[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 44 (Wednesday, April 20, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION

                                 ______


                               speech of

                     HON. RANDY ``DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 19, 1994

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of the 
Armenian people on the 79th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. The 
genocide, which began on April 24, 1915, resulted in the death of 1.5 
million people, a third of the Armenian population.
  On that terrible day in 1915, hundreds of Armenian religious, 
political, and intellectual leaders were rounded up, exiled, and 
eventually murdered in remote areas of Anatolia. The remaining adult 
males were then taken from their homes and slaughtered en masse. 
Stripped of any protection and deprived of their leadership, the 
elderly, women, and children were left to face the death marches 
through the southern Anatolian deserts. Through the bitter cold and the 
blistering heat, the Armenian people were forced to march without food, 
water, or shelter. Those who did not die from starvation or disease 
were subjected to rape, torture, and mutilation. The land which had 
been home to Armenians for nearly 3,000 years was quickly emptied of 
its population in this manner.
  Mr. Speaker, the Armenian genocide should not go unnoticed or 
unremembered. Those who died in the genocide must be remembered by all 
of us. As events in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cambodia, Iran, and most 
recently, Rwanda, demonstrate, we have not lost our capacity for 
savagery.
  We should use this opportunity to remind ourselves that the threat of 
wholesale murder still exists even today. We must actively combat those 
who would consider committing such crimes, and we must declare that an 
atrocity like the Armenian genocide must never happen again.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California for organizing this 
special order and his efforts to insure that the Armenian genocide is 
remembered by this body.

                          ____________________