IN COMMEMORATION OF TIANANMEN SQUARE PROTEST
HON. THADDEUS G. McCOTTER
OF MICHIGAN
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 4, 2008
Mr. Speaker, today the world commemorates and mourns the events that
happened in Tiananmen Square 19 years ago today. It was then that over
2,000 people were massacred by the Communist regime for the crime of
quoting Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the crime of creating a model
of the Statue of Liberty, killed for the crime of wanting their God-given right
to liberty.
In these 19 years, many things have changed and, sadly, too many people
have forgotten.
But there are 130 people that cannot forget. There are 130 people that
remain in the communist Chinese prisons for participating in the pro-
democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Today, many are told that the communist Chinese regime will one day
change. We've heard this for 19 years. We have seen corporate leaders, we
have seen elected officials, and regrettably we will soon see the President of
the United States go over to Beijing for the Olympics and meet with the
butchers that killed 2,000 people, and they continue to imprison 130 of their
fellow human beings.
The arguments that will be made in attending this propaganda fest will be
that we have to show our respect to the Chinese people; that we have to
show them that somehow the United States of America wants to usher in
this communist, nuclear-armed dictatorship into the world stage. I find this
logic reprehensible.
The United States is a beacon of liberty and hope for all the world
suppressed. When the leaders of the United States, be they in business or,
more importantly, in the corridors of Congress or in the halls of the White
House, attend these communist Olympics, the Chinese people that I am
worried about, the Chinese people that I believe we will not be standing
behind will be the people who are rotting in the jails for the crime of
yearning to be free.
The question then arises, what can we do as