CALLING ON THE GOVERNMENT OF CHINA TO END ITS CRACKDOWN IN TIBET

Mr. McCOTTER. Madam Speaker, we stand at a historic moment. In the stream of history, it is oftentimes overlooked as we circumnavigate around time, fate and circumstance the momentous era and the momentous deeds which must be undertaken. This is one of them.

I thank the Speaker for bringing this resolution. I thank her for bringing with it the moral weight of her opposition to Communist China's abysmal human rights record throughout her career in this Congress, and for uniting Republicans and Democrats behind it.

But at this moment, I am also reminded of someone who is no longer with us, someone from whom I learned very much. That man is the late Chairman Tom Lantos, a man who embodied the human spirit in its ability to triumph over evil. How many people in this Congress understood the moment when the tanks rolled into Budapest and the Soviets went into Hungary, that that was a seminal moment in the Cold War, that the desire to breathe free, of the Hungarian people, could not be quelled by tanks and could
only be quenched by freedom? And throughout the history of the Cold War, their example was emulated by others, including the Czechs in 1968, and of course the Poles, and that eventually brought down the Soviet Union.

Today, what may appear a resolution of the moment for a specific incident is not that. It is our generation's Budapest. It is this generation of Americans who get to witness the Tibetans trying to breathe free from beneath the Communist yoke of the Chinese regime. And as we Republicans and Democrats stand together today, we stand with them, and we send a clarion message to the Communist Chinese Government. They will be free. And as the Olympic torch goes from town to town and you see people gathering
together of all political persuasions and all walks of life to protest the abominable suppression of the Tibetans, let us remember that we here have come together to make sure that the torch of Lady Liberty still shines bright as a beacon of hope for all the world.