[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 155 Introduced in House (IH)]
106th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 155
Calling upon the President to provide in a collection all United States
records related to the Armenian genocide and the consequences of the
failure to enforce the judgments of the Turkish courts against the
responsible officials, and to deliver the collection to the Committee
on International Relations of the House of Representatives, the library
of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and to the Armenian
Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 28, 1999
Mr. Radanovich (for himself, Mr. Ackerman, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Berman, Mr.
Bilbray, Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Bliley, Mrs. Capps, Mr. Capuano, Mr.
Clay, Mr. Costello, Mr. Crowley, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Dooley of California,
Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Franks of New Jersey, Mr. Hefley, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Horn,
Mr. Kasich, Mr. Kennedy of Rhode Island, Mr. Kildee, Mr. King, Mr.
Kleczka, Mr. Knollenberg, Mr. Larson, Mr. Levin, Mr. Lipinski, Mrs.
Maloney of New York, Mr. Markey, Mr. Martinez, Mrs. McCarthy of New
York, Mr. McGovern, Mr. McHugh, Mr. McKeon, Mr. McNulty, Mr. Meehan,
Mr. Menendez, Mr. Moakley, Mr. Moran of Virginia, Mrs. Morella, Mr.
Neal of Massachusetts, Mr. Obey, Mr. Olver, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Porter,
Mr. Rogan, Mr. Rothman, Mr. Royce, Mr. Rush, Mr. Saxton, Mr. Sherman,
Ms. Stabenow, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Visclosky, Mr. Waxman, Ms.
Woolsey, and Mr. Wynn) submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Government Reform, and in addition to the
Committee on International Relations, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Calling upon the President to provide in a collection all United States
records related to the Armenian genocide and the consequences of the
failure to enforce the judgments of the Turkish courts against the
responsible officials, and to deliver the collection to the Committee
on International Relations of the House of Representatives, the library
of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and to the Armenian
Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This resolution may be cited as the ``United States Record on the
Armenian Genocide Resolution''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The Armenian genocide was conceived and carried out by
Ottoman Turkish Governments from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the
killing of 1,500,000 Armenian men, women, and children, the
deportation of more than 500,000 survivors, and practically
succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year Armenian
presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.
(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France,
and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for
the first time ever another government of committing ``a crime
against humanity''.
(3) This joint statement stated ``[i]n view of these new
crimes of Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied
Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they
will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members
of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who
are implicated in such massacres''.
(4) The post-World War I Turkish Government indicted the
top leaders involved in the ``organization and execution'' of
the Armenian genocide and in the ``massacre and destruction of
the Armenians''.
(5) In a series of courts-martial, officials of the Young
Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, for
organizing and executing massacres against the Armenian people.
(6) The chief organizers of the Armenian genocide, Minister
of War Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, and Minister of
the Navy Jemal were all condemned to death for their crimes,
however, the verdicts of the courts were not enforced.
(7) The Armenian genocide and these domestic judicial
failures are documented with overwhelming evidence in the
national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Russia, the United States, the Vatican and many other
countries, and this vast body of evidence attests to the same
facts, the same events, and the same consequences.
(8) The national archives of Turkey should also include all
of the records pertaining to the indictment, trial, and
conviction of the Ottoman authorities responsible for the
Armenian genocide.
(9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States
Ambassador to the Ottoman Turkish Empire from 1913 to 1916,
organized and led protests by officials of many countries,
among them the allies of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, against
the Armenian genocide.
(10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to the
Department of State the policy of the Young Turk government as
``a campaign of race extermination'', and was instructed on
July 16, 1915, by Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the
``Department approves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian
persecution''.
(11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of February 9, 1916,
resolved that ``the President of the United States be
respectfully asked to designate a day on which the citizens of
this country may give expression to their sympathy by
contributing funds now being raised for the relief of the
Armenians'', who at the time were enduring ``starvation,
disease, and untold suffering''.
(12) President Wilson concurred and also encouraged the
formation of the organization known as Near East Relief,
chartered by an Act of Congress, which contributed some
$113,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid the Armenian genocide
survivors, including 132,000 orphans who became foster children of the
American people.
(13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 13, 1920, stated in
part, ``the testimony adduced at the hearings conducted by the
subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have
clearly established the truth of the reported massacres and
other atrocities from which the Armenian people have
suffered''.
(14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, report to
the Senate of the American Military Mission to Armenia led by
General James Harbord, that stated ``[m]utilation, violation,
torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a
hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that
region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal
crime of all the ages''.
(15) Setting the stage for the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, on
ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without
provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying ``[w]ho,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians?''.
(16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ``genocide'' in
1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the Genocide
Convention, invoked the Armenian case as a definitive example
of genocide in the 20th century.
(17) Raphael Lemkin described the crime as ``the systematic
destruction of whole national, racial or religious groups. The
sort of thing Hitler did to the Jews and the Turks did to the
Armenians''.
(18) The first resolution on genocide adopted by the United
Nations at Lemkin's urging, the December 11, 1946, United
Nations General Assembly resolution (96-1) and the United
Nations Genocide Convention itself recognized the Armenian
genocide as the type of crime the United Nations intended to
prevent by codifying existing standards.
(19) In 1948 the United Nations War Crimes Commission
invoked the Armenian genocide ``precisely . . . one of the
types of acts which the modern term `crimes against humanity'
is intended to cover'' as a precedent for the Nuremberg
tribunals.
(20) The commission stated that ``[t]he provisions of
Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obviously
intended to cover, in conformity with the Allied note of 1915 .
. ., offenses which had been committed on Turkish territory
against persons of Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or
Greek race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent for
Article 6c and 5c of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and
offers an example of one of the categories of `crimes against
humanity' as understood by these enactments.''.
(21) The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted
in 1985 a report entitled ``Study of the Questions of the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide'', which
stated ``[t]he Nazi aberration has unfortunately not been the
only case of genocide in the twentieth century. Among other
examples which can be cited as qualifying are . . . the Ottoman
massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916''.
(22) This report also explained that ``[a]t least 1
million, and possibly well over half of the Armenian
population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or death
marched by independent authorities and eye-witnesses. This is
corroborated by reports in United States, German and British
archives and of contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire,
including those of its ally Germany''.
(23) The tragedy of the Armenian genocide has been
acknowledged by countries and international bodies such as
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the Council of Europe, Cyprus, the
European Parliament, France, Great Britain, Greece, Lebanon,
Russia, the United Nations, the United States, and Uruguay.
(24) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, an
independent Federal agency, unanimously resolved on April 30,
1981, that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum would
include the Armenian genocide in the Museum and has since done
so.
(25) President Reagan in proclamation number 4838, dated
April 22, 1981, stated in part ``like the genocide of the
Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which
followed it--and like too many other persecutions of too many
other people--the lessons of the holocaust must never be
forgotten''.
(26) In 1988 President Bush, speaking of the Armenian
genocide, stated ``we must consciously and conscientiously
recognize the genocides of the past--the enormous tragedies
that have darkened this century and that haunt us still. We
must not only commemorate the courage of the victims and of
their survivors, but we must also remind ourselves
that civilization cannot be taken for granted . . . We must all be
vigilant against this most heinous crime against humanity''.
(27) President Bush stated further ``[t]he United States
must acknowledge the attempted genocide of the Armenian people
in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, based on the testimony
of survivors, scholars, and indeed our own representatives at
the time, if we are to insure that such horrors are not
repeated''.
(28) On August 13, 1992, President Clinton stated ``[t]he
Genocide of 1915, years of communist dictatorship, and the
devastating earthquake of 1988 have caused great suffering in
Armenia during this century''.
(29) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later
retracted) by the Department of State asserting that the facts
of the Armenian genocide may be ambiguous, the United States
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after a
review of documents pertaining to the policy record of the
United States, noted that the assertion on ambiguity in the
United States record about the Armenian genocide ``contradicted
longstanding United States policy and was eventually
retracted''.
(30) Despite the international recognition and affirmation
of the Armenian genocide, the failure of the domestic and
international authorities to punish those responsible for the
Armenian genocide is a reason why similar genocides have
recurred and may recur in the future, and that a proper
judicial and firm response, holding the guilty accountable and
requiring the prompt enforcement of verdicts would have spared
humanity needless suffering.
SEC. 3. REPORT.
The House of Representatives calls upon the President to provide,
not later than 6 months after the date of the adoption of this
resolution, in a collection all United States records related to the
Armenian genocide and the consequences of the failure to enforce the
judgments of the Turkish courts against the responsible officials, to--
(1) the Committee on International Relations of the House
of Representatives;
(2) the library of the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum for incorporation into its holdings of official
documentation on genocide and for purposes of public awareness
and education; and
(3) the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia, in
order to document and affirm the United States record of
protest and recognition of this crime against humanity.
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