Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other longtime opponents of communism gathered in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to lay wreaths at a statue honoring the many victims of communism.

The statue, which stands at the Victims of Communism Memorial on Capitol Hill, is a replica of one built in 1989 by protestors in China's Tiananmen Square before the communist government crushed their democracy movement.

Historians say communism is to blame for the deaths of more than a hundred million people. But one speaker estimated the number is closer to 500 million when you add all the victims of forced abortions under China's one-child policy.

"The Chinese Communist Party estimates that it has 'prevented' 400 million lives through its brutal one-child policy," Reggie Littlejohn of Women's Rights without Frontiers told those gathered.

"Every one of these 400 million snuffed out lives is a victim of communism," she said.
   
Littlejohn said killing of its own citizens is the hallmark of communist governments.