- European parliamentarians seek formal condemnation of communism's crimes
By JOCELYN GECKER, AP
PARIS (AP) - More than a decade after the end of the Cold War, European
parliamentarians said Tuesday the time has come for the international
community
to formally condemn the crimes of communism.
Historians, former Soviet dissidents and other experts took part in a
parliamentary hearing called by Europe's top human rights body, the
Council of
Europe, to assess the need for a global denunciation of the torture,
jailings
and massacres of Cold War-era regimes.
"It is now time to take stock of the numerous crimes of totalitarian
communism
of the past and condemn it solemnly," Manuela Aguiar, an EU
parliamentarian
from Portugal, said in a statement. Aguiar oversaw the hearing in Paris
and is
heading a mission to draft a report on the subject.
Several speakers told the panel that a formal condemnation would help turn
the
page on a bloody chapter of history and assert that the horrors of
communism
past would never be forgotten or condoned.
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky urged the council not to
distinguish
between today's terrorism and that of the past.
"Three years ago the world was shocked when about 3,000 people were
murdered in
New York as a result of terrorists," said Bukovsky, who spent 12 years in
Soviet jails and psychiatric hospitals for repeatedly demonstrating.
"That was a day's work" under certain Soviet-era rulers, he said, noting
that
the death tolls and details of many communist-era regimes remain locked
away in
undisclosed archives.
"You should demand the investigation and condemnation of crimes of
communism,
and demand all former communist countries to disclose their archives,"
Bukovsky
said.
Based on archival material that has been declassified, historians have
been
able to catalogue horrors that started with the Soviets and were copied by
communist regimes from Mao's China to Pol Pot's Cambodia, said French
historian
and author Stephane Courtois.
Millions died around the world from famine brought on by communist
political
powers who requisitioned land and harvests; millions more considered
"enemy
populations" were executed, jailed, deported or sent to hard labor camps,
said
Courtois, whose critically acclaimed "Black Book of Communism" catalogued
crimes of communism across the world in the 20th century.
"We are clearly confronted with a gigantic enterprise of terror, with
innumerable crimes against humanity - even genocide - which have never
been
condemned, either by a national tribunal or an international tribunal,"
Courtois said.
"At least out of the respect for the memory of victims, it calls for an
official moral condemnation," he said.
Latchezar Toshev, a member of Bulgaria's National Assembly, echoed calls
for
the Council of Europe's 46 member states to issue a unanimous condemnation
and
prosecute those responsible who are still alive.
"I'm happy we're discussing this topic 15 years after the fall of
communism,"
he said. "It's a little late. But better late than neve
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