Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 103 Part 3.djvu/991

 PROCLAMATION 5996—JULY 6, 1989 103 STAT. 3059 human rights. Their calls—the undeniable expression of just aspira- tions—are beginning to be heard. In Afghanistan, the nightmarish years of Soviet occupation are over, and the Alghan people's demand for self-determination is drawing closer to realization. Unfortunately, a decisive end to the Afghans' long ordeal remains elusive while a puppet regime in Kabul continues the proxy devastation of their war-ravaged homeland. In Africa, the people of Angola have a real chance to find peace after years of violent struggle against the ruling Marxist-Leninist regime. Ouur hopes for national reconciliation in Angola will remain tempered, how- ever, as long as armed Cuban mercenaries continue to stalk the forests and veldt of that land and other countries on the African continent. Communist expansionism has been frustrated in Southeast Asia, and today there is new hope that the people of Cambodia, Laos, and Viet- nam will regain some day their long-denied pohtical and religious free- dom. Such hope has also retvuned for many of our neighbors to the south. In Nicaragua and other Latin American nations, popular resist- ance to attempts at repression by local dictators—as well as resistance to political and military interference from Cuba and the Soviet Union— has proved to be formidable. In Eastern Europe, even as we see rays of light in some countries, we must recognize that brutal repression continues in other parts of the region, including the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities. This week, we recall with deep sadness the infamous Molotov-Ribben- trop pact between Nazi Germany and the U.S.S.R. that doomed Poland. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to dismemberment and foreign domina- tion. The United States refuses to accept the subsequent incorporation by the Soviet Union of the Baltic States diuing World War II. Since their forcible annexation in 1940, the people of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have faced political oppression, religious persecution, and re- pression of their national consciousness. But decades of oppression have not broken the great spirit of the Baltic people and other victims of Soviet domination. Hundreds of thousands of men and women aroimd the world continue to demonstrate publicly their desire for liberty and democratic govern- ment, demanding freedom of speech, assembly, and movement, as well as the freedom to practice their religious beliefs without fear of perse- cution. Their voices are being heard; there have been improvements in human rights practices by the ruling regimes in many of these countries. But justice demands that more positive steps be taken. The fundamental rights and dignity of individuals must be recognized in law and respect- ed in practice; the peoples living in captive nations not only ask for but are entitled to lasting protection of their God-given rights. The United States shall continue to call upon all governments and states to uphold the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Act until freedom and independence have been achieved for all captive nations. Affirming all Americans' determination to keep faith with those who are denied their fundamental rights, the Congress, by Joint Resolution

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