[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 13, 2007)]
[House]
[Page H6394]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was the unveiling of the 
dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial here in Washington D.C. 
It is a replica statue of Lady Liberty, the Lady Liberty that inspired 
the Chinese students and their fellow people in Tiananmen Square.
  It was this period of time in which there was great hope within the 
Chinese people that their desire to breathe free would finally be 
realized. Yet that hope, that inalienable right, which we all as human 
beings share, was crushed beneath the tyrant yoke of the Chinese 
communist party.
  Yesterday, at the dedication of that memorial, to not only those 
students and those Chinese people, yesterday at that dedication, which 
commemorated all the tens of millions who have died beneath the inhuman 
atheistic ideology of communism, the President of the United States 
made his remarks.
  I wish to say that I have an enormous amount of respect for the 
President. He has been a steadfast leader, and I believe he is a good 
man, but I am saddened by the fact that he missed the opportunity, not 
to simply and nobly and necessarily commemorate the victims of 
communism and the triumph of liberty in parts of the world over that 
invidious ideology, but he missed the opportunity to issue a clarion 
call for the American people and all free peoples in our world to 
summon the courage to call for the end of communist regimes that still 
exist in our midst, Communist regimes from North Korea, to Cuba and, 
obviously, to Communist China.
  For it is easy for people to believe that we had reached the end of 
history, to view communism as an ideology that is no longer a threat to 
our freedoms, our way of life and to the way of life to all people, yet 
it is.
  When the Cold War ended, we had won the European theater of the 
battle between freedom and communism, and, yet, hundreds of millions 
across the globe remained enslaved. It is too little to say to them, 
good luck finding your freedom. If, we as a free people, are a beacon 
of hope to all humanity, we must also accept the responsibility that we 
bear to do everything within our power to ensure that our fellow people 
have the opportunity to enjoy their freedom, for they are equally God's 
children, as are we.
  So I would suggest to the President of the United States that he 
recall that the struggle, what John F. Kennedy called the bitter 
twilight struggle between freedom and communism is not over. It is not 
time for a victory lap. It is time for a rededication of ourselves as a 
free people of a Nation conceived in liberty to continue our historic 
and our moral mission to emancipate all humanity from this insidious 
ideology.
  For we are a revolutionary country by birth, and we must remain a 
revolutionary country in present. If we fail that mission we lose part 
of ourselves, not only our legacy but the legacy we must leave to our 
children and to all humanity.
  In conclusion, I would urge the President of the United States to 
realize that the victory over communism is not complete and that we as 
Americans must continue to be champions of human freedom in our world.

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