Saturday, May 12, 2012

One in five people on this planet today live under Communist Party rule

 "Since the end of the Cold War, the Communist Party has managed to hold power in seven countries across three continents.That’s a total population of 1.47 billion people, with a majority living in China. Or, to put it another way: 1 in 5 people on this planet currently live under Communist Party rule." - Tomas van Houtryve 

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” - Elie Wiesel

 Communists took power in Nepal in 2008 killing thousands.

Tomas van Houtryve - Behind Communism's Curtain

 Tomas van Houtryve is a photojournalist who has witnessed first hand the brutality of communism in the 21st century and offers a cautionary analysis of the optimists who believe that economic engagement with these regimes is leading to greater freedom but quite the contrary. For example, van Houtryve observes in this speech that
"The CEO’s of all of China’s big companies in strategic sectors are members of the Communist Party, hand-picked by top officials for their loyalty."
That many in the West have grown rich collaborating with this totalitarian dictatorships is a moral outrage that will no doubt have great and terrible consequences for humanity.  Edmund Burke observed that "All we need for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Please watch and listen to the video below recorded on Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at  the Oslo Freedom Forum.



Excerpt from Tomas van Houtryve's speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2012:

"Since the end of the Cold War, the Communist Party has managed to hold power in seven countries across three continents.That’s a total population of 1.47 billion people, with a majority living in China. Or, to put it another way: 1 in 5 people on this planet currently live under Communist Party rule."
 
"In Nepal, communist guerrillas following Mao Zedong’s playbook lead a bloody revolution which toppled the country’s monarchy in 2008. 13,000 people were killed in the brutal civil war between the Maoists and the Royal Nepal Army. Thousands of others were disappeared in the middle of the night."

The full text of the speech is available at Tomas van Houtryve's blog.

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