President. I rise today to commemorate one of the darkest moments in the history of Sovietoccupied Latvia. Fortytwo years ago. on March 25. 1949. 42.076 residents of Latvia were deported to Siberia during Joseph Stalins forced collectivization of farmlands. Many thousands of those deported were children. literally torn from their schoolrooms and herded into cattle cars bound on the long journey from which few would return alive. Latvia in 1949 was a country already ravaged by war and occupation by the two most barbaric regimes of our time. Stalins Russia. and Hitlers Germany. In addition to tue countless thousands who died in the war or fled to asylum in the West. Latvia had already lost at least 15.000 citizens in Stalins first mass deportation on June 14. 1941. And then. as the Latvian people were struggling to rebuild their nation out of the rubble. came this heinous act of a bloodthirsty tyrantan act which in addition to its tragic human toll also broke the back of Latvias agrarian economy. "For our people." wrote the Popular Front of Latvia 2 years ago. "this wound will never truly heal." Mr. President. while the United States is preparing to help shape a new world order in the Middle East. an order based on respect for the sovereignty of nations and on intolerance of aggression. the leaders of the Soviet Union appear to be clinging to the old order established by Stalin.
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