Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 96 Part 2.djvu/1348

 96 STAT. 2710

PROCLAMATION 4908—MAR. 10, 1982

Proclamation 4908 of March 10, 1982

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Afghanistan Day By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan without provocation and with overwhelming force. Since that time, the Soviet Union has sought through every available means, to assert its control over Afghanistan. The Afghan people have defied the Soviet Union and have resisted with a vigor that has few parallels in modern history. The Afghan people have paid a terrible price in their fight for freedom. Their villages and homes have been destroyed; they have been murdered by bullets, bombs and chemical weapons. One-fifth of the Afghan people have been driven into exile. Yet their fight goes on. The international community, with the United States joining governments around the world, has condemned the invasion of Afghanistan as a violation of every standard of decency and international law and has called for a withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability-

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It is therefore altogether fitting that the European Parliament, the Congress of the United States and parliaments elsewhere in the world have designated March 21, 1982, as Afghanistan Day, to commemorate the valor of the Afghan people and to condemn the continuing Soviet invasion of their country. Afghanistan Day will serve to recall not only these events, but also the principles involved when a people struggles for the freedom to determine its own future, the right to be free of foreign interference and the right to practice religion according to the dictates of conscience. NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate March 21, 1982, as Afghanistan Day. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and sixth. 3W0MO1 HS-b&m m i&j rtqe RONALD REAGAN Editorial Note: The President's remarks of Mar. 10, 1982, on signing Proclamation 4908 are printed in the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 18, p. 280).

Proclamation 4909 of March 10, 1982

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National Energy Education Day, 1982 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Over its two-hundred-year history, this nation grew and prospered through the abundant production and use of energy. The American people began by using wood for nearly all of their needs, started using coal in large quantities in the mid-1800's, and moved to large-scale oil and gas use in the early part of the twentieth century.

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