[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 78 (Thursday, May 11, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      COMMEMORATING THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

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                               speech of

                           HON. STEPHEN HORN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 2, 1995
  Mr. HORN. Mr. speaker, eighty years ago the world watched in horror 
as one of the most tragic, savage periods in modern history--the 
destruction of the Armenian culture by the Ottoman Empire in what later 
became the Republic of Turkey--unfolded. Between 1915 and 1923, over 
1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children were systematically 
murdered by Ottoman leaders. Millions more were driven from lands that 
they and their ancestors had occupied for centuries. By 1923, the 
Armenian culture had been almost completely eradicated within the 
confines of what is now modern-day Turkey. hat had once been a thriving 
Armenian populace of more than 2.5 million human beings in 1915, 
numbers around 80,000 today.
  Racial/ethnic hatred was the reason for this brutal genocide--as it 
was in the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau whose 50th 
liberation anniversary we are honoring this year. And therein lies one 
of the most important reasons that the world must never forget this 
shameful event. As we watch in horror at today's racial and ethnic 
atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda, and as we remember the all too recent 
slaughter of one million Cambodians under the evil rule of Pol Pot, and 
as we listen in disgust to the racial hatred being preached by 
Americans of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, we must use this 
tragic anniversary of the Armenian Genocide to renew our efforts to 
make sure that any and all genocide atrocities never again occur. This 
is our memorial to those one and a half million human beings who were 
lost in the Armenian Genocide.


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