Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 101 Part 1.djvu/160

 101 STAT. 130

PUBLIC LAW 100-16—MAR. 27, 1987

Public Law 100-16 100th Congress Joint Resolution Mar. 27, 1987 [S.J. Res. 63]

6 UST 3114, ?rVT'oi^lo'oQ^^^ 15 UST 2228.

To designate March 21, 1987, as Afghanistan Day.

Whereas more than seven years have passed since the unprovoked Soviet invasion of the nonaligned country of Afghanistan; Whereas close to one hundred and fifteen thousand Soviet troops are continuing a brutal attempt to crush the nationwide Afghan resistance to the Soviets and the Marxist regime they installed; Whereas indiscriminate air and artillery bombardments, deliberate attempts to generate refugees, and the destruction of livestock, crops, and property remain a key instrument of Soviet and Kabul regime policy; Whereas Soviet and Kabul regime actions in Afghanistan violate the following international covenants: the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Customary International Law; article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the 1954 Hague Convention; Whereas the military operations of the Soviets and their Afghan surrogates have driven almost three million refugees into Pakit Stan, placing an almost intolerable burden on its economy, social service system, and ecology; Whereas the United Nations General Assembly has in eight resolutions called for the "immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan", and a recent United Nations Human Rights Commission report concludes that the continuation of a military 4 solution in Afghanistan will "lead inevitably to a situation approaching genocide"; Whereas, the twentieth semiannual report of the United States ,j Department of State on the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act observes that Soviet policies in Afghanistan are: "in direct and willful violation of the general principles set forth in the Helsinki Final Act, including respect of the inviolability of frontiers, territorial integrity of states, and self-determination of peoples"; Whereas, in June 1986, the European Parliament overwhelmingly adopted a resolution on the situation in Afghanistan which condemns: "The deaths of some one and a half million Afghans since the beginning of the Soviet intervention, out of the total population of fifteen million, while four and a half million refugees have had to flee to Pakistan and Iran and a million Afghans are surviving in extremely difficult conditions within the country itself; Wheresis Soviet and Kabul regime aircraft have violated Pakistan's airspace seven hundred and fifty-seven times during 1986, killing forty-six innocent people and wounding seventy-seven; Whereas over two hundred and thirty-three Soviet and Kabulinspired terrorist incidents took place in Pakistan during 1986, often in circumstances calculated to cause the deaths of innocent civilians;

�