Red Dragon and China Forum

December 17, 2004

Press Club, Washington, DC

For Immediate Release

(The text of William J. Murray's address appears below. Chairman Murray was one of four panelists which included Michael Horowitz. The entire conference was carried by Cspan. Information on the full broadcast can be found at http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=34175967)

During the 20^th Century more people died at the hands of communist governments than died in all the wars in all the history of mankind.

In the Soviet Union, the communist dictator, Joseph Stalin, starved millions to death in the Ukraine and filled Gulags - slave labor camps - with millions more. Untold millions died as entire towns and villages vanished from Russia. The iron fist of communism enslaved hundreds of millions in Eastern Europe and mass graves are still today being uncovered.

In Cambodia, the communist, Pol Pot, murdered one half of the population making the rice fields of that nation killing fields. In his effort to begin mankind over in the communist image, he ordered that anyone who could read and write be killed, except of course for members of his Communist Party.

In China the death toll was in excess of 40,000,000 under Mao. The real figure will never be known because many died in forced labor camps.

Most believe that the horror of communism died as the 20^th Century ended, but there are still those nations which hold communist dictatorial rule over their peoples. In Cuba, North Korea and China there is no freedom of expression. Brutality is the rule of law in the remaining communist nations of the world.

Some in the West say that China is the exception, that there is change and modernization. The way of doing business may have changed in China, but the business of repression has not changed at all. There is one political party, the Communist Party. The press is censored as is the Internet. American and European companies are paid millions of dollars by the Chinese communists to help them suppress free speech, particularly on the Internet.

Dissidents, those that dare speak out against the tactics of the communists, either disappear or are imprisoned. Religious oppression in China is equaled only with that in extremist Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia. Catholic priests have been imprisoned some times for decades. Catholics in China are in jail today just for practicing their religion. Protestants, particularly evangelicals

are targets of economic suffering as well as imprisonment in slave labor camps. But, the Communist Party of China reserves its most violent and oppressive behavior for the Falun Gong, a group once sponsored by the Chinese government. Its growth among the Chinese people so scared the totalitarian communist rulers of China that is suppression became a priority.

Falun Gong women have received forced abortions during their ninth month of pregnancy without anesthesia so the doctors could show them their babies chopped to pieces. Falun Gong women have been particular targets of the communists, often gang raped by police in front of their chained husbands. Extreme torture has been used on the men of Falun Gong including amputations. Electrodes have been used on the private areas of both men and women during “interrogations.”

The small outdoor Christmas lights that adorn our homes this time of year are manufactured for the most part in slave labor camps operated by the Chinese military. Most of those prisoners are Christians and Falun Gong.

The Falun Gong presents no more a threat to the Chinese government than does any other religious order. Communism, however, at its core is atheistic. In the mind of the communist rulers of China the government, not God must come first in the lives of those people it enslaves. To that end schools teach of the “horrors” of religion while leaving out the misery and death brought to the world by communism. In China the heroes of the world are still Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. While their statues have been torn down in most of the world, they remain standing in China.

Big business in Europe and the United States prefer the atmosphere of oppression in China to that of democracies. Democracy is messy. An American businessman does not know who will control the government in India or Russia or what the tax laws will be because the people can vote for change. But business in China is stable. There can be no labor strife, no strikes, no demands for higher pay and the laws will never change because the Communist Party is unchanging. Thus American and European business leaders reward totalitarian regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia, China and the Sudan with investment and trade. “Why build a factory in a democracy like India when a totalitarian government like China is available,” is the logic of GE, GM, Boeing, FORD, Wal-Mart and hundreds more I could name.

Most likely many of the Christmas gifts under our trees this year were made by underpaid, impoverished or imprisoned laborers in China.

The world refuses to act in the Southern Sudan where the corrupt extremist Islamic government has murdered millions of Christians and others. The West wants oil from the Sudan and doesn’t care if it is mixed with blood. Likewise we don’t seem to care if the Christmas lights that celebrate the birth of the One who freed us from the slavery of sin are made in slave labor camps by Christians. It seems that Americans have reached the point of caring more about the price displayed on a Wal-Mart cash register than the horrendous sub-human conditions in which the products are made.

In 2004 the Chinese communists launched their first ballistic missile submarine. The sub will sail up and down the coast of the United States, its missiles pointed at our major cities. The sub was built with Russian technology using profits from the sale of clothing and consumer electronics to Americans. In the end perhaps Lenin was right when he said that the capitalists would sell the rope to the communists that would used to hang them.

The time has come for the West to stop financing the torture and imprisonment of the people of China. The conditions of believers, such as the Falun Gong, is not that much different than that of 17^th century slaves, perhaps worse.

The time has come to ask ourselves, is the money saved on a cheap Chinese DVD player worth the knowledge that it finances the torture and murder of human beings at the hands of one of the worlds last remaining totalitarian governments.

America and the West must stop financing a corrupt communist regime that could not continue to rule without outside help.

Communism must finally be allowed to rot in the grave of history.

Media contact:

Peggy Birchfield (202) 543-0300