Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Helms to Receive Baltic Democracy Award April 25, 2001 JBANC PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate Release contact: Karl Altau tel. 301-340-1954 Washington, DC (JBANC) - The Joint Baltic American National Committee, Inc. (JBANC) celebrates its 40th anniversary with an April 26 reception on Capitol Hill, featuring the President of Latvia, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who is on a week-long working visit to Washington, D.C. At the event, Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will be presented with the Baltic Democracy Award by JBANC in recognition of his contributions in the U.S. Congress to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The reception, sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin and Gordon Smith of the Senate Baltic Freedom Caucus, along with Congressmen John Shimkus and Dennis Kucinich of the House Baltic Caucus is being held from 5:00-7:00 p.m. in Room 902 of the Hart Senate Office Building. It occurs in conjunction with the 50th anniversary Congress of the American Latvian Association, Inc. (ALA). JBANC was founded April 27, 1961 by the leading Baltic American organizations (View the Decleration). Together they represent over one million Americans of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian heritage. Besides ALA, JBANC’s parent organizations are the Estonian American National Council, Inc., and the Lithuanian American Council, Inc. In its early years, JBANC sought to support the steadfast policy of the United States not to recognize the forceful annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. Americans of Baltic heritage remain proud that the United States kept this principled policy when the Soviet empire looked strong and lasting. The hopes and efforts of Baltic-Americans were vindicated in the early 1990’s when the Baltic countries once again emerged free and independent. Their people and Americans of Baltic heritage were instrumental in contributing to the fall of the Soviet empire. Today JBANC continues to represent the wishes of its constituents by working to keep the Baltic countries secure and sovereign. Paramount is that they maintain and cultivate their democratic systems, the rule of law, and free market economies and that they become integrated into the Trans-Atlantic community of nations. JBANC believes this may be achieved best through their membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We urge that the United States lead in the effort to enlarge NATO at the next Summit meeting in 2001 and that at that time the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania be invited to become members of NATO. |
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