Remarks of Bishop László  Tőkés accepting the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom

United States Capitol, June 16, 2009

The memory of the June day, when we inaugurated the Victims of Communism Memorial with the participation of President George W. Bush two years ago on Capitol Hill, still vividly lives in my mind.

Now, on the twentieth anniversary of the gruesome and violent putting down of the student protests at Tiananmen Square, the imposing memorial by Thomas Marsh reminds us simultaneously of the demolished statue presenting the Goddess of Democracy in Beijing, and the New York Statue of Liberty – which actually served as a source of inspiration for the construction of the statue in the Chinese capital. The memorial erected by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is a worthy memento of the tens of millions of innocent victims, heroes, and martyrs, who shed their blood during the totalitarian communist regime. Through remembrance, and by the symbolic force of liberty, it compels us to face past sins committed against humanity. At the same time, it urges us to fight against tyranny, in order to liberate the oppressed ones; a battle which must never be discontinued.

In his June 12, 2007, inauguration speech, Representative Tom Lantos also commemorated the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He used the felicity: “the 1956 Revolution was not put down, its victory was only delayed”.

Twenty years after the breaking out of the Romanian Revolution in Timisoara and the fall of the infamous Ceausescu-regime, one must achingly infer the conclusion that the final victory of the freedom fighters over communism has not come yet. Former Romanian President Emil Constantinescu declared: inhuman and ungodly communism “is unable to return, however, it can not really leave either”. In the former Soviet Empire, as well as in its ‘henchmen states'’ – the post-communist societies of East-Central-Europe – communism still lingers on by its former representatives and inherited legacy, exerting a pernicious influence.

In other words, in the countries of our region a bloodless struggle has been going on for 20 years against communism, a virtual Third World War. This is the ponderous price to pay for the peaceful transition of the democratic change of regime. We might quote President Ronald Reagan’s words according to which “the Evil Empire” would never give up voluntarily! The wrongdoers and the privileged of the former dictatorship saved their power and transplanted their influence into economics. Then, they converted it back into political power. That is the very reason why justice for the victims of communism and their descendants was not granted up to this day. However, without justice and equity there is neither veritable freedom, nor permanent peace and stability.

In front of the U.S.A. embassy in Budapest, the Memorial of the occupying Soviet “heroes” still spoils the cityscape after two decades of the fall of communism... On the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution (2006) the post-communist Hungarian government stepped up with such brutish methods against the population of Budapest that reminded us of those implied during the former dictatorship.

A similar chain of events and riotousness characterize the contradictory post-communist period in Romania. Until the present moment, the inheritors of Ceausescu’s national-communist principles would not serve justice for the oppressed and sold-out minorities, among which there is the Transylvanian Hungarian community. Although the Euro-conform ‘display-case politics’ represented by the Romanian government verbally condemned communism (the Tismaneanu Report), it still firmly repudiates the compensation of victims. “Romanian legislation and justice keeps on rejecting to measure the crimes of communism with the same standards as Nazi war crimes and atrocities were condemned”, stated Marius Oprea, President of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania.

Europe, the more developed Western civilizations on the other side of the former Iron-Curtain, moreover the ecumenical fellowship of Churches, also keeps on delaying to assume a determined attitude and stand up against the communists’ crimes committed against humanity. It took twenty years until the European Parliament in April, 2009, finally decided to make the first significant step regarding this issue.

Keeping all this in mind, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and President Lee Edwards should be congratulated for their work. The Congress of the American ‘Free World’ should also be honored since they step up against all totalitarian regimes in the spirit of those whom this prize was named after. They protect the oppressed people throughout the world and they also support us, subjects of the former communist countries, in our struggle to win our freedom.

May the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom, and the Global Virtual Museum on the Internet, commemorating the victims of communism, and which is to be inaugurated this afternoon, serve as downright acknowledgment and moral support for all those who go on with their relentless fight for justice and liberty worldwide, in the name of God, in countries like China, Tibet, North Korea, and Cuba.

Washington, June 16, 2009

László Tőkés