[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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