[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 10237-10238]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING THE ASSYRIAN DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 21, 2009

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the thirtieth 
anniversary of the Assyrian Democratic Movement in Iraq.
  The Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM) is an ethnic Assyrian 
political party that was established on April 12, 1979. The party was 
formed in response to the oppressive brutality of the Al-Baath regime 
and its attempt to forcibly remove ethnic Assyrians from their native 
lands. Under the leadership of Yonadam Kanna the struggle came to a 
head in 1982 when the group began an armed battle against the Iraqi 
regime.
  After two decades of building the ADM, former President George W. 
Bush officially designated the group as a recognized Iraqi opposition 
movement. In December 2002 this designation allowed for President Bush 
to invoke articles four and five of the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998 as 
a means of allowing the United States government to provide financial 
resources to the ADM. Yonadam Kanna has served as an integral member of 
the movement and he has participated in meetings and conferences with 
world leaders to pursue the ideology of the ADM. Mr. Kanna served on 
the temporary Iraqi Governing Council that was established after the 
fall of Saddam Hussein and is currently serving as president of the 
party.
  Today, the party stands for the same political goals that it stood 
for thirty years ago; to defend their people and to create a free 
democratic Iraq. The movement calls for the recognition of the rights 
of all Assyrians and to unify the various individual identities, 
including Chaldean, Syriac and Assyrian.
  Madam Speaker, I rise today to commend the Assyrian Democratic 
Movement on thirty years of commitment to creating a free and

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democratic Iraq. I invite my colleagues to join me in wishing the 
Assyrian Democratic Movement many years of continued success.

                          ____________________