Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), my good friend, for yielding me this time and for his excellent work on this issue. Mr. Speaker, let me just make it very clear what this vote is about. It is about U.S. taxpayer subsidies for one of the worst dictatorships in the world. Let us be clear on another thing. There is no freedom of immigration from Vietnam. If there were, there would be no need for this waiver. The administration could simply certify that Vietnam complies with the Jackson-Vanik Freedom of Information requirement. Instead, by waiving the requirement, the administration has conceded that there is no such freedom. Yes, the government allows some people to leave when it is good and ready. But for the many thousands who have been persecuted because they were on our side during the Vietnam war, Vietnam is still a prison. I hope my colleagues understand that this is not a vote about free trade. It is about subsidies; corporate welfare for Communists. Since the President gave the waiver in March, the U.S. taxpayer has been paying for Eximbank and OPIC subsidies of trade and investment in Vietnam. Many of these taxpayer dollars subsidize ventures owned in large part by the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Overregulation and widespread corruption make Vietnam a terrible place to do business. Mr. Speaker, let me also remind Members, I was the prime sponsor of the amendment back in 1995. We had a hot debate, because we were sending people back who were real refugees. Yes, there has been some progress on ROVR. But we find that it slows to a trickle, to nothingness, when they decide to turn off the spigot. We should not be intimidated by that kind of opening and closing of the gates for the ROVR program. Let me also say that in Vietnam, human rights violations are many. Catholic priests, Buddhists, are arrested and imprisoned. Vietnam enforces a two-child-per-couple policy by depriving parents of unauthorized children of employment and other government benefits. It denies workers the right to organize independent trade unions and has subjected many to forced labor. The government not only denies freedom of the press, but also systematically jams Radio Free Asia which tries to bring them the kind of broadcasting they would provide for themselves if their government would allow them free expression. Many organizations support the Rohrabacher resolution: the American Legion, the veterans groups. I urge my colleagues to please vote for it. So we should disapprove the Jackson-Vanik waiver at least until the government allows all the ROVR-eligible refugees to leave. And we should also stand up for the people who never left Viet Nam and are still trapped there, including long-term reeducation camp survivors and former U.S. government employees. Many of these people are members of the Montagnard ethnic minority who fought valiantly for the U.S. and have suffered greatly ever since. As of a few weeks ago, only 4 Montagnard applicants--out of over 800 we believe to be eligible for U.S. refugee programs--have been cleared for refugee interviews. Finally, we must not forget the prisoners of conscience. Hanoi imprisons Catholic priests, Buddhist monks, pro-democracy activists, scholars, and poets. When we complain to the Vietnamese government, they just respond that ``we have a different system.'' They need to be persuaded that a system like this is not one that Americans will subsidize. In Vietnam human rights violations are many. Hanoi arrests and imprisons Catholic priests and Buddhist monks. Vietnam enforces a ``two-child per couple'' policy by depriving the parents of ``unauthorized'' children of employment and other government benefits. It denies workers the right to organize independent trade unions, and has subjected many to forced labor. The government not only denies freedom of the press, but also systematically jams Radio Free Asia, which tries to bring them the kind of broadcasting they would provide for themselves if their government would allow freedom of expression. Mr. Speaker, the Vietnamese government and its victims will both be watching this vote. We must send the message that economic benefits from the United States absolutely depend on decent treatment of Vietnam's own people. We may not be able to insist on perfection, but we must insist on progress.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, 25 years after Roe v. Wade, I believe it is time for a serious reality check and a compassion check as well. Supreme Court imposed abortion-on-demand in America has claimed the lives of more than 36 million boys and girls and, although grossly underreported, has resulted in death, injury, and emotional trauma to women. It is time to come to grips with the truth and to ask the question why we seem to care so little about a whole generation of babies lost. Abortion methods, Madam Speaker, are violence against children. Abortion methods dismember and chemically poison kids. There is absolutely nothing compassionate about dousing a baby with superconcentrated salt water or lethal injections into the baby's beating heart, or hacking the baby to pieces with surgical knives. Why do so many of us live in denial concerning this pernicious violence against children? Today, Planned Parenthood and the rest of the abortion lobby is asking the House to sustain a misguided veto so as to permit and empower abortionists to continue to murder children as they are being born. To legally sanction such an execution begs the question: Is there nothing the Congress or President will not embrace under the banner of ``choice''? Are the lives of little girls and boys so cheap? Madam Speaker, earlier this month a 6-pound baby girl, ``Baby Phoenix'' as she is now called, was born with a skull fracture and lacerations on her face after an abortionist, Dr. John Biskind, unsuccessfully attempted to perform a partial-birth abortion on her 17- year-old mother. ``Baby Phoenix'' is the first known survivor of this brutal procedure. It has taken years, and the deaths of thousands of children and at least two women, who he left to bleed to death, but Dr. Biskind now will not be allowed to continue his murderous ways. This week the State medical board voted to suspend his license. The irony is that it is not the deaths he caused that brought the board's disfavor, but the fact that a baby whom he was trying to kill actually survived and was delivered alive. Madam Speaker, some on this floor, and in Dear Colleagues that have been sent out, suggest that the Hoyer-Greenwood proposal somehow will prohibit all late-term abortions. Nothing, I would say, is further from the truth. Lest any of us be deceived, the Hoyer-Greenwood bill places no restriction whatever on late term abortions. While it is not on the floor today but it is being referred to in this debate as an alternative, the plain meaning of the language places no restriction whatsoever, not even symbolic limitations, on partial-birth abortions performed before an individual baby can be proven to be viable; that is, definitely able to survive if born prematurely. The vast majority of partial-birth abortions are performed in the 5th and 6th months of pregnancy, when the baby's lung development is not quite sufficient or barely sufficient to allow independent survival. Second, even after the baby is demonstratively viable, the Hoyer- Greenwood bill would permit abortion by partial-birth abortion or any other method, if in the medical judgment of the attending physician, that is to say the abortionist, that the abortion is necessary to avert serious adverse health consequences to the woman. In a March 12, 1997 press conference in the House Radio-TV gallery, which was tape-recorded, my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), was asked directly what the word health means in his proposal. The gentleman responded. ``It does include mental health. Yes, it does.'' He then went on to explain that mental health would include psychological trauma. Thus, unless my colleagues believe that it should be permissible to kill a baby, even during the final 3 months of pregnancy, a premature infant, for reasons of mental health or psychological trauma, they should not support H.R. 1032. And if my colleagues believe that it should not be permissible to pull a living baby feet first into the birth canal, puncture her skull and remove her brain in the 5th and 6th months, please vote to override the President's veto. Support the motion to override the President's misguided veto.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, when the People's Liberation Army massacred, wounded, and incarcerated thousands of peaceful pro- democracy activists in June of 1989, the well-intentioned but wishful thinking and fashionable view of the 1980s that somehow the PRC was turning the page on repression was shattered. The myth was gone. The brutal crackdown on the reformers, some of whom still today languish in gulags, in laogai, was not the end but was the beginning of a new systematic terror and cruelty campaign which continues to this very hour. To a significant degree, President Clinton put a happy face on China during his recent trip. While paying some attention to human rights, he minced his words, he heaped praise on Jiang Zemin and painted a largely upbeat, far too optimistic picture of a brutal dictatorship. He made the powerful architects of repression somehow look respectable. I am sure he meant well. However, Amnesty International testified at the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, which I chair, on June 26, and Amnesty believed and said that they believed that President Clinton's trip represented his Dunkirk, his human rights Dunkirk. It was. Stephen Rickard, director of the Washington office of Amnesty said, and I quote, ``The history of President Clinton's policies on human rights in China is unfortunately a history of retreat after retreat, until there is no longer any room to retreat.'' As a trade and as a public relations trip, the trip was clearly a success. As a human rights mission, it was, I believe, an unmitigated disaster. Madam Speaker, it is my deeply held conviction that back in 1989 and by the early 1990s the hardliners in Beijing had seen enough of where indigenous popular appeals for democracy, freedom, and human rights can lead. The Communist dictatorships that controlled Eastern and Central Europe and even the Soviet Union had let matters get out of hand, and Beijing took careful note as, one-by-one, tyrants like Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Erich Honecker of East Germany, and Wojciech Jeruzelski of Poland were ousted. Everything Beijing has done since Tiananmen Square and since the President's trip points to a new bottom line that we ignore and that we trivialize at our own peril, and that is, democracy, freedom and respect for human rights will not happen in the PRC any time soon. This dictatorship is not going to cede power to and respect for the people of China, especially when we fail to employ the tremendous leverage at our disposal. However unwittingly, however unintended, we are today empowering the hardliners. Withholding MFN I believe will spur reform. Where else will the Chinese find markets for their $60 billion worth of exports? They are not going to find it in Europe, they are not going to find it in South America or Central America or anywhere else. They want our market. We have leverage, and we are squandering that leverage. Madam Speaker, any honest assessment of the true human rights picture on the ground must recognize that torture, beatings, detentions and arrests of dissidents, even during the President's trip and immediately after, increased reliance on the hideous and pervasive practice of forced abortion and coerced sterilization, and new, draconian policies to eradicate religious belief, especially the underground church, the Christianity and the Tibetan Buddhism, all of these are on the rise. As a matter of fact, if we look at Tibet, there is a genocide taking place, ethnic cleansing. People are escaping, being pushed out; forced abortion is used with greater impunity there, and they are, as we all know, incarcerating monks as well as nuns in Tibet. Some have argued, Madam Speaker, that conditions have improved, and at times they cite the cultural revolution as a backdrop to measure improvement, but I believe that is a false test. The depths of depravity during that period have few parallels at all in history, and the Chinese leaders knew themselves that such extreme treatment of their people could not be sustained. But the real test is the post- Tiananmen Square reality, and the jury, unfortunately, is in. China has failed miserably in every category of human rights performance since 1989, and it is getting worse, not better. I would invite Members of this body to come to some of the hearings. We have had over a dozen hearings in my subcommittee, heard from everybody, especially the human rights community, and they speak in one accord, that repression is on the rise. Madam Speaker, I met with the great democracy wall leader Wei Jingsheng in Beijing before he was thrown back into jail, a man of candor and incredible courage. Both then and now that he is released, he says he is incredulous, he cannot believe how naive and shortsighted the Clinton Administration and the bipartisan majorities are in this Congress who support MFN. He cannot believe how complicit we are willing to be, and again I think he says, and I agree with him, some of it is naivete. At a recent hearing of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, I asked Wei what practical effects MFN and other concessions to the Chinese government had had for prisoners of conscience. He said that the torturers are usually more cautious in their treatment of political prisoners at times when the U.S. is withholding. I repeat, they are more cautious, this is Wei talking, and he knows, he spent years in the gulag; they are more cautious when we withhold something than when we offer it to them on a silver platter. He said as soon as there is a turn for the better in Sino-American relationships, like when the U.S. declared its intention to establish a strategic collaborative partnership with China, immediately the prisoners were beaten and received other abuses. The bully boys are unshackled, they can do with impunity to those human rights and religious prisoners as they wish. We heard similarly that in Xinjiang province a Muslim Uighur talked about they waited until right after MFN was confirmed again before they executed 7 people, and they killed 9 people as they paraded these people through the marketplace where people were crying for their loved ones who were going to be executed. Madam Speaker, I am deeply disturbed that the President did not even raise some of the issues that we were led to believe that he would, such as organ harvesting and prison labor, when we met with Jiang Zemin. Harry Wu has implored us, has implored us to cease our appeasement and to speak out boldly and strongly. Regarding forced abortion, the President disregarded the recent testimony from Mrs. Gao, a former Chinese official charged with administering the PRC's program in Fukien. She said, with tears in her eyes, ``I was a monster in the daytime, but in the evening I was like other women and mothers, enjoying life.'' She talked about how women are routinely forcibly aborted all over China, and she did it herself. She recently escaped China in April, and came to our subcommittee and gave us that information. Madam Speaker, for the victims of human rights abuses, the policy of comprehensive appeasement has been tried. Madam Speaker, we stood up to the Soviet Union, we said that Soviet Jews mattered, that human rights mattered. We withheld MFN to the Soviet Union, even risking a nuclear power exchange with that country at the height of the Cold War. Why can we not do it with China? The human rights abuses are horrific, they are horrendous. Appeasement does not work. We need to have constructive engagement that says we are willing to risk profits, to put people above profits, because people do matter. Let us stand with the oppressed, not the oppressor.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing today a resolution which states our belief that the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The resolution also calls for action by our government-- especially in providing information--that could lead to the indictment of Milosevic for these crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Those who have followed the course of Yugoslavia's violent disintegration know well how Slobodan Milosevic has stirred conflict in order to achieve, strengthen and maintain power during the early 1990s, the very years when all Europeans should have had the chance to celebrate newfound unity and freedom with the end of the Cold War and Communism's collapse. Threatened by democratic change, Milosevic played upon Serb grievance--some legitimate and some not--to encourage Serbs throughout former Yugoslavia to rally behind him and establish a ``Greater Serbia.'' He engaged in massive propaganda campaigns, spurring Serbs to hate Croats, Bosniacs and Albanians, or at least to view these neighboring peoples as threats. He put thugs into positions of power, ensuring support for his rule and a willingness to engage in the repression and ethnic cleansing. He supplied militants with heavy weaponry with which to bombard cities, towns, and villages throughout the region. In testimony before the Helsinki Commission, which I co-chair with the primary Senate sponsor of this resolution, Alfonse D'Amato, many expert witnesses have testified to the deliberate nature of the attack on civilians in Croatia and in Bosnia. Mosques, hospitals, cultural institutions and even schools were specifically targeted for destruction. Intellectuals were targeted for incarceration and even execution. Women were targeted for the agony of being raped. Witnesses also told us of the systematic nature of the policy of ethnic cleansing. From valley to valley, region to region, the implementation of ethnic cleansing was so consistent that one can only conclude that it was directed and orchestrated by the political leaders. There is only one person in such a position of power that he could have unleashed such devastation in Yugoslavia--Slobodan Milosevic. I believe that he is every bit as guilty of war crimes as the concentration camp guards, the snipers, and the rapists. And now, Mr. Speaker, there is a new conflict in the former Yugoslavia, one in which Milosevic is again directly involved. In Kosovo, after years of repression of the largely Albanian population by Serbian authorities, there is now open conflict. With this conflict, innocent civilians are being killed, there are reports of detention centers, of rapes and the destruction of whole villages that indicate, at minimum, the open tolerance of such abuses by those in power in Belgrade, including Milosevic, if not the direction of such abuses. Last week we also received information indicating that distribution of basic food and humanitarian supplies has been hindered by Yugoslav and Serb officials. Mr. Speaker, using food as a weapon of war or intimidation can not be tolerated. Of course, Mr. Milosevic remains in Belgrade, away from the scene of the crimes, and he denies association with those committing these crimes. He is a liar. In fact, he denied to me directly what I saw with my own eyes to be happening during the siege of Vukovar in Croatia. Unfortunately, he has escaped responsibility for the crimes by projecting himself as the ``peacemaker'', the one we supposedly need to achieve the Dayton Agreement which ended the Bosnian conflict, and the one with whom the Kosovar Albanians are being told to join at a negotiation table for dialogue. How many senior Administration officials have traveled repeatedly to Belgrade in order to cajole Milosevic to do this or to do that? He seems to be able to unravel progress if he wants. Does not our reliance on him as ``peacemaker'' help him maintain power at the expense of a democratic Serbia? Mr. Speaker, we can not overlook the criminal responsibility of a person like Milosevic, even when we find ourselves dependent on that person to implement policies the United States has set. The resolution we are introducing does not address questions of United States policy towards Serbia; we plainly and simply call for justice. Mr. Speaker, I believe that indicating Milosevic is not only good justice; it is good policy. As long as Milosevic is in power in Belgrade and there is no democracy in Serbia, the Balkans will remain unstable. As long as we deal with Milosevic, we perpetuate his power. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that this resolution will find broad, bipartisan support. I am pleased that I am joined by my colleagues Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Rohrbacher, Mr. Engel, Mr. King, Mr. Olver and Mr. McGovern as original cosponsors. Who can argue against providing information that could lead to the indictment of a person who may have committed war crimes? Who can argue against supporting the tribunal which can bring needed justice to South-Central Europe? That is what this resolution does, and the measure deserves quick and positive action by the House.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all, and that is putting words in my mouth, and I think that is unfortunate.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I want to make it clear to my colleagues that birth control pills and diaphragms are not abortifacients. IUDs and post-coital pills have the capability of that. That is where there has been very little conversation, especially with women, as to what might be happening when they think they are preventing fertilization when, indeed, implantation is what is being prevented.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me just respond that there are several schools of thought as to what the operation is as to what actually occurs.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. This will have to be determined. There is a body of evidence suggesting that IUDs, for example, may have the impact, and many women are unaware of this, may have the impact of preventing implantation. What my amendment says, that is still permissible under Federal Employees Health Benefit Program but not mandated.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Contraception by definition should mean before a new life has come into being. There are many who want to blur that line and say that chemicals affect the implementation or even after that.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Part of the problem we have with the gentlewoman's first amendment, as well as the amendment that was offered and just passed, is a definitional one. How do you define contraception? How do define pregnancy? For some, it is implantation. For some, it is fertilization.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If the gentlewoman would yield, let me just ask the gentlewoman, because this will help me in responding, her definition of contraception. Is it before fertilization occurs or is it before implantation in the uterus?

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If I understand the gentleman's question that is correct.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman for asking the question. It says very simply that a health care plan would not have to include those devices and chemicals that may have the effect of an abortifacient. Under my amendment it will not be mandatory. it will not be forced upon the HMOs and upon the health care providers even though the language of Mrs. Lowey's amendment require only ``a provision for contraceptive coverage'' to satisfy the requirement.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, due to the lateness of the hour, I do not intend on taking the full 5 minutes. Let me make it very clear that part of the problem with the Lowey amendment was that it did not define contraception. Many of us have been concerned that the pro-abortion lobby and the pro-abortion organizations over the years have tried to fudge the line of demarcation between fertilization post- and pre-fertilization. Many of the chemicals, many of the devices that are now employed that are permitted under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program do indeed result in many abortions, newly created human lives that are not permitted to implant in their mother's womb. In a nutshell, my amendment is designed to clarify that if we are indeed going to force all of the Federal providers of medical care, the HMOs and all the providers as a condition of receiving reimbursement for all of their prescriptions, whether it be for penicillin or any other drug, that they have, to provide ``a provision for contraceptive coverage'', let us at least make it clear that the gentlelady's language excludes abortion-inducing chemicals. That is what my amendment very simply seeks to do. Earlier in the day we pointed out during the debate, that while RU- 486 isn't legal and, hopefully, never will be there are officials of Planned Parenthood who are already talking about it as a morning after pill. RU486 is baby pesticide and destroys life, the newly created life, somewhere along the line up to the 7th week. This is a Federal funding of early abortion but many Members of Congress remain uninformed of that fact. I say with regret, that some abortifacients like IUDs can be provided by the health care providers under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The question is should they be forced to. This says no one is going to be forced to do it. It is a conscience type amendment. Still the plain language of Mrs. Lowey's amendment only stipulates ``a provision for contraceptive coverage''--a much, much, weaker version than the amendment she offered in her Appropriations Committee. Clearly, under her amendment, if a plan merely provided condoms or birth control pills, that would satisfy the obligation created by the amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me make it very clear there has to be a determination made, and maybe it is about time, with all of the resources at our disposal, we really came to a firm conclusion as to how some of these chemicals and how the IUD actually works, because, again, even Planned Parenthood and others will say on their web page that one of the consequences of the IUD may indeed be preventative of implantation .

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. No. As far as I know, that has never been an abortifacient.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all. Right now the HMOs, and all of the health care providers under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, if they choose, can provide any of those methods that you mentioned, from IUDs to Depo-Provera. What your amendment, or what the thrust of your original amendment was to force them to do it.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If the gentlewoman will yield, I did not say that at all.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Let me just respond that there are several schools of thought as to what the operation is as to what actually occurs.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. If the gentlewoman will yield, I did not say that at all.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Not at all, and that is putting words in my mouth, and I think that is unfortunate.