Victims of Communism Memorial

A bill, H.R. 3000, sponsored by Representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Tom Lantos and Senators Claiborne Pell and Jesse Helms, to authorize the memorial passed unanimously on December 17, 1993, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, becoming Public Law 103-199 Section 905. It was backed by prominent conservatives including Lev E. Dobriansky, Grover Norquist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Lee Edwards. Because of delays in establishing the memorial, the authorization was subsequently extended through Section 326 of Public Law 105–277, approved October 21, 1998, until December 17, 2007. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation had the duty of funding and directing the first stages of planning the memorial. In November 2005, the National Capital Planning Commission gave approval to the monument's design. After raising over US$825,000 for construction and maintenance costs, the groundbreaking ceremony was held September 27, 2006. ==Dedication ceremony==

speaking at the memorial's dedication ceremony On June 12, 2007, the memorial was officially dedicated. Among the hundreds of invited guests were people from many countries who suffered hardships under Communist regimes, such as Vietnamese poet Nguyen Chi Thien, Chinese political prisoner Harry Wu, Lithuanian anti-communist journalist Nijolė Sadūnaitė and others. During the opening ceremony, President George W. Bush referenced millions of those unnamed who suffered under Communism: President Bush also said, "We'll never know the names of all who perished, but at this sacred place, communism's unknown victims will be consecrated to history and remembered forever. We dedicate this memorial because we have an obligation to those who died, to acknowledge their lives and honor their memory." Bush equated communism to the threat of terrorism then facing the U.S.: "Like the Communists, the terrorists and radicals who have attacked our nation are followers of a murderous ideology that despises freedom, crushes all dissent, has expansionist ambitions and pursues totalitarian aims." On the first anniversary, there was another ceremony by the International Committee for Crimea. On June 9, 2011, a second commemoration ceremony was held with representatives of ethnic and religious groups who suffered under communist regimes. == Criticism ==

Andrei Tsygankov of San Francisco State University criticized the statue as an expression of the "anti-Russia lobby" in Washington and a revival of Cold War symbolism. Russian politician Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said that U.S. President Bush's appearance before the unveiling of the monument was a "clumsy propaganda attempt to divert the world public opinion's attention from the true, bloody crimes of U.S. imperialism in general and the current administration in the White House in particular." Zyuganov also accused Bush of hypocrisy: "How can an American president open it given the blood of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Serbs in Kosovo, Guantanamo Bay, as well as CIA prisons in Eastern Europe [that] are part of the black list of crimes of the globalists." The statue drew criticism from the Chinese embassy in Washington because the memorial evokes the Tiananmen Square protests. The embassy called its construction an "attempt to defame China." The chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Lee Edwards, said he was not aware of any official complaint. == See also ==