Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, last week New Jersey lost its senior Senator, and the Senate lost its last remaining World War II veteran when Senator Frank Lautenberg passed away at the age of 89. He died from complications from viral pneumonia in New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Since then, on this floor on multiple occasions, in the United States Senate, throughout the State of New Jersey, and, frankly, across the Nation, all of us have paused to express our deepest respect for Senator Lautenberg and sorrow on his passing. To Senator Lautenberg's family--his wife, Bonnie, his six children, and his 13 grandchildren-- please accept our deepest condolences and our prayers.

Senator Lautenberg served five terms in the U.S. Senate on behalf of the people of the State of New Jersey. He was first elected to the Senate in 1982, reelected in 1988 and 1994. After a brief retirement, Senator Lautenberg made

an unexpected comeback and won a fourth term in 2002 and was again reelected in 2008.

In December 20ll, he cast his 9,000th vote and now holds the record for the most votes ever cast by a New Jersey Senator.

While serving in the Senate, Frank Lautenberg became a leader of public health and safety issues. He led the effort to ban smoking on airplanes with the enactment of Public Law 101-164, and will forever be remembered for his efforts to protect individuals and children from secondhand smoke.

Frank Lautenberg also fought for transportation improvements and chemical plant safety. As the author of the Lautenberg amendment, he worked to assist members from historically persecuted groups with a credible fear of persecution to qualify for refugee status, including religiously persecuted Soviet Jews. He also fought for relief for the victims of terrorist attacks, including the first responders who experienced health complications after the 9/11 attacks, and for the families and communities across our State recently devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

Senator Lautenberg was the last veteran of World War II--part of the Greatest Generation--to serve in the U.S. Senate. The son of poor immigrants, he enlisted in the Army to serve his country in uniform, went to school on the GI Bill, began a successful business, and then ran for the Senate to, in his words, ``pursue a career in public service and to give back to the country that helped give him so much.''

Senator Lautenberg has been a mainstay of New Jersey politics for decades, and with his passing, the Senate and our State has lost a dedicated public servant.

I now yield to the former mayor of Paterson, a good friend and colleague, Congressman Bill Pascrell.

Mr. Pascrell, I want to thank you for your eloquent, very eloquent remembrances of Senator Frank Lautenberg and for your wonderful insights, especially as the former mayor and someone who has known him so intimately and so well for so many years. Thank you very much for that.

I'd like to now yield to my friend and colleague, Mr. Payne.

Mr. Payne, thank you very much for your moving words and sentiments expressed today.

General Leave

I would ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by recognizing the many distinguished leaders who are joining us in conjunction with the Vietnamese-American Meetup. Many thanks to all of you for taking the time to come to Washington to meet with your representatives here in Congress, and for joining us for the hearing my subcommittee held which looked at some of the many human rights abuses being committed by the Vietnamese Government.

The hearing was the second held by my subcommittee this year on human rights in Vietnam. We had a greater, in-depth, examination of some of the fundamental human rights violations that we discussed at our first hearing in April, particularly land confiscations in the context of religious and ethnic persecution.

Although the relationship between the United States and Vietnam improved substantially in 1995 when relations were normalized, the human rights situation in Vietnam did not improve. As the U.S. has upgraded Vietnam's trade status, the Vietnamese Government has continued to violate a wide range of fundamental human rights.

To cite just one example, despite the State Department's decision in 2006 to remove Vietnam from the list of Countries of Particular Concern as designated pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act, Vietnam continues to be among the worst violators of religious freedom in the world. According to the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom's 2012 Annual Report, ``[t]he government of Vietnam continues to control all religious communities, restrict and penalize independent religious practice severely, and repress individuals and groups viewed as challenging its authority.'' USCIRF concludes that Vietnam should be designated a CPC country.

It appears the State Department decided to allow political considerations to trump the facts and the brutality of Vietnam's record of religious persecution. In the Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report that was released on May 20th, Vietnam once again was a glaring omission in the list of Countries of Particular Concern. Compared to the disturbing clarity of the USCIRF report, the State Department's description of the state of religious freedom in Vietnam is a whitewash, and an extreme disservice to the truth about the religious persecution that is prevalent in that country. I repeat my past appeals to the Administration to follow the letter as well as the spirit of the International Religious Freedom Act, and hold Vietnam to account as a Country of Particular Concern.

I met courageous religious leaders during my last trip to Vietnam who were struggling for fundamental human rights in their country. Unfortunately, many of them, including Father Ly and the Most Venerable Thich Quang Do, remain wrongly detained today. There are disturbing reports that Father Ly is suffering poor health. Leaders of religious organizations are not the only ones victimized by the Vietnamese government on account of their faith;

individuals and small communities are also targeted by the regime.

Witnesses and experts at our past hearings have recounted the brutality suffered in 2010 by Con Dau parishioners at the hands of police in the course of a funeral procession. This persecution continues to this day in response to the villagers' opposition to the illegal and unjust confiscation of their land.

Tuesday's hearing closely examined ethnic and religious persecution in Vietnam, particularly through the government's practice of confiscating land. The government has unlawfully taken property belonging to families that include many Vietnamese-Americans. Not only is land forcibly taken, but any compensation provided by the government is far below the fair market value. If the rightful owners do not accept what is offered or show resistance, security forces are dispatched to overwhelm any opposition and brutally suppress them. This arbitrary taking of real property not only violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but even Vietnam's own domestic laws.

To address this and the numerous other violations of human rights by the Vietnamese regime, I have re-introduced the Vietnam Human Rights Act, H.R. 1897. This legislation, co-sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Mr. Royce, and members of the bipartisan Congressional Vietnam Caucus, has been reported out of this subcommittee and is awaiting consideration, hopefully soon, by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

This legislation seeks to promote freedom and democracy in Vietnam by stipulating that the United States can increase its nonhumanitarian assistance to Vietnam above FY2012 levels only when the President certifies that the Government of Vietnam has made substantial progress in establishing democracy and promoting human rights, including: respecting freedom of religion and releasing all religious prisoners; respecting rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and releasing all political prisoners, independent journalists, and labor activists; repealing and revising laws that criminalize peaceful dissent, independent media, unsanctioned religious activity, and nonviolent demonstrations, in accordance with international human rights standards; respecting the human rights of members of all ethnic groups; and taking all appropriate steps, including prosecution of government officials, to end any government complicity in human trafficking.

It also calls on the Administration to re-designate Vietnam as a country of particular concern for religious freedom, to take measures to overcome the Vietnamese Government's jamming of Radio Free Asia, and to oppose Vietnam's membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council, which will be voted on this fall.

We were fortunate to have heard from a distinguished panel of witnesses to discuss these critical issues.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the world remembers the dream that was and is the ``Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989'' and deeply honors the sacrifice endured by an extraordinarily brave group of pro-democracy Chinese women and men who dared to demand fundamental human rights for all Chinese.

Twenty-four years ago this week, the world watched in awe and wonder as it had since mid-April of '89 as hundreds of thousands of mostly young people peacefully petitioned the Chinese government to reform and democratize. China seemed to be the next impending triumph for freedom and democracy, especially after the collapse of the dictatorships in the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. But when the People's Liberation Army poured into and around the Square on June 3rd, the wonder of Tiananmen turned to shock, tears, fear and helplessness.

On June 3rd and 4th and for days, weeks and years after, right up until today, the Chinese dictatorship delivered a barbaric response-- mass murder, torture, incarceration, cover-up and the systematic suppression of fundamental human rights.

The Chinese government not only continues to inflict unspeakable pain and suffering on its own people, but the cover--up of the Tiananmen massacre is without precedent in modern history. Even though journalists and live television and radio documented the massacre, the Chinese Communist Party line continues to deny, obfuscate and threaten.

In December of 1996 General Chi Haotian, the operational commander who ordered the murder of the Tiananmen protestors, visited Washington, DC as the Chinese Defense Minister. Minister Chi was welcomed by President Clinton at the White House with full honors including a 19- gun salute--a bizarre spectacle I and others strongly protested. Why do I bring this up? Minister Chi addressed the Army War College on that trip and in answer to a question said ``not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square'' and claimed that the People's Liberation Army did nothing more violent than the ``pushing of people'' during 1989 protests. Not a single person lost his life? Are you kidding? That big lie and countless others like it was--and is--the Chinese Communist Party's line.

As chair of Foreign Affairs' human rights subcommittee, I put together a congressional hearing within a couple of days--December 18th, 1996--with witnesses who were there on the Square in 1989 including Yang Jianli--a leader and survivor of the massacre--and Time magazine bureau chief David Aikman, two of the witnesses who testified at a hearing I held earlier this week. I also invited Minister Chi or anyone the Chinese Embassy might want to send to the hearing. He-- they--refused.

I guess Minister Chi thought he was back in Beijing where the big lie is king and no one ever dares to do a fact check.

A few days ago, the U.S. State Department asked the Chinese government to ``end harassment of those who participated in the protests and fully account for those killed, detained or missing.'' The response? The Chinese Foreign Ministry acrimoniously said that the U.S. should ``stop interfering in China's internal affairs so as not to sabotage China-U.S. relations.''

``Sabotage'' Sino-American relations because our side requests an end to harassment and an accounting? Sounds like they have much to hide.

President Obama is scheduled to meet with China's President Xi Jinping on Friday to discuss security and economic issues. A robust discussion of human rights abuses in China must be on the agenda and not in a superfluous or superficial way. It's time to get serious about China's flagrant abuse.

Can a government that crushes the rights and freedoms of its own people be trusted on trade and security?

China today is the torture capital of the world and victims include religious believers, ethnic minorities, human rights defenders like Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng and political dissidents.

Hundreds of millions of women have been forced to abort their precious babies pursuant to the draconian one-child policy which has led to gendercide, the violent extermination of unborn baby girls simply because they are girls. The slaughter of the girl-child in China is not only a massive gender crime but a ``security'' issue as well. A witness at one of my earlier hearings, Valerie Hudson, author of Bare Branches, testified that the gender imbalance will lead to instability and chaos--even war, ``that the One--Child policy has not enhanced China's security, but demonstrably weakened it.'' As Nick Eberstadt famously phrased it, what are the consequences for a society that has chosen to become, simultaneously, both more gray and more male . . . The other face of the coin from the missing daughters of China, are the excess sons of China . . . the abnormal sex ratios of China do not bode well for its future.''

I hope policymakers pay close attention to the witnesses who testified earlier this week because Tiananmen was a tipping point and the lessons learned and employed ever since by the Chinese government required much better understanding and due diligence and a more effective response from us.

One of our witnesses, Dr. Yang Jianli, testified that soon after Tiananmen the Communist Party embraced a ubiquitous code of corruption to enrich the elite at the expense of the general public, believing that ``economic growth means everything'' to the survival and sustainability of the dictatorship. ``All this was made possible thanks to the Tiananmen massacre and the political terror that was imposed on the entire country in the years following. . . .''

Earlier this week, we heard from activists who were in Beijing in June of 1989, another democracy advocate who was serving an 18-year sentence in prison at that time and a former Time Magazine Beijing reporter who was an eyewitness to these events.

Dr. Yang Jianli is a former political prisoner and survivor of the massacre. His insights into the repercussions on China from Tiananmen, the ongoing corruption and the unfinished business are elucidating.

Chai Ling was one of the most effective--and most wanted--leaders of the protest movement in Tiananmen Square. Her courage and fight for democracy and remarkable escape is the stuff of legend. As a strong woman of faith, her testimony is a message of remembering the lessons of the past but also giving hope for the future.

Wei Jingsheng has been advocating for democracy in China for decades and has paid a heavy price in serving over 18 years in prison for his activities in fighting for freedom of the Chinese people. His perceptive and frequent analyses of the Chinese Communist system and the changing views of the population offer a profound view today of the events surrounding Tiananmen.

And we are also grateful to have heard from Dr. Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch who for many years has been an expert and advocate of political reform and democratization and human rights in China.

Dr. David Aikman, former Beijing Bureau Chief for Time Magazine, was also present during the Tiananmen massacre and covered the student protests prior to the conflict. He has also studied extensively on the status of religious freedom in China and the situation of Christianity in China today and the historical influences on its development. And we appreciated his insights and testimony.

We will not forget what took place in Tiananmen Square 24 years ago. The struggle for freedom in China continues. Someday the people of China will enjoy all of their God-given rights. And a nation of free Chinese women and men will someday honor and applaud and thank the heroes of Tiananmen and all those who sacrificed so much for so long for freedom.

Mr. Speaker, there are Kermit Gosnells all over American today inflicting not only violence, cruelty, and death on very young children but excruciating pain as well.

Many Americans, including some who self-identify as pro-choice, were shocked and dismayed by the Gosnell expose and trial. Perhaps the decades-long culture of denial and deceptive marketing has made it difficult to see and understand a disturbing reality. Even after 40 years of abortion-on-demand and over 55 million dead babies and millions of wounded mothers, many--until Gosnell--somehow construed abortion as victimless. That has changed. There are two victims, Mr. Speaker, in every abortion: the mother and her unborn child--three, if twins are involved.

The brutality of severing the spines of defenseless babies, euphemistically called ``snipping'' by Dr. Gosnell, has finally peeled away the benign facade of the billion-dollar abortion industry. Like Gosnell, abortionists all over America decapitate, dismember, and chemically poison babies to death each and every year. That's what they do.

Americans are connecting the dots and asking whether what Gosnell did is really any different than what all the other abortionists do. And the answer is, no, it's not different. A D&E abortion, which is described here as a common method after 14 months, is a gruesome, pain- filled act of violence that literally rips and tears to pieces the body parts of a child. And that's what they call ``choice.'' That is what they call safe and legal abortion.

Mr. Speaker, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, authored by Congressman Trent Franks and cosponsored by several Congresswomen and -men, including me, is a modest but absolutely necessary attempt to at least protect some babies, that is to say, those who are 20 weeks old and pain-capable, from having to suffer and die a painful death from abortion.

On May 23, Chairman Trent Franks convened a hearing in the Judiciary Committee's Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee on his legislation. The bill, H.R. 1797, entitled the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, was approved by the subcommittee on June 4 and now moves to the full committee and, hopefully, soon to the full House.

The testimony of several witnesses, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully submit is a must-read for anyone who cares about human rights, for anyone

who cares about women and children. One witness, Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, testified that he performed approximately 1,200 abortions. Over 100 of them were second trimester abortions like this D&E procedure that is described here in this graph.

He said:

Imagine, if you can, you are a pro-choice obstetrician/

gynecologist like I once was. Your patient today is 24 weeks

pregnant. If you could see her baby, which is quite easy on

an ultrasound, she would be as long as your hand plus half

from the top of her head to the bottom of her rump, not

counting the legs. Your patient has been feeling her baby

kick for at least a month or more. But now she is asleep on

an operating table.

He continued:

With suction of the amniotic fluid, after that is

completed, you look for what he called a Sopher clamp. This

instrument is about 13 inches long and made of stainless

steel. At the business end are located jaws about 2\1/2\

inches long and about three-quarters of an initial inch.

This is what he is talking about right here.

This instrument is for grasping and crushing tissue. When

it gets hold of something, it does not let go.

A second trimester D&E abortion is a blind procedure. The

baby can be in any orientation, he goes on, or position

inside the uterus. Picture yourself reaching in with the

Sopher clamp and grasping anything that you can.

At 24 weeks' gestation, the uterus is thin and soft, so be

careful not to perforate or puncture the walls. Once you've

grasped something inside--this doctor, former abortionist,

goes on to say--squeeze on the clamp to set the jaws and pull

hard. Pull really hard. You feel something let go and out

pops a fully formed leg about six inches long. Reach in again

and grasp whatever you can, set the jaw, and pull really hard

once again and out pops an arm about the same length. Reach

in again and again with that clamp and tear out the spine,

the intestines, the heart, and the lungs.

The doctor goes on to say that, the toughest part of a D&E

abortion is extracting the baby's head. The head of a baby

that age is about the size of a large plum and is now free

floating inside of the uterine cavity. You can be pretty sure

you have hold of it if the Sopher clamp is spread as far as

your fingers will allow. You will know you have it right when

you crush down on the clamp and you see a white gelatinous

material coming through the cervix. That is the baby's

brains, this abortionist goes on to say. You can then extract

the skull in pieces.

Many times, he went on in his testimony before Trent

Franks' subcommittee, many times a little face will come out

and stare back at you. Congratulations; you have just

successfully performed a second trimester D&E abortion. You

just affirmed the right to choose. If you refuse to believe

that this procedure inflicts severe pain on that unborn

child, please think again. It does.

Another witness, Mr. Speaker, Ms. Jill Stanek, a registered nurse, spoke of appalling stories of abortion survivors and the pain--the pain--the excruciating pain that they suffer when they are being aborted.

She pointed out that when she testified before the committee back in 2001:

it was to tell of her experience as a registered nurse in

the labor and delivery department at Christ Hospital in Oak

Lawn, Illinois, where she discovered babies were being

aborted alive and shelved, put on a shelf to die in the

department's soiled utility closet.

Indeed, this nurse went on to say at the hearing:

I was traumatized and changed forever by my experience of

holding a little abortion survivor for 45 minutes until he

died--a 21- to 22-week-old baby who had been aborted because

he had Down syndrome.

Since then, other appalling stories of abortion survivors either being abandoned or killed have trickled out.

In 2005, a mother delivered a 23-week-old baby in a toilet at an EPOC clinic in Orlando, Florida, and was shocked to see this little guy move. Abortion staff not only refused to help, but turned away paramedics, who her friend had notified by calling 911. Angele, the woman, could do no more than helplessly sit on the floor rocking and singing to her baby for 11 minutes until that infant died.

In 2006, Sycloria Williams delivered her 23-week-old baby born on a recliner at a GYN diagnostic center in Hialeah, Florida. When he began breathing and moving, abortion clinic owner Belkis Gonzalez cut the umbilical cord and zipped him into a biohazard bag, still alive.

The Kermit Gosnell case provides further evidence that the lines between infanticide and legal feticide, both via abortion, have become blurred. This abortionist was convicted only last week--that's when she was talking, when she testified--of three counts of first degree murder.

And also last week, as she went on to say, in yet another revelation and photos from three former employees who alleged that abortionist Douglas Karpen in Houston, Texas, routinely kills babies after they are born by puncturing the soft spot at the top of the head, or impaling the stomach with a sharp instrument, twisting off the head, or puncturing the throat with his finger.

Mr. Speaker, if that's not child abuse in its most extreme form, I don't know what is.

It is easy to be horrified, she went on in her testimony to say, this nurse, by heart-wrenching stories such as these and to imagine the torture abortion survivors endure as they are being killed. But it is somehow not so easy for some to envision preborn babies the same age being tortured as they are killed by similar methods.

Today, premature babies are routinely given pain relief who are born at the same age as babies who are torn limb from limb or injected in the heart during abortions.

Even the World Health Organization goes so far as to recommend analgesia for premies getting simple heel pricks for a couple of drops of blood. Likewise, prenatal surgery is commonplace, and along with it, anesthesia for babies being operated on even in the middle of pregnancy. Meanwhile, babies of identical age are being torn apart by D&E abortions with no pain relief whatsoever. Again, they suffer, and they suffer horribly.

It must be that some people inexplicably think that the uterus provides a firewall against fetal pain, or that babies marked for abortion are somehow numb while their wanted counterparts aren't. They're not numb. They feel every single bit of killing, whether it's the Sopher clamp or any other instrument is being used to dismember or to decapitate.

She concludes by saying:

This thinking is better suited for the Middle Ages than for

modern medicine.

Mr. Speaker, today there is ample documentation that unborn children experience serious pain from at least the 20th week--and most likely even before that. When it comes to pain, all of us go through great lengths to mitigate its severity and its duration. None of us ever want to die a painful death. Unborn children deserve no less.

I yield to the prime sponsor of this very important legislation, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks), the chairman of the committee and, like I said, the author of the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Stutzman, for your eloquent remarks as well as those of Chairman Franks', who is compassionate and courageous like you and like our next speaker, who is also eloquent in the defense of the most defenseless.

I would like to yield to Dr. Andy Harris, who is a board-certified anesthesiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital Medical Center.

I want to thank my good friend and very distinguished colleague, Dr. Andy Harris, for his very eloquent and very incisive remarks and for his leadership on behalf of human rights in general, including here in the United States.

We've been discussing human rights abuse here in the United States in trying to defend at least pain-capable unborn children from the violence of abortion. I would like to focus for a few moments on human rights abuse that is occurring halfway around the world in China.

Tomorrow, President Obama will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California to discuss security and economic issues. A robust discussion of human rights abuses in China, however, must be on the agenda and not in a superfluous or superficial way.

It is time to get serious about China's flagrant abuse of human rights. It's time for this President, this administration to end its manifest indifference towards human rights abuse in the People's Republic of China. It's time for President Obama to cease his numbing indifference towards the victims of Beijing's abuse.

Mr. Speaker, can a dictatorship that crushes the rights and freedoms of its own people be trusted on trade and security?

China today is the torture capital of the world, and victims include religious believers, ethnic minorities, human rights defenders like Chen Guancheng and Gao Zhisheng and hundreds and thousands of political dissidents.

If you are a political or religious dissident or believer of the Underground Christian Church, Falun Gong, a part of the Uyghur Muslim minority or Tibetan Buddhist, if you are arrested, you will be tortured, and in some cases you will be tortured to death.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, hundreds of millions of women have been forced to abort their precious babies pursuant to China's draconian one-child policy which has led to gendercide, the violent extermination of unborn baby girls simply because they are girls. The slaughter of the girl child in China is not only a massive gender crime, but a security issue, as well.

A witness at one of my hearings that I chaired--I chair the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations. Over the years, I have chaired over 46 congressional hearings focused exclusively on China's human rights issues. One of the witnesses at one of my earlier hearings, Valerie Hudson, author of a book called ``Bare Branches,'' testified that gender imbalance will lead to instability and chaos and even to war because of the domestic chaos and instability that will occur. And that the one child has not enhanced China's security, but it has demonstrably weakened it.

Nick Eberstadt, the world-renowned AEI demographer, has famously phrased it and asked the question: What are the consequences for a society that has chosen to become simultaneously more gray and more male--the missing daughters, by the tens of millions in China--as a direct result of sex-selection abortion?

In 2000, Mr. Speaker, I authored a law known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. It is our landmark

law in combating the hideous crime of modern-day slavery, sex, and labor trafficking. China has now become the magnet for the traffickers, buying and selling women as commodities, selling them in China against their will, of course, through coercion, because of the missing girls, the missing daughters, and the missing young women.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the world remembered the dream that was and is the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 and deeply honored the sacrifice endured by an extraordinarily brave group of pro-democracy Chinese women and men who dared to demand fundamental human rights for all Chinese. Twenty-four years ago this week, the world watched in awe and wonder, as it has since mid-April of 1989, as hundreds of thousands of mostly young people peacefully petitioned the Chinese Government to reform and to democratize. China seemed to be the next impending triumph for freedom and democracy, especially after the collapse of the dictatorships of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations. But when the People's Liberation Army poured in and around the square on June 3, the wonder of Tiananmen turned to shock, tears, fear, and helplessness. On June 3 and 4, and for days, weeks, and years, right up until today, the Chinese dictatorship delivered a barbaric response--mass murder, torture, incarceration, the systematic suppression of fundamental human rights, and coverup.

The Chinese Government not only continues to inflict unspeakable pain and suffering on its own people, but the coverup of the Tiananmen Square massacre is without precedent in modern history. Even though journalists and live television and radio documented the massacre, the Chinese Communist Party lies and continues to deny it, that it even occurred, to obfuscate, and to threaten anyone who dares speak out in China about the massacre and all of the terrible barbarity that followed.

In December of 1996, Mr. Speaker, General Chi Haotian, the operational commander who ordered the murder of the Tiananmen protesters, visited Washington, D.C., as the Chinese Defense Minister. You see, he was promoted after he killed all of those innocent people. Minister Chi was welcomed by President Clinton at the White House with full military honors, including a 19-gun salute--a bizarre spectacle that I and many others on both sides of the aisle protested. But why do I bring this up now? General Chi addressed the Army War College on that trip and in answer to a question said:

Not a single person lost his life in Tiananmen Square.

He claimed that the People's Liberation Army did nothing more violent than the ``pushing of people'' during the 1989 protest. Not a single person lost his or her life? Are you kidding?

That big lie and countless others like it, however, is, and it was then, the Communist Party's line about Tiananmen.

As chair of the Foreign Affairs Human Rights Committee then, I put together a congressional hearing within 2 days--December 8, 1996--and witnesses who were there on Tiananmen Square in 1989, including Dr. Yang Jianli, a leader and survivor of the massacre, and Time magazine Bureau Chief David Aikman, who were actually witnesses at my hearing this past Monday. We also invited Minister Chi, or anyone the Chinese Embassy might want to send to the hearing to give an accounting of that blatant lie. I guess Minister Chi thought he was back in Beijing when he was at the Army War College where the big lie is king and no one ever dares to do a fact check.

Last week, Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Department of State asked the Chinese Government to ``end harassment of those who participated in the protest of 1989 and fully account for those killed, detained, or missing.'' What was the response from the Chinese Government? The Chinese Foreign Ministry acrimoniously said that the United States should ``stop interfering in China's internal affairs so as not to sabotage China-U.S. relations.''

We have heard that line from the Soviet Union. We heard it from those who supported apartheid in South Africa: Don't interfere.

Human rights are universal, and we need to speak out boldly and without fear when they are violated, wherever and whenever they occur.

``Sabotage'' Sino-American relations because our side requests an end to harassment and an accounting? It sounds to me like they have much to hide.

Therefore, Mr. President, tomorrow when you meet with the unelected President of China, and Saturday when you meet with him as well, please be informed, be bold, be tenacious, and seriously raise human rights with Chinese President Xi. No superficial intervention. No checking off on the box, Yes, I raised human rights. Raise real names. Ask for their release. Raise real issues, like the horrific one child per couple policy or the endemic use of torture by the Chinese dictatorship. Raise the 16 cases that are being raised and given to you to raise of individuals, people who in China are like the modern-day Natan Sharansky or others who have suffered so much for freedom for all these years--like Gao Zhisheng and others.

Mr. Speaker, we will not forget what took place in Tiananmen Square 24 years ago this past Monday and Tuesday. The struggle for freedom in China continues. Some day the people of China will enjoy all of their God-given fundamental human rights; and as a nation of free Chinese women and men, they will some day honor and applaud all those who suffered so much in the Laogai, the Chinese gulags, and sacrificed so much for so long.

Mr. President, the ball is in your court. President Obama, raise these issues and do it in a robust, sincere, yes, diplomatic, but very powerful way.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged resolution, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, it is my sad duty to inform you that Senator Frank Lautenberg has passed away. He died from complications from viral pneumonia this morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Frank Lautenberg was 89 years old.

I join with my friends and colleagues from our delegation--and, I know, with

the entire House--in expressing our profound sorrow to his family--his wife, Bonnie, his six children, and his 13 grandchildren. Senator Lautenberg will be deeply missed.

We will have a Special Order to honor this wonderful man, but just one point: that with his passing he is the last of World War II--of the Greatest Generation--to serve in the United States Senate, and I want everyone to know he will be deeply missed. I, personally, worked very closely with him on a number of issues, in particular on combating anti-Semitism, so I just want to say that we are all in sorrow for his passing. We pray for him and for his family.

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for any comments he might have.

I yield to my colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Lance).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Sires).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Runyan).

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. Speaker, Frank Lautenberg will be missed. As you could hear from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, it is a great loss for the State of New Jersey. We will have a Special Order next Tuesday to speak even more to his legacy.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which I chair, held a hearing that examined the challenges faced by the nations of Africa's Sahel region, especially the spread of terrorism and drug trafficking in the area. These problems alone pose a danger to the security of both the Sahel and developed countries, not only because of air traffic to West Africa that transits northern Mali, but also because of the use of the region as a base of attacks by Islamic extremists on Western targets. Moreover, the preexisting humanitarian crisis is now worsened, as are human rights concerns. The underlying political instability is becoming equally serious.

We held the hearing as a joint session because the threat we face goes beyond the jurisdiction of one subcommittee. It involves not only Africa's Sahel region, but also countries in North Africa, specifically Algeria and Libya. It also involves terrorist groups originating from and based in nations outside the Sahel. It is a sign of how seriously the Foreign Affairs Committee considers this matter that our three subcommittees have come together today to consider this matter.

There are various definitions of the Sahel, but for the purpose of the hearing, we meant the nations of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.

In early 2012, the Government of Mali was overthrown in a military coup and subsequently lost control of the northern area of the country, which constitutes more than half of its land area. Mali had long been considered a stable example of African democracy, but as we learned in our Subcommittee's hearing in June 2012, the coup and resulting loss of so much territory revealed a hollowness and rot within the Mali democratic system. The influx of well-armed terrorist groups, broken promises to neglected ethnic groups, lack of adherence to democratic principles and rampant drug smuggling all made the Mali government vulnerable to breakdown. We must ask now whether other countries in Africa's Sahel region are also more vulnerable than we think.

Mali provided a staging ground for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb, or AQIM, which is daily becoming an ever-greater threat in the region and perhaps globally. AQIM is considered the best funded of all al- Qaeda affiliates and, through its ties to other terrorist groups, may be funding their activities as well.

In a July Subcommittee hearing last year, we learned that Boko Haram in Nigeria is not a unified organization, but rather various factions-- some of which are focused on embarrassing the Nigerian government, but others that have a more global jihadist view. It is the latter that have been present in northern Mali and pose a threat to Western interests. Boko Haram attacks led Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan last week to declare a state of emergency in three northern states in his country. A radical Boko Haram splinter group, known as Ansaru, may have attacked Nigerian troops en route to the peacekeeping operation in Mali.

In Mali, three terrorist groups dominate the rebellion that split off the North: MUJWA, a splinter group of AQIM; Ansar al Deen, an Islamist Tuareg rebel group, and the MNLA, a more secular Tuareg group. These groups have different aims and sometimes clash with one another. Nevertheless, they collectively have posed and continue to pose a threat to the peace in Mali and the region. As a result of the rebel actions in northern Mali, there currently are more than 300,000 internally displaced persons in Mali, more than 74,000 refugees in Mauritania, 50,000 refugees in Niger and nearly 50,000 refugees in Burkina Faso. The displacement of nearly half a million Malians strains already-scarce resources in the Sahel, with aid recipients often in remote areas.

French forces were able to forestall a rebel advance into southern Mali earlier this year, and an African military contingent is in the process of being deployed to Mali even now. However, chasing rebels out of Mali's major northern towns will be easier than ending ongoing terrorist attacks or reconciling ethnic groups whose enmity has grown over the last year.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, I chaired a hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations that pressed for the immediate freedom and repatriation of Mr. Jacob Ostreicher, a U.S. citizen from Brooklyn, New York, who has been detained in Bolivia for 720 days. I especially

want thank our distinguished witness who testified at that hearing, Mr. Sean Penn, for taking time out of his very busy schedule to testify before the subcommittee.

The human rights subcommittee that I chair held two hearings in the 112th Congress on Mr. Ostreicher's case, one in June and the second in August 2012. The witnesses included Mr. Ostreicher's wife, Miriam Ungar, his daughter, Chaya Weinberger, Steve Moore, a retired FBI agent who investigated Mr. Ostreicher's case on a pro bono basis, and Mr. Ostreicher's two Bolivian attorneys, Mr. Yimy Montaono and Mr. Jerjes Justiniano-who are not only extraordinarily effective and competent defense lawyers, but brave as well.

The record--including their testimonies--established that Mr. Ostreicher is innocent, and is the victim of an elaborate, high-level government extortion ring that has fleeced approximately $27 million worth of assets from the rice operation that he had been managing.

It's time Jacob came home to his wife and family and friends. Basic justice and humanitarianism--Jacob is very ill--adds to the urgency that he be freed.

In one sense, a lot has happened since the hearing last August. Tragically, Mr. Ostreicher has developed the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, likely due to the sustained, severe stress to which he has been subjected.

Immediately following meetings that I had with Bolivian officials in La Paz last June, including Carlos Romero, Minister of Government, Bolivia started to investigate whether Mr. Ostreicher was the victim of extortion. A total of 27 prosecutors, judges, and officials responsible for confiscated goods who were involved in Mr. Ostreicher's case have now had charges made against them. Currently, 13 of them are in the Palmasola prison, 9 are under house arrest, and 5 are fugitives.

One of those in prison, Fernando Rivera, is a Ministry of Government adviser who I personally witnessed threaten the judge presiding at one of Mr. Ostreicher's hearings in a Santa Cruz court room. Mr. Rivera recently apologized to Mr. Ostreicher during a bail hearing, claiming that he was only following orders from then-Minister of Government Sacha Llorenti. In one of the many bizarre twists to this story, Mr. Llorenti is now the Bolivian representative to the United Nations, living in New York, just a few miles from Mr. Ostreicher's home.

I traveled for a second time to Bolivia in early December, this time with Representative Nydia Velazquez, to visit Mr. Ostreicher and again to press Bolivian officials to either produce the evidence that he has committed a crime or free him. High level officials assured us that Mr. Ostreicher's case would proceed fairly and expeditiously now that the extortion network was being exposed. Some officials even admitted to us privately that they believed Mr. Ostreicher is innocent.

Mr. Penn became involved in the case in October, and was instrumental in obtaining medical care for Mr. Ostreicher and for helping to secure his release from the Palmasola prison to house arrest on December 18th. With Mr. Penn's personal intervention with President Morales and with Mr. Penn in the court room, all of us hoped that Jacob would be at long last released and vindicated at a hearing in December. Inexplicably, that didn't happen.

The State Department references Mr. Ostreicher's case in its 2012 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Bolivia, and notes the arrest of government officials and the stolen assets as part of its section on ``arbitrary arrest or detention.''

However, in another sense, the most important aspects of the case have not changed. Mr. Jacob Ostreicher is still in the custody of the Government of Bolivia. On June 4th, it will be two years since he was imprisoned. Bolivian officials are employing delay tactics and giving excuses for his continued detention that we have heard before. No evidence whatsoever has been presented to indicate that Mr. Ostreicher is guilty of any crime. And there is no sign of the $27 million in assets from his rice operation that were confiscated. Perhaps this last fact is the real reason why Mr. Ostreicher still is not home with his family in the United States.

Recently, there have been reports from credible sources that there is another ``security threat'' to Mr. Ostreicher's safety. These followed the sudden removal of Bolivian security officers from the parameter of Mr. Ostreicher's residence, the day after Mr. Rivera implicated the current Bolivian representative to the U.N. in the extortion case. As long as Mr. Ostreicher is forced to remain in Bolivia, the government is responsible for and must take all necessary measures to ensure his safety.

As a result of the continued injustice in Mr. Ostreicher's case, and also in response to the growing number of cases of Americans being detained abroad in violation of their human and due process rights, I together with Rep. Velazquez have reintroduced the Justice for Imprisoned Americans Overseas Act, or ``Jacob's Law.'' H.R. 1778 would deny visas to foreign government officials responsible for violating the human or due process rights of an American in their custody. The travel ban would also apply to the officials' immediate family members.

It is wrong for our government to give foreign officials and their families the privilege--and it is a privilege, not a right--to visit and study in the U.S. while those same officials are wrongfully detaining an American abroad.

While this bill works its way through the legislative process, my committee will continue to pursue every means possible to secure Mr. Ostreicher's safe return to his wife, children and grandchildren. And that is why we are holding this hearing.

President Morales is flying to Atlanta today for a meeting with former-President Jimmy Carter to ask for his assistance in negotiating land access through Chile to the Pacific Ocean.

While the Bolivian media is reporting on these events, I hope that they will also note that I am sending the former president the transcripts of the hearings that this subcommittee has held on the case of Jacob Ostreicher. I contacted the Carter Center earlier today to ask the former President Carter to intervene personally in Mr. Ostreicher's case. I was advised that Jacob's case is on the agenda today and would be raised.

It was very much a privilege to have Mr. Penn with us this week, not only because of the fame that he has rightly garnered through his Academy Award-winning acting, and not only because of the highly commendable assistance he is bringing to the suffering people in Haiti through the relief organization that he founded, but also because of the extraordinary assistance that he has provided to Mr. Ostreicher, who he had never met and to whom he owed no obligation prior to being asked to assist with the case last fall. That assistance now includes joining us today to highlight Mr. Ostreicher's continued plight and to advocate for his freedom.

Mr. Speaker, last week, I chaired a hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations that examined the United States' contribution to the global fight against malaria.

Leadership matters. In 2005, President George W. Bush established the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) and targeted several African malaria endemic countries to receive over a billion dollars to mitigate and someday eradicate this killer disease. The positive consequences of that bold and compassionate initiative include over a million lives saved over the last decade.

The global impact of this disease is severe--yet we are making progress. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010 there were 219 million malaria cases and 660,000 deaths. While still unconscionably high--every life is absolutely precious and of extraordinary importance--loss of life has declined from approximately 985,000 deaths in 2000.

Not surprisingly, malaria has a particularly devastating impact on the most vulnerable. Nearly 86% of those who die are children under five years of age living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Mark Dybul, Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and President George W. Bush's extraordinarily effective Global AIDS Coordinator, said that in ``Africa alone, Malaria take the life of a child every minute'' and pregnant women are also disproportionately afflicted with the disease. WHO emphasizes in its World Malaria Report 2012 that malaria is strongly associated with poverty. Countries in which a larger percentage of the population lives in poverty also have higher mortality rates from malaria. Children living in poorer populations and in rural areas have the highest parasite prevalence rates.

It is also important to note the extent to which the prevalence of malaria is concentrated. Eighty percent of malaria deaths occur in just 14 countries and almost 80% of cases occur in 17 countries. Over 40% of malaria deaths occur in two countries--the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and 40% of malaria cases are in the DRC, Nigeria, and India.

These high morbidity and mortality rates are not necessary--malaria is both preventable and treatable. We heard about the cost effective measures that are currently available and already having an impact or that are in the development process. And the United States, despite the current financial constraints, is making a significant contribution to the global fight against malaria. In addition to our contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the United States provided $871 million in anti-malaria assistance in FY2012, and the request for FY2014 is $893 million.

But these levels, even when combined with contributions from other donors, fall short of the global need. So our question last week was: what are the major challenges going forward, and how we can best use our resources

to meet those challenges, to save the most lives and to have the greatest impact in controlling, if not eradicating, this dreaded disease?

We also took a close look at several immediate threats to global efforts to combat malaria. On April 19th, the subcommittee that I chair held a hearing called ``Meeting the Challenge of Drug-Resistant Diseases in Developing Countries.'' In his testimony at that hearing, Dr. Thomas Frieden, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that in recent years, malaria infections in parts of Southeast Asia have been showing resistance to artemisinin drugs. These drugs are the last remaining class of anti-malarial drugs and form the basis of malaria treatment globally. If these resistant parasites manage to spread to sub-Saharan Africa, he stated that ``the results could be devastating.''

Insecticide-treated bed nets, which have an average useful life of two to three years, are an important, proven malaria prevention tool. According to the World Health Organization, 150 million nets are needed each year to provide protection to the vulnerable populations in sub- Saharan Africa. For the past two years however, the supply has been considerably lower than this level, resulting in an estimated current shortfall of 77 million nets. The consequences, if not urgently addressed, could place entire populations, especially children, at risk of a dramatic malaria resurgence and death.

We were fortunate to have with us three distinguished experts who provided us with valuable insights into these challenges.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing to assess progress on the unfulfilled British commitment--broken commitment, unless the British Government reverses course--in the Finucane collusion case, and how this affects the peace process in Northern Ireland.

In connection with the Good Friday peace agreement, the British Government promised to conduct public inquiries into the Finucane and three other cases where government collusion in a paramilitary murder was suspected. Subsequently the British government backtracked in regard to the Finucane case--the 1989 murder of human rights lawyer Patrick Finucane. The British backtracking came despite the recommendation to hold an inquiry, which, again, the British Government agreed to abide by, of the internationally respected jurist and former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory in 2004.

I'd like to thank Judge Cory again, who testified about his recommendation, at a congressional hearing which I chaired in May of 2004. That is now nine years ago--and we are all still trying to get the British government to live up to its commitment. The Finucane family has testified at many hearings--Geraldine, Patrick's widow, and his son John, his son Michael, who testified yesterday--going back sixteen years. And of course there have been many others--and all of these witnesses, advocates, and experts have advocated a full, independent, and public judicial inquiry into the police collusion with loyalist paramilitaries responsible for brutally murdering Pat Finucane.

Over these years the dedicated human rights activists and experts have established much of what happened, and, after facts have been established, the British Government has acknowledged many of them. In 2011 the British Government admitted that it did collude in the Finucane murder and apologized for it.

Much of the credit for this admission goes to the many of you who have done the work on all the reports that documented collusion, until it was pointless for the British Government to continue denying it.

So that is progress. But the work is not done because the British Government has reserved one final, yet massive injustice: it continues to protect those responsible for the murder of Pat Finucane. Prime Minister Cameron told the Finucane family that the government would not conduct the promised public inquiry into the collusion.

The deliberate decision not to proceed with a public inquiry is a glaring, public breach of faith. It is the source of enormous frustration to Patrick Finucane's family and friends. It resonates throughout Northern Ireland, calling into question the British Government's commitment to peace and reconciliation.

This is particularly sad because the British Government has taken so many other positive, truly honorable steps, many of which were painful for large sectors of British public and official opinion--such as the Bloody Sunday inquiry, released in 2010. To call all that into question by reneging on the promised Finucane inquiry is a tragedy.

Most recently, in December 2012, Sir Desmond De Silva released a new report on collusion in the Finucane murder--really a review of existing case files rather than the gathering of new evidence that the promised inquiry would produce. The De Silva report detailed what Prime Minister Cameron admitted were ``shocking'' levels of state collusion in the murder, including that it was RUC officers who proposed the killing of Finucane, passed information to his killers, and obstructed the investigation, and that British domestic security had intelligence of the murder threats months before the actual crime yet took no steps to protect him.

It is admirable that Prime the Minister has admitted collusion and apologized for it, but it is really too much to admit a government crime and then to say it will not be investigated--particularly when the government has undertaken a commitment to do so. The question asks itself--after so many positive steps, is the British Government really going to diminish the good it's done since 1998 in order to protect the identity of people who share responsibility for a murder?

I'm sure Congress will continue to maintain a strong voice on this case, which goes to the core of human rights and rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, which I chair, held a hearing focused on the persistent and devastating problem of international parental child abduction, which occurs when one parent unlawfully moves a child from his or her country of residence, often for the purpose of denying the other parent access to the child.

The damage to the child and the left behind parent is incalculable and too often life-long. The children especially are at risk of serious emotional and psychological problems and may experience anxiety, eating problems, nightmares, mood swings, sleep disturbances, aggressive behavior, resentment, guilt and fearfulness. These victims are American citizens who need the help of their government when normal legal processes are unavailable or fail.

In 1983, the United States ratified the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction to try to address this serious issue. This Convention creates a civil framework for the quick return of abducted children, and for rights of access to both parents. Absent extenuating circumstances, the child is to be returned within 6 weeks to their country of habitual residence for the courts there to decide on custody or to enforce any previous custody determinations.

The Convention has helped return many children, but it is far from a silver bullet. Even in countries where the Convention is allegedly working, only about 40 percent of children are returned. Other cases are ``resolved,'' but too often with dubious application of the Convention.

Susceptible to abuse by taking parents or unwilling judges, the Convention has too often been stretched to provide cover for abduction rather than recovery of the child. Taking parents have figured out that they can drag out hearing after hearing, appeal after appeal for years until the courts can claim that, ``Yes, the child should have been returned but that the child is settled in the new country now and does not have to be returned under an exception in the Convention.''

Some Hague Convention signatories are simply not enforcing legitimate return orders. The State Department's 2012 Hague Convention Compliance Report highlights six countries--Argentina, Australia, France, Mexico, Netherlands, and Romania--for failing to enforce return orders. Other countries--Costa Rica, Guatemala, The Bahamas, Brazil, and Panama--are non-compliant with the Convention or showing patterns non-compliance.

In other words, abducted American children are not coming home from these countries and American families need other options.

The same is true for many countries that have not signed the Hague Convention. In 2012 alone, more than 634 children were abducted to countries that have not signed the Hague Convention--countries like Japan, Egypt, and India.

More than 300 children have suffered abduction from the United States to Japan since 1994. Congress does not know of a single case in which the Government of Japan has issued and enforced an order for the return of an abducted child to the United States. According to U.S. State Department statistics, the United States is monitoring 54 ongoing cases involving 74 children who were abducted from the United States to Japan and 21 additional children from the United States who may not have been abducted, but who are being denied access to their American parent.

Although Japan has recently taken steps to join the Hague Convention, Japan's ratification will not address current cases for return. Moreover, experts question whether the ratification includes reservations that will make it impossible for even new abduction cases to be resolved with returns.

The United States does not have a bilateral or other agreement with Japan to facilitate the return of American citizen children who are currently abducted-citizens like Jade and Michael Elias, whose father will testify before us today.

Under the Convention alone, if ratified by Japan, the best that American parents of currently abducted children can hope for is a visit with their child. Such visits are projected to be one hour long, once a month, in a secure facility-hardly dignified or unfettered.

Despite our multi-billion dollar investment in Egypt, neither the Mubarak government nor the Morsi government has seen fit to return abducted American citizen children Noor and Ramsey Bower. They, along with 30 other American children in Egypt, are forced to live without half of their culture, half of their identity, and without the love and guidance of an American parent who daily fights for their return. The United States does not have a bilateral agreement with Egypt to facilitate the return of American citizen children, and has so far been unwilling to make prioritization of these cases a condition for the continued funding of the Egyptian Government.

India also has been a source of immense frustration and grief for American parents. In 2012, 32 more children were abducted to India, bringing the total number to 78 open abduction cases involving 95 children. Although some Indian courts make ``Hague-like'' decisions to return some children, returns are uneven. Parents attempting to utilize India's courts for the return of abducted children report corruption and incessant delays. The United States does not have a bilateral agreement with India to facilitate the return of American citizen children Convention.

In the last Congress I introduced legislation--the Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act--to impress upon both Hague and non-Hague Convention countries that the United States will not tolerate child abduction or have patience with countries that hide abductors behind the Hague Convention. The bill would empower the President and Department of State with new tools and authorities to secure the return of abducted American children.

When a country has shown a ``pattern of non-cooperation'' in resolving child abduction cases, the President will be able to respond decisively with a range of 18 actions and penalties. Based on past experience--particularly with the Goldman case in Brazil--we know that penalties manage to get the attention of other governments, and help them prioritize resolution.

The bill also calls for the State Department to work out memorandums of understanding with countries that have not signed the Hague Convention in order to create agreed-upon routes to abduction resolution between countries, rather than the never-ending and torturous maze American are currently forced to run.

The status quo is simply not adequate, while well meaning and sincere, current policy has failed far too many children and their left behind, broken hearted, parents. To combat the cruelty and exploitation of human trafficking, over a decade ago I authored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. To tangibly assist abducted American children and their left behind parents I introduced ``The Sean and David Goldman Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act'' this week. The United States can and must do more to protect innocent American children and their left behind parents from the horrors of international child abduction.

I thank the Speaker.

With the recent murder conviction of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, we've got to encourage Americans to ask: How different, really, is Gosnell's house of horrors from abortions that occur in clinics throughout the United States? The tragic answer: not much. Not much at all.

Mr. Speaker, there are Kermit Gosnells all over America--predators, child abusers, exploiters of women. Some abortionists may have cleaner sheets than Gosnell did and better sterilized equipment and better trained accomplices, but what they do and what Gosnell did for four decades--kill babies and hurt women--is the same.

Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?

Where is the outrage, Mr. Speaker, over the 55 million child victims who have been brutally killed by abortion over the last 40 years and over the millions of women who have been hurt physically, emotionally, and psychologically?

Why the appalling lack of compassion? Why the empathy deficit for the victims--women and children--by so many, including and especially by President Obama and Vice President Biden? Women and children deserve better.

Of course, Gosnell's trial isn't the first to rip the benign facade of legitimacy from the abortion industry. As far back as 1975, Dr. Kenneth Edelin was convicted by a jury in Boston of murdering an African American baby boy who was found dead and abandoned in the Boston City Hospital morgue.

An investigation that led to trial revealed that the child was yet another Kenneth Edelin victim. When the jury saw the picture of the dead baby, they were appalled and persuaded that indeed a homicide had occurred. Astonishingly, that conviction was subsequently overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which simply dismissed the murder as yet another legal abortion.

Mr. Speaker, how did Planned Parenthood react to the reversal of verdict? With euphoric celebration. Dr. Edelin, after all, was their guy. Years later, Dr. Edelin became the chairman of the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and was even given the Margaret Sanger Award in 2008. And I would note parenthetically that in 2009, Planned Parenthood gave the Sanger Award to Hillary Clinton. And like Gosnell, not a single tear was shed by Dr. Kenneth Edelin or Planned Parenthood for the murdered child victim.

Last week, Mr. Speaker, an undercover investigative organization, Live Action, released more undercover videos that exposed the abortion industry's absolutely appalling and callous disregard for human life, human rights, and Federal law. Previously, Live Action aired several videos showing Planned Parenthood abortion clinic personnel advising women at several clinics throughout the country, including in my own home State of New Jersey, as to how to procure sex-selection abortions simply because the unborn child happened to be a little girl and other equally disturbing videos showing Planned Parenthood staffers who counsel and offer to arrange secret abortions for teenager sex trafficking victims.

One of those was in a Planned Parenthood where I went to high school in Perth Amboy. A very young Latina, 14, 15, posing as a woman who had been trafficked with a man that was posing as a pimp, talks--and I advise and ask people to watch those videos. Just go to Live Action. Google it, and you can find it. Watch how they say, We cannot only abort this young girl who has been trafficked--and I wrote, Mr. Speaker, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 to combat this hideous modern-day exploitation mostly of women and children. And there's Planned Parenthood personnel saying how this young girl could get a secret abortion, be back out on the streets and, of course, further exploited by this person who purported to be a pimp.

The first call should have been to the police to have them arrested; instead, they talked about how to get the secret abortion.

Live Action has released undercover videos showing a Bronx, New York, abortion counselor describing how, in violation of U.S. Federal law, a born-alive baby would be placed in a jar of toxic solution to ensure his or her death.

A D.C. abortionist is also captured on film who talks about leaving a baby born alive after a botched abortion simply to die due to the elements.

An Arizonan worker said that they would not resuscitate should a baby survive an abortion attempt.

This is not just violence against children; this is a violation of Federal law.

Live Action President Lila Rose has released yet another must-see video of a Maryland abortionist by the name of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who compares a baby in the womb--you've got to watch this--to meat in a slow cooker and jokes about his abortion toolkit, complete with pickax and drill bit. I watched that, and I was sick. This man does so-called ``legal abortions'' right within range of this Nation's capital.

Mr. Speaker, some day--and I believe the day is fast approaching-- Americans will look back and wonder how and why such a seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with education, advanced science, information, and wealth, opportunity could have so utterly failed to protect the innocent and the inconvenient. They will wonder how and why a Nobel Peace Prize winning President could also have simultaneously been the abortion President and Planned Parenthood's best friend, despite the tragic fact that Planned Parenthood is directly responsible for aborting over 6 million babies in their clinics.

History will not look favorably on today's abortion culture. We must instead work tirelessly to replace it with a culture of life. Women and children deserve no less.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I chaired a Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations hearing that examined the issues surrounding U.S. exports to Africa, which are supposed to at least balance African exports to the United States. This included looking at existing obstacles to two-way trade with Africa. The hearing specifically examined the Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2013 (H.R. 1777). The bill was reintroduced in the House by myself, Ranking Member Karen Bass, and Congressman Bobby Rush on April 26th and was introduced in the Senate on April 11th as S. 718.

The purpose of H.R. 1777 (and S. 718) is to increase U.S. exports to Africa by 200 percent over the next decade. This bill does not replace AGOA. It complements it by providing for a rebalancing that makes it as beneficial to Americans as it is to Africans. The bill intends to reach its ambitious, but achievable, goal by taking several steps, including the creation of a comprehensive U.S.-Africa trade strategy and a coordinator to ensure that all U.S. agencies involved in trade work in concert with one another.

This legislation also calls for not less than 25 percent of available U.S. financing for trade deals to be devoted to facilitating U.S.-Africa trade. Furthermore, it encourages the descendants of Africa in this country, who largely operate small and medium-sized businesses, to play a greater role in trade with the countries in Africa.

Various studies show that every additional $1 billion in exports generates 6,000-7,000 new U.S. jobs. According to current data from the U.S. International Trade Administration export-supported jobs linked to manufacturing

account for an estimated 3.3 percent of my home state of New Jersey's total private-sector employment. More than one-sixth, or 17.2 percent, of all manufacturing workers in New Jersey depend on exports for their jobs.

But U.S. exports have suffered during the global economic downturn because traditional markets, such as in Europe, are buying fewer U.S. products. According to the USITA, we are the largest importer of African goods, receiving 20.2 percent of the continent's total global exports. However, U.S. exports to Africa fell sharply during the height of the global recession. From 2008 to 2009, U.S. exports to Africa dropped 45 percent from $78.3 billion to $42.8 billion.

According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau, African exports to the United States since AGOA took effect in 2001 increased from $25.4 billion to $66.9 billion in 2012--an increase of more than 262 percent. By far, petroleum exports from Africa led the way with more than $28.6 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, Census Bureau statistics showed that U.S. exports to Africa increased from $12.1 billion in 2001 to $32.8 billion in 2012--an increase of 271 percent. Consequently, while U.S. exports to Africa showed a robust increase since the inception of AGOA, the U.S. trade deficit with Africa increased from $13.3 billion in 2001 to more than $34 billion last year.

The five most popular import sectors for African countries are: machinery and equipment, chemicals, petroleum products (including lubricating oils, plastics and synthetics fibers), scientific instruments and food products. That means that small and medium companies across the United States have commercial opportunities available in exporting goods and services to African countries. The African Development Bank estimates that one out of three Africans is considered to be in the middle class--that's nearly 314 million Africans who have escaped poverty and can now buy consumer goods, including those from the United States.

In the supermarkets and department stores that have sprung up across Africa in recent years, there are some American products already on the shelves, but there is space for more contributions from U.S. producers. Companies such as Proctor and Gamble have long realized the potential of African markets. Two years ago, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail outlet, purchased South Africa's Massmart and its 288 stores in 14 African countries.

The Economist magazine created a significant buzz within the U.S.- Africa trade community two years ago when it announced that six of the world's 10 fastest growing economies in the first decade of this century were in Africa: Angola, Chad, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Rwanda. In the following five years, The Economist projected that seven of the top 10 fasted growing global economies would be African: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia.

Whether or not you agree with the popular slogan--Africa Is Rising-- markets on the continent are attracting foreign trade and investment in increasing amounts. It is not only China that has its sights set on African markets. Countries as diverse as India, Japan, Brazil and Turkey all see the potential of selling their products in Africa.

The Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever has long considered Africa a lucrative environment for consumer sales, earning a fifth of its profits in Africa until the 1970s, when it turned its main commercial attention to Asia. Now Unilever is back in Africa in force, selling $3.7 billion of everything from soup to soap. Frank Braeken, head of Unilever's Africa operations, said African consumers are underserved and overcharged. To meet the continent's need for personal care products for African skin and hair, Unilever developed its Motions range of products.

At our hearing on this legislation last spring, we heard from Luster Products, which produces items that fit that description. There is little reason why this company and other U.S. producers can't follow suit and meet the needs Unilever says are now unmet.

We will hear today from four witnesses with expertise on the opportunities and challenges faced by U.S. companies in trade with countries in Africa. We expect to learn why U.S. exports to Africa have not kept pace with U.S. imports from Africa and find out what Congress can do to better balance U.S.-Africa trade.

Mr. Speaker, the Jeffrey Dahmer-like murder trial of an abortionist named Kermit Gosnell is replete with shocking testimony of beheadings, unfathomable abuse, spinal cord snippings, death, and body parts in jars.

But how different, really, is Gosnell's ``house of horrors'' from the abortions that occur in clinics around the country every single day? Not much. Not much at all.

Mr. Speaker, will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how and how often abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?

Last week, reporter Timothy Carney asked participants in a call hosted by the pro-abortion group RH Reality Check:

What is the distinction between what Gosnell did and what a

late-term abortionist like Leroy Carhart does?

Professor Tracy Weitz responded:

When a procedure that usually involves collapsing the skull

is done, it is usually done when the fetus is still in the

uterus, not when the fetus has been delivered.

That's it? It's just a matter of where, in the womb or not, that this violence against children is construed to be okay?

Where is the outrage over 55 million children victims who have been killed by abortion, and where is the appalling lack of compassion?

Why the empathy deficit for the victims, women and children, especially by our President, President Barack Obama?

Women and children deserve better.

Mr. Speaker, about 2 billion people in the world regularly communicate or get information on the Internet. Well over half a billion people of these people do so in repressive countries. As the Internet use has become a vital and even the standard means to disseminate beliefs, ideas and opinions, so we see a growing number of countries that censor or conduct surveillance on the Internet, in conflict with internationally recognized human rights laws and standards.

The Internet, in many countries, has been transformed from a freedom plaza to big brother's best friend. The technologies to track, monitor, block, filter, trace, remove, attack, hack, and remotely take over internet activity, content and users has exploded. Many of these technologies are made in the U.S.A. Many of them have important and legitimate law-enforcement applications. But, sadly, many of them are also being exported, every day, to some of the most unsavory governments in the world--whose use of them is far from legitimate. Every day we learn about more activists being arrested through the use of newly-developed technologies--much of it American technology--in China, Belarus, Egypt, Syria and many other countries around the world. The stakes are life and death for online democracy activists, and they deserve our support and protection.

We only have to look around the globe at Belarus, Iran, China, and Vietnam to see horrific examples of the internet gone wrong. I have introduced the Global Online Freedom Act of 2013 (G0FA), H.R. 491, that addresses this fundamental threat to the democracy activists abroad.

GOFA requires the State Department to beef up its reporting on Internet freedom in the annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices, and to identify by name Internet-restricting countries. This country designation will be useful not only in a diplomatic context in helping to advance Internet freedom through naming and shaming countries, but will also provide U.S. technology companies with the information they need in deciding how to engage in repressive foreign countries.

And GOFA addresses what Google's Eric Schmidt calls the ``dark side'' of the digital revolution. This bill will prohibit the export of hardware or software that can be used for surveillance, tracking and blocking to the governments of Internet-restricting countries. Current export control laws do not take into account the human rights impact of these exports and therefore do not create any incentive for U.S. companies to evaluate their role in assisting repressive regimes. GOFA will not only help stop the sale of these items to repressive governments, but will create an important foreign policy stance for the United States that will help ensure that dissidents abroad know we are on their side, and that U.S. businesses are not profiting from this repression.

This export control law is long overdue, and thoroughly consistent with the approach Congress has taken, for example, in restricting exports of certain crime control equipment to China. It makes no sense for us to allow U.S. companies to sell technologies of repression to dictators, and then turn around and have to spend millions of dollars to develop and deploy circumvention tools and other technologies to help protect dissidents from the very technologies that U.S. companies exported to their persecutors.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the United States has a unique role to play in preserving online freedom; and export controls can send a strong message to repressive governments that the Internet must not become a tool of repression.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations held a hearing that examined the role of tier rankings in the fight against human trafficking.

Many of those who joined us last week have been in this fight from the beginning--from the year 2000 when my Trafficking Victims' Protection Act created not only the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the Department of State, but also the annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report.

At the time, I don't think anyone could have predicted that this report would become the international gold standard and primary means of anti-trafficking accountability around the world. From the halls of parliaments to police stations in remote corners of the world, this report is being used to focus anti-trafficking work in 186 countries on the key areas of prevention, prosecution, and protection.

The fact that it has been so successful is a credit to the hard and careful work of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Each year, this office evaluates whether the government of a country is fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, or, if not, whether the government is making significant efforts to do so.

The record is laid bare for the world to see and summarized in a tier ranking. Tier I countries fully meet the minimum standards. Tier II countries do not meet the minimum standards but are making significant effort to do so. Tier III countries do not meet the standards and are not making significant effort to do so. Along with the embarrassment of being listed on Tier III, Tier III countries are open to sanction by the U.S. government.

Since the TIP Report's inception, more than 120 countries have enacted anti-trafficking laws and many countries have taken other steps required to significantly raise their tier rankings--citing the TIP Report as a key factor in their increased anti-trafficking response. In the 2003 Trafficking in Persons Reauthorization Act, I and my colleagues in Congress created the Tier II Watch List. This list was intended to encourage anti-trafficking progress in a country that took positive anti-trafficking steps late in the evaluation year--especially those countries that took last-minute measures to avoid a Tier III designation. We wanted to reward good faith efforts and encourage them to continue.

However, some countries made a habit of last minute efforts and failed to follow through year after year, gaming the system. Consequently, in 2008, Congress created an ``automatic downgrade'' for any country that had been on the Tier II Watch List for two years but had not taken significant enough anti-trafficking measures to move to Tier II. The President can waive a Tier III downgrade for two additional years if there is ``credible evidence'' that the country has a written and sufficiently resourced plan to meet the minimum standards.

The ``automatic downgrade'' would protect the integrity of the tier system and ensure it worked properly to inspire real progress in the fight against human trafficking.

It has now been four years since the two-year limit, or four years- with-a-waiver limit, was instituted. China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Azerbaijan have now had at least four full years of warning that they would face downgrade to Tier III if they did not make significant efforts to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent trafficking. Now their time on the Tier II Watch List is up.

In last week's hearing, we took a close look at the records of these countries in 2012. If these countries have once again failed to make significant efforts to meet the minimum standards, the State Department must downgrade them or risk undermining the credibility and demonstrated power of the TIP Report.

I am particularly concerned about the Government of China's record. The Government of China has been on the Tier II Watch List for eight consecutive years in large part because its plan to fight human trafficking is inadequate, unevenly implemented, and the Government of China has not been making significant efforts to comply with the minimum standards. Law enforcement in China is still not trained to identify or respond properly to sex or labor trafficking victims. I have heard reports that local police are often unwilling to help parents find missing children who may be enslaved in local brick kilns, and that officials have been known to profit from brick kilns that exploit children.

As we heard from a brave trafficking survivor last week, the Government of China continues to forcibly repatriate North Korean trafficking victims who face severe punishment, including execution, upon their return to North Korea. Moreover, the Government of China's continued one-child policy has decimated China's female population. Tens of millions of

women and girls are missing from the population, making China a regional magnet for sex and bride trafficking as men reach marrying age but cannot find a mate. The Government of China is failing not only to address its own trafficking problems, but is creating an incentive for human trafficking problems in the whole region.

The Government of Uzbekistan's record is also of great concern, as the government itself continues to force hundreds of thousands of school-age children and adults to work in fields during the cotton harvest each year.

The Government of the Republic of Congo, despite making some progress in 2010 with the passage of a law that would prevent child trafficking, has failed in the last two years to convict a single person under that law despite the pervasive child trafficking in their country.

The Government of Russia has had nine years of warning that without significant change, they too would be downgraded. However, the Government of Russia does not have in place formal procedures for identification and referral of trafficking victims by law enforcement, labor inspectors, and other government officials. The Government of Russia still has not established a government body to organize government anti-trafficking activities, nor does it adequately fund shelters or services for trafficking victims. Russian citizens are trafficked from Russia to countries all over the globe as well as within Russia, and yet the Government of Russia does not have a national trafficking education or prevention plan.

The Government of Azerbaijan continues to use administrative fines for traffickers, allowing traffickers to write-off the crime of trafficking as a simple business expense that is less expensive than hiring their workers.

The Government of Iraq has been on the Watch List since the TIP Report first began to hold them accountable in 2009. Like trafficking victims elsewhere in the world, the victims in Iraq need protection, those who are vulnerable to trafficking need prevention measures, and traffickers need to be brought to justice.

The importance of accurate Tier rankings cannot be overstated. Over the last 12 years, we have seen countries begin in earnest the hard work of reaching the minimum standards after the TIP Report accurately exposed--with a Tier III ranking--each country's failure to take significant action against human trafficking. By the same token, a premature boost to Tier II, such as what occurred with Vietnam last year, may not only undermine progress, but fail to inspire it. The tier rankings were meant to be, and in large part have become, a powerful tool in the fight against human trafficking.