[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 138 (Tuesday, September 18, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1906-E1907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SONIA GANDHI SHOULD NOT SPEAK ON NONVIOLENCE
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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
of new york
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Mr. TOWNS. Madam Speaker, I was distressed to learn that the United
Nations invited Sonia Gandhi to speak on nonviolence next month. She is
the leader of the Congress Party, which has presided over massive
atrocities against Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, and other minorities.
Mrs. Gandhi is Catholic. How can she speak on nonviolence when her
party presides over a country in which nuns have been raped and forced
to drink their own urine, priests have been murdered, Christian schools
have been burned to the ground, and prayer halls have been vandalized?
It was Mrs. Gandhi's party that carried out the Golden Temple
massacre that killed so many thousands of innocent Sikhs, including
young boys ages 8 to 13. Her party presided
[[Page E1907]]
over the Delhi massacres in which over 20,000 Sikhs were murdered while
the Sikh police were locked in their barracks.
It was Beant Singh, a Congress Party Chief Minister, who presided
over the murders of over 50,000 Sikhs while he was in office. No one
from that party has the moral authority to speak on nonviolence,
especially when there are so many better spokespersons, such as the
Dalai Lama, who will be in America to receive an award right after Mrs.
Gandhi's speech.
Madam Speaker, the Council of Khalistan wrote an excellent letter to
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, which follows.
Council of Khalistan,
September 12, 2007.
Hon. Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammerskjold
Plaza, New York, NY.
Dear Secretary General Ban: It has come to my attention
that you are having Sonia Gandhi speak to the United Nations
on nonviolence on October 2. Mrs. Gandhi has no moral
standing to be discussing this subject. I urge you to find
someone else. Perhaps the Dalai Lama, who will be in the
United States the following weekend to receive an award,
would be a good choice. There are other people more qualified
than Mrs. Gandhi, as well.
How could you pick the head of India's Congress Party for
this talk? India is one of the most violent countries in the
world. According to the Punjab State Magistracy, over 250,000
Sikhs have been murdered at the hands of the Indian
government. Between 1993 and 1995, according to the United
States Department of State, the Indian government paid out
over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing
Sikhs. A report by the Movement Against State Repression
(MASR) reveals that over 52,000 Sikhs are being held as
political prisoners without charge or trial. Some have been
in illegal custody since 1984!
Amnesty International reports that tens of thousands of
other minorities are being held as political prisoners as
well. In addition, the regime has kil1ed 300,000 Christians
in Nagaland, more than 90,000 Kashmiri Muslims and tens of
thousands of Muslims and Christians in the rest of the
country, and tens of thousands of Assamese, Bodos, Dalits
(the dark-skinned aboriginal people of South Asia, referred
to as ``Untouchables''), Manipuris, Tamils, and others.
The Gandhi family were perhaps the most cruel of Indian
rulers; it was Mrs. Gandhi's mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi,
who suspended democracy and imposed martial law
(dictatorship) on the country. It was the Congress Party
under Indira Gandhi, then under Mrs. Gandhi's husband, Rajiv
Gandhi, who succeeded Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister, that
the government carried out the brutal attack on the Golden
Temple in Amritsar, the center and seat of the Sikh religion,
in June 1984, as well as 224 other Gurdwaras (Sikh places of
worship) throughout Punjab. Sikh leaders Sant Jarnail Singh
Bhindranwale, General Shabeg Singh, and others, as well as
over 20,000 Sikhs were killed in these attacks. The Sikh holy
scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, written in the time of the
Sikh Gurus, was shot full of bullet holes by the Indian Army.
Over 100 young Sikh boys ages 8 to 13 were taken out into the
courtyard and asked if they supported Khalistan, the
independent Sikh state. When they answered with the Sikh
religious incantation ``Bole So Nihal'' they were summarily
shot to death.
After Indira Gandhi was killed, Rajiv Gandhi said, ``When a
tree falls, the Earth shakes.'' Then he locked the Sikh
Police in their barracks while the government murdered
another 20,000 Sikhs in Delhi and the surrounding areas in
the massacres of November 1984. Sikhs were burned alive, Sikh
businesses were burned, Sikhs were chained to trucks. The
driver for Baba Charam Singh, a Sikh religious leader, was
killed by tying his legs to jeeps which then drove off in
different directions.
Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra looked at the records of the
cremation grounds at Patti, Tarn Taran, and Durgiana Mandar
and documented at least 6,018 secret cremations of young Sikh
men ages 20-30. These young Sikhs were arrested by the
police, tortured, murdered, then declared unidentified and
secretly cremated. Their bodies were not even returned to
their families. They have never officially been accounted
for. The Punjab Human Right Commission estimates that about
50,000 such secret cremations have occurred.
For exposing this horrendous atrocity, Sardar Khalra was
abducted by the police on September 6, 1995 whi1e he was
washing his car, then murdered in police custody. The only
witness to his kidnapping, Rajiv Singh Randhawa, has been
repeatedly harassed by the police. Once he was arrested for
trying to hand a petition to the then-British Home Minister,
Jack Straw. in front of the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
Police SSP Swaran Singh Ghotna tortured and murdered Akal
Takhl Jathedar Gurdev Singh Kaunke and has never been
punished for doing so. K.P.S. Gill, who was responsible for
the murders of over 150,000 Sikhs in his time as Director
General of Police, is still walking around scot-free. He was
even involved in leading the Indian Olympic field hockey
team. His trip to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 was protested
by the Sikh community in the United States, which is over
half a million strong, but he was allowed to come to the
Olympics on an Olympic Committee visa. Immediately after the
Olympic hockey game, he was shipped back to Punjab as a
threat to peace and an affront to the Sikh community. 50
members of the U.S. Congress from both parties wrote to the
President protesting his appearance in the United States.
Unfortunately, other minorities have also suffered greatly
under the boot of Indian repression. In March 2002, 5,000
Muslims were killed in Gujarat while police were ordered to
stand by and let the carnage happen, in an eerie parallel to
the Delhi massacre of Sikhs in November 1984 in which Sikh
police officers were locked in their barracks while the
state-run television and radio called for more Sikh blood.
Christians have suffered under a wave of repression since
Christmas 1998. An Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and
his two young sons, ages 8 and 10, were burned to death while
they slept in their jeep by a mob of Hindu militants
connected with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), an
organization formed in support of the Fascists. The mob
surrounded the burning jeep and chanted ``Victory to
Hannuman,'' a Hindu god. None of the mob has ever been
brought to justice; instead the crime has been blamed on one
scapegoat. Mr. Staines's widow was thrown out of the country
after the incident. An American missionary, Joseph Cooper of
Pennsylvania, was expelled from India after being beaten so
severely that he had to spend a week in the hospital. None of
the persons responsible for beating Mr. Cooper has been
prosecuted. Churches have been burned. Christian schools and
prayer halls have been attacked and vandalized, priests have
been murdered, nuns have been raped, all with impunity.
Police broke up a Christian religious festival with gunfire.
Amnesty International has not been allowed into Punjab
since 1978. Even Castro's Cuba has allowed Amnesty into the
country more recently. What is India hiding?
My organization, the Council of Khalistan, is leading the
Sikh struggle for freedom and sovereignty. Working with the
Congress of the United States, we have internationalized the
struggle for freedom for Sikhs and all the people of South
Asia since the Council of Khalistan's inception on October 7,
1987, the day that the Sikh Nation declared its independence
from India. We have worked to preserve the accurate history
of the Sikhs and the repression of minorities by India by
preserving the information in the Congressional Record. We
continue to work for freedom for the Sikh Nation. Self-
determination is the essence of democracy.
We cannot accept the leader of the Congress Party, the
party that carried out the bulk of these atrocities, speaking
to an organization like the United Nations on a subject like
non-violence, especially when there are much better
spokespersons available. I cannot urge you strongly enough to
cancel this appearance.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this situation
and helping the people of South Asia.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gurmit, Singh Aulakh,
President, Council of Khalistan.
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