Chris Smith

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, Frank Lautenberg will be missed. As you could hear from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it is a great loss for the State of New Jersey. We will have a Special Order next Tuesday to speak even more to his legacy. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which I chair, held a hearing that examined the challenges faced by the nations of Africa's Sahel region, especially the spread of terrorism and drug trafficking in the area. These problems alone pose a danger to the security of both the Sahel and developed countries, not only because of air traffic to West Africa that transits northern Mali, but also because of the use of the region as a base of attacks by Islamic extremists on Western targets. Moreover, the preexisting humanitarian crisis is now worsened, as are human rights concerns. The underlying political instability is becoming equally serious. We held the hearing as a joint session because the threat we face goes beyond the jurisdiction of one subcommittee. It involves not only Africa's Sahel region, but also countries in North Africa, specifically Algeria and Libya. It also involves terrorist groups originating from and based in nations outside the Sahel. It is a sign of how seriously the Foreign Affairs Committee considers this matter that our three subcommittees have come together today to consider this matter. There are various definitions of the Sahel, but for the purpose of the hearing, we meant the nations of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. In early 2012, the Government of Mali was overthrown in a military coup and subsequently lost control of the northern area of the country, which constitutes more than half of its land area. Mali had long been considered a stable example of African democracy, but as we learned in our Subcommittee's hearing in June 2012, the coup and resulting loss of so much territory revealed a hollowness and rot within the Mali democratic system. The influx of well-armed terrorist groups, broken promises to neglected ethnic groups, lack of adherence to democratic principles and rampant drug smuggling all made the Mali government vulnerable to breakdown. We must ask now whether other countries in Africa's Sahel region are also more vulnerable than we think. Mali provided a staging ground for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, or AQIM, which is daily becoming an ever-greater threat in the region and perhaps globally. AQIM is considered the best funded of all al- Qaeda affiliates and, through its ties to other terrorist groups, may be funding their activities as well. In a July Subcommittee hearing last year, we learned that Boko Haram in Nigeria is not a unified organization, but rather various factions-- some of which are focused on embarrassing the Nigerian government, but others that have a more global jihadist view. It is the latter that have been present in northern Mali and pose a threat to Western interests. Boko Haram attacks led Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan last week to declare a state of emergency in three northern states in his country. A radical Boko Haram splinter group, known as Ansaru, may have attacked Nigerian troops en route to the peacekeeping operation in Mali. In Mali, three terrorist groups dominate the rebellion that split off the North: MUJWA, a splinter group of AQIM; Ansar al Deen, an Islamist Tuareg rebel group, and the MNLA, a more secular Tuareg group. These groups have different aims and sometimes clash with one another. Nevertheless, they collectively have posed and continue to pose a threat to the peace in Mali and the region. As a result of the rebel actions in northern Mali, there currently are more than 300,000 internally displaced persons in Mali, more than 74,000 refugees in Mauritania, 50,000 refugees in Niger and nearly 50,000 refugees in Burkina Faso. The displacement of nearly half a million Malians strains already-scarce resources in the Sahel, with aid recipients often in remote areas. French forces were able to forestall a rebel advance into southern Mali earlier this year, and an African military contingent is in the process of being deployed to Mali even now. However, chasing rebels out of Mali's major northern towns will be easier than ending ongoing terrorist attacks or reconciling ethnic groups whose enmity has grown over the last year.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, I chaired a hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations that pressed for the immediate freedom and repatriation of Mr. Jacob Ostreicher, a U.S. citizen from Brooklyn, New York, who has been detained in Bolivia for 720 days. I especially want thank our distinguished witness who testified at that hearing, Mr. Sean Penn, for taking time out of his very busy schedule to testify before the subcommittee. The human rights subcommittee that I chair held two hearings in the 112th Congress on Mr. Ostreicher's case, one in June and the second in August 2012. The witnesses included Mr. Ostreicher's wife, Miriam Ungar, his daughter, Chaya Weinberger, Steve Moore, a retired FBI agent who investigated Mr. Ostreicher's case on a pro bono basis, and Mr. Ostreicher's two Bolivian attorneys, Mr. Yimy Montaono and Mr. Jerjes Justiniano-who are not only extraordinarily effective and competent defense lawyers, but brave as well. The record--including their testimonies--established that Mr. Ostreicher is innocent, and is the victim of an elaborate, high-level government extortion ring that has fleeced approximately $27 million worth of assets from the rice operation that he had been managing. It's time Jacob came home to his wife and family and friends. Basic justice and humanitarianism--Jacob is very ill--adds to the urgency that he be freed. In one sense, a lot has happened since the hearing last August. Tragically, Mr. Ostreicher has developed the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, likely due to the sustained, severe stress to which he has been subjected. Immediately following meetings that I had with Bolivian officials in La Paz last June, including Carlos Romero, Minister of Government, Bolivia started to investigate whether Mr. Ostreicher was the victim of extortion. A total of 27 prosecutors, judges, and officials responsible for confiscated goods who were involved in Mr. Ostreicher's case have now had charges made against them. Currently, 13 of them are in the Palmasola prison, 9 are under house arrest, and 5 are fugitives. One of those in prison, Fernando Rivera, is a Ministry of Government adviser who I personally witnessed threaten the judge presiding at one of Mr. Ostreicher's hearings in a Santa Cruz court room. Mr. Rivera recently apologized to Mr. Ostreicher during a bail hearing, claiming that he was only following orders from then-Minister of Government Sacha Llorenti. In one of the many bizarre twists to this story, Mr. Llorenti is now the Bolivian representative to the United Nations, living in New York, just a few miles from Mr. Ostreicher's home. I traveled for a second time to Bolivia in early December, this time with Representative Nydia Velazquez, to visit Mr. Ostreicher and again to press Bolivian officials to either produce the evidence that he has committed a crime or free him. High level officials assured us that Mr. Ostreicher's case would proceed fairly and expeditiously now that the extortion network was being exposed. Some officials even admitted to us privately that they believed Mr. Ostreicher is innocent. Mr. Penn became involved in the case in October, and was instrumental in obtaining medical care for Mr. Ostreicher and for helping to secure his release from the Palmasola prison to house arrest on December 18th. With Mr. Penn's personal intervention with President Morales and with Mr. Penn in the court room, all of us hoped that Jacob would be at long last released and vindicated at a hearing in December. Inexplicably, that didn't happen. The State Department references Mr. Ostreicher's case in its 2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Bolivia, and notes the arrest of government officials and the stolen assets as part of its section on ``arbitrary arrest or detention.'' However, in another sense, the most important aspects of the case have not changed. Mr. Jacob Ostreicher is still in the custody of the Government of Bolivia. On June 4th, it will be two years since he was imprisoned. Bolivian officials are employing delay tactics and giving excuses for his continued detention that we have heard before. No evidence whatsoever has been presented to indicate that Mr. Ostreicher is guilty of any crime. And there is no sign of the $27 million in assets from his rice operation that were confiscated. Perhaps this last fact is the real reason why Mr. Ostreicher still is not home with his family in the United States. Recently, there have been reports from credible sources that there is another ``security threat'' to Mr. Ostreicher's safety. These followed the sudden removal of Bolivian security officers from the parameter of Mr. Ostreicher's residence, the day after Mr. Rivera implicated the current Bolivian representative to the U.N. in the extortion case. As long as Mr. Ostreicher is forced to remain in Bolivia, the government is responsible for and must take all necessary measures to ensure his safety. As a result of the continued injustice in Mr. Ostreicher's case, and also in response to the growing number of cases of Americans being detained abroad in violation of their human and due process rights, I together with Rep. Velazquez have reintroduced the Justice for Imprisoned Americans Overseas Act, or ``Jacob's Law.'' H.R. 1778 would deny visas to foreign government officials responsible for violating the human or due process rights of an American in their custody. The travel ban would also apply to the officials' immediate family members. It is wrong for our government to give foreign officials and their families the privilege--and it is a privilege, not a right--to visit and study in the U.S. while those same officials are wrongfully detaining an American abroad. While this bill works its way through the legislative process, my committee will continue to pursue every means possible to secure Mr. Ostreicher's safe return to his wife, children and grandchildren. And that is why we are holding this hearing. President Morales is flying to Atlanta today for a meeting with former-President Jimmy Carter to ask for his assistance in negotiating land access through Chile to the Pacific Ocean. While the Bolivian media is reporting on these events, I hope that they will also note that I am sending the former president the transcripts of the hearings that this subcommittee has held on the case of Jacob Ostreicher. I contacted the Carter Center earlier today to ask the former President Carter to intervene personally in Mr. Ostreicher's case. I was advised that Jacob's case is on the agenda today and would be raised. It was very much a privilege to have Mr. Penn with us this week, not only because of the fame that he has rightly garnered through his Academy Award-winning acting, and not only because of the highly commendable assistance he is bringing to the suffering people in Haiti through the relief organization that he founded, but also because of the extraordinary assistance that he has provided to Mr. Ostreicher, who he had never met and to whom he owed no obligation prior to being asked to assist with the case last fall. That assistance now includes joining us today to highlight Mr. Ostreicher's continued plight and to advocate for his freedom.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week, I chaired a hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations that examined the United States' contribution to the global fight against malaria. Leadership matters. In 2005, President George W. Bush established the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) and targeted several African malaria endemic countries to receive over a billion dollars to mitigate and someday eradicate this killer disease. The positive consequences of that bold and compassionate initiative include over a million lives saved over the last decade. The global impact of this disease is severe--yet we are making progress. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010 there were 219 million malaria cases and 660,000 deaths. While still unconscionably high--every life is absolutely precious and of extraordinary importance--loss of life has declined from approximately 985,000 deaths in 2000. Not surprisingly, malaria has a particularly devastating impact on the most vulnerable. Nearly 86% of those who die are children under five years of age living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and President George W. Bush's extraordinarily effective Global AIDS Coordinator, said that in ``Africa alone, Malaria take the life of a child every minute'' and pregnant women are also disproportionately afflicted with the disease. WHO emphasizes in its World Malaria Report 2012 that malaria is strongly associated with poverty. Countries in which a larger percentage of the population lives in poverty also have higher mortality rates from malaria. Children living in poorer populations and in rural areas have the highest parasite prevalence rates. It is also important to note the extent to which the prevalence of malaria is concentrated. Eighty percent of malaria deaths occur in just 14 countries and almost 80% of cases occur in 17 countries. Over 40% of malaria deaths occur in two countries--the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and 40% of malaria cases are in the DRC, Nigeria, and India. These high morbidity and mortality rates are not necessary--malaria is both preventable and treatable. We heard about the cost effective measures that are currently available and already having an impact or that are in the development process. And the United States, despite the current financial constraints, is making a significant contribution to the global fight against malaria. In addition to our contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United States provided $871 million in anti-malaria assistance in FY2012, and the request for FY2014 is $893 million. But these levels, even when combined with contributions from other donors, fall short of the global need. So our question last week was: what are the major challenges going forward, and how we can best use our resources to meet those challenges, to save the most lives and to have the greatest impact in controlling, if not eradicating, this dreaded disease? We also took a close look at several immediate threats to global efforts to combat malaria. On April 19th, the subcommittee that I chair held a hearing called ``Meeting the Challenge of Drug-Resistant Diseases in Developing Countries.'' In his testimony at that hearing, Dr. Thomas Frieden, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that in recent years, malaria infections in parts of Southeast Asia have been showing resistance to artemisinin drugs. These drugs are the last remaining class of anti-malarial drugs and form the basis of malaria treatment globally. If these resistant parasites manage to spread to sub-Saharan Africa, he stated that ``the results could be devastating.'' Insecticide-treated bed nets, which have an average useful life of two to three years, are an important, proven malaria prevention tool. According to the World Health Organization, 150 million nets are needed each year to provide protection to the vulnerable populations in sub- Saharan Africa. For the past two years however, the supply has been considerably lower than this level, resulting in an estimated current shortfall of 77 million nets. The consequences, if not urgently addressed, could place entire populations, especially children, at risk of a dramatic malaria resurgence and death. We were fortunate to have with us three distinguished experts who provided us with valuable insights into these challenges.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing to assess progress on the unfulfilled British commitment--broken commitment, unless the British Government reverses course--in the Finucane collusion case, and how this affects the peace process in Northern Ireland. In connection with the Good Friday peace agreement, the British Government promised to conduct public inquiries into the Finucane and three other cases where government collusion in a paramilitary murder was suspected. Subsequently the British government backtracked in regard to the Finucane case--the 1989 murder of human rights lawyer Patrick Finucane. The British backtracking came despite the recommendation to hold an inquiry, which, again, the British Government agreed to abide by, of the internationally respected jurist and former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory in 2004. I'd like to thank Judge Cory again, who testified about his recommendation, at a congressional hearing which I chaired in May of 2004. That is now nine years ago--and we are all still trying to get the British government to live up to its commitment. The Finucane family has testified at many hearings--Geraldine, Patrick's widow, and his son John, his son Michael, who testified yesterday--going back sixteen years. And of course there have been many others--and all of these witnesses, advocates, and experts have advocated a full, independent, and public judicial inquiry into the police collusion with loyalist paramilitaries responsible for brutally murdering Pat Finucane. Over these years the dedicated human rights activists and experts have established much of what happened, and, after facts have been established, the British Government has acknowledged many of them. In 2011 the British Government admitted that it did collude in the Finucane murder and apologized for it. Much of the credit for this admission goes to the many of you who have done the work on all the reports that documented collusion, until it was pointless for the British Government to continue denying it. So that is progress. But the work is not done because the British Government has reserved one final, yet massive injustice: it continues to protect those responsible for the murder of Pat Finucane. Prime Minister Cameron told the Finucane family that the government would not conduct the promised public inquiry into the collusion. The deliberate decision not to proceed with a public inquiry is a glaring, public breach of faith. It is the source of enormous frustration to Patrick Finucane's family and friends. It resonates throughout Northern Ireland, calling into question the British Government's commitment to peace and reconciliation. This is particularly sad because the British Government has taken so many other positive, truly honorable steps, many of which were painful for large sectors of British public and official opinion--such as the Bloody Sunday inquiry, released in 2010. To call all that into question by reneging on the promised Finucane inquiry is a tragedy. Most recently, in December 2012, Sir Desmond De Silva released a new report on collusion in the Finucane murder--really a review of existing case files rather than the gathering of new evidence that the promised inquiry would produce. The De Silva report detailed what Prime Minister Cameron admitted were ``shocking'' levels of state collusion in the murder, including that it was RUC officers who proposed the killing of Finucane, passed information to his killers, and obstructed the investigation, and that British domestic security had intelligence of the murder threats months before the actual crime yet took no steps to protect him. It is admirable that Prime the Minister has admitted collusion and apologized for it, but it is really too much to admit a government crime and then to say it will not be investigated--particularly when the government has undertaken a commitment to do so. The question asks itself--after so many positive steps, is the British Government really going to diminish the good it's done since 1998 in order to protect the identity of people who share responsibility for a murder? I'm sure Congress will continue to maintain a strong voice on this case, which goes to the core of human rights and rule of law.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which I chair, held a hearing focused on the persistent and devastating problem of international parental child abduction, which occurs when one parent unlawfully moves a child from his or her country of residence, often for the purpose of denying the other parent access to the child. The damage to the child and the left behind parent is incalculable and too often life-long. The children especially are at risk of serious emotional and psychological problems and may experience anxiety, eating problems, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt and fearfulness. These victims are American citizens who need the help of their government when normal legal processes are unavailable or fail. In 1983, the United States ratified the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to try to address this serious issue. This Convention creates a civil framework for the quick return of abducted children, and for rights of access to both parents. Absent extenuating circumstances, the child is to be returned within 6 weeks to their country of habitual residence for the courts there to decide on custody or to enforce any previous custody determinations. The Convention has helped return many children, but it is far from a silver bullet. Even in countries where the Convention is allegedly working, only about 40 percent of children are returned. Other cases are ``resolved,'' but too often with dubious application of the Convention. Susceptible to abuse by taking parents or unwilling judges, the Convention has too often been stretched to provide cover for abduction rather than recovery of the child. Taking parents have figured out that they can drag out hearing after hearing, appeal after appeal for years until the courts can claim that, ``Yes, the child should have been returned but that the child is settled in the new country now and does not have to be returned under an exception in the Convention.'' Some Hague Convention signatories are simply not enforcing legitimate return orders. The State Department's 2012 Hague Convention Compliance Report highlights six countries--Argentina, Australia, France, Mexico, Netherlands, and Romania--for failing to enforce return orders. Other countries--Costa Rica, Guatemala, The Bahamas, Brazil, and Panama--are non-compliant with the Convention or showing patterns non-compliance. In other words, abducted American children are not coming home from these countries and American families need other options. The same is true for many countries that have not signed the Hague Convention. In 2012 alone, more than 634 children were abducted to countries that have not signed the Hague Convention--countries like Japan, Egypt, and India. More than 300 children have suffered abduction from the United States to Japan since 1994. Congress does not know of a single case in which the Government of Japan has issued and enforced an order for the return of an abducted child to the United States. According to U.S. State Department statistics, the United States is monitoring 54 ongoing cases involving 74 children who were abducted from the United States to Japan and 21 additional children from the United States who may not have been abducted, but who are being denied access to their American parent. Although Japan has recently taken steps to join the Hague Convention, Japan's ratification will not address current cases for return. Moreover, experts question whether the ratification includes reservations that will make it impossible for even new abduction cases to be resolved with returns. The United States does not have a bilateral or other agreement with Japan to facilitate the return of American citizen children who are currently abducted-citizens like Jade and Michael Elias, whose father will testify before us today. Under the Convention alone, if ratified by Japan, the best that American parents of currently abducted children can hope for is a visit with their child. Such visits are projected to be one hour long, once a month, in a secure facility-hardly dignified or unfettered. Despite our multi-billion dollar investment in Egypt, neither the Mubarak government nor the Morsi government has seen fit to return abducted American citizen children Noor and Ramsey Bower. They, along with 30 other American children in Egypt, are forced to live without half of their culture, half of their identity, and without the love and guidance of an American parent who daily fights for their return. The United States does not have a bilateral agreement with Egypt to facilitate the return of American citizen children, and has so far been unwilling to make prioritization of these cases a condition for the continued funding of the Egyptian Government. India also has been a source of immense frustration and grief for American parents. In 2012, 32 more children were abducted to India, bringing the total number to 78 open abduction cases involving 95 children. Although some Indian courts make ``Hague-like'' decisions to return some children, returns are uneven. Parents attempting to utilize India's courts for the return of abducted children report corruption and incessant delays. The United States does not have a bilateral agreement with India to facilitate the return of American citizen children Convention. In the last Congress I introduced legislation--the Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act--to impress upon both Hague and non-Hague Convention countries that the United States will not tolerate child abduction or have patience with countries that hide abductors behind the Hague Convention. The bill would empower the President and Department of State with new tools and authorities to secure the return of abducted American children. When a country has shown a ``pattern of non-cooperation'' in resolving child abduction cases, the President will be able to respond decisively with a range of 18 actions and penalties. Based on past experience--particularly with the Goldman case in Brazil--we know that penalties manage to get the attention of other governments, and help them prioritize resolution. The bill also calls for the State Department to work out memorandums of understanding with countries that have not signed the Hague Convention in order to create agreed-upon routes to abduction resolution between countries, rather than the never-ending and torturous maze American are currently forced to run. The status quo is simply not adequate, while well meaning and sincere, current policy has failed far too many children and their left behind, broken hearted, parents. To combat the cruelty and exploitation of human trafficking, over a decade ago I authored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. To tangibly assist abducted American children and their left behind parents I introduced ``The Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act'' this week. The United States can and must do more to protect innocent American children and their left behind parents from the horrors of international child abduction.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank the Speaker. With the recent murder conviction of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, we've got to encourage Americans to ask: How different, really, is Gosnell's house of horrors from abortions that occur in clinics throughout the United States? The tragic answer: not much. Not much at all. Mr. Speaker, there are Kermit Gosnells all over America--predators, child abusers, exploiters of women. Some abortionists may have cleaner sheets than Gosnell did and better sterilized equipment and better trained accomplices, but what they do and what Gosnell did for four decades--kill babies and hurt women--is the same. Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies? Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker, over the 55 million child victims who have been brutally killed by abortion over the last 40 years and over the millions of women who have been hurt physically, emotionally, and psychologically? Why the appalling lack of compassion? Why the empathy deficit for the victims--women and children--by so many, including and especially by President Obama and Vice President Biden? Women and children deserve better. Of course, Gosnell's trial isn't the first to rip the benign facade of legitimacy from the abortion industry. As far back as 1975, Dr. Kenneth Edelin was convicted by a jury in Boston of murdering an African American baby boy who was found dead and abandoned in the Boston City Hospital morgue. An investigation that led to trial revealed that the child was yet another Kenneth Edelin victim. When the jury saw the picture of the dead baby, they were appalled and persuaded that indeed a homicide had occurred. Astonishingly, that conviction was subsequently overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which simply dismissed the murder as yet another legal abortion. Mr. Speaker, how did Planned Parenthood react to the reversal of verdict? With euphoric celebration. Dr. Edelin, after all, was their guy. Years later, Dr. Edelin became the chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and was even given the Margaret Sanger Award in 2008. And I would note parenthetically that in 2009, Planned Parenthood gave the Sanger Award to Hillary Clinton. And like Gosnell, not a single tear was shed by Dr. Kenneth Edelin or Planned Parenthood for the murdered child victim. Last week, Mr. Speaker, an undercover investigative organization, Live Action, released more undercover videos that exposed the abortion industry's absolutely appalling and callous disregard for human life, human rights, and Federal law. Previously, Live Action aired several videos showing Planned Parenthood abortion clinic personnel advising women at several clinics throughout the country, including in my own home State of New Jersey, as to how to procure sex-selection abortions simply because the unborn child happened to be a little girl and other equally disturbing videos showing Planned Parenthood staffers who counsel and offer to arrange secret abortions for teenager sex trafficking victims. One of those was in a Planned Parenthood where I went to high school in Perth Amboy. A very young Latina, 14, 15, posing as a woman who had been trafficked with a man that was posing as a pimp, talks--and I advise and ask people to watch those videos. Just go to Live Action. Google it, and you can find it. Watch how they say, We cannot only abort this young girl who has been trafficked--and I wrote, Mr. Speaker, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to combat this hideous modern-day exploitation mostly of women and children. And there's Planned Parenthood personnel saying how this young girl could get a secret abortion, be back out on the streets and, of course, further exploited by this person who purported to be a pimp. The first call should have been to the police to have them arrested; instead, they talked about how to get the secret abortion. Live Action has released undercover videos showing a Bronx, New York, abortion counselor describing how, in violation of U.S. Federal law, a born-alive baby would be placed in a jar of toxic solution to ensure his or her death. A D.C. abortionist is also captured on film who talks about leaving a baby born alive after a botched abortion simply to die due to the elements. An Arizonan worker said that they would not resuscitate should a baby survive an abortion attempt. This is not just violence against children; this is a violation of Federal law. Live Action President Lila Rose has released yet another must-see video of a Maryland abortionist by the name of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who compares a baby in the womb--you've got to watch this--to meat in a slow cooker and jokes about his abortion toolkit, complete with pickax and drill bit. I watched that, and I was sick. This man does so-called ``legal abortions'' right within range of this Nation's capital. Mr. Speaker, some day--and I believe the day is fast approaching-- Americans will look back and wonder how and why such a seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with education, advanced science, information, and wealth, opportunity could have so utterly failed to protect the innocent and the inconvenient. They will wonder how and why a Nobel Peace Prize winning President could also have simultaneously been the abortion President and Planned Parenthood's best friend, despite the tragic fact that Planned Parenthood is directly responsible for aborting over 6 million babies in their clinics. History will not look favorably on today's abortion culture. We must instead work tirelessly to replace it with a culture of life. Women and children deserve no less. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I chaired a Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations hearing that examined the issues surrounding U.S. exports to Africa, which are supposed to at least balance African exports to the United States. This included looking at existing obstacles to two-way trade with Africa. The hearing specifically examined the Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2013 (H.R. 1777). The bill was reintroduced in the House by myself, Ranking Member Karen Bass, and Congressman Bobby Rush on April 26th and was introduced in the Senate on April 11th as S. 718. The purpose of H.R. 1777 (and S. 718) is to increase U.S. exports to Africa by 200 percent over the next decade. This bill does not replace AGOA. It complements it by providing for a rebalancing that makes it as beneficial to Americans as it is to Africans. The bill intends to reach its ambitious, but achievable, goal by taking several steps, including the creation of a comprehensive U.S.-Africa trade strategy and a coordinator to ensure that all U.S. agencies involved in trade work in concert with one another. This legislation also calls for not less than 25 percent of available U.S. financing for trade deals to be devoted to facilitating U.S.-Africa trade. Furthermore, it encourages the descendants of Africa in this country, who largely operate small and medium-sized businesses, to play a greater role in trade with the countries in Africa. Various studies show that every additional $1 billion in exports generates 6,000-7,000 new U.S. jobs. According to current data from the U.S. International Trade Administration export-supported jobs linked to manufacturing account for an estimated 3.3 percent of my home state of New Jersey's total private-sector employment. More than one-sixth, or 17.2 percent, of all manufacturing workers in New Jersey depend on exports for their jobs. But U.S. exports have suffered during the global economic downturn because traditional markets, such as in Europe, are buying fewer U.S. products. According to the USITA, we are the largest importer of African goods, receiving 20.2 percent of the continent's total global exports. However, U.S. exports to Africa fell sharply during the height of the global recession. From 2008 to 2009, U.S. exports to Africa dropped 45 percent from $78.3 billion to $42.8 billion. According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, African exports to the United States since AGOA took effect in 2001 increased from $25.4 billion to $66.9 billion in 2012--an increase of more than 262 percent. By far, petroleum exports from Africa led the way with more than $28.6 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, Census Bureau statistics showed that U.S. exports to Africa increased from $12.1 billion in 2001 to $32.8 billion in 2012--an increase of 271 percent. Consequently, while U.S. exports to Africa showed a robust increase since the inception of AGOA, the U.S. trade deficit with Africa increased from $13.3 billion in 2001 to more than $34 billion last year. The five most popular import sectors for African countries are: machinery and equipment, chemicals, petroleum products (including lubricating oils, plastics and synthetics fibers), scientific instruments and food products. That means that small and medium companies across the United States have commercial opportunities available in exporting goods and services to African countries. The African Development Bank estimates that one out of three Africans is considered to be in the middle class--that's nearly 314 million Africans who have escaped poverty and can now buy consumer goods, including those from the United States. In the supermarkets and department stores that have sprung up across Africa in recent years, there are some American products already on the shelves, but there is space for more contributions from U.S. producers. Companies such as Proctor and Gamble have long realized the potential of African markets. Two years ago, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail outlet, purchased South Africa's Massmart and its 288 stores in 14 African countries. The Economist magazine created a significant buzz within the U.S.- Africa trade community two years ago when it announced that six of the world's 10 fastest growing economies in the first decade of this century were in Africa: Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Rwanda. In the following five years, The Economist projected that seven of the top 10 fasted growing global economies would be African: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia. Whether or not you agree with the popular slogan--Africa Is Rising-- markets on the continent are attracting foreign trade and investment in increasing amounts. It is not only China that has its sights set on African markets. Countries as diverse as India, Japan, Brazil and Turkey all see the potential of selling their products in Africa. The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has long considered Africa a lucrative environment for consumer sales, earning a fifth of its profits in Africa until the 1970s, when it turned its main commercial attention to Asia. Now Unilever is back in Africa in force, selling $3.7 billion of everything from soup to soap. Frank Braeken, head of Unilever's Africa operations, said African consumers are underserved and overcharged. To meet the continent's need for personal care products for African skin and hair, Unilever developed its Motions range of products. At our hearing on this legislation last spring, we heard from Luster Products, which produces items that fit that description. There is little reason why this company and other U.S. producers can't follow suit and meet the needs Unilever says are now unmet. We will hear today from four witnesses with expertise on the opportunities and challenges faced by U.S. companies in trade with countries in Africa. We expect to learn why U.S. exports to Africa have not kept pace with U.S. imports from Africa and find out what Congress can do to better balance U.S.-Africa trade.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the Jeffrey Dahmer-like murder trial of an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell is replete with shocking testimony of beheadings, unfathomable abuse, spinal cord snippings, death, and body parts in jars. But how different, really, is Gosnell's ``house of horrors'' from the abortions that occur in clinics around the country every single day? Not much. Not much at all. Mr. Speaker, will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies? Last week, reporter Timothy Carney asked participants in a call hosted by the pro-abortion group RH Reality Check: What is the distinction between what Gosnell did and what a late-term abortionist like Leroy Carhart does? Professor Tracy Weitz responded: When a procedure that usually involves collapsing the skull is done, it is usually done when the fetus is still in the uterus, not when the fetus has been delivered. That's it? It's just a matter of where, in the womb or not, that this violence against children is construed to be okay? Where is the outrage over 55 million children victims who have been killed by abortion, and where is the appalling lack of compassion? Why the empathy deficit for the victims, women and children, especially by our President, President Barack Obama? Women and children deserve better.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, about 2 billion people in the world regularly communicate or get information on the Internet. Well over half a billion people of these people do so in repressive countries. As the Internet use has become a vital and even the standard means to disseminate beliefs, ideas and opinions, so we see a growing number of countries that censor or conduct surveillance on the Internet, in conflict with internationally recognized human rights laws and standards. The Internet, in many countries, has been transformed from a freedom plaza to big brother's best friend. The technologies to track, monitor, block, filter, trace, remove, attack, hack, and remotely take over internet activity, content and users has exploded. Many of these technologies are made in the U.S.A. Many of them have important and legitimate law-enforcement applications. But, sadly, many of them are also being exported, every day, to some of the most unsavory governments in the world--whose use of them is far from legitimate. Every day we learn about more activists being arrested through the use of newly-developed technologies--much of it American technology--in China, Belarus, Egypt, Syria and many other countries around the world. The stakes are life and death for online democracy activists, and they deserve our support and protection. We only have to look around the globe at Belarus, Iran, China, and Vietnam to see horrific examples of the internet gone wrong. I have introduced the Global Online Freedom Act of 2013 (G0FA), H.R. 491, that addresses this fundamental threat to the democracy activists abroad. GOFA requires the State Department to beef up its reporting on Internet freedom in the annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices, and to identify by name Internet-restricting countries. This country designation will be useful not only in a diplomatic context in helping to advance Internet freedom through naming and shaming countries, but will also provide U.S. technology companies with the information they need in deciding how to engage in repressive foreign countries. And GOFA addresses what Google's Eric Schmidt calls the ``dark side'' of the digital revolution. This bill will prohibit the export of hardware or software that can be used for surveillance, tracking and blocking to the governments of Internet-restricting countries. Current export control laws do not take into account the human rights impact of these exports and therefore do not create any incentive for U.S. companies to evaluate their role in assisting repressive regimes. GOFA will not only help stop the sale of these items to repressive governments, but will create an important foreign policy stance for the United States that will help ensure that dissidents abroad know we are on their side, and that U.S. businesses are not profiting from this repression. This export control law is long overdue, and thoroughly consistent with the approach Congress has taken, for example, in restricting exports of certain crime control equipment to China. It makes no sense for us to allow U.S. companies to sell technologies of repression to dictators, and then turn around and have to spend millions of dollars to develop and deploy circumvention tools and other technologies to help protect dissidents from the very technologies that U.S. companies exported to their persecutors. Mr. Speaker, I believe the United States has a unique role to play in preserving online freedom; and export controls can send a strong message to repressive governments that the Internet must not become a tool of repression.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, last week, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing that examined the role of tier rankings in the fight against human trafficking. Many of those who joined us last week have been in this fight from the beginning--from the year 2000 when my Trafficking Victims' Protection Act created not only the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State, but also the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. At the time, I don't think anyone could have predicted that this report would become the international gold standard and primary means of anti-trafficking accountability around the world. From the halls of parliaments to police stations in remote corners of the world, this report is being used to focus anti-trafficking work in 186 countries on the key areas of prevention, prosecution, and protection. The fact that it has been so successful is a credit to the hard and careful work of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Each year, this office evaluates whether the government of a country is fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, or, if not, whether the government is making significant efforts to do so. The record is laid bare for the world to see and summarized in a tier ranking. Tier I countries fully meet the minimum standards. Tier II countries do not meet the minimum standards but are making significant effort to do so. Tier III countries do not meet the standards and are not making significant effort to do so. Along with the embarrassment of being listed on Tier III, Tier III countries are open to sanction by the U.S. government. Since the TIP Report's inception, more than 120 countries have enacted anti-trafficking laws and many countries have taken other steps required to significantly raise their tier rankings--citing the TIP Report as a key factor in their increased anti-trafficking response. In the 2003 Trafficking in Persons Reauthorization Act, I and my colleagues in Congress created the Tier II Watch List. This list was intended to encourage anti-trafficking progress in a country that took positive anti-trafficking steps late in the evaluation year--especially those countries that took last-minute measures to avoid a Tier III designation. We wanted to reward good faith efforts and encourage them to continue. However, some countries made a habit of last minute efforts and failed to follow through year after year, gaming the system. Consequently, in 2008, Congress created an ``automatic downgrade'' for any country that had been on the Tier II Watch List for two years but had not taken significant enough anti-trafficking measures to move to Tier II. The President can waive a Tier III downgrade for two additional years if there is ``credible evidence'' that the country has a written and sufficiently resourced plan to meet the minimum standards. The ``automatic downgrade'' would protect the integrity of the tier system and ensure it worked properly to inspire real progress in the fight against human trafficking. It has now been four years since the two-year limit, or four years- with-a-waiver limit, was instituted. China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Azerbaijan have now had at least four full years of warning that they would face downgrade to Tier III if they did not make significant efforts to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent trafficking. Now their time on the Tier II Watch List is up. In last week's hearing, we took a close look at the records of these countries in 2012. If these countries have once again failed to make significant efforts to meet the minimum standards, the State Department must downgrade them or risk undermining the credibility and demonstrated power of the TIP Report. I am particularly concerned about the Government of China's record. The Government of China has been on the Tier II Watch List for eight consecutive years in large part because its plan to fight human trafficking is inadequate, unevenly implemented, and the Government of China has not been making significant efforts to comply with the minimum standards. Law enforcement in China is still not trained to identify or respond properly to sex or labor trafficking victims. I have heard reports that local police are often unwilling to help parents find missing children who may be enslaved in local brick kilns, and that officials have been known to profit from brick kilns that exploit children. As we heard from a brave trafficking survivor last week, the Government of China continues to forcibly repatriate North Korean trafficking victims who face severe punishment, including execution, upon their return to North Korea. Moreover, the Government of China's continued one-child policy has decimated China's female population. Tens of millions of women and girls are missing from the population, making China a regional magnet for sex and bride trafficking as men reach marrying age but cannot find a mate. The Government of China is failing not only to address its own trafficking problems, but is creating an incentive for human trafficking problems in the whole region. The Government of Uzbekistan's record is also of great concern, as the government itself continues to force hundreds of thousands of school-age children and adults to work in fields during the cotton harvest each year. The Government of the Republic of Congo, despite making some progress in 2010 with the passage of a law that would prevent child trafficking, has failed in the last two years to convict a single person under that law despite the pervasive child trafficking in their country. The Government of Russia has had nine years of warning that without significant change, they too would be downgraded. However, the Government of Russia does not have in place formal procedures for identification and referral of trafficking victims by law enforcement, labor inspectors, and other government officials. The Government of Russia still has not established a government body to organize government anti-trafficking activities, nor does it adequately fund shelters or services for trafficking victims. Russian citizens are trafficked from Russia to countries all over the globe as well as within Russia, and yet the Government of Russia does not have a national trafficking education or prevention plan. The Government of Azerbaijan continues to use administrative fines for traffickers, allowing traffickers to write-off the crime of trafficking as a simple business expense that is less expensive than hiring their workers. The Government of Iraq has been on the Watch List since the TIP Report first began to hold them accountable in 2009. Like trafficking victims elsewhere in the world, the victims in Iraq need protection, those who are vulnerable to trafficking need prevention measures, and traffickers need to be brought to justice. The importance of accurate Tier rankings cannot be overstated. Over the last 12 years, we have seen countries begin in earnest the hard work of reaching the minimum standards after the TIP Report accurately exposed--with a Tier III ranking--each country's failure to take significant action against human trafficking. By the same token, a premature boost to Tier II, such as what occurred with Vietnam last year, may not only undermine progress, but fail to inspire it. The tier rankings were meant to be, and in large part have become, a powerful tool in the fight against human trafficking.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing that examined a deadly phenomenon involving both natural and man-made elements--diseases that are resistant to most or all available methods of treatment. While this is a growing problem of increasing concern throughout the world, the subcommittee focused yesterday on the impact of such diseases--known as ``superbugs''--in developing countries and the challenges to preventing and treating these diseases in this part of the world. There is a family of germs that occur normally in everyone's digestive system. They can cause infections when they get into the bladder, blood or other areas where they don't belong. That is the natural part of this growing problem. Gut flora are absolutely essential for health and an effectively functioning immune response. There are about 100 trillion microorganisms in our digestive systems-- ten times the number of cells in our bodies. Most of them help break down the foods we eat. Those that are not helpful are usually can be treated with existing medicines, such as antibiotics. The man-made part is that antibiotics have been used increasingly to treat naturally occurring germs, but many of them have become resistant to such treatment. These so- called ``superbugs'' pose a threat because of overuse or misuse of antibiotics, but they also pose a threat because of what some call a ``drug discovery void,'' in which there has been insufficient research and development of new medicines to treat emerging mutating infections. This situation recently has become much more serious. In the last 10 years, these drug-resistant diseases have been identified in patients in more than 200 hospitals in 42 states in this country. Over that period, their prevalence rate has increased from 1 percent of patients to 4 percent for those in short-term care, but for patients in long- term care facilities, the rate is as high as 18 percent. Half of all patients who contract these diseases do not survive. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, one of the better known of these superbugs, now kills as many as 19,000 Americans each year and a similar number in Europe. That is higher than the annual rate of deaths from HIV and AIDS. Last year, the World Health Organization identified strains of gonorrhea and tuberculosis that are currently completely untreatable, as well as a new wave of what might be called ``super superbugs'' with the mutation known as NDM1. These frightening new strains were first seen in India, but they have now spread worldwide. The spread of the H7N9 bird flu in China is causing considerable concern--with more than 100 confirmed cases and 22 deaths reported thus far. According to Agence France Presse, WHO said yesterday that there is still no evidence that H7N9 was spreading in a ``sustained'' way between people in China. According to WHO, artemesinin, when used in combination with other drugs, is now considered the world's best treatment against malaria, but malarial parasites resistant to artemesinin have emerged in western Cambodia, along the border with Thailand. In the developed world, we pride ourselves on having top-flight medical care widely available to patients. If we lose half of all patients who contract these drug-resistant diseases, what about patients in the developing world, where statistics are often scarce and effective medical care can be even scarcer? Using accepted protocols for treating these diseases, their rate of infection can be curbed. In Israel, infection rates in all 27 of its hospitals fell by more than 70 percent in one year with a coordinated prevention program. By following accepted protocols for handling these diseases, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Florida Department of Health both have stopped outbreaks of these drug resistant diseases in recent years. But what about hospitals in developing countries? For example, the brain drain has sent trained medical personnel in Africa in search of better working conditions and pay in the developed world. The lack of equipment and supplies that partly led to this brain drain would facilitate the rapid spread of drug resistant diseases in these countries. What would be simple interventions, including removing temporary medical devices such as catheters or ventilators from patients as soon as possible, is less likely under current conditions in developing world hospitals. Adding to this problem is the presence of expired and counterfeit drugs. Patients whose lives could be saved may not be because of inadequate medical care. Unfortunately, because so many countries do not maintain and report statistics on medical issues, we have little idea how serious the situation is today in developing countries in Africa and elsewhere around the world. In our interconnected world, that means that infected people in the developing and developed countries pose a mutual threat. Last month, a Nepalese man was detained at the Texas border while trying to make an illegal crossing from Mexico. Officials found he was infected with an extensively drug resistant strain of tuberculosis and had carried this potentially deadly airborne disease through 13 countries over three months--from his home country of Nepal through South Asia, Brazil, Mexico and finally the United States. Who can say how many people he infected during this long journey? Conversely, six years ago an American infected with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis traveled from this country to France, Greece and Italy before returning through the Czech Republic and Canada. Upon his return to the U.S., he became the first person subjected to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention isolation order since 1963. Clearly, both developed and developing nations must work together to prevent and treat for these diseases and find a way to implement the new strategies in an era of constrained budgets and loosening control of authority in far too many countries. However, the Administration's proposed FY 2014 budget calls for a 19 percent cut in funding for tuberculosis programming at a time we need such capacity the most.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the genocide of Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire. We have a grave obligation, in truth and justice, to acknowledge this genocide against Armenians. This House is obligated, as is the government of the United States, and all peoples and governments around the world. That obligation is all the more grave because the Turkish government--our friend and ally--aggressively denies this genocide. The facts surrounding the genocide are well known and established beyond any doubt whatsoever. Beginning in April 1915, following years of pogroms and other repressive measures, Ottoman authorities undertook the systematic annihilation of as many as one and a half million Armenians through shootings, mass burnings, gassing, poisoning, drowning, forced labor, or death marches into the Syrian desert. The scale and ferocity of these atrocities were unprecedented in the modern era. The Honorable United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire 1913- 1916 Henry Morgenthau characterized the policy of the Ottoman government as a ``campaign of race extermination'' and was instructed by Secretary of State Robert Lansing to continue his protests along with the officials of many other countries, including allies of the Ottomans. Most tellingly, the post-World War I Turkish government indicted the top leaders involved in the ``organization and execution'' of the policy and in the ``massacre and destruction of the Armenians.'' The chief organizers were all condemned to death for their crimes, though the verdicts of the courts were not enforced. As is well known, Raphael Lemkin did not coin the term ``genocide'' until 1944, almost 30 years after the Ottoman massacre of Armenians. But in his groundbreaking work on the subject, Lemkin cited the case of the Armenians as the classic example of genocide. His idea of genocide as an offense against international law was widely accepted by the international community and was one of the legal bases of the trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremburg. Despite the overwhelming preponderance of evidence of the Ottoman government's policy of annihilation of Armenians and the virtually universal acceptance of the Armenian case as a classic example of genocide, the government of the modern state of Turkey refuses to acknowledge the crimes of the previous regime as the responsibility of the Ottoman government or as a case of genocide. Indeed, the Turkish government even has undertaken the persecution of those Turks who recognize the genocide. One day the Turkish government will acknowledge the genocide. That will be a great day for Turkey--for the moral air of the country--and a truly patriotic gesture, a sign of spiritual strength. The sooner the better! The United States does a disservice to Turkey and its people by facilitating genocide denial by not pressing Turkey harder to acknowledge the truth.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing that examined U.S. actions to support the March 2013 elections in Kenya, a critically important African ally. The United States has devoted more than $35 million since 2010 alone to prepare for and manage this year's election process. After the massive violence following the closely contested December 2007 election, many precautions were taken to prevent a similar occurrence in 2013, and election-day and post-election violence have been greatly reduced. However, an effort to use new technology did not work as well as hoped. There were questions about the effectiveness of this election, which had promised to be a technological advancement. Given future important African elections, this hearing will look at what a responsible U.S. policy toward African elections should look like in an era of constrained development aid budgets. The tragic election day deaths of 19 people, although attributed mostly to Islamic separatist elements and not to specifically election- related causes, cannot be overlooked and the perpetrators must be held to account. It is unacceptable that in the violence that followed the 2007 elections, an estimated 1,200 Kenyans were killed, and approximately 600,000 were displaced, according to media reports. Yet no one has thus far been held accountable. Kenya this year conducted its first election under the 2010 constitution. In addition to voting for a president and members of the National Assembly, Kenyans selected members of the new Senate, as well as governors and local Assembly representatives in the 47 newly-created counties, each with a designated women's representative. More technology was brought into polling places to better ensure accuracy of voting and vote tabulation. Unfortunately, reported malfunctions of the equipment in some polling stations and at the national level, where a server broke down, for awhile stoked fears of vote rigging. If the court process had not been handled well as it was, we might now be looking at another wave of post-election violence. Uhuru Kenyatta was elected President with 6,173,433 votes to 5,340,546 votes for Raila Odinga, and this was certified by the Kenyan Supreme Court. Nevertheless, violence was still a possibility until Odinga gave a magnanimous concession speech following the court ruling. The amount of U.S support for the Kenya election was extraordinary. American and Kenyan civil society organizations were enabled to conduct civic education, including radio and television messages and programs aimed at youth to encourage participation in the election process and discourage violence. Youth organizations were created nationwide to give young people an enduring voice in their country's political system. Several innovative approaches were created, including a comic book called Shujazz with young characters involved in commenting on the Kenyan political scene. The three organizations presenting testimony today all played major roles in creative preparations for the 2013 Kenyan election. The International Republican Institute printed nearly 1.2 million sample ballots and 400,000 election posters for the IEBC and also distributed 800,000 Shujazz posters. The National Democratic Institute conducted an important poll on voter attitudes heading into the election, covering such issues as whether the country was headed in the right direction, whether their lives would improve during the next five years, whether the election posed a security threat to them and their community and whether they felt others were being encouraged to do harm to their ethnic group because of the elections. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems advised Kenya's electoral commission on the process to conduct an election where there were 1,882 different configurations of the ballot, depending on the local races being run. The cell phones necessary for reporting of vote totals from polling stations were so late in being procured that IFES went ahead and purchased 1,200 to send into the field in time for election day. Despite the extraordinary efforts by NGOs in preparing for the Kenyan election, we must be selective in what lessons we take from this experience. We will not be able to devote such resources to what will be several important elections yet to be held in 2013. The U.S. Government has pressed both the governments of Mali and Madagascar to hold elections at the earliest possible date in order to normalize relations after coups replaced elected leaders. Zimbabwe, which recently held a constitutional referendum, is scheduled to hold presidential and legislative elections that many in that country hope will break the long cycle of repression of the political opposition. Ethiopia's next election will replace the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and also will determine whether the political opposition will have more space to operate than in previous elections. Guinea's election also is being conducted in an atmosphere of uncertainty for the political opposition. These elections are important to U.S. foreign policy as was the election in Kenya. So how do we ensure that they are successful and represent the will of the voters if we can't devote the resources we did in Kenya? That was the question we put to the witnesses, whose organizations have broad experience with African elections and have a unique viewpoint that we hope will allow Congress and the administration to agree on funding for a policy that is fiscally sound while being politically effective.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I recently held a hearing in which we listened and learned from brave men and women from China who have been and are at the forefront of advocating for freedom and human rights and against the tyranny and oppression of the state. We sought advice and counsel as to what can--and must--be done by Congress, the President, and the American people, and all people of goodwill worldwide, to mitigate the hate and gross mistreatment meted out by the government of China against its own citizens. We appealed to Beijing--ease up, respect fundamental human rights and the sanctity of human life and honor your commitments and the rule of law. Chen Guangcheng and his equally courageous wife Yuan Weijing have paid, and continue to pay an extraordinary high price for their benign defiance of a dictatorship that violates human rights with impunity and crushes human dignity. Not only have the Chens endured numbing isolation and unspeakable torture over the course of several years, but now as we all know, in a pathetic display of PRC governmental revenge Chen's nephew Chen Kegui languishes in a Chinese prison while other family members remain at risk. Shockingly, young Chen Kegui has been brutally tortured and threatened, as Guangcheng noted, with life imprisonment if he appeals his conviction. Undeterred, Mr. Chen Guangcheng continues to gently raise his clear and consistent voice on behalf of all victims while pushing systemic reform of egregiously flawed political institutions and people who persecute and repress. Blind since childhood, Mr. Chen bore all the burdens and disadvantages that a disabled person faces in rural China. Confronted with the denial of his rights, he developed an intense interest in law and challenged the local government, winning his case. Hearing of Mr. Chen's success, other individuals in Shandong Province were inspired to seek his legal assistance in securing redress and vindication. Almost everywhere, corrupt officials made, and continue to make, life miserable for those struggling to survive. Mr. Chen informed many of their rights and helped them seek durable remedies. He helped many to see that the rule of just and compassionate law wasn't just for the privileged few, but for everyone. Victimized yet unbroken by beatings and torture, 51 months of nightmarish incarceration, preceded by house arrest and followed by 18 months more cut short only by his escape, Chen Guangcheng tenaciously defended Chinese women and babies oppressed by China's draconian one child policy. Mr. Chen's brilliant mind, indomitable spirit and unimaginable courage exposed pervasive forced abortion, deemed a crime against humanity at the Nuremberg Nazi War Crimes Tribunal, and was relentless in using his self-taught legal skills to protect the innocent. Unfazed by both the difficulty of the task or the inherent risks, Mr. Chen employed legal strategies to combat this insidious government cruelty towards women and children and argued that his clients in Linyi--and all women in China for that matter--have rights that prohibit such violence. They deserve better. Chen became, and remains their hero. It took a blind man to really see the injustice of a population control program that makes most brothers and sisters illegal and to hear the desperate cries of Chinese women. It took a blind man, the great Chen Guangcheng, to open the eyes of a blind world to these human rights violations systematically inflicted on Chinese women. Mr. Chen's daring escape to the U.S. Embassy, his miraculous evasion of China's ubiquitous secret police en route is the stuff of legend and superheroes. His dramatic testimony by telephone from a hospital to two emergency hearings I chaired was heard around the world. Ms. Geng He appeared in order to remind us, and the world, of another brave extraordinary hero, her husband Gao Zhisheng. With great love and a broken heart, this remarkable woman has worked unceasingly to secure the freedom of her husband. Gao Zhisheng is an attorney who played a leading role among Chinese human rights lawyers that defend those the Chinese government persecutes most harshly, conducting their defense by demanding that the prosecution conform to the law. Mr. Gao is the quintessential example of a human rights defender. In 2005, after he took on politically sensitive cases, Mr. Gao wrote open letters to both the National People's Congress and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, calling for an end to the torture of members of persecuted religious groups. Mr. Gao's license to practice law was subsequently revoked, his law firm shut down, and his family placed under police surveillance. In August, 2006, Mr. Gao was apprehended and then charged with ``inciting subversion.'' He was convicted and given a suspended three-year sentence with five years' probation, effectively placing him under house arrest. In September 2007, Mr. Gao wrote an open letter to the United States Congress in which he described widespread human rights abuses in China, called ``China's birth control policy the largest genocide in the history of mankind'' and related the government's harsh treatment of him and his family. He was consequently detained and tortured for 50 days. His captors called him a ``traitor,'' and they warned him he would be killed if he told anyone about being abducted and tortured. In February 2009, Gao was forcibly taken away from his home in Shaanxi province by public security personnel. He briefly resurfaced only in late March of 2010, more than a year later. During his brief reappearance, however, Mr. Gao gave several interviews to foreign media, disclosing the details of his torture. The next month, Mr. Gao disappeared again. In testimony at a China Commission hearing that I chaired on February 14th of last year, Geng He said of her daughter Grace: ``Zhisheng's absence has caused my daughter severe emotional anguish. She often dreams that her father is dead.'' Geng He added: ``My son has tears in his eyes on Father's day . . . we were forced to endure rumors that the guards had tortured Zhisheng to death.'' In late 2011, Gao was secretly transferred to a distant Shaya County Prison in the Aksu district of Xinjiang. He has seen his family only twice in the last 16 months and for only 30 minutes each visit. Police have prohibited family members from asking him any information about himself. In an account of Mr. Gao's torture, made public by the Associated Press in January 2011, Mr. Gao disclosed to a reporter the excruciating details of his detention: ``The police stripped Gao Zhisheng bare and pummeled him with handguns in holsters. For two days and nights, they took turns beating him and did things he refused to describe.'' He recalled, ``for 48 hours my life hung by a thread.'' Authorities reportedly threatened to kill Mr. Gao and to dump his body in a river. And, authorities taunted him by saying ``you must forget you're human.'' To President Xi, we will not forget Gao Zhisheng. Not now, not ever. We appeal to you to release him. Below are several excerpts from the hearing I recently chaired. Q: Rep. Weber (to Mr. Chen and Pastor Fu)--``Would you all agree that part of your reason for being here is to stop those atrocities and that we would include those as a basic human right as well?'' A: Mr. Chen ``Forced abortion is certainly a basic human rights issue; no mother would willingly kill their own children. This is a doing of the Chinese Communist Party, acting above the law. They want to be as the Emperors and exercise absolute power.'' Q: Mr. Smith Referencing Mr. Chen's interview with the press about the brutality of the one-child policy, specifically quoting Mr. Chen's statement about how forced abortion does not occur only for those who are having a second child, but also for those who are having their first child but without a birth permit; Mr. Smith asked Mr. Chen for any further comments on that. A: Mr. Chen ``China's population planning agency has become a powerful for-profit institution. On the papers, this institution comprises of 500,000 personnel, but in reality, as much as 2,000,000 personnel are involved in enforcing China's population planning policies.'' ``In China, there is a zero-tolerance policy where if a party secretary does not implement one particular policy well, he is ruled to be incompetent and would be removed from his post, even if he performs well in implementing other policies. As a result, party secretaries enforce the one-child policy ruthlessly and aggressively.'' ``So now, in addition to forcibly aborting 'extraneous' pregnancies (i.e. any pregnancy beyond the first child), couples also must acquire a birth permit from the population planning office even for first pregnancies. Once pregnancy occurs without this permit, local authorities will also force an abortion--unless you're able to pay a large amount of money to the local authorities for them to look the other way and provide you with an ex post facto permit. But in most cases where they are being stringent, they will force you to go through with the abortion no matter what.'' Amnesty International's T. Kumar, International Advocacy Director said forced abortion is a major human rights violation in China. ``As a consequence of the government's one-child policy, women are still compelled to undergo forced abortion and sterilization, notwithstanding official assurances that such practices violate Beijing's wishes,'' Kumar said. Fu said bloody cases in China's forcibly enforced ``one-child'' family planning policy and in forced demolition of residential homes and relocation of residents continue to take place; the Chinese people's basic right to life cannot be guaranteed at all. Fu, of ChinaAid, decried the violence of forced ``family planning.'' ``Last month, the Ministry of Public Health publicly announced the `achievements' of the family planning policy in the past 40 years: 330 million abortions performed on Chinese women,'' Fu said. ``What is really distressing is that these bloody numbers continue to climb and that the majority of these abortions were forced on the women by the government.'' Fu said that on March 13, a woman in Henan province (Daxuzhai town, Taikang county) who was forced to have an abortion against her will, was found hanged at the local family planning office with suspicious injuries all over her body. On March 22, he testified, a woman in her seventh month of pregnancy in Anhui province (Chuzhou, Fengyang county) was kidnapped by family planning cadres and taken to a hospital where she was forced to receive a lethal injection that killed her seven-month-old unborn baby and caused her to deliver a dead fetus.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I recently chaired a hearing on anti-Semitism where we heard from representatives from Americans and Europeans about the evil of anti-Semitism can be more successfully addressed. At a Congressional hearing I chaired in 2002, Dr. Shimon Samuels of the Wiesenthal Center in Paris testified and said, ``The Holocaust for 30 years after the war acted as a protective Teflon against blatant anti-Semitic expression (especially in Europe). That Teflon has eroded, and what was considered distasteful and politically incorrect is becoming simply an opinion. But,'' he warned ominously, ``cocktail chatter at fine English dinners can end as Molotov cocktails against synagogues.'' In response to what appeared to be a sudden, frightening spike in anti-Semitism in several countries, including here in the United States, we first proposed the idea for a conference on combating anti- Semitism under the auspices of the organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Convinced we had an escalating crisis on our hands, we teamed with several OSCE partners to push for action and reform. Many of the people and NGOs present in this room played leading roles. Those efforts directly led to important OSCE conferences on combating anti-Semitism in Vienna, Berlin, Cordoba, and Bucharest. In each of those, participating states have made solemn, tangible commitments to put our words into action. In some countries, progress has indeed been made, yet the scope and outcome of anti-Semitic acts have not abated in others, and in some nations it has actually gotten worse. That is why we are here today, to review, re-commit, and re-energize efforts to vanquish the highly disturbing resurgence of anti-Semitism everywhere, including in Europe. Unparalleled since the dark ages of the Second World War, Jewish communities on a global scale are facing verbal harassment, and sometimes violent attacks against synagogues, Jewish cultural sites, cemeteries and individuals. It is an ugly reality that won't go away by ignoring or wishing it away. It must be defeated. Thus, we gather to enlighten, motivate, and share ideas on how not just to mitigate this centuries-old obsession, but to crush this pernicious form of hate. From our first panel of witnesses we heard how anti-Semitism directly threatens not only Jews but also Christians and Muslims, and democracy and civil society. When we fight anti-Semitism it is not only a matter of justice for Jewish fellow-citizens, but also of standing up for Christianity, and for Islam, and for the possibility of decent living itself. We all have a direct stake in the fight against anti- Semitism. This is tragically clear in the Middle-Eastern countries where the government propagates anti-Semitism as an official or quasi-official ideology. These governments incite anti-Semitic hatred of Israel in order to distract the people from their own tyrannical rule, from their own abuse of human rights, denial of democracy, economic corruption. Sadly, it works. We see this in governments as varied as those of Iran and Egypt, Pakistan and Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the list doesn't end there. Tens of millions of people who live in these countries are in this sense suffering from anti-Semitism. Few of them are Jewish--most are Muslim, millions are Christian. It's true that, to some degree or other, many of the people in these countries have bought into the evil of anti-Semitism, but many have not. From our second panel, we heard reports from a number of European Jewish leaders who will be able to tell us about anti-Semitism in their countries, how the governments are responding, and whether these responses are effective. Sadly, in much of Europe, the harassment of Jews, including verbal and physical violence, continues to increase, and a recent Anti-Defamation League study shows that anti-Semitic attitudes are widespread in Europe and getting worse in many countries. One thing the witnesses will address is whether elected officials are fulfilling their responsibility to speak out publicly against any expressions of anti-Semitic hate. When national leaders fail to denounce anti-Semitic violence and slurs, the void is not only demoralizing to the victims but silence actually enables the wrongdoing. Silence by elected officials in particular conveys approval--or at least acquiescence--and can contribute to a climate of fear and a sense of vulnerability. In this respect, I want to recognize the leadership Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has shown in the fight against anti-Semitism. Prime Minister Orban has taken his government into the vanguard of those fighting anti-Semitism in Europe. He has declared a `zero tolerance policy' against anti-Semitism and seen that anti-Semitic incidents are promptly followed by high-level official condemnations, sometimes by him, sometimes by other officials. There is still far too much anti-Semitism in Hungary, and it is cultivated by the viciously racist Jobbik political party. But I am glad that the Hungarian government has responded vigorously, protecting its Jewish citizens by strengthening legislation and law enforcement, education and Holocaust remembrance. Another point we considered is whether the countries are collecting reliable hate crime information. We can't fight anti-Semitic crimes effectively unless we have reliable information on them. The most recent figures from the U.S., for example, which are collected by the FBI, showed that Jews, less than 2% of the U.S. population, are the victims of 63% of religiously-targeted hate crimes. An additional concern is the importance of Holocaust education. If we are to protect our children from the dark evil of anti-Semitism, we must reeducate ourselves and systematically educate our children. While that starts in our homes, the classroom must be the incubator of tolerance. It seems to me that only the most hardened racist can remain unmoved by Holocaust education and remembrance. Only the most crass, evil, and prejudiced among us can study the horrors of the Holocaust and not cry out: Never again! Yet another concern is the rise of a ``new'' anti-Semitism, which tries to pass itself off as legitimate criticism of Israel, but which demonizes, delegitimizes, and applies double standards against Israel-- former Soviet ``refusenik'' Natan Sharansky's ``3 Ds.'' In any case, this form of anti-Semitism appears to be spreading among European social-democratic and leftist parties, as well as among Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, and I'd like to hear your views about the most effective ways to expose it for what it is. We need to work together with you to light a fire under our government, under European governments, and intergovernmental organizations like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). I am preparing to re-introduce the Combating Anti-Semitism Act; another possible initiative is for a day on which heads of state or government can each visit a major synagogue in their national capitals and make a statement on threat that anti-Semitism poses to all of us.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I recently chaired a hearing to examine the human rights situation in Vietnam. The Vietnamese government continues to be an egregious violator of a broad array of human rights. Our distinguished witnesses provided a detailed account; I would like to highlight just a few areas of grave concern. Despite the State Department's decision in 2006 to remove Vietnam from the list of Countries of Particular Concern as designated pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act, Vietnam, in fact, continues to be among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. According to the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom's 2012 Annual Report, ``[t]he government of Vietnam continues to control all religious communities, restrict and penalize independent religious practice severely, and repress individuals and groups viewed as challenging its authority.'' I agree with USCIRF's conclusion that Vietnam should be designated a CPC country. I met courageous religious leaders during my last trip to Vietnam who were struggling for fundamental human rights in their country. Unfortunately, many of them, including Father Ly and the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, remain wrongly detained today. There are disturbing reports that Father Ly is suffering poor health. Leaders of religious organizations are not the only ones victimized by the Vietnamese government; individuals and small communities are also targeted by the regime. One of our witnesses, Mr. Tien Tran, spoke of the brutality that he experienced as a member of the Con Dau parish that was violently repressed in 2010 when they tried to have a funeral procession. The State Department's upgrade of Vietnam from Tier 2 Watch List to Tier 2 with respect to the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking also needs to be critically examined. The Department's 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report states not only that Vietnamese women and children are being sexually exploited, but that there are severe labor abuses occurring as well-with the government's complicity. The Report acknowledges that state-licensed labor export companies engage in fraud and charge illegal commissions for overseas employment, and that there are documented cases of recruitment companies ignoring pleas for help from workers in exploitative situations. As the sponsor of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, I am deeply disturbed that the Tier Rankings are not being better utilized by our State Department to pressure Vietnam to correct the trafficking abuses occurring within its government, not to mention those in the private sector. We heard from Ms. Hui Danh who testified about the ordeal that her sister has endured as a victim of human trafficking. I am deeply disturbed by her story because her sister's situation actually got worse when she asked for help from the Vietnamese embassy. I greatly admire her courage and the Subcommittee is most appreciative of her willingness to speak out and bring attention to this issue. Despite the dismal status for human rights in Vietnam, we can exert pressure on the Vietnamese government to cease these abuses. I will be reintroducing the Vietnam Human Rights Act soon; swift Congressional action on this bill will send a strong message that Congress will not tolerate continuing human rights abuses in Vietnam. It is imperative that the United States Government send an unequivocal message to the Vietnamese regime that it must end its human rights abuses against its own citizens. This message however, should not be confined to the Human Rights Dialogue; it must be raised at each opportunity that we have talks with the Vietnamese government. I thank all of our witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee, and we look forward to hearing your testimony.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, will the decades-long national news media cover-up of the brutality and the violence of abortion methods ever end? Will Americans ever be told of the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies? Will Americans ever be informed by a conscientious, unbiased national news media that in the past 40 years over 55 million child victims have been brutally killed by abortion, a staggering loss of children's lives that equates to the entire population of England, and that many women have been hurt physically, emotionally, and psychologically? And according to the Center for Disease Control--and this is a very conservative estimate from CDC--over 400 women have actually died from legal abortions. Will Americans ever be told that of the 55 million children, Planned Parenthood alone claims responsibility for destroying 6 million babies and that just 2 weeks ago a Planned Parenthood leader in Florida testified at a legislative hearing at a State initiative to protect born-alive infants that even when a child survives an abortion, the decision to assist or kill the born-alive infant should be ``up to the woman, her family and her physician''? In other words, if a child intended to be aborted survives the assault, the choice to kill remains--so-called ``after-birth abortion.'' Isn't that extreme child abuse? Murdering newborns in the abortion clinic, it seems to me, is indistinguishable from any other child predator wielding a knife or a gun. Why isn't the child also seen as a patient in need of medical care, warmth, nutrition, and--dare I say--love? Now another national media coverup--in this case, even when a Jeffrey Dahmer-like murder trial of an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell, who ran the benign-sounding Women's Medical Society unfolds in a Philadelphia courtroom, replete with shocking testimony of beheadings, unfathomable abuse, death, and body parts in jars. To this day, the national news media remains uninterested, woefully indifferent--AWOL. Why the censorship? Why does Gosnell's house of horrors--his trial-- fail to this day to attract any serious and meaningful national news reporting? Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for eight counts of murder. One count is for the death of a woman, a victim who died during an abortion in his clinic. Seven counts are for babies who survived their abortions and were born alive but then killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors. In the words of the grand jury report: ``Gosnell had a simple solution for unwanted babies--he killed them.'' He didn't call it that. He called it ``ensuring fetal demise''--a nice euphemism. The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors in the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ``snipping.'' Over the years, according to the grand jury report, there were hundreds of snippings. Indeed, the national news media has not only taken a pass and looked the other way, but their stunning indifference has done a grave disservice to Gosnell's victims: the woman killed, other women injured, and children slaughtered by Gosnell. Because of the national news media's indefensible silence and because of their failure to report, other women and children at other abortion mills might also be at risk. The grand jury report, again in January of 2011, pointedly pointed out and noted that an absence of press coverage and gross negligence by the health department in Pennsylvania enabled Gosnell to show a ``contemptuous disregard for the health, safety, and dignity of his patients that continued for 40 years.'' Right from the beginning of Roe v. Wade, he was overlooked by a media that was disinterested. Some media commentators, however, are beginning to take note of the national news media blackout and the bias that undergirds and is inherent in that blackout. The title of an editorial yesterday in the Investors Business Daily was ``Newtown in the Clinic: The Media Ignore the Gosnell Trial.'' It begins in part: Media bias: A basketball coach who shoves and curses at his players merits constant coverage by a media also transfixed by Newtown; but a Philadelphia doctor on trial for murdering a woman and seven babies? It's ignored. Those who get their news from the three major networks have probably not heard of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, now on trial in Philadelphia, charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and one count of third-degree murder for killing seven babies who survived abortions and a woman who died after a botched painkiller injection. The editorial points out that, according to the Media Research Center, in 1 week, Rice--who is the coach from Rutgers--received 41 minutes, 26 seconds on ABC, CBS, and NBC in 36 separate news stories. Gosnell received zero coverage. The editorial points out: If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of Presidential hand-wringing. In today's edition of USA Today, columnist Kirsten Powers writes: Infant beheadings, severed baby feet in jars, a child screaming after it was delivered during an abortion procedure. Haven't heard about those sickening accusations? It's not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. She goes on to write in her column: A LexisNexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last 3 months. The exception is when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan hijacked a segment on ``Meet the Press.'' Again, I ask my colleagues, and I ask the news media: Why the blackout? Will America ever be told the brutality of abortion and the violence that is commonplace inside the abortion industry; or will the media, the national media especially, continue to censor and censor and, in this case, censor a trial--a trial of the century--that exposes all of the all too inconvenient truth: that not only are unborn children destroyed in these killing centers by being decapitated and dismembered but that even babies who survive the abortions can't escape the deadly hand of these child predators? I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Vicky Hartzler.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank my good friend and colleague Mrs. Hartzler for her very eloquent statement, for her championing the rights of the unborn and their mothers, and for joining us in this Special Order today. I'd like to now yield to a medical doctor who has been the leader on conscience rights in the House of Representatives, in the Congress, Dr. Fleming.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I thank you, Dr. Fleming, so much for your leadership and for that very concise statement. And now I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank Mr. Garrett for his eloquence, but also for his faithfulness in defending the powerless and the people who need voices, unborn children and their mothers, all those who are similarly situated, the vulnerable and the weak. He is always there, and I want to thank you so much, Scott. I'd like to now yield to the chairman of the Health Subcommittee for the Energy and Commerce Committee for the House of Representatives, Joe Pitts, and note that Congressman Pitts, Chairman Pitts, is the author of the Abortion Control Act of 1980, the legislation that established, within the framework of Roe v. Wade, a very aggressive attempt to protect, to the maximum extent possible, pursuant to that onerous decision by the Supreme Court, and it was upheld by the Supreme Court, to do investigations of clinics and to just hold to a higher standard so that, to the greatest extent possible, life would be protected. Congressman Pitts has been leading the charge on life for his entire career, both in the State legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives, so it is a distinct honor to yield to my good friend.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. I want to thank Chairman Pitts for his very eloquent statement. Even the grand jury report noted that if Mr. Pitts' law had been followed faithfully, the whole Gosnell destruction of not only women's lives but the death and murder of one woman and the killing of these children might not have occurred. I'd like to yield to Dr. Andy Harris, a Johns Hopkins physician and also a Member of the U.S. House from Maryland. Dr. Harris.

Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Dr. Harris, thank you for that very insightful--and I would say brilliant--defense of not just the unborn, but the newly born, and your very logical argument as to how this is already being extended in what is euphemistically called after-birth abortion to those, like Dr. Gosnell's victims, who have been born and then are killed. I would point to my colleagues, before going to Mr. Stutzman, that one of the clinic individuals who was actually killing these children-- this came out in testimony at the trial--said that when he heard the child crying, it was like an alien. Children cry when they're being killed--and in this case, a very painful--as you pointed out, pain-capable children are at least 20 weeks gestational age. Many of these kids were 23, 24, 25, even higher. As we've learned from the grand jury, as well as from these proceedings, some of these children were as old as 30 weeks gestational age--very, very large children, very mature children, but no different than the child who just a few weeks and even months before, same child, just a little more mature and, as you said, worthy of protection always. I'd like to yield to Mr. Stutzman.