[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 45 (Thursday, April 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   AGGRESSION, FROM ARMENIA TO BOSNIA

  (Mr. DORNAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous 
matter.)
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, 51 years ago and lasting for over 2 weeks, 
women and children were being slaughtered in the Warsaw Ghetto by 
Gestapo and SS troops. After a while, the Nazis brought in Waffen SS 
troops to take over and continue the slaughter.
  Today the slaughter is in Gorazde. I was going to speak about 79 
years ago this coming Sunday, the date on which we remember the 
Armenian genocide, which was at that time the unparalleled slaughter of 
all time, setting the standard for Hitler and Stalin to kill tens of 
millions.
  But today we have Gorazde. The leftist columnist Mary McGrory--have 
you ever heard me quote Mary McGrory?--says this:

       They wished the president had not picked that particular 
     Sunday to ride his Mustang around the track while the Serbian 
     tanks ground into the streets of Gorazde. The symbolism was 
     abysmal: Leader of the western world or playboy?

  I will submit this article for the Record.
  Mr. Speaker, this President had better focus on this. As McGrory 
says, it is history that will be merciless to this President, not the 
Republicans.
  Now let me say a few words about the Armenian genocide.
  Between the years 1915 to 1923, over 1\1/2\ million Armenians 
perished as a result of the brutal policies of the Ottoman Empire.
  April 24, 1915 symbolically marks the beginning of the systematic 
policy of deportation and murder which characterizes the Armenian 
genocide. This Sunday marks the 79th year since the, then, unequalled 
slaughter began. It was on the night of April 24, 1915 that over 200 
Armenian intellectual leaders were arrested in Constantinople and in 
other cities throughout the Ottoman Empire. In the months to follow, 
Armenian political, intellectual, and religious leaders were rounded 
up, arrested, exiled or murdered; thus, suppressing the most vocal 
voices of the Armenian people. Armenian men of military age were 
conscripted into the service of the Ottoman army. These men were 
separated into labor battalions, disarmed, and then worked to death or 
massacred.
  The remaining Armenian civilians, senior citizens, women, and 
children that were left behind were deported from their cities and 
towns. The men and older boys were separated from the groups, never to 
be seen again. Any others that remained were forced on death marches 
across Asia Minor into the Syrian desert. Approximately 500,000 
Armenians were able to escape to Russia, Europe, or the United States.
  As a result of the killings and deportations, the Armenian population 
in the Ottoman Empire was reduced from 2\1/2\ million to fewer than 
100,000. It is in the spirit of remembrance that we recognize the 79th 
anniversary of the Armenian genocide and keep alive the memories of 
those who were murdered and honor those who survived. Likewise, we 
commend the enduring strength and fortitude of the Armenian people who 
heroically continue to preserve their heritage and culture despite 
suffering overwhelming losses as a result of an infamous period in 
world history that even mass murderers like Adolph Hitler and Joseph 
Stalin took note of as they began their own genocidal rampages.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 21, 1994]

                            Vile Aggression

                           (By Mary McGrory)

       Bill Clinton always wanted to be president, but not 
     necessarily the leader of the Western World. Now he can't 
     escape. He must prove that the United States is not ``the 
     pitiful, helpless giant'' of Richard M. Nixon's spurious 
     Vietnam-era coinage.
       Clinton comes from a generation and a mindset that would 
     like to impose moral standards on the world, but without 
     getting involved in casualties, ``tears and such things,'' as 
     Ben Jonson put it. He does not want the United States to 
     revert to the ``don't tread on me'' touchiness of the last 12 
     years, when an attitude on the part of a small country could 
     bring it bombs or invasions.
       On the other hand, a feeling that he is too patient, and 
     forbearing is beginning to set in. In Bosnia and in Haiti, 
     the thugs are laughing at us. Even those who agree with 
     former secretary of state James A. Baker III's world-weary 
     formulation about Bosnia--``we don't have a dog in that 
     fight''--felt shame at the Serbian assault on Gorazde, chosen 
     by the United Nations, with our support, as ``a protected 
     area.'' They wished the president had not picked that 
     particular Sunday to ride his Mustang around the track while 
     the Serbian tanks ground into the streets of Gorazde. The 
     symbolism was abysmal: leader of the Western World or 
     playboy?
       It seems that in both Bosnia and Haiti, the one moral 
     imperative is to avoid U.S. bloodshed. People are being 
     massacred in the streets of Port-au-Prince for no reason 
     except loyalty to their elected and deposed president. During 
     the campaign, Clinton expressed a compassionate man's scorn 
     for George Bush's policy of returning Haitian boat people to 
     Haiti. Now he does the same.
       The commitment to Haiti, to the restoration of Aristide and 
     democratic government is in writing, in the Governors Island 
     Accord solemnly signed by us a year ago July. The policy is 
     ``unconscionable,'' said his fellow Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin 
     (Iowa), who, with another liberal Democrat, Christopher J. 
     Dodd (Conn.), is calling for tougher trade sanctions and more 
     consideration for refugees.
       Said Harkin, who considers himself a friend of the 
     president's, ``If we can't stand up for democracy and human 
     rights in our own hemisphere, what do the Serbs have to 
     fear?''
       Randall Robinson, the activist who organized picket lines 
     against apartheid in South Africa, is in the ninth day of a 
     fast to protest the Clinton policy in Haiti. Soft-living 
     presidents hate hunger strikes.
       Clinton obviously did not anticipate high public feeling on 
     Bosnia. The well-worn arguments about Europe's refusal to 
     take a stronger role, the ancient roots of the vicious Serb-
     Muslim hostility, have sufficed up to now to quiet 
     consciences. But now it is a matter of broken promises, the 
     honor of the country. The war has had a special brutality 
     from the beginning, the relentless ethnic cleansing, mass 
     rapes, targeting of the weak and the innocent.
       Recent days have brought the sight of corpses on the side 
     of the road, the news of close-range shelling of a Gorazde 
     hospital. Winston Churchill called Hitler ``a bloodthirsty 
     guttersnipe.'' The Serb aggressors collectively deserve the 
     label.
       Clinton began to feel the heat in withering editorials and 
     caustic congressional comment. It's not that anybody knows 
     what to do. They expect him to come up with something, at 
     least rhetoric worthy of the antrocities seen on television.
       The president began rounds of meetings. On Wednesday 
     afternoon, while the Marine band played ``Til There Was You'' 
     in the garden, where hundreds of volunteers waited to be 
     greeted by the Clintons, the president kept putting off his 
     expected announcement. Was he calling balky allies, 
     remembering to ask questions that should have been asked 
     before the weekend's puny bombing raids? The announcement was 
     not worth waiting for. His delivery was flat and dispirited. 
     There will be unspecified military and diplomatic 
     initiatives. The only reaction that can be safely anticipated 
     is more Serbian snickering.
       Clinton was worried sick not so long ago about Whitewater. 
     That haunt is faded. All over the country forums are 
     convening--about the bad behavior of the press rather than 
     the questionable behavior of the Clintons.
       But with Bosnia, no hype is needed. Vile aggression is 
     occurring. The old, the sick, the young are being slaughtered 
     in a place we promised to protect. It isn't the Republicans 
     or the press that Clinton is facing in his conduct of Bosnia 
     and Haiti. It is history which can be much more merciless.

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