Deputy Chief of Mission Yaroslav Brisiuck, First Secretary Kateryna Smagliy and Vice President of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America Michael Sawkiw represented Ukraine at the 16th Annual Roll Call of Nations Wreath Laying Ceremony, commemorating the dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial and honoring the memory of the more than 100 million victims of communism.

The Victims of Communism Memorial was opened by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2007. It features a bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy, erected by students during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Lee Edwards, Founding Chairman of VOC Foundation, reminded how President George W. Bush referenced millions of those unnamed who suffered under Communism:

“They include innocent Ukrainians starved to death in Stalin's Great Famine; or Russians killed in Stalin's purges; Lithuanians and Latvians and Estonians loaded onto cattle cars and deported to Arctic death camps of Soviet Communism. They include Chinese killed in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution; Cambodians slain in Pol Pot's Killing Fields; East Germans shot attempting to scale the Berlin Wall in order to make it to freedom; Poles massacred in the Katyn Forest; and Ethiopians slaughtered in the "Red Terror"; Miskito Indians murdered by Nicaragua's Sandinista dictatorship; and Cuban balseros who drowned escaping tyranny”.

The Hon. Paula J. Dobriansky presented Bhuchung K. Tsering, activist and researcher at International Campaign for Tibet, who was named the recipient of the 2023 Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom.

Full ceremony http://surl.li/hvmnp