“Double Genocide” Language Accepted by the US Congress on 21 May 2014



The following is the text of Amendment 134, Section 1266 that passed the US House of Representatives’ military appropriations bill on 21 May 2014, as recorded in the Congressional Report (background and more coverage here).


 

134. An Amendment To Be Offered by Representative Shimkus of Illinois 
               or His Designee, Debatable for 10 Minutes

  At the end of subtitle F of title XII insert the following 
new section:

SEC. 1266. RECOGNITION OF VICTIMS OF SOVIET COMMUNIST AND NAZI REGIMES.

  (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
          (1) On August 13, 1941, President Franklin D. 
        Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued a 
        joint declaration ``of certain common principles in the 
        national policies of their respective countries on 
        which they based their hopes for a better future for 
        the world'' and ``the right of all peoples to choose 
        the form of government under which they will live and 
        self government restored to those who have been 
        forcibly deprived of them'' and that the people of 
        countries may live in freedom.
          (2) The United States Government has actively 
        advocated for and continues to support the principles 
        of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human 
        Rights and the United Nations General Assembly 
        resolution 260 (III) of December 9, 1948.
          (3) Captive Nations Week, signed into law by 
        President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1959, raised public 
        awareness of the oppression of nations under the 
        control of Communist and other nondemocratic 
        governments.
          (4) The European Parliament resolution on European 
        conscience and totalitarianism of April 2, 2009, and 
        the ``Black Ribbon Day'' resolution adopted by the 
        Parliament of Canada on November 30, 2009, establish a 
        day of remembrance for victims of Communist and Nazi 
        regimes to remember and commemorate their victims.
          (5) The extreme forms of totalitarian rule practiced 
        by the Soviet Communist and Nazi regimes led to 
        premeditated and vast crimes committed against millions 
        of human beings and their basic and inalienable rights 
        on a scale unseen before in history.
          (6) Fleeing the Nazi and Soviet Communist crimes, 
        hundreds of thousands of people sought and found refuge 
        in the United States.
          (7) August 23 would be an appropriate date to 
        designate as ``Black Ribbon Day'' to remember and never 
        forget the terror millions of citizens in Central and 
        Eastern Europe experienced for more than 40 years by 
        ruthless military, economic, and political repression 
        of the people through arbitrary executions, mass 
        arrests, deportations, the suppression of free speech, 
        confiscation of private property, and the destruction 
        of cultural and moral identity and civil society, all 
        of which deprived the vast majority of the peoples of 
        Central and Eastern Europe of their basic human rights 
        and dignity, separating them from the democratic world 
        by means of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall.
          (8) The memories of Europe's tragic past cannot be 
        forgotten in order to honor the victims, condemn the 
        perpetrators, and lay the foundation for reconciliation 
        based on truth and remembrance.
  (b) Recognition.--Congress supports the designation of 
``Black Ribbon Day'' to recognize the victims of Soviet 
Communist and Nazi regimes.
                              ----------                              

 

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