A joint resolution designating June 14, 1988 "Baltic Freedom Day."
PL 100-343 (S.J.Res.249), enacted 06/22/1988

102 STAT. 640 
PUBLIC LAW 100-343—JUNE 22, 1988 
Public Law 100-343 
100th Congress 
Joint Resolution 
June 22, 1988 
[S.J. Res. 249] 
Designating June 14, 1988, as "Baltic Freedom Day". 
Whereas the people of the Baltic Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and 
Estonia have cherished the principles of religious and political 
freedom and independence; 
Whereas the Baltic Republics have existed as independent, sov-
ereign nations belonging to and fully recognized by the League of 
Nations; 
Whereas the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) in 
collusion with Nazi Germany signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 
which allowed the U.S.S.R. in 1940 to illegally seize and occupy 
the Baltic States and by force incorporated them against their 
national will and contrary to their desire for independence and 
sovereignty into the U.S.S.R.; 
Whereas due to Soviet and Nazi tyranny, by the end of 
World War II, the Baltic nations had lost 20 per centum of their 
total population; 
Whereas the people of the Baltic Republics have individual and 
separate culture, national traditions, and languages distinctively 
foreign to those of Russia; 
Whereas the U.S.S.R. since 1940 has systematically implemented its 
Baltic genocide by deporting native Baltic peoples from their 
homelands to forced labor and concentration camps in Siberia and 
elsewhere, and by relocating masses of Russians to the Baltic 
Republics, thus threatening the Baltic Cultures with extinction 
through russification; 
Whereas the U.S.S.R. has imposed upon the captive people of the 
Baltic Republics an oppressive political system which has de-
stroyed every vestige of democracy, civil liberties, and religious 
freedom; 
Whereas the people of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia find them-
selves today subjugated by the U.S.S.R., locked into a union they 
deplore, denied basic human rights, and persecuted for daring to 
protest; 
Whereas the U.S.S.R. refuses to abide by the Helsinki accords which 
the U.S.S.R. voluntarily signed; 
Whereas the United States stands as a champion of liberty, dedi-
cated to the principles of national self-determination, human 
rights, and religious freedom, and opposed to oppression and 
imperialism; 
Whereas the United States as a member of the United Nations has 
repeatedly voted with a majority of that international body to 
uphold the right of other countries of the world to determine their 
fates and be free of foreign domination; 
Whereas the U.S.S.R. has steadfastly refused to return to the people 
of the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia the right to 
exist as independent republics separate and apart from the 
PUBLIC LAW 100-343—JUNE 22, 1988 
102 STAT. 641 
U.S.S.R. or permit a return of personal, political and religious 
freedoms; and 
Whereas 1988 marks the forty-eighth anniversary of the United 
States continued policy of nonrecognition of the illegal forcible 
occupation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia by the U.S.S.R.: Now, 
therefore, be it 
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled, That— 
(1) the Congress recognizes the continuing desire and right of 
the people of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia for freedom and 
independence from the domination of the U.S.S.R.; 
(2) the Congress deplores the refusal of the U.S.S.R. to recog-
nize the sovereignty of the Baltic Republics and to yield to their 
rightful demands for independence from foreign domination 
and oppression; 
(3) the fourteenth day of June 1988, the anniversary of the 
mass deportation of Baltic peoples from their homelands in 
1941, be designated "Baltic Freedom Day" as a symbol of the 
solidarity of the American people with the aspirations of the 
enslaved Baltic people; and 
(4) the President of the United States be authorized and 
requested to issue a proclamation for the observance of Baltic 
Freedom Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities and to 
submit the issue of the Baltic Republics to the United Nations 
so that the issue of Baltic self-determination will be brought to 
the attention of the United Nations General Assembly. 
Approved June 22, 1988. 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY—S.J. Res. 249: 
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, Vol. 134 (1988): 
Feb. 26, considered and passed Senate. 
June 14, considered and passed House.