 
     world community; affirms the principle that those accused 
     must be considered innocent until proven guilty; and intends 
     to introduce a resolution in the House of Representatives to 
     express the sense of Congress that this incident should be 
     resolved peacefully.
       During the over two hour meeting with President Kuchma, the 
     delegation was gratified to receive the commitment of the 
     President to follow the rule of law, maintain the freedom of 
     the press and assembly, and to use restraint in the use of 
     force.

               U.S. Congress-Rada Parliamentary Exchange

       We, the undersigned members of the United States House of 
     Representatives and members of the Parliament of Ukraine, do 
     hereby establish the U.S. Congress-Rada Parliamentary 
     Exchange (further referred to as CRPE), for the purpose of 
     facilitating expanded strategic relations between the United 
     States and Ukraine.
       The purpose of CRPE is to foster closer relations between 
     our two legislatures to address key bilateral issues. It is 
     the goal of the CRPE Parliament to examine issues of mutual 
     understanding and continue a constructive dialogue toward 
     permanent peace and prosperity.
       Having reviewed the work of the initial congressional 
     delegation to Ukraine in November 1999, which participated in 
     discussions of mutual interest in trade, economic well-being, 
     energy reformation, agriculture, and military relations, CRPE 
     will promote closer relationships between the lawmakers of 
     both countries.
       Building upon the strategic partnership between the Untied 
     States and Ukraine first established in 1996, the CRPE shall 
     serve as a conduit in further developing and continuing 
     economic and political cooperation between the two countries.
       Now, be it resolved by affirmation of the undersigned 
     Members of the House of Representatives, with the support of 
     the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, and the Parliamentarians 
     of the Ukrainian Verkhovna

[[Page H491]]

     Rada there is hereby established, the U.S. Congress-Rada 
     Parliamentary Exchange. Be it further resolved, the Exchange 
     shall:
       (1) Constitute a working group to help resolve any issues 
     hampering an expansion of economic and political cooperation 
     between the United States and Ukraine; and,
       (2) Establish items of discussion by the CRPE which 
     encompass economic relations, trade, space exploration, 
     health-care, the environment, agriculture, natural sources, 
     and any other matter important to the promotion of close ties 
     between the United States and Ukraine; and,
       (3) Convene bi-annually in the United States and Ukraine to 
     formally exchange viewpoints brought about by current events. 
     The CRPE will from time to time issue recommendations to be 
     pursued in each legislature.
       The founders of the CRPE hereby acknowledge the leaders of 
     the Congress of the United States, in coordination with the 
     Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, and the Parliament of 
     Ukraine, for their dedication to establishing the Exchange.
       Signed at Washington, D.C. November 18, 1999 by: Hon. 
     Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 
     Signed at Kyiv, on November 30, 1999 by: Hon. Oleksander 
     Tkachenko, Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament.

  Ms. KAPTUR. Also to that country, we would urge Ukraine to follow the 
principles of freedom of speech, press, assembly, the rule of law, and 
nonviolence. We want to walk alongside them. As they get through this 
particular crisis, we know their country will be stronger, just as ours 
will be stronger as a result of the crises that we have been through.
  We expressed our deep regrets to the families who are so troubled by 
the disappearance of Mr. Gongadze, and we also reiterated and believe 
that in the meeting with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
and President Kuchma, we got the first commitment of an agreement from 
the Ukrainian government to use resources in the West to help get at 
the bottom of what actually created the crime.
  We urge the government of Ukraine to use us. We believe that the 
confidence of the people of Ukraine and the West depends on a fair and 
thorough investigation of the facts. We are going to be introducing a 
resolution here in the House to express the sense that this Congress 
wants this incident resolved peacefully.
  So I wanted to say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) 
for the Record this evening, I just again want to thank the gentleman 
so very much for the gentleman's international leadership in bringing 
this all together and doing what is historically correct and imperative 
for peace in this new millennium.
  Mr. Speaker, I also include for the Record an article that relates to 
Russia and some of the difficulties that church-related organizations 
are having in accessing properties.
  The article referred to is as follows:

                        Ice Curtain in the East

                          (By Geraldine Fagan)

       On 7 January, Russia's Orthodox Church celebrated the two-
     thousandth anniversary of the birth of Christ. Thousands 
     attended the Christmas liturgy in Moscow's Cathedral of 
     Christ the Saviour, triumphantly, and, many have averred, 
     tastelessly, restored to the city's skyline more than 60 
     years after Stalin ordered its obliteration from it. Live 
     coverage of the event was marred, however, when Patriarch 
     Alexis II arrived more than an hour late, delayed by his 
     participation in the day's informal meetings between 
     President Putin and the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder. 
     As the television cameras panned in on the massed faithful 
     awaiting their Patriarch, they picked out the emerald robes 
     of seemingly the most senior cleric in attendance--Mufti 
     Talgat Tadzhuddin, head of Russia's Central Spiritual 
     Directorate of Muslims. For the third year running, the chief 
     representative of Russia's Roman Catholics, Tadeusz 
     Kondrusiewicz, had not been invited.
       Catholic-Orthodox relations in Russia remain poor. The 
     Moscow Patriarchate's frequent complaints that the Catholic 
     Church is engaging in rampant proselytism translate into a 
     state policy of containment. In Moscow, there are 27 Masses 
     in more than 10 languages every Sunday--almost all of which 
     take place under two roofs. Attempts to reclaim the third 
     historically Catholic building of the church of SS Peter and 
     Paul in order to relieve the strain have been fruitless. When 
     Cardinal Angelo Sodano acting as papal legate made a request 
     to Mayor Luzhkov's office for three plots of land to build 
     chapels in lieu of the return of the church of SS Peter and 
     Paul, he reportedly received a strong and swift rejection.
       According to one Catholic source in Moscow, the Catholic 
     Church has agreed not to create any new institutions or 
     structures in the city, so that the number of legally 
     registered parishes totals five. The remainder--including 
     those which group Filipinos, Latin Americans, Koreans and 
     Iraqis--are either termed ``pastoral points'' in an official 
     directory of the Catholic Church in Russia for the year 2000, 
     or else are not listed at all. In addition, the two apostolic 
     administrations (``diocese'' would be too provocative a term) 
     of southern European Russia and eastern Siberia have been 
     denied registration because they are headed by foreigners. 
     Bishop Jerzy Mazur, a Pole, and Bishop Clemens Pickel, a 
     German, have been told that they will be granted Russian 
     citizenship only if they marry a Russian, and currently have 
     to pass any noninternal documentation--such as invitations 
     for visiting foreign clergy--to their counterparts with legal 
     status in Moscow or Novosibirsk. By contrast, the American-
     born Berl Lazar, the Kremlin's preferred choice as chief 
     rabbi over Adolf Shayevich, who is backed by the 
     industrialist and oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky, faced no 
     obstruction in obtaining Russian citizenship.
       The chancellor of the Moscow-based European Apostolic 
     Administration, the Catholic priest Fr Igor Kovalevsky, 
     insists that the Catholic Church in Russia ``is just trying 
     to function normally and provide for its minority here. We 
     are not posing any competition at all.'' With 60 per cent of 
     the Russian population claiming to be Orthodox, and the 
     Catholic Church bending over backwards to keep to its own 
     while simultaneously supporting the Orthodox through 
     foundations such as Aid to the Church in Need, it is intended 
     difficult to see why the Catholic minority of approximately 
     500,000 is subject to so much hostility.
       Orthodox fears of competition appear more realistic, 
     however, when one takes into account the fact that so few 
     Russians are truly touched by Orthodoxy. Where they have a 
     presence, Catholics might constitute 1 per cent of the 
     population, with practising Orthodox making up another 3 per 
     cent. In addition, the concentration of Orthodox parishes is 
     such that 8,450, or almost half, are situated not in Russia, 
     but in the west in Ukraine. The vast area of Siberia east of 
     the Yenisei River, by contrast, contains approximately 500 
     parishes. The Orthodox Church's current total of 19,000 
     parishes is still only a fraction of the 78,000 it had before 
     the Revolution, and the euphoria of the early 1990s when many 
     new believers were received is a thing of the past.
       Does this mean that the much-vaunted revival of Orthodoxy 
     in Russia is a fiction? Many Western commentators have looked 
     for it in vain, expecting a healthy revival to exhibit 
     certain characteristics, such as social work, a desire for 
     ecumenical dialogue or a move towards modernising liturgical 
     language. By contrast, they have seen a rise in nationalism 
     within the Church coupled with virulent anti-Catholicism.
       If one can speak of a revival, it does not exhibit those 
     characteristics sought for by Western Christians. There is a 
     core of sincere, sober-minded practising Orthodox in Russia 
     devoted to their Church, but they tend to concentrate upon 
     the vertical aspects of church life. Asked whether there had 
     been an Orthodox revival in Russia, one young parishioner 
     told me that it was difficult to know hat such a revival 
     would be like from the point of view of the New Testament, 
     since ``God's kingdom is not of this world''. In the light of 
     such sentiments, it is perhaps easier to understand why one 
     of the strongest elements of revival is not in the social 
     sphere, but monasticism. Compared with their Christian 
     counterparts in western Europe, however, practising Orthodox 
     are stronger within sections of society such as academia and 
     youth, where they tend to enjoy the respect of their non-
     believing peers rather than experiencing their scepticism.
       Nationalist feeling among these practising Orthodox, 
     however, remains passive. Nationalists prefer to parade on 
     the streets with banners rather than attend church, and, as 
     before the Revolution, only a tiny minority of Orthodox 
     monarchists belong to the virulently nationalist Black 
     Hundreds movement. There are in any case two forms of 
     nationalism in Russia--Stalinist and pre-revolutionary. Most 
     nationalists belong in the first category and are indifferent 
     to religion. This does not stop them from being opposed to 
     the institution of the Catholic Church, however, since there 
     is a general perception that it belongs to an organised anti-
     Russian force, and all Russians were taught in school that 
     Catholics were crusaders from the Baltics repelled by the 
     national hero Alexander Nevsky.
       Although punching above their weight, practising Orthodox 
     in favour of ecumenical dialogue are indeed very few. In the 
     Soviet era, the pro-ecumenical element within the Church 
     gained an artificial influence because of its usefulness to 
     the foreign policy aims of the regime, and precisely for that 
     reason is now frequently viewed with derision by post-revival 
     practising believers. For most Orthodox, ecumenical dialogue 
     with Catholics (and others) is impossible for a simple 
     reason--they are heretics. To Russian Orthodox, however, this 
     does not necessarily conjure up emotive images of burnings at 
     the stake: one parishioner matter-of-factly explained to me 
     that the word ``heresy'' merely derives from the Greek for 
     ``opinion''; that is, anything deviating from Orthodox 
     tradition is the product of the mistaken human notion that 
     this tradition could be improved upon.
       In one Moscow parish I recently heard a sermon in which the 
     priest likened Orthodoxy to the calculation 22=4. At some 
     stage, he said, Catholics (and others) decided that in fact 
     it would be more accurate to say 22=4.000025. ``You can build 
     a chair with

[[Page H492]]

     those people using their calculations and it will turn out 
     all right'', he explained to the congregation, ``but if you 
     both build spaceships and set your course on a far-off 
     planet, their spaceship will end up somewhere else''. The 
     Catholic concept promoted by Pope John Paul II of a Europe 
     breathing with two lungs, East and West, is not theologically 
     possible for Orthodox in Russia. No amount of sensitive 
     diplomacy and donations of floating churches from Catholics 
     will change that.
       There are signs, however, that the Vatican might be 
     becoming wise to all this. The passivity towards Orthodox 
     criticism throughout the past decade in Russia, culminating 
     in intense diplomatic efforts to bring the Pope here in the 
     symbolic year of 2000, has brought few returns. In the light 
     of this, it is of some significance that the recently-
     returned and restored Church of the Immaculate Conception in 
     Moscow is now openly referred to as a cathedral. Of much 
     greater import is the planned papal visit to predominantly 
     Orthodox Ukraine, set up without the agreement of the leader 
     of the only officially-recognised Orthodox Church in that 
     country--the one that gives allegiance to the Moscow 
     Patriarchate. It looks as if Catholic-Russian Orthodox 
     relations might be about to become stormier, if also more 
     open.

  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Ohio. We all have a very valued possession in this Congress with the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who is an outstanding leader, 
commands respect wherever she goes, and always presents a nonpartisan 
view in terms of improving relations.
  The gentlewoman's leadership as a senior member of the Committee on 
Appropriations, a specialist on agriculture issues, on economic 
development and empowerment issues, is known throughout the world, 
especially in Ukraine and now in Russia. We appreciate that.
  I look forward to working with the gentlewoman and our good friend, 
the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), in helping Ukraine become a 
key ally of the U.S. over the next several years.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Crenshaw), 
our freshman member of the delegation, an outstanding Member. He was 
involved, engaged, and he played a very vital role. We look to him to 
provide that freshman leadership in showing other colleagues of ours 
that are new to Congress that they can play a very constructive role in 
helping to make the world a safer place.
  Mr. CRENSHAW. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
for the privilege to travel with him. As a freshman, as the gentleman 
points out, it was remarkable to me to know and understand first-hand 
some of the problems in that region, and as a new member of the 
Committee on Armed Services, I think it is going to be even more 
valuable.
  I would just like to make a couple of observations that really hit 
home to me, particularly in Russia. It was a grueling trip, with 40 
meetings in six cities and 23 meetings in Moscow, but I came away with 
such a unique understanding of that region of the world. I think there 
is no better way, if we are going to develop a lasting peace, than for 
people to talk to people and get to know and understand each other.
  But as I observed from just a political standpoint, it was so 
encouraging to me to see that Russia is moving in the right direction. 
They have opened their society. There is freedom of religion, freedom 
of assembly, freedom of the press. They are establishing a rule of law.
  But I think it was particularly important for us to be there at that 
time, because as crises occur, there is always that chance that we can 
move forward and become more open, or move backwards and become 
oppressive and regressive.
  I was encouraged to see things moving in the right direction from a 
political standpoint. The rule of law seems to be taking place. 
Property rights are being established. We were instrumental in trying 
to encourage the use of mortgages as people borrow money to try to own 
their own property.
  From an economic standpoint, I was particularly pleased to see that 
last year their economy grew about 7 percent, investment was up 15 to 
17 percent, so that is all encouraging. I think that has a lot to do 
with the political stability that is coming into play.
  But as the gentleman and I know, how important that economic engine 
becomes. I was astounded to learn that while the economy is growing, it 
is relatively small by world standards, in the neighborhood of $30 
billion, when that is half of what the State of Florida is. So they 
have a long way to go, but they are moving in the right direction.
  Finally, as we visited, it was encouraging to me to see from a 
security standpoint that they are taking steps in the right direction: 
reducing their military, dealing with us in ways to solve their 
biological and chemical weapons problem. I guess the jury is still out 
on that.
  But the message we took is when we talk about national missile 
defense, we want to work together; they are no longer our enemy, that 
the Cold War is over. Yet, it is still not a safe place to live. There 
are rogue nations, there is nuclear proliferation. I hope they will 
continue the dialogue with us that we began so we can work together for 
a long and lasting peace.
  Again, I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), I want 
to thank him as a freshman here for that incredible opportunity to 
begin to understand and now to work as a member of the Committee on 
Armed Services to try to make this a safer place for everyone.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague. The 
people of Florida have sent us a great one. He is going to be a star in 
this body. We can already see it in the way he handled himself and the 
way he conducted himself in meeting with these foreign leaders. I thank 
the gentleman for his great leadership, and for what I know is going to 
be a very effective role in this Congress during his long tenure here.
  Mr. Speaker, there it is, a summary of our trip. We are proud of what 
we did. We have no apologies to make: 41 meetings in five days in three 
different States, a number of cities, visits with the people on 
collective farms, in hospitals, going out and having dinner with 
ordinary people and future and emerging leaders, all of it designed to 
build better relations between America and the emerging former Soviet 
states.

  I want to close, Mr. Speaker, with a brief outline of a meeting that 
I had with General Kavshnin. General Kavshnin is the equivalent to our 
General Shelton. The meeting was supposed to last for 30 minutes. He 
had all of his generals lined up there together across the table. We 
sat there for over 2 hours, a very animated discussion about where 
Russia is, the strength of the Russian military, the recent military 
exercise they were involved in, and what his vision of an American-
Russian relationship will be in the future.
  I will be candid, it was not the most warm discussion of our trip, 
but it was a candid discussion of Russia's concerns. We reassured him 
that America is not trying to drive Russia into the corner. To the 
contrary, we do not want Russia aligned more closely with China against 
us. We challenged General Kavshnin, based on discussions I had before 
going on the trip with Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, who I have 
the highest respect for, and the general in charge of our missile 
defense organization, General Kadish, who I have equal praise for.
  Their challenge from me to the Russians was: We are waiting for your 
response, Russia, to work together. That was the message we carried 
throughout our trip: We are waiting for you, Russia, to come back and 
tell us how we can work together on defending our people, the European 
people, and the Russian people from the threat of rogue states, states 
that do not abide by the norms.
  In that meeting with General Kavshnin, we opened the door for further 
dialogue.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, we were disappointed with one aspect of the 
trip: We did not get to meet President Putin. We had had a commitment 
before we left that we would meet with him. We were told when we 
arrived that, because of the bombing of Iraq, he would not meet with 
us. It was disappointing, because I had been on Air Force One the 
previous Tuesday, I had told President Bush of our trip to Russia, and 
he said to me, Congressman, make sure you tell President Putin and the 
Russians that we want to be their friends. We have no quarrel with the 
Russians. We want to work together.
  That was the message, Mr. Speaker, that I wanted to deliver to Mr. 
Putin

[[Page H493]]

personally with our delegation. We were not able to do that. Otherwise, 
the trip was a resounding success. I thank my colleagues for 
participating.

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