Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) has died, at the age of 80. He was one of the great voices for human rights in the US Congress. Lantos founded and co-chaired the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which highlights human rights violations around the world.
The only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, Lantos was Hungarian by birth. Largely shaped by his experience in Europe, he frequently sided with those who supported military interventions to halt rights abuses.
In a Washington Post story, Lantos is quoted supporting his often unpopular stance:
“Had the United States and its allies confronted Hitler earlier, had we acted sooner to stymie his evil designs, the 51 million lives needlessly lost during that war could have been saved,” he said. “Just as leaders and diplomats who appeased Hitler at Munich in 1938 stand humiliated before history, so will we if we appease Saddam Hussein today.”
Yet he was also a realist. After the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, Lantos became increasingly critical about the direction of the war and called for large withdrawals of American troops.
Some of his achievements include:
- In 2006, he was among several members of Congress willingly arrested for protesting outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington while trying to denounce what they called the government’s role in the killings in Darfur.
- As Foreign Affairs Committee chairman in June 2007, he was pivotal in the House’s passage of a resolution pressing the Japanese government to officially apologize for the thousands of women used as sex slaves during World War II.
- In November 2007, Lantos sharply rebuked executives of Yahoo Inc. for complying with Beijing authorities in identifying a Chinese journalist and Yahoo account holder. “While technologically and financially you are giants, morally you are pygmies,” Lantos told the Yahoo officials.
Here he is slamming the Internet companies — may he have a smooth journey as he leaves us!
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