{"database": "openregs", "table": "congressional_record", "rows": [["CREC-2002-11-22-pt1-PgE2133-2", "2002-11-22", 107, 2, null, null, "THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE AND HUNGER IN AFRICA", "HOUSE", "EXTENSIONS", "ALLOTHER", "E2133", "E2134", "[{\"name\": \"Bob Schaffer\", \"role\": \"speaking\"}]", null, "148 Cong. Rec. E2133", "Congressional Record, Volume 148 Issue 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002)\n\n[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 152 (Friday, November 22, 2002)]\n[Extensions of Remarks]\n[Pages E2133-E2134]\nFrom the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]\n\n               THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE AND HUNGER IN AFRICA\n\n                                 ______\n\n                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER\n\n                              of colorado\n\n                    in the house of representatives\n\n                       Friday, November 22, 2002\n\n  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, as Co-Chair of the Congressional Ukrainian\nCaucus, I rise today to commemorate those innocent victims murdered by\nthe Soviet regime during the Ukrainian Famine. Mr. Speaker, I also call\nthe attention of the House to the famine presently being waged against\nthe people of Zambia, Zimbabwe and South-central Africa.\n  This year, on November 23, the world observes the 69th anniversary of\nUkraine's Great Famine--an unspeakable event. By presidential decree,\nevery fourth Saturday in November is a national day of remembrance for\nfamine and genocide victims throughout Ukraine. History has not\nwitnessed a greater moral injustice. This was genocide unlike any other\nexample in the history of human civilization.\n  At the time of the Great Ukrainian Famine, playwright George Bernard\nShaw and his friend, Lady Astor, had a rare visit with Josef Stalin.\n``When are you going to stop killing people?'' Lady Astor brazenly\nasked of Comrade Stalin. His terse reply: ``When it is no longer\nnecessary.''\n  Stalin's favorite killing tool was mass starvation, a tactic he used\nruthlessly against his own people. ``The collectivization program in\nUkraine resulted in a famine which cost not less than 3,000,000 lives\nin 1932. It was a Stalin-made famine,'' reported Time Magazine in its\nJanuary 1, 1940, issue. We know now, the more realistic estimate is\nmore than twice that originally reported by Time.\n  The Ukrainian Famine of 1921-1923 was a human tragedy perpetrated by\nthe Soviet regime in an attempt to destroy Ukraine and its culture and\nleave behind an amorphous mass of people that could be restructured and\nredefined to serve the Soviet Union. It began as a process of\nassimilation, but soon turned to the collectivization and then\nsubjugation of Ukrainian peasants, their lands, and their livelihoods.\nMost paid the ultimate price for their heritage, culture and\norientation toward independence.\n  Bolshevik partisans confiscated grain from Ukrainian peasants and\nsubsequently exported the stolen food to foreign nations and other\nregions of the Soviet empire. Those who protested were imprisoned,\ndeported, or often killed on the spot. This grain, belonging to\nUkraine, would have saved thousands of Ukrainian lives. Instead, it was\ncallously shipped off for purposes of generating state profit,\nsometimes left to rot on the docks, or shipped to meet the needs of\nRussia's population. Once the famine ended, Ukraine's population was\nfurther decimated by a series of epidemics.\n  The Commission on the Ukraine Famine, appointed by Congress in 1986,\nresearched and documented this terrible event. The commission confirmed\nthese horrible events and verified the cruelty with which the atrocity\nwas executed. The deliberate mass starvation did indeed constitute an\nact of genocide against Ukrainians. The commission's findings are\nrecorded in the Congressional Record for posterity, as is the graphic\nand sobering testimony of genocide survivors.\n  Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus have, in\nprior years, risen here on the House floor in observance of the\nUkrainian Famine and in solidarity with the survivors of this terrible\ntragedy. We have taken great efforts to ensure this House never\nforgets. In fact, we honor the lives of the victims by rededicating\nourselves to summoning the strength and courage of our own nation and\nthe conscientious voices of its leaders in the Congress to stand in\nfirm contradiction to any new tyrant who would contemplate such\ndevastation through intentional famine.\n  Today's observance compels me to also speak out against one such\nexample of starvation currently taking place in south-central Africa.\nMr. Speaker, America must be unambiguous in its opposition to the\ndeliberate famine presently being orchestrated there by an alliance of\nclearly defined conspirators.\n  As in Ukraine seventy 70 years ago. Southern Africa's famine has less\nto do with drought and everything to do with pure politics. Today,\nnearly 13 million people in Southern Africa face a similar starvation.\n  ``We're staring catastrophe in the face--unless we get food aid fast\nto millions of people whose lives are in the balance because they are\nstarving,'' said James Morris, the UN's special envoy to the region.\n  Officials blame environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and\nGreenpeace that have pressured African countries like Zambia to halt\nshipments of food aid from the United States and other nations willing\nand able to relieve the famine and save precious lives. The groups\noppose so-called genetically modified (GM) foods. Extremist groups have\nput their ideology--opposing the importation of all such hybrid\nagricultural products--ahead of the lives of starving people.\n  ``It's very disturbing to me that some groups have chosen a famine to\nmake a political point,'' says Andrew Natsios, administrator of the\nU.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). ``The lives of 13\nmillion people are at risk.''\n  Natsios said the U.S. is ready to supply more than 75 percent of all\nthe food coming into starving Southern Africa. ``If they don't get food\nfrom us they're not going to get it,'' he said.\n  This year, for example, Zimbabwe has refused to accept U.S. corn,\nconvinced by radical groups that GM gain might somehow ``contaminate''\nnative crops. Some of this life-saving corn was grown in my own state\nof Colorado. Adding more disinformation, Friends of the Earth claims\n``the U.S. is disposing of its rejected food on Africa,'' in a news\nrelease last month.\n  Just as in Stalin's days, truth has seldom been an ally of the Left.\nNatsios, who says the U.S. has been supplying GM foods to the region\nfor the past seven years, also says it is the same food sold and\nconsumed in the United States. ``I've never seen, in my 30 years of\npublic service, such disinformation and intellectual dishonesty,'' he\nsaid.\n  As for problems with modified crops--there are none. Concerned about\nthe lives of millions of people desperately in need, the World Health\nOrganization (WHO) released a report at the end of the summer assuring\nGM foods are perfectly safe. ``Southern African countries should\nconsider accepting GM food aid in the face of the humanitarian crisis\nfacing the region,'' urged WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland.\n\n[[Page E2134]]\n\n  Like the notorious 1932-1933 mass starvation in Ukraine, famine is\nnot always borne of a natural disaster. However, famine can become an\neffective ideological weapon.\n  Stalin himself would have been proud of the sordid partnership forged\nby radical environmentalists and African tyrants. What are a few\nmillion lives worth to this axis of hunger when there are political\nstatements to be made?\n  Mr. Speaker, I urge the House to speak in strenuous objection to this\nAfrican tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. The extreme human price\npaid for the lessons of the Great Ukrainian Famine should not be\ndismissed now to the complacency of an overwhelmed world. To permit\nthis new festering scourge is to insult the memory of those poor\nUkrainians who have perished while trivializing the dignity of their\nsurvivors whose lives command us to respond with immediate courage.\n\n                          ____________________"]], "columns": ["granule_id", "date", "congress", "session", "volume", "issue", "title", "chamber", "granule_class", "sub_granule_class", "page_start", "page_end", "speakers", "bills", "citation", "full_text"], "primary_keys": ["granule_id"], "primary_key_values": ["CREC-2002-11-22-pt1-PgE2133-2"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.399912940338254, "source": "Federal Register API & Regulations.gov API", "source_url": "https://www.federalregister.gov/developers/api/v1", "license": "Public Domain (U.S. Government data)", "license_url": "https://www.regulations.gov/faq"}