[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 17 (Wednesday, January 29, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     SUPPORTING THE DEMOCRATIC ASPIRATIONS OF THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 29, 2014

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the people of Kyiv and so many 
cities and towns throughout Ukraine are right now struggling, praying, 
and risking--some of them really risking their lives on the Maidan for 
justice and human dignity.
  The government's violent crackdown has led to the deaths of at least 
four protestors, and countless beatings, arrests, detentions, 
kidnappings or harassment of activists, journalists, medics and 
lawyers.
  I want to join many of my colleagues in calling on the Ukrainian 
government to stop, now, these attacks on human life and the basic 
human rights of free expression, assembly and association--and 
immediately to release those detained for peaceful actions and account 
for missing persons.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that we should urge Ukrainians to find a 
peaceful, political settlement of the crisis through meaningful 
negotiations between the government and the opposition in order to get 
Ukraine back on the road to democracy. As to association with Europe, 
it is not our government's place to say what the Ukrainian government 
or people should do either way on this point, above all since we don't 
know what arrangements are on offer. But we do stand up for the right 
of the Ukrainian people to determine this according to their own 
constitution and laws, free from coercive pressures by any foreign 
government.
  While the current Ukrainian government has committed grave injustices 
in the course of this crisis, I am encouraged by signs that it is 
taking steps to resolve the crisis, including the revocation of the 
onerous January 16 anti-protest laws and the resignation of the 
government.
  The people of Ukraine have endured tremendous suffering over the 
course of the last century including two world wars and 70 years of 
Soviet brutality, most starkly illustrated by Stalin's genocidal famine 
which resulted in the deaths of millions. With independence came new-
found freedoms, but these have been challenged by corruption of 
grotesque proportions. The long-suffering Ukrainian people deserve 
better--they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.
  Given the heroic strength and character and democratic maturity the 
Ukrainian people are showing in this crisis, I am confident that they 
will not be denied a more democratic future.

                          ____________________