[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 154 (Tuesday, November 30, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H7721-H7723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
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CONDEMNING NORTH KOREA FOR ATTACK AGAINST SOUTH KOREA
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
resolution (H. Res. 1735) condemning North Korea in the strongest terms
for its unprovoked military attack against South Korea on November 23,
2010.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of the resolution is as follows:
H. Res. 1735
Whereas Yeonpyeong Island is a South Korean island in the
Yellow Sea, inhabited by over 1,000 South Korean civilians
and military personnel;
Whereas, on November 23, 2010, at approximately 2:34 p.m.
local time, the North Korean military began firing artillery
shells at Yeonpyeong Island;
Whereas North Korea fired over 100 artillery shells,
causing considerable harm and damage;
Whereas the artillery barrage killed 2 South Korean
marines, 2 civilians, and wounded at least 19 others;
Whereas the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group is
conducting exercises with Republic of Korea naval forces in
the waters west of the Korean Peninsula;
Whereas North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island follows
the hostile torpedo attack against the South Korean naval
vessel Cheonan on March 26, 2010, that killed 46 sailors;
Whereas the North Korean artillery barrage was one of the
most serious attacks on civilians since the Korean War, and
press reports indicate the highest levels of North Korea's
government ordered the attack;
Whereas the recent disclosure of a newly operational North
Korean uranium enrichment plant is a violation of United
Nations Security Council Resolutions 1695 (2006), 1718
(2006), and 1874 (2009); and
Whereas the United States is firmly committed to the
defense of South Korea and to the maintenance of regional
peace and stability: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) condemns North Korea in the strongest terms for its
unprovoked military attack against South Korea in violation
of the Korean War Armistice Agreement and for causing
civilian casualties;
(2) calls for North Korea to renounce further acts of
aggression and abide by the terms of the Korean War Armistice
Agreement and its international obligations;
(3) expresses its deep condolences and sympathy to the
South Korean victims and their families;
(4) stands in solidarity with the people and Government of
the Republic of Korea at this time of national crisis;
(5) reaffirms its strong commitment to the alliance between
the United States and the Republic of Korea, the security of
South Korea, and stability on the Korean Peninsula;
(6) supports further close, security cooperation between
the United States and the Republic of Korea;
(7) encourages continued dialogue and cooperation between
the United States and United States allies and other
countries in the region in the interests of enhancing peace
and security in the Asia-Pacific region;
(8) calls on China to restrain North Korea, its treaty
ally, from further acts of belligerence and to work
constructively with the international community to promote
regional stability;
(9) calls upon North Korea to immediately cease any and all
uranium enrichment activities and take concrete steps to
dismantle, under international verification and assistance,
all sensitive nuclear facilities, in accordance with United
Nations Security Council Resolutions 1695 (2006), 1718
(2006), and 1874 (2009); and
(10) urges responsible nations to abide by United Nations
Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718, and 1874, and to
fully implement the sanctions and other obligations contained
therein.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
California (Mr. Berman) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include
extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution,
and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
A little over a week ago on November 23, North Korea launched a
brazen daytime artillery barrage on a South Korean island inhabited by
civilians. North Korea fired over 100 rounds at Yeonpyeong Island,
killing two South Korean civilians and two young Marines. The shelling
also caused considerable damage to the island.
This provocative military act by North Korea was one of the most
serious attacks involving civilians since the end of the Korean War and
is in violation of the Armistice Agreement.
This bipartisan resolution strongly condemns North Korea's unprovoked
attack, calls on the North to renounce further acts of aggression and
abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement.
I would also like to express my deepest sympathies and condolences to
the South Korean victims and their families.
This resolution expresses the House of Representatives' firm
solidarity with the people and the government of South Korea. We stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with them at this time of national crisis.
This resolution also expresses support for the continued close
security cooperation between the United States and South Korea and for
the alliance between our two nations. Indeed, a U.S. aircraft carrier
strike group is currently conducting exercises with the
[[Page H7722]]
South Korean Navy in waters west of the Korean Peninsula. This exercise
demonstrates the strength of the alliance and of U.S. commitment to
regional stability through deterrence.
The United States is committed to the security of South Korea,
maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula, and ensuring peace in
Northeast Asia. We are ready to encourage cooperation and dialogue with
our allies and other countries in the region to promote peace and
security in the Asia-Pacific.
Last week's artillery attack was just the latest in a long line of
provocations by North Korea. The recent revelations about a new North
Korean uranium enrichment facility are very troubling, as it will
enable North Korea to again expand its nuclear arsenal.
The construction of this enrichment facility is a clear violation of
Security Council resolutions that were passed in 2006 and 2009. We call
on North Korea to cease its uranium enrichment activities, take
concrete steps to dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, and fully
and transparently abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions.
Finally, this resolution urges China to restrain North Korea from
further acts of belligerence and to work constructively with the rest
of the world to promote lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula and
stability in Northeast Asia.
A longtime treaty ally of the North, China can clearly exercise
significant leverage on that nation. No one wants to see another war on
the Korean Peninsula, but North Korea must understand that its actions
have consequences, that it cannot violate the Armistice, kill innocent
civilians and break its international obligations.
I urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
I rise in strong, vigorous support of this resolution condemning the
continued belligerent behavior of North Korea. Pyongyang's brinkmanship
threatens the peace and security of not only the Korean Peninsula but
the whole region.
The artillery shelling of a South Korean island last week was the
first such attack directed at civilians since the Korean War in the
1950s. We join our South Korean allies in mourning the deaths of both
civilians and young Marines and offer our sincere condolences to the
victims' families.
In addressing another Korean crisis, as a presidential candidate
almost six decades ago, Dwight Eisenhower said, ``In this anxious
autumn for America one fact looms above all others in our people's
minds. One tragedy challenges all men dedicated to the work of peace.
This word is Korea.''
For the shelling which we condemn today, and the treacherous attack
on civilians, is merely the tip of the North Korean spear of hostility.
Another revelation came a mere week earlier of a North Korean secret
uranium enrichment plant, a revelation described by a visiting American
physicist as ``stunning.''
The plant also laid bare the duplicity, deceit, and treachery with
which North Korea has approached the whole denuclearization issue for
the past 20 years.
The unconscionable revelations of classified information in the past
few days by WikiLeaks have nonetheless opened our eyes to the full
extent of the North Korean cooperation with the little tyrant from the
desert, Ahdmadinejad, and the Iranian regime on missile technology.
Thanks to Pyongyang's proliferation, Iranian warheads, possibly
carrying a nuclear payload, can now reach American allies in the Middle
East and even as far away as Europe.
We have also learned that Air Iran transports landed at a Beijing
airport to carry missile equipment from North Korea to Iran. There is
indeed a North Korean-Iranian axis of evil with malice toward mankind.
Its linkage runs right through the heart of Beijing, China.
Does China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, have no
guilt or have no shame when it blatantly disregards the Security
Council's resolutions directed at both Pyongyang and Tehran?
In that anxious autumn of 1952, Dwight Eisenhower pointed to his
World War II experience as a roadmap for dealing with the dictators of
Pyongyang. ``I know something of this totalitarian mind,'' the General
said. ``Through the years of World War II, I carried a heavy burden of
decision in the free world's crusade against the tyranny then
threatening us all.
``World War II should have taught us all one lesson. The lesson is
this: to vacillate, to hesitate, to appease--even by merely betraying
unsteady purpose--is to feed the dictator's appetite for conquest and
to invite war itself.''
Without firm resolve, more Six Party tea parties in Beijing, as
proposed by China, will prove as meaningless as those that have
occurred in the past. Beijing must come to understand and clearly
demonstrate that it will no longer provide diplomatic, economic, and
even military cover for Pyongyang's dangerously recklessly behavior.
From the Mediterranean to the Yellow Sea, through missiles and
artillery, North Korea has become an increasing threat to the peace and
the stability of the community of all nations. China must firmly rein
in its out-of-control puppet state before events spiral completely out
of control.
The risks are grave, Mr. Speaker. Our resolve must be firm as we
stand with our South Korean allies in their hour of potential peril. I
urge my colleagues to give their vigorous support to this resolution,
which I am proud to be a cosponsor.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a very
distinguished member of our committee, the gentleman from Tennessee
(Mr. Tanner).
Mr. TANNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, too, want to express my appreciation for this resolution. I am
proud to be a cosponsor. After this event happened, this unprovoked
attack by the North on the island, my son and I communicated with a
good friend of ours in Korea and learned of some of the devastation and
so on. This is a serious matter. This resolution speaks in, I think,
excellent detail as to what we expect in terms of activity by the
North. And I want to again thank Chairman Berman and Mr. Poe and others
who have brought this to the floor.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Hawaii (Mr. Djou).
Mr. DJOU. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, my congressional district potentially lies in the flight
arc of North Korea's ballistic missiles. Should anything happen in the
Korean Peninsula and deteriorate to war, it is the soldiers, sailors,
and airmen in my congressional district at Pearl Harbor, Hickam Air
Force Base, and Schofield Barracks who will be the first ones called
into action on the Korean Peninsula.
The United States must make a firm and clear commitment not only to
condemn these belligerent acts by North Korea, but also firmly commit
our Nation to unifying the Korean Peninsula under a free, democratic,
and capitalist regime. Our Nation must make a commitment to a unified,
free, and capitalist Korea in the same fashion that we committed to a
united, free, and capitalist Germany during the Cold War.
During this past year, the North Korean Government has shown its
unwarranted, unprovoked attacks on South Korea by illegally seizing a
South Korean fishing vessel and illegally sinking a South Korean naval
vessel. And now the shelling of a South Korean island, unprovoked,
shows that the North Korean regime cannot be trusted and must be
changed.
This is why it is so important the United States commit to a quick
and prompt passage of a free trade agreement between the United States
and South Korea, and through the passage of this resolution. We must
strengthen our bonds between the United States and South Korea to stand
as a bulwark against the aggressive and repressive North Korean
Government.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak and urge
passage of this resolution.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to my friend
and colleague from the committee, as well as the Financial Services and
Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).
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Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Thank you very much, Chairman Berman.
This unwarranted attack by North Korea on South Korea demonstrates
more than anything else the dangerous state that our world is in. It is
extraordinarily important that we here in Congress condemn in the
strongest possible way this act, unprovoked on the part of North Korea,
and to let the people of South Korea and the people of the world know
just where the United States stands. We stand strongly and firmly with
our ally South Korea and condemn this unwarranted, gross, unjustified
attack on South Korea. I commend Chairman Berman for bringing this
important resolution to the floor.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman
from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who is the ranking member of the Foreign
Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in strong support of H. Res. 1735,
condemning North Korea's unprovoked shelling of the South Korean island
of Yeonpyeong on November 23. I want to thank my good friend and
colleague Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen for
introducing the resolution. And I, too, like Mr. Poe and others, am
very proud to be a cosponsor.
Mr. Speaker, with this resolution, we extend our deep condolences and
sympathy to the families of those killed and injured in the attack.
It's especially fitting that we as Americans do this since, along with
the tremendous sacrifices for freedom made by the people of South
Korea, we have lost tens of thousands of Americans in that same cause.
Mr. Speaker, since the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island was an act of
aggression committed against an ally, the resolution also rightly
affirms our alliance with South Korea, supports further cooperation on
security matters, and calls on China to use its influence to restrain
North Korea.
Mr. Speaker, it's important to remember that North Korea's aggression
toward South Korea has almost been nonstop since 1950. It has taken the
form of either full-scale war or, since 1953, sporadic shelling and
shooting and skirmishing near the DMZ, or tunnelling under the DMZ, or
seizing the Pueblo, an American vessel, in 1968, or kidnapping South
Koreans abroad, or torpedoing the Cheonan, a South Korean vessel, in
March of this year.
Similarly, since 1950, the North Korean Government has treated its
own citizenry with profound disrespect and outright hostility. It makes
normal human relations impossible for them by creating a system in
which parents and children, friends and relatives are forced to spy and
report on each other--an atmosphere of total distrust, total fear, and
total social atomization.
It terrorizes them into worshipping the Kims, father and son, as if
they were gods. Their personality cult is the only religion permitted
in North Korea. Economic life is such madness that, about 10 years ago,
as many as 2 million North Koreans starved to death. And within this
large gulag that is North Korea, the Kim family has created smaller,
more severe gulags, Kwan-li-so prison camps, and sent an estimated
200,000 people to live or, better stated, survive in them. Here we move
from the nightmare of everyday life into a veritable hell on Earth,
where forced labor, near starvation, rape, and the cruelest forms of
torture prevail, and forced abortion and chemical experimentation on
inmates is commonplace.
Mr. Speaker, our government must continue to stand in solidarity with
all those threatened and terrorized by the monstrous Government of
North Korea, and with the residents of Yeonpyeong Island, and with all
the people of both South and North Korea. I urge strong support for the
resolution.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman
from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.
Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this
resolution condemning North Korea's act of aggression toward South
Korea. Thirty-seven years ago, I was stationed in Korea, within an
artillery shell of the DMZ. I have seen firsthand and up close what
freedom can do. When I arrived there, it was a military dictatorship.
Today, you have a market economy with a freely elected democracy that's
being attacked relentlessly, as other speakers have said, by the rogue
nation in the North.
I can't emphasize strong enough how important it is for us to act
decisively against this act of aggression against a free nation. And I
want to associate my remarks also with all of the speakers that have
been here today. I also want to call on China to exert every bit of
pressure they can on the rogue nation of North Korea. I urge my
colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr. BERMAN. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. POE of Texas. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, the United Nations reports that North Korea
trades in missiles and nuclear technology with not only Syria and Iran,
but even Burma. And this is a grave situation since China won't do
anything, and North Korea takes our western money with the empty
promises of peace, but still rattles its sabers and soon will rattle
its nuclear weapons.
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The United States must finally adopt a policy that holds both North
Korea and China accountable for their belligerent actions against South
Korea and the free world.
I do want to thank the chairman for bringing this strong resolution
to the House floor. I urge all my colleagues to adopt this resolution.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I join in asking for an ``aye'' vote, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from California (Mr. Berman) that the House suspend the rules
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 1735.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground
that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum
is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.
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