[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 38 (Friday, March 1, 2024)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E201-E202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                            FACING DICTATORS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JOE WILSON

                           of south carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 1, 2024

  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, it is encouraging that 
America's valued European allies are facing the Dictators with Rule of 
Gun invading Democracies with Rule of Law. The Axis of Evil war 
criminal Putin, the regime in Tehran, and the Chinese Communist Party 
are being recognized for their murderous conduct and threats.
  Last week I served on bipartisan delegations to Munich, Nurernberg, 
and Vienna.
  The Munich Security Conference delegation was led by Chairman Mike 
Turner with Ranking Member Jim Himes. For 60 years, the Conference has 
been an extraordinary forum for world leaders to provide their policies 
with many side meetings.
  Opening day was gruesomely coincided with the announcement of the 
assassination of Alexey Navalny by war criminal Putin. His widow Yulia 
Navalnaya courageously spoke to proclaim the efforts to resist Putin's 
oppression of the Russian people will continue.
  Highlights of our Saturday, February 17th meetings at the Munich 
Security Conference were Chairman Mike Turner hosting a 
``Conversation'' with the Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko, the American 
German Institute at Johns Hopkins policy discussion with German 
Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, a speech by Vice President Kamala 
Harris, a U.S.-Netherlands meeting with Dutch Ministers Kasja Ollongren 
of Defense and Hanke Bruins Slot of Foreign Affairs, U.S.-German 
meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the U.S.-Ukraine meeting with 
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a U.S.-Iraq meeting with Prime Minister 
Shia' Al Sudani, a briefing by U.S. European Commander General 
Christopher Cavoli, and concluding with a dinner featuring former 
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, with Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov of 
Bulgaria, and Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna of Ukraine, as we 
later met President Iham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
  The next day, on Sunday, February 18th at the Munich Security 
Conference, key meetings included a U.S.-Swedish bilateral session with 
Swedish Minister of Defense Pal Johnson, a breakfast meeting on 
national security challenges in space with former Secretary of State 
Mike Pompeo, a U.S,-Romania bilateral meeting with Romanian Minister of 
Foreign Affairs Luminita Odobescu, a U.S.-Ukrainian bilateral meeting 
with Ukrainian parliamentarians led by Yehor Cherniev, and a meeting 
featuring former General and CIA Director David Petraeus.
  In the afternoon, as the Chair of the Commission on Cooperation and 
Security in Europe, I hosted the Commission's first-ever side event at 
the Munich Security Conference with the U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE, 
Michael Carpenter. The lunch discussion on the future of international 
institutions and U.S. support brought together Congressional and 
international organization leaders. Our international participants 
included Helga Schmid, Secretary General of OSCE; Mircea Geoana, Deputy 
Secretary General of NATO; Boris Ruge, NATO Assistant Secretary General 
for Political Affairs and Security Policy; Stephen Biegun, Senior Vice 
President for Global Public Policy, Boeing Company; Michael Georg Link, 
Member of Bundestag, Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation; 
Ambassador Gesa Brautigam, Special Envoy for Feminist Foreign Policy 
and Human Rights, German Foreign Office; Majda Ruge, Senior Policy 
Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations; and Fabrizio Micalizzi, 
Chief of Staff to Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation, Bundestag. 
In addition to myself and Ambassador Carpenter, the U.S. delegation was 
honored to include Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Congresswoman Victoria 
Spartz, and Margaret Grun Kibben, Chaplain of the U.S. House of 
Representatives.
  Afterwards, en route to Nuremberg, the U.S. delegation presented a 
wreath in memory of the over 41,000 murdered at the Dachau 
Concentration Camp during the Nazi Holocaust targeting the Jewish 
people and others opposing Hitler's genocidal policies. Mr. Karl 
Freller, Director of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation, expert guide 
Alex Pearman, and Press Officer Verena Bierl provided the gruesome 
history of the infamous camp.
  At Nuremberg, the delegation met with Ukrainian community refugees at 
the German-American Institute welcomed by Professor Andreas Falke, 
Director of the German-American Institute in Nuremberg.
  Tuesday, February 20th, it was historic to host a field hearing at 
the Nuremberg Palace of Justice Courthouse, Room 600, where the Nazi 
war criminals were tried after World War II. The U.S. Organization for 
Cooperation in Europe delegation was bi-cameral with Senator Thom 
Tillis (NC) and bi-partisan with Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX) and 
recorded testimony by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, as well as 
Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (IN), and Congressman Andy Harris (MD). 
This was a field hearing to examine how best to bring Russian 
perpetrators to account for their war crimes in Ukraine.
  The hearing was opened with welcoming remarks from Ukrainian 
President Zelenskyy, who, addressing the hearing in a video, said ``No 
war can be truly ended without bringing to justice those thugs 
responsible for sparking this war, killing, and torching, deporting 
children and adults . . . When determination arises and justice 
prevails, the aggressor falls and evil gets punished. Action makes a 
difference.'' Other welcoming remarks were given by Professor Christoph 
Safferling, Director of the Nuremberg Academy; Mr. Marcus Konig, Lord 
Mayor of the City of Nuremberg; Tobias Winkler, Member of the 
Bundestag; Ms. Angelika Schlunck, State Secretary at the Federal 
Ministry of Justice of Germany (pre-recorded video); and Dr. Georg 
Eisenreich, Minister of Justice of Bavaria (prerecorded video). 
Panelists included: Andriy Kostin, Prosecutor General of Ukraine; Prof. 
Veronika Bilkova, OSCE Moscow Mechanism Rapporteur, Head of the 
Department of International Law, Faculty of Law of the Charles 
University; Roman Avramenko, Director of Truth Hounds; Roksolana 
Burianenko, Program Manager, Ukrainian Archive, Mnemonic; Dr Gabija 
Grigaite-Daugird, Deputy Minister of Justice, Lithuania; Professor 
Christoph Safferling, Director of the International Nuremberg 
Principles Academy; and Both van Schaack, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for 
Global Criminal Justice.

  Following the hearing, the delegation was given a tour of the 
Nuremberg Palace of Justice, including the office used by U.S. Justice 
Robert H. Jackson, who was the Chief U.S. prosecutor for the 
international Nuremberg trials in the 1940s, by Judge Stephan Husemann, 
Judge at the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg, and Dr. Thomas 
Dickert, President of the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg.
  On Wednesday February 21st, the CODEL met with IAEA Director General 
Rafael Mariano Grossi to discuss Iran and nuclear proliferation as well 
as the condition and safety concerns of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power 
Plant in Ukraine. The CODEL was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador Laura 
Holgate, U.S. Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the United Nations and 
to the International Atomic Energy Agency. They also met with staff of 
UNODC to discuss concerns about the vulnerability of Ukrainian refugees 
to human trafficking, including from the Research and Trend Analysis 
Branch: Angela Me, Branch Chief; and Fabrizio Sarrica, Research 
Coordinator; as well as from the Human Trafficking and Migrant 
Smuggling Section: Ilias Chatzis, Chief of Section; Panagiotis 
Papadimitriou, Team Leader Technical Cooperation; and Silke Albert, 
Team Leader Child Trafficking and Survivor Engagement.
  The CODEL later received a very informative briefing by U.S. 
Ambassador Michael Carpenter, Permanent Representative of the United 
States of America to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in 
Europe, on developments in the OSCE. Ambassador Carpenter has been very 
effective and will be missed as he now has White House service.
  On Thursday February 22nd, I chaired the bipartisan U.S. delegation 
to the 23rd Winter Meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the 
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA) in 
Vienna, Austria. More than 230 parliamentarians from 54 countries 
participated in the meeting, which took place in the runup to the 
second-anniversary of Russia's illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine 
on February 24, 2022. Our delegation joined with other like-minded 
parliamentarians to showcase broadbased international solidarity with 
Ukraine in its fight to repel the Putin invasion and restore Ukraine's 
territorial integrity. In addition, there was attention to the 
assassination of democratic opposition leader Alexei

[[Page E202]]

Navalny in a Siberian gulag, which underscores the Putin oppression of 
Russian citizens.
  During the course of the sessions, the delegation was grateful to 
host and meet with: President Pia Kauma of Finland, Secretary General 
Roberto Montella, and Ukrainian Head of Delegation Mykyta Poturaiev.
  It was appreciated to meet with Ambassador Peter Burian, former 
Foreign Minister and Ambassador to the United States for Slovakia, and 
the successful host of the Fall Assembly in Yerevan, Parliamentarian 
Sargis Khandanyan of Armenia.
  I was grateful to moderate a side event titled ``Enforcing the 
Sanctions Against Russia'' co-sponsored by the Norwegian and Ukrainian 
delegations. The panel featured Erlend B. Bjoertvedt, sanctions expert 
Corisk consultancy; Bill Browder, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice 
Campaign; and Gunnar M. Ekelove-Slydal, Executive Director of the 
Norwegian Helsinki Committee.
  Our delegation, joined by Congressman Brad Schneider, held a 
bilateral meeting with members of the Israeli Knesset MK Ram Ben Barak 
(Yesh Atid Party), MK Hanoch Dov Milwidsky (Likud Party), and Israeli 
Permanent Representative to the OSCE David Roet.
  We also held a bilateral meeting with the Romanian delegation, 
including Romanian Head of Delegation Dan Barna, MP Hajdu Gabor, MP 
Christine Thellmann, and Romanian Permanent Representative to the 
International Organizations in Vienna Stelian Stoian.
  As we look back on this important and historic trip, I want to add my 
special thanks to the educated OSCE staff that helped make it possible, 
including Janice Helwig, Everett Price, Marcus Micheli, Jennifer 
McCuiston, Paul Massaro, Rachel Bauman, Mike Geffroy, Bakhti Nishanov, 
and Steven Schrage.
  Especially important is the incredible work and service of the 
excellent team of Marines who led the complex logistics of the trip, 
particularly MGySgt Wesley Helms, GySgt Catalina Delgado, and 2nd Lt 
Lauren Anderson.
  They and, and all of the individuals above, helped bring critical 
attention and energy to the historic challenges we face as we stand 
against dictators and the rule of gun, and for democracy and the rule 
of law, in Europe and the wider world.

                          ____________________