Gary Ackerman

Mr. ACKERMAN

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, many of our colleagues may already know the deeply troubling situation that exists in the United States with regard to the veterans of the Nazi war machine. About 8 months ago I discovered that thousands of former soldiers from Hitler's elite Waffen-S.S. corps, now living all around the world, some of whom may have participated in crimes against humanity, have been receiving monthly pensions from the German Government. These fairly generous pensions called, ironically enough, war victims' pensions, are given to Nazi SS officers who sustained injuries during World War II. However, my concern lies with the fact that neither the German Government nor any other government has ever bothered to cross-check the list of applicants and recipients with the international list of known Nazi war criminals. This is unacceptable, particularly since we have learned that at least 3,300 recipients of these Nazi pensions live right here in the United States. The situation becomes ironically intolerable when we realize that according to the American Jewish Committee, which has done a tremendous job in working on this issue, that well over 15,000 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and probably at least as many non-Jewish survivors living in Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union, have never received any compensation from that government for the horrors they were forced to endure in Nazi ghettos and concentration camps. These survivors have been dubbed the ``double victims,'' as they were first victimized by the Nazi nightmare and then again by the Communist governments that took over after the war. Perhaps we need to call them ``triple victims'' at this point since they are once again being victimized by a government who continuously refuses to offer them any compensation. Many of these survivors are also in desperate financial straits as well as in poor health. Based on the information we received regarding the issue of pensions to former Nazi Waffen-SS officers, I wrote to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl requesting that he send us the list of those living in the United States so that the Office of Special Investigations in our State Department and in our Department of Justice could do the necessary cross-checking before the trail to Nazi war criminals grows cold. To the credit of Chancellor Kohl and the German people, he quickly acceded to the request, and our Office of Special Investigations, OSI, under the superb leadership of its Director, Eli Rosenbaum, is currently poring over these lists. Let me also stress that the work that they are doing now is extremely slow and a very tedious and laborious process. OSI continues to be undermanned and underresourced, and this additional major surprise project further strains those capabilities. Therefore, this amendment would simply add $300,000 to the Justice Department appropriation for the specific purposes of investigating the names on the lists that the German Government has provided us. I think this is a prudent and reasonable amendment, and I have been informed by the Director of OSI that this additional appropriation would allow them to hire the needed attorneys and historians in order to complete this list project effectively and efficiently and in a timely manner.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. ACKERMAN

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and achievements of Mr. Stanley Warren, who served in the 1960's as the Assistant Director of the General Accounting Office's Defense Auditing and Accounting Division. Mr. Warren was tragically killed in a helicopter crash while serving in Korea in 1964 and is the only GAO employee ever killed on official duty. Stanley Warren was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1930. He graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1952. Shortly after graduation, Mr. Warren began to work at the GAO. He temporarily left the GAO to serve in the Army where he fully developed his expertise in defense-related issues. He later returned to the GAO where he continued to work until his tragic death. Mr. Warren was survived by his wife and two sons. Mr. Warren was an extraordinary individual who sought to serve his country during a time of global instability. He served in the Army and at the GAO to ensure that his children could grow up in a safer, more peaceful world. His dedication to his work will always be admired and appreciated by his colleagues at the GAO. His love for his family will be remembered forever. On September 29, Mr. Warren will be honored by the GAO for his years of exceptional service. The Acting Comptroller General of the United States will present a memorial statement to his wife and two sons. I ask all of my colleagues to join me in honoring his memory and thanking his family for all that he gave to our country.

Mr. ACKERMAN

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, it is a mischaracterization. The people of India have selected as their President a person from the untouchable class. The gentleman from Indiana is misinformed. And I think it behooves us all, when we come to the floor to do things, especially when it deals with the national policy and our relationships with great societies and large countries, and even small countries, to know from whence we speak and to actually visit and see firsthand what these problems are, without relying on lobbyists to provide us with that kind of education.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very untimely and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] brings it up and recites time and time again, as if it were a mantra, things that he continuously mentions on the floor. Mr. Chairman, I want to yet again extend another invitation to the gentleman from Indiana to come with me and others, if he would like, to actually visit India, to see the things that some of us have seen. To come to the States of Jammu and Kashmir, as I have been several times to travel throughout the region; to go to the Punjab, as the gentleman from New York [Mr. Engel] and I, together with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], our chairman, did just a week or so ago, and see the horrible conditions, the terrible poverty, and the heroic efforts that are being made to meet those challenges, and to see those things with his own eyes so the gentleman from Indiana does not have to rely anecdotally on the experiences of others who have agendas here in Washington, as they are entitled to have, who bring him pictures and photographs so that he can cite one of them on the floor of the House as an example of national policy. Mr. Chairman, that is not the national policy of India any more than it is the national policy of the Police Department of the city of New York to go at people with plungers. That is a terrible analogy to make, Mr. Chairman, but that is exactly what is happening here. People who work for the government sometimes do terrible things. That does not mean that it is the government's policy or the government does that. So it is in India, which has a large military, mostly very much under control and cooperating with ours. But to blame it for all of the atrocities that go on, when individuals anecdotally commit horrible crimes, is certainly not fair or proper. And to further state that the caste system in India, which does exist at least in practice in some places, is the policy of the government just is not the truth, Mr. Chairman. There is racism in America, but that does not mean that the policy of the government is racist. And to cite the untouchable class as the lowest form of human life is, first of all a mischaracterization.

Mr. ACKERMAN

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, does that apply to the gentleman from Indiana as well?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, we are trying to work it out equitably so that we can accommodate everybody who would like to speak.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Would the gentleman from Indiana Mr. Burton be limited by those same restraints as the rest of the Members of the House of Representatives?

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, we have three that we know of.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, continuing my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, continuing my reservation of objection, 20 minutes on each side on each amendment, 20 minutes on each side?

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, what we need on our side for our Members is 15 minutes on each amendment.

Mr. ACKERMAN. We have three speakers on this side. We have two Members on the gentleman's side who would like to speak on our time.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, continuing my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, we have several speakers on this side who would like to speak for 5 minutes each. We think we have three. So we think we need 15 minutes on this side.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Chairman, the previous speaker, the gentleman from Indiana, asked the question, who will speak for the people who are the victims of violence in Punjab and Kashmir and other places. Let me assure the gentleman that I do and we all do because we decry violence and we decry the abuses of human beings anywhere for any reason. But what the gentleman seeks to do is to punish an entire nation, the largest democracy in the world collectively, for random acts of a few that take place. He brings us one picture and cites hundreds of thousands. How do we condemn a whole nation because of that? That is nothing but India bashing, Mr. Chairman. Do we condemn our own Government because people put a bounty on people's heads in Arizona and people moved in and murdered them? Is that the fault of the whole American Government and the American people? I would like to cite an article that appeared in the Hill newspaper. It is a quote by a gentleman of the House who shows an unbelievable amount of understanding when talking about the Government of Turkey and he says, ``When you have military conflicts,'' and the gentleman here is talking about insurgencies taking place against existing governments, he says, ``When you have military conflicts, you're bound to have unfortunate things happen,'' he said. Continuing the quote, ``People get killed, they're bombed and shot. These things happen,'' he said understandingly and justified, ``incidental and anecdotal things that happen during these times of conflict.'' Who was the gentleman who said that, so understanding of the Government of Turkey? It is the very same gentleman from Indiana who just took the well and offered this amendment. How can he justify it in the case of one country and oppose it when it comes to another country? The gentleman offers up four amendments. Dr. Alukh mysteriously appears in the Halls of the House, in the gallery, it happens each and every time, and the India bashing begins. This, Mr. Chairman, is totally unacceptable. This is not the way two great democracies view each other or treat each other. The gentleman complains of human rights abuses, but he ignores the genuine progress that India has made on this question. According to the State Department report which he only quotes in part, it says ``India made further progress in resolving human rights problems.'' The same report notes that newspapers and magazines ``regularly publish investigative reports and allegations of government wrongdoing, and the press as a whole champions human rights and criticizes'' whenever there is a government lapse. Beyond this, the Indian Government has appointed a National Human Rights Commission with powers to investigate and to recommend policy changes and punishment and compensation in cases of incidental police abuse wherever it might happen to take place. Again in the State Department report that the gentleman quoted only in part, ``The NHRC continued to enlarge its useful role in addressing the patterns of abuse, as well as specific abuses.'' In particular, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] is concerned about human rights in the states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Last year there was an election in Punjab where 65 percent of the eligible voters turned out in a Sikh-dominated government. This is the very minority that the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] claims the Indian Government oppresses. There were also elections in Kashmir which restored elected government there for the first time in 6 years. I think, Mr. Chairman, what we have discovered, with the unwitting help of the gentleman from Indiana, is that India is a fully functioning, mature democracy with a free press, with civilian control of the military, with an independent judiciary, and very active political parties and civic associations. It seems to me that the oldest democracy in the world should not be sanctioning the largest. That is not the way democracies treat each other. In addition to India's thriving democratic institutions, the current united front government led by Prime Minister Gudjaral has pledged, as has the finance minister with whom the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and myself met with only a week ago, has pledged to continue the economic reforms of the past 6 years. These reforms have provided enormous opportunities for United States business and, in fact, the United States is now India's largest overseas investor, its biggest trading partner and its preferred source of high-technology. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is a deliberate and specific attempt to stigmatize India at a point where the relationship between the world's two great democracies has flowered. I urge all of my colleagues to stand and to defeat this amendment.

Mr. ACKERMAN

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. ACKERMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Alabama.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker, is it my understanding that under the two Burton amendments there is no limitation on the time? We will be under the 5-minute rule?