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OTTAWA – Today on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of
the Berlin Wall, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the
following statement:
"For forty-five years, Berlin was separated by a wall that split
families and countrymen in two, a physical barrier that
symbolized the front lines of the Cold War between two Europes -
one free and democratic, the other brutalized by communist
oppression.
"The flood of people arriving at Checkpoint Charlie and other
border crossings that night in 1989 was the final push in an
autumn of peaceful demonstrations where calls for reforms and
press freedom gave way to a bloodless revolution.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall not only reunified Germany, but
sparked a chain of events that saw communism throughout Europe
crumble. The expansion of the European Union has since brought
new prosperity to Eastern Europe, while NATO’s growing
membership has extended security and stability throughout the
region. Continued progress in embracing the nascent democracies
in Eastern Europe into our western institutions is our best
guarantee that Europe will never again be a continent divided.
"Today we pay tribute to the German people, who have become a
leading nation at the heart of a unified Europe where peace,
democracy, human rights, and free markets are erasing the
divisions of the past.
"We also recognize how the joy of that night was followed by the
challenge of bringing together a people who were changed by
totalitarianism. While that task is not yet complete, today we
reflect on the achievements of the past twenty years in the
hopes that the Berlin Wall becomes an ever more distant memory."
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