ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 115, JUNE 2004

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The Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, whose President is Eleanor Schlafly, is dedicated to the promotion of  faith, family and freedom, especially freedom from communist oppression which still persists in China, Vietnam, Laos and Cuba.  The Foundation publishes a monthly report on current issues, including reviews  of important books  which may not get a  mention elsewhere.CMF  also holds annual conferences in Chicago, California, Kentucky, and Texas.  This year my husband, Charles Francis and I, together with John Barich,  WA President of the Australian Family Association, were privileged to speak  on a panel at CMF's Chicago Conference.  Our  topic was "The Culture of Life and the UN". 

While there has been a strong "population control" and pro-abortion ethos at the UN and among  its agencies such as the UN Fund for Population Activities,  the tide is slowly turning, due in large measure to the strongly pro-life and pro-family  US delegations sent to United Nations meetings and conferences by President Bush, and the dedicated lobbying  of pro-life Non-Government Organisations  who have worked hard at UN conferences to ensure that pro-abortion recommendations are not incorporated into UN plans and programs of action.   For example, at this year's UN Commission on the Status of Women annual meeting (the 48th session of CSW) in New York, Endeavour Forum Inc.  as an  NGO was represented by John Barich  and  myself, and   Professor Joel   Brind and  Dr. Angela Lanfranchi  who spoke at a workshop we organised on Abortion and Breast Cancer. 

At the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation Conference John Barich emphasized the importance of finding out who the official government delegates to UN meetings are, and on lobbying them in advance so that no anti-life, anti-family  - or ambiguous - recommendations are adopted. Official Australian government appointed delegates to UN conferences are often left-wing and do not reflect the policies of our Coalition government.   I spoke on the “Deconstruction of Gender”, and Charles spoke on his work as a   lawyer in obtaining settlements for women who were not warned of the psychological trauma or increased breast cancer risk caused by abortion. 

Gulag   

Among the other speakers  at the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation Conference were Robert Reilly, who spoke on the horrors of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers, and Anne Applebaum, author of "Gulag: A History"  (Doubleday, 2003), who gave the keynote address:
“Gulag: What we know and why it matters”. Thirty-one years after  the 1972  publication of  Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago", Anne Applebaum's  book provides  a comprehensive look at the Gulag system.  It is a monumental,  scholarly study of a previously undocumented record of  the central terror institution of the Soviet system.  The word "gulag" comes from a Russian acronym which means main camp administration.  The camps were   first  established  in 1918, and    by 1929-1953 there were 476 camps in the Gulag system.  Approximately 18 million people  were imprisoned, and of these about 4.5 million died in the gulags.  The head of the secret Police, Lavrenty Beria, took over the camps in 1939 and controlled them until Stain's death in 1953.  

Gulag concentration camps were a fundamental part of the Soviet system. After the Soviets  got  control of  the countries of  Eastern Europe in the early days of the Cold War, Stalin sent his NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, to organise mass deportations.  Anne Applebaum's book encompasses a vast amount of research in  archives,  memoirs  and interviews with former prisoners.  She cites a rich body of "survivor's literature", but  notes that these have received little attention in the West compared to the   horrors of   Nazi camps   because communist theories of "equality"  are considered so favourably in the West.   Russia’s lack of interest in its history of the 20th century, has deprived it not only of its heroes but also its victims.

Member Organisation, World Council for Life and Family

NGO in Special Consultative Status with ECOSOC of the UN