By Elizabeth O’Brien
WASHINGTON, DC, 14 June 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Tuesday President Bush condemned the past and present evils of communism during the official commemoration of a new memorial. Shaped like a woman holding a flame, the statue was dedicated in honor of over 100 million people who died within just one century as the result of communism.
During his commemoration speech, the president said that the number of victims sacrificed to this ideology is “staggering”. Communism has swept through many nations, including China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Cambodia, Africa, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Eastern Europe.
Bush commented, “Some of Communism’s victims are well-known. They include a Swedish diplomat named Raoul Wallenberg, who saved 100,000 Jews from the Nazis, only to be arrested on Stalin’s orders and sent to Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison, where he disappeared without a trace. They include a Polish priest named Father Popieluszko, who made his Warsaw church a sanctuary for the Solidarity underground, and was kidnapped, and beaten, and drowned in the Vitsula by the secret police”
Addressing a crowd that included ambassadors, diplomats and many who had suffered under communist rule, Bush compared communists to the radical terrorists of September 11, 2001. He also pointed out that the battle for the life of innocent people still continues today.
Bush said that “We dedicate this memorial because we have an obligation to future generations to record the crimes of the 20th century and ensure they’re never repeated. In this hallowed place we recall the great lessons of the Cold War: that freedom is precious and cannot be taken for granted; that evil is real and must be confronted; and that given the chance, men commanded by harsh and hateful ideologies will commit unspeakable crimes and take the lives of millions.”
Following a burst of applause, the president also stated, “By remaining steadfast in freedom’s cause, we will ensure that a future American President does not have to stand in a place like this and dedicate a memorial to the millions killed by the radicals and extremists of the 21st century.”
During his concluding remarks, the president explained that the new memorial is a symbol of hope and freedom. “Just like our Statue of Liberty,” he said, “She reminds us that the flame for freedom burns in every human heart, and that it is a light that cannot be extinguished by the brutality of terrorists or tyrants.”
“And she reminds us that when an ideology kills tens of millions of people, and still ends up being vanquished, it is contending with a power greater than death. She reminds us that freedom is the gift of our Creator, freedom is the birthright of all humanity, and in the end, freedom will prevail.”
The Soviet Union was the first country to become communist as well as the first to legalize abortion in 1920, under Vladimir Lenin. Abortion has been widely encouraged as a means of women’s “liberation’ within communist and former-communist countries. In 2003, for example, 170,000 babies were aborted in Russia within 9 months, and 8000 more were killed than actually born. In 1990, only one baby was born for every three abortions. Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in the world with an estimated 60% of pregnancies ending in abortion. (see https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/oct/02102206.html)
Within communist China, the one-child policy pressures women into having abortions. One report stated that in the eastern Shandong province, over 120,000 women received abortions or sterilization within a few months.
(see https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102602.html)
According to Michael Chapman of NewsBusters Media Research Center, American newspapers remained initially silent about reporting the memorial commemoration. Despite the fact that the President was commemorating the deaths of multiple millions and expressing his hopes that no president should mourn the deaths of any other innocents in future, only a few papers mentioned the fact, and even then only in their later pages.
Today, however, the media gave widespread coverage of the Chinese government’s outrage that was sparked by Bush’s condemnation of communism. The Bangkok Post quotes foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang: “Some political forces in the United States still use Cold War thinking and aim to provoke conflicts between different ideologies and social systems.”
“We express our strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to the statements and actions of the US side…The United States should stop interfering in the internal affairs of other nations.”
The US memorial is the exact same figure, says the Bangkok Post, as the “Goddess of Democracy”, that was constructed and brought into Tiananmen Square, Beijing, by thousands of protestors in 1989. Countless students participated, and hundreds of them died during the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4 when Communist government tanks rolled over people in the square. Despite the fact that China is still communist, the protest remains one of the most significant public stands for freedom and democracy.
See Related Coverage:
Forced Abortion Still a Reality in China
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05052706.html
Six Out of 10 Pregnancies End in Abortion in Russia
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2002/oct/02102206.html
Russian Abortion Killing and Sterilizing Millions
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05041209.html
Abortion Encouraged in Ukraine as Unborn Babies Used for Russian Beauty Treatments
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/may/05052411.html
Read Bush’s Memorial Address
https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/06/20070612-2.html#