[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 134 (Thursday, September 18, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H7872-H7874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BOSNIA TODAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Smith) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, last week Congressman Trent 
Franks and I had an important meeting with Reis Emeritus Dr. Mustafa 
Ceric, the former Grand Mufti of the Islamic community of Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
  Dr. Ceric is internationally recognized and renowned as a man of 
peace, a leader in interreligious dialogue. For example, in 2008, he 
led the Muslim delegation to the Catholic-Islamic Forum,

[[Page H7873]]

and he did that kind of work on many, many occasions.
  Last week, we talked about Bosnia since the conflict and the genocide 
of the 1990s, about where Bosnia is today and where it needs to go.

                              {time}  2045

  I would like to share with my colleagues what Reis Ceric had to say. 
Dr. Ceric briefed and updated us on Bosnia's struggle to hold itself 
together, build its economy, and integrate into NATO and the European 
Union.
  He talked about a country where, 19 years after Srebrenica and the 
horrific genocide that occurred there and the Dayton Peace Accords, 
ethnic divisions remain strong and, in many ways, have hardened as a 
generation has grown up in a system that classifies people into one of 
three ethnic communities--Bosniak, Serb, or Croat--and in a system that 
diminishes the rights of anyone that doesn't belong to one of those 
communities, including Jews and Roma.
  In Bosnia today, only ethnic Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats can be 
elected to the legislature--the House of Peoples--or to the Presidency. 
This structurally-embedded discrimination is a legacy of the Dayton 
Peace Accords brokered under American watch.
  While this design was probably necessary at the time to stop the 
genocide and aggression, in today's time and expanding Europe, it 
clearly violates our basic values of freedom and equality.
  As a result, in Bosnia today, all persons are not equal and--based on 
race, religion, and ethnicity--entire segments of the population are 
excluded from full political participation.
  The Dayton Peace Accords were a tourniquet to end the genocidal 
conflict in 1995. However, that is all they were really intended to be. 
Dayton was never intended to operate as Bosnia's Constitution, 
certainly not for 19 years.
  As a result of Dayton's severe limitations on its democracy, Bosnia 
cannot be fully integrated into Euro-Atlantic structures. Without 
amending the Dayton Accords to respect basic human rights and political 
rights of one person-one vote, Bosnia will never even be a candidate 
for the European Union.
  So a question mark hangs over Bosnia's future, as ethnic activists 
continue to agitate to partition the country and threaten daily to 
secede, taking large swaths of ethnically-cleansed territories with 
them. Such action might lead to a revival of hostilities.
  What further aggravates the condition is a sustained campaign of 
mischaracterization and outright denial of genocide by some government 
officials of the Republika Srpska, the smaller of Bosnia's two 
entities.
  Milorad Dodik, the President of the Republika Srpska, is publicly 
calling for the naming of public squares, roads, and boulevards after 
indicted war criminals such as Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic; yet 
Dayton provides no mechanism by which Bosnia, Madam Speaker, can be 
fully democratized.
  Significant leadership by Bosnian leaders is going to be absolutely 
necessary to break through the stalemate created by ethnic interests, 
and, of course, the United States must do its part to ensure that the 
Bosnian dream of a robust democracy, respect for the fundamental human 
rights, and rule of law is reached. I respectfully submit that delay is 
denial and that the Bosnians deserve better.
  Madam Speaker, the United States has a special responsibility to 
Bosnia. We could have done more for them in the 1990s. I know, I was 
here.
  I held hearing after hearing, traveled to the former Yugoslavia 
repeatedly, joined by other colleagues like Frank Wolf, trying to get 
this country to stand up and assist those who were being victimized by 
an invasion; instead, we left it to the Europeans in the 1990s, and, 
unfortunately, it was a train wreck.
  We could have lifted the arms embargo on Bosnia earlier, which may 
have prevented the genocide.
  I would note, parenthetically, that I was the sponsor of legislation 
to lift the egregiously-flawed arms embargo that hindered both the 
Croats' and the Bosnians' ability to defend against aggression.
  Only after the tragic and preventable Srebrenica genocide in early 
July 1995--and thanks to the leadership of some of us in the House and 
Senate--did our government swing into action and broker the peace deal.
  Bosnians, Madam Speaker, of every ethnicity and faith look to the 
United States to help move the country forward. I agree with Reis Ceric 
that, without American leadership and help to evolve the Dayton Accords 
toward a democratic constitution, the situation will likely fester and 
get worse.
  Madam Speaker, in the 1990s, throughout the darkness of the Balkan 
war, Reis Ceric was a powerful, persistent, reasonable, and dynamic 
voice for peace, human rights, the rule of law, and accountability for 
genocide.
  Reis Ceric is a good friend of mine and truly an inspiring man of 
God.


                       Tax-Payer-Funded Abortion

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, I would like to address 
another issue before the House today.
  Madam Speaker, 5 years ago, about 5 feet from where I am standing 
right now, President Obama told lawmakers and the American public in a 
specially called joint session of Congress on health care reform that, 
``Under our plan, no Federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.''
  That was September 9, 2009. In an eleventh hour ploy to garner 
support from a remnant of pro-life congressional Democrats absolutely 
needed for passage of ObamaCare, the President issued an executive 
order on March 24, 2010, that said:

       The Affordable Care Act maintains current Hyde amendment 
     restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those 
     restrictions to newly-created health insurance exchanges.

  It turns out, Madam Speaker, that those ironclad promises made by the 
President himself are absolutely untrue.
  Agree or disagree with public funding of abortion--and a significant 
majority of Americans oppose it--but no one likes to be misled. Today, 
as I think many of my colleagues know, a growing number of Americans 
are recognizing that abortion is violence against children and hurts 
women.
  Abortion methods rip, tear, and dismember or chemically poison the 
fragile bodies of unborn children. There is nothing benign, 
compassionate, or just about an act that utterly destroys a baby and 
often physically, psychologically, or emotionally harms the mother.
  At its core, Madam Speaker--and this has been missed by many, 
especially in the media--the Hyde amendment has two parts. It prohibits 
funding for abortion, but it also prohibits funding for any insurance 
plan that includes abortion, except in the cases of rape, incest, or to 
save the life of the mother.
  Remember, the President stood here and then, in his executive order, 
said that the act maintains the Hyde amendment restrictions governing 
abortion and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health 
insurance exchanges. That is what the executive order said, and yet, 
now, we know that is absolutely untrue.
  A comprehensive Government Accountability Office report released this 
week documents massive new public funding for abortion in the 
President's new health care law.
  Like so many of the President's promises that litter the political 
landscape, GAO has found that, in 2014, taxpayers are funding over 
1,000--let me repeat that--1,000 ObamaCare health plans that subsidize 
abortion on demand--even late-term abortion--decimating the Hyde 
amendment that the President said he would honor.
  Again, if you fund the insurance plan, the purchase of a plan, it is 
a violation of the Hyde amendment that the President said that he would 
extend to the newly-created health insurance exchanges.
  According to the Government Accountability Office, in their findings, 
every ObamaCare taxpayer-funded health insurance plan in my own State 
of New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Hawaii pays for 
abortion on demand, every one of them.
  In New York, a whopping 405 out of 426 ObamaCare plans subsidize 
abortion on demand. In California, it is 86 plans out of 90; in 
Massachusetts, 109 out of 111; in Oregon, 92 out of 102; in Washington, 
23 of the 34 plans; and so it goes.
  According to the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, their April 
2014 estimate, Madam Speaker, between 2014

[[Page H7874]]

and 2024, taxpayer subsidies to buy ObamaCare health plans will total 
$855 billion, making taxpayers unwittingly, wherever they live, 
complicit in abortion.
  GAO has also found that even an accounting trick embedded in 
ObamaCare requiring premium payers to be assessed a separate, monthly 
abortion surcharge is being completely ignored. The surcharge would 
have added some modicum of transparency so individuals would know 
whether they are purchasing a pro-life or pro-abortion health insurance 
plan.
  Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska summed up the plain meaning--the 
absolutely plain meaning--of the law when he said that you have to 
write two checks, one for the abortion coverage and one for the rest of 
the premium.
  According to the GAO, none of the 18 insurance companies they 
interviewed are billing the abortion surcharge separately. None. So 
much for the rule of law.
  Last year, Members of Congress and some staff were barred from any 
further participation in the Federal Employees Health Benefits plan, 
the FEHB, and compelled on to ObamaCare exchanges.
  After months of misinformation, obfuscation, and delay, I finally 
learned that, of the 112 plans offered on the exchange for my family, 
103 of those plans pay for abortion on demand, a clear violation of the 
Smith amendment, a Hyde-like amendment that I first sponsored on the 
floor back in 1983 and has been the law of the land for all of these 
years, except for 2 years during the Clinton administration.
  Madam Speaker, Americans throughout the country have raised very 
serious questions that they find it nearly impossible to determine 
whether the plan that they are purchasing finances or subsidizes the 
killing of unborn children--there is little or no transparency--hence 
the request by several Members of Congress, including our distinguished 
Speaker, Speaker Boehner, that the Government Accountability Office 
investigate.
  As the November 15 open enrollment approaches for ObamaCare, we have 
no reason now to believe that the President's promise of this most 
transparent government in history will give consumers basic information 
about the abortion coverage.
  First, we were told it wouldn't be in there--again, a promise made 
right from this podium, Madam Speaker--and then by way of executive 
order; and, now, we can't even find out, clearly and unmistakably, 
which plans include abortion and which do not.
  To end President Obama's massive new funding of abortion on demand, 
Madam Speaker, last January, the House of Representatives passed my 
bill--a totally bipartisan bill--overwhelmingly known as the No 
Taxpayers Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure 
Act.
  Madam Speaker, when our friend and colleague on the other side of 
this building, Harry Reid, was a Member of the House, he was as pro-
life as Henry Hyde. Now, as a majority leader, he refuses to even allow 
H.R. 7 and its companion bill offered by Senator Wicker to come up for 
a vote.
  With respect to the distinguished Senator and on behalf of the 
weakest and the most vulnerable, the unborn children and those who will 
be hurt by abortion--their moms--I respectfully ask that he reconsider 
and post the legislation for a vote.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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