Aid for Kampucheans Remarks Announcing Additional Relief Efforts.

Thirty [37] ¹ years ago a holocaust began which was to take the lives of more than 6 million human beings. The world stood by silently in a moral lapse whose enormity still numbs the human mind.

¹ Printed in the transcript.

We now face, once again, the threat of avoidable death and avoidable suffering for literally millions of people, and this time we must act swiftly to save the men, women, and children, who are our brothers and sisters in God's family.

Five days ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children's Fund appealed jointly for $111 million in aid to help the millions of Kampucheans, formerly known as Cambodians, who are facing death from starvation during the next 6 months. We must respond to this appeal, and we must also help the related need for food and medicine and shelter for refugees who are fleeing from Kampuchea to Thailand.

Here is what we must do, and this is what we will do: First, as to the Red Cross and United Nations joint appeal, I'm today directing that $3 million in existing refugee aid funds be made available immediately to UNICEF and to the International Committee of the Red Cross, in addition to the $2 million that I ordered transferred last week.

I'm urgently asking the Congress to enact a supplemental Food for Peace appropriation that will make available $20 million in commodities for use in Kampuchea, subject only to assurances that it will reach its destination, that is, the human beings who are suffering. This is in addition to the $5 million in food that I pledged for this purpose last week.

Today I'm also directing that $9 million in U.S. refugee assistance funds go to meet about one-third of the total cost of Thailand's program to help starving refugees who are entering Thailand from Kampuchea. I commend the Thai Government on its decision to admit more refugees. They have already received tens of thousands of them.

Third, I've told Chairman Zablocki in the House and cosponsors that the administration supports their proposal to authorize $30 million for the next phase of relief in Kampuchea. This would enable us, as a total, to raise our contributions to the continuing program for the alleviation of suffering in Kampuchea as high as $70 million.

The dimensions of the Kampuchean tragedy are immense, and more aid will almost certainly be needed. And I'm also asking my Commission on World Hunger, headed by Sol Linowitz, to recommend to me the next steps that we must take to meet worldwide hunger needs.

I'm certain that the American people, in addition to their Government, will want to be part of this urgent humanitarian effort. It's absolutely too important to be left to Government alone.

Standing behind me on the platform are representatives of religious and other groups who have already pledged to help in this effort, who've called on me to do what I'm announcing now, and who, I believe, sincerely said that they would match the Government effort.

Several voluntary agencies have been working all along to meet the needs of increasing numbers of refugees, and I call upon all Americans to support this work. I ask specifically that every Saturday and Sunday in the month of November, up until Thanksgiving, be set aside as days for Americans in their synagogues and churches and otherwise to give generously to help alleviate this suffering. I'm confident that Americans' responses will be matched abroad.

Many governments and international voluntary agencies are already coming forward with their pledges. The human family, those of us who have been blessed so highly with food and a relative absence of suffering, must not be found wanting in our response to alleviate this almost unprecedented mass human suffering. If a tragedy of genocidal proportions is to be avoided in Kampuchea, we must all help, both nations and governments and individuals alike.

I would now like to call on Father Theodore Hesburgh, who was the spokesman for the group, representing private entities, churches, synagogues, and others, to say a few words to you, and he and others in this room from government and from the private sector will be glad to answer your questions about this humanitarian effort.

Father Hesburgh.