Speech #1010085793

We cannot be silent. The East German Government should hear our urging that its people be given reason for hope. reason to believe that opportunity and liberty can soon be found in their own land. I hope that when President Gorbachev visits East Germany this weekend. he will work to convince the authorities there that closing borders and denying visas cannot contain aspirations for a better life. I urge President Gorbachev to help the East German Government understand the need for concrete and meaningful steps that will offer hope to the people who now despair. Surely President Gorbachev understands this need based on his own experience. He should demonstrate that the principles he attempts to uphold in the Soviet Union hold good for the rest of Eastern Europe. I also call upon the Soviet President to demonstrate tangibly that his support for the freedom of emigration is not limited to the Soviet Union alone. I urge him to work to influence his East German ally to make the freedom of emigration real for the people of East Germany. while simultaneously making the desire and need for emigration ultimately disappear. Selfinterest and justice demand that the German Democratic Republic address the underlying problem of which the exodus of its own people Is but a symptom. Mr. President. 35 years ago I was In West Berlin. I there served as a military intelligence officer at a refugee camp. which then received over 3.000 refugees a week from East Germany to Czechoslovakia and Poland. It was that exodus which led to the construction of the Berlin wall. a pathetic admission of failure by a government which had to erect barriers to contain Its own citizens. For nearly 35 years. that wall has stood as an insult to every concept of Justice and freedom.