Emperor Haile Selassie. who made impassioned speeches before the League of Nations before World War II predicting that leagues demise if they did not do something about Mussolinis totalitarian oppression of his people and the use of poison gasspeeches that could be delivered today. using the identical words of Haile Selassie. just changing the names maybe to Afghanistan or Cambodia/Kampuchea. Well. the fact that this government is celebrating in Ethiopia its Marxist revolution is not important to some people. but it is important to me because I know that when we are getting aid in there. if we do not in a unilateral way control the delivery of this aid and monitor its distribution. as some of our Congressmen from both parties have gone over to make sure is happening so that this aid is reaching the peopleand the best way to do that is through religious organizations and volunteer organizations. not some of the statefunded organizations where they ride around in airconditioned Mercedes and ridicule the volunteer organizations. And I have seen this with my own eyes in Thailand. where my daughter was working with volunteer organizations to help the refugees fleeing from Communist totalitarianism in Vietnam. Laos. and Cambodia. So I think what you have pointed out on the House floor has done a real service. not only in the area of Ethiopia. This requires the severest of discipline and. in the words you used from the President. a grand strategy of how we apply our foreign aid. But what you pointed out in Afghanistan and Nicaragua is particularly serious in the way this House approaches it. Those refugees. both the internal ones you pointed out that are being genocided inside Cambodiaand many raging speeches on this House floor a decade ago about our gunships and napalm could be used right now. but they are not being used. with the factor of poison gas being addedand the refugees that have been poured into Pakistan. straining their economy to the breaking point. Every time we give relief and economic aid to those Afghan refugees. the women and children of the Mujahideen freedom fighters. yes. we are strengthening their struggle against the totalitarian Soviet might that is being exercised against this small nation. Well. the same thing applies in Nicaragua. I concede that when we take care of the refugees of these socalled Contras. which we prefer to call the "freedom fighters" in that situation. yes. we are aiding their struggle for freedom there. But so what? If we are going to be told that in Ethiopia a refugee is a refugee. no matter what the source of their finding themselves in refugee status. the mismanaged Marxist economies. which is universal to every attempt to combine socialism with a police stateit does not even work when it is socialism without a police stateif we are going to help the refugees flee from th!s idiotically imposed totalitarian state in Ethiopia. then we should help to the exact same proportion. And this is where we need a strategy. Even though it involves something as sensitive as food distribution. we must help the refugees from Afghanistan and the refugees from Nicaragua. I could add all sorts of other areas around the world. as I know the gentleman could. but the distinguished gentleman from Texas has chosen to pick two areas of the world where the refugees are suffering. as he puts it. equally in intensity and in pain. as are those poor. pathetic little children and starving mothers that we see portrayed so graphically every night on televisionwell. every week. Famines have a way of disappearing from the front color coverage once they have been around 2 or 3 weeks or months. And that may be the problem with Afghanistan. now in its fifth year. going into its sixth year of suffering this Christmas.
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refugee refugees