Speech #930053576

President. American bombs are substantially contributing to this violence. American bombs create refugeesthey kill and maim civilianson a scale far greater than lowlevel terrorism or mining or shelling. Nowhere is this better documented than in the reports and hearings of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Refugees. which I serve as chairman. Most recently this was underscored In a report prepared by the subcommittees recent study mission to Indochina. In Cambodia the study mission team found that "bombing is the most pervasive reason for refugee movement." Visiting the refugee camps around Phnom Penh. and the refugees shantytowns which now surround the city. as well as in the provinces of Svay Rieng. the study missions interviews with refugees largely confirmed the earlier findings of the General Accounting Office as to the impact of the bombing on civilians. In interviews in 1971. the GAO found that some 60 percent of the refugees cited aerial bombardment as the principal reason for moving. while about 40 percent spoke of artillery fire or actual ground fighting from both sides as the cause. Obviously no scientific surveys have been taken of refugee opinion. but the study mission reported that in their random sample nearly all of the refugees spoke of their homes being destroyed or damaged by bombing or artillery. or burned in the conflict. Several spoke of the brutalities of the Vietnamesereferring to both North and South Vietnamese troops in their country. Direct statements from the refugees themselves are perhaps more revealing of the impact of the bombing and of the difficulty of life in rural areas because of the extended bombing. As one woman from Kampong Speu Province. now living in a little shack on the edge of Phnom Penh. told the subcommittee study mission: My house and all my things were destroyed by the bombs. I dont know why they bombed. I never saw a Vietnamese. My whole village was burned by the bombing. Another refugee. an older man with a family of six from a village in Kampong Thom Province. said he and his family fled because: At first we heard artillery in the distance and then the sound of airplanes. Before we knew it. the airplanes were over us. Many felt danger and left for town.