H.E. Ambassador Jawad Attends Commemoration of the 1956 Hungarian
Revolution
02/13/2006
Commemoration of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Wednesday, 15 February 2006, 11:02 am
Press Release: US State Department
Remarks on the Commemoration of the 1956 Hungarian
Revolution
R. Nicholas Burns , Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Benjamin Franklin Room, U.S. Department of State
Washington, DC
February 13, 2006
(Remarks as prepared)
Ladies and Gentleman it is a great pleasure and
honor to welcome you to the Benjamin Franklin Room here at the
State Department.
We are grateful for the presence our host, the
Honorable Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State, and the distinguished
guests who will be addressing us today: Congressman Tom Lantos
of California, Ambassador Andreas Simonyi, His Eminence Cardinal
Theodore McCarrick, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Reverend Wilson Gunn,
and Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein. I also want
to welcome Congressman Don Manzullo of Illinois, and representatives
of our two newest friends in the community of democracies, Ambassador
Said Tayeb Jawad of Afghanistan and Charge Said Shihab Ahmad
of the Embassy of Iraq.
The State Department is very proud to assist the
Government of Hungary in commemorating the 50th Anniversary
in 2006 of the Hungarian people's heroic struggle for freedom
and independence in 1956. We hope that today's ceremony will
provide the impetus for a series of events throughout America
this year to remember the courage of these Hungarian Patriots
who rose up against a colossal force -- the Red Army -- to proclaim
their resolve to be free.
You will note that the American and Hungarian
flags adorn the podium. There are two other flags here that
tell the story of 1956 and 2006. In the center is the flag of
the Patriots of 1956, original to that time, with the center
of that flag, the red star of Communism, removed to symbolize
the dream of the Hungarian people for a future in freedom. The
other flag displayed in the flag of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization -- because the dream of 1956 was achieved on that
great day in 1999 when the Hungarian people turned history on
its head and became our Ally in the greatest democratic alliance
in history -- NATO. For this reason we were enormously pleased
to agree with Ambassador Simonyi to host this event today.
It is now my honor to introduce Secretary of State
Rice. I want to say how proud I am, and how proud I know all
of the 50,000 men and women here and overseas in the State Department
are to work for her. When we reflect on her life and career,
we understand that they have been all about freedom and liberty.
Freedom for African-Americans when she was a young girl -- a
cause that continues today. And the cause of freedom that has
been the constant midpoint of her professional career -- from
her days as a Soviet specialist at the White House when communism
came tumbling down to the renewed cause of freedom in the Middle
East and around the world that is at the heart of her stewardship
of American diplomacy today.
If any of us in the United States can feel the
sense of commitment and energy and pain and loss, but ultimately
of triumph, of Hungary's patriots in 1956, I suspect it is she.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Honorable Condoleezza
Rice, Secretary of State.
