JFAV PAYS TRIBUTE TO REP. TOM LANTOS,(D-CA), 80

Bay Area Indymedia
Feb 11 2008
CA

Los Angeles – The Justice for Filipino American Veterans(JFAV) pays
tribute to Rep. Tom Lantos of California who passed away.

JFAV learned that Lantos, 80, passed away at the Bethesda Naval
Medical Center in suburban Maryland.

Lantos, a Democrat who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
disclosed last month that he had been diagnosed with cancer of the
esophagus. He has supported the veterans equity bill .

He served his constituency which has large Filipino population at
Northern California district, which takes in the southwest portion
of San Francisco and suburbs to the south including Lantos’ home of
San Mateo.

Lantos had assumed his committee chairmanship just a year earlier,
when Democrats retook control of Congress. He conducted house hearings
on human rights violations in the Philippines last year.

In the senate and house hearings, the US Congress found the Philippine
government responsible for the spate of political killings in the
Philippines and tied US military aid to the human rights situation
in the country.

Lantos, who was elected to the House in 1980, founded the Congressional
Human Rights Caucus in 1983. In October 2007, as Foreign Affairs
chairman, Lantos defied administration opposition by moving through
his committee a measure that would have recognized the World War I-era
killings of Armenians as a genocide, something strongly opposed by
Turkey. The bill has not passed the House.

JFAV offers the sincerest condolence with Lantos’ family and friend
and considered him a true friend and an ally of the Filipino people.