[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S4005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE 81ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, today we commemorate the 81st 
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, a horrendous crime against 
humanity which cannot be denied.
  Beginning on April 24, 1915--81 years ago today--the declining 
Ottoman Empire undertook a systematic effort to kill or drive out the 
Armenian people. By 1923, more than 1 million Armenians perished as a 
result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and 
physical abuse. Others were driven from their homeland.
  The terrible tragedy that befell the Armenian people was the first 
systematic genocide in this century. Unfortunately, it was not the 
last. The Nazi Holocaust, Stalin's purges, and the killings of 
Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge are all further examples of brutality and 
death carried out in the name of the state. In Bosnia, American 
leadership and united international diplomacy and intervention has 
finally brought an end to the genocidal ethnic cleansing, though ethnic 
divisions there will be long in healing.
  We mark this date in history because it is so important that we 
remember. We must remember the Armenian genocide and other abuses of 
state authority against ethnic minorities. We must remember all of the 
victims of crimes against humanity. Our memory, our vigilance, is 
essential to ensuring that these acts do not happen again, to Armenians 
or any other group.
  The Armenian people and their culture have survived. The Armenian-
American community is thriving in a land where cultural and ethnic 
diversity are increasingly valued. And the collapse of the Soviet Union 
gave rise to an independent, democratic Armenian state.
  So let us remember the Armenian genocide, let us be vigilant to 
prevent such crimes in the future, and let us celebrate the Armenian 
people, who have overcome this tragedy to thrive in independent Armenia 
and in America.

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