As a result. what has happened is that several less significant provisions of law were singled out for repeal. But for those parts that are historical references. such as the sense of Congress resolutions or statements of policy withrespect to the invasion of Afghanistan and Soviet assistance to Angola. it can serve no purpose for the democratic leaders of Russia to repeal those provisions. and. clearly. we have no purpose in pleasing the former Communists of the Soviet Union by revising history in this fashion. Now. another part of this bill repeals the sense of Congress resolutions calling for the end of the persecution of individuals on the basis of their faith. most notably Christians and Jews. and a senseofCongress resolution concerning the free immigration of Jews and others. Why would we want to repeal these provisions? Does the Congress no longer believe that freedom of religion and freedom of immigration is important to the states of the former Soviet Union? As a matter of fact. if you look at the statistics of immigration from the former Soviet Union. you find that from 1990 when 186.815 Jews were allowed to immigrate through the years 1991. 1992. and 1993. those numbers are now down to 136.000. I do not know why those numbers have declined over time. but each year there has been a decline in the number of Jews immigrating from the former Soviet Union. There have been continued articles and speeches with respect to difficulties under which minorities. particularly Christian and Jewish minorities in Russia. have suffered. Indeed. in September of this year Senator LUGAR organized a letter with hundreds of signatures from Members of Congress expressing our concern about reports that missionaries were being harassed and detained in Russia.
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