[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 45 (Wednesday, April 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2215]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Rogan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROGAN. Mr. Speaker, Haig Baronian of Glendale, California in my 
district can recite history like few historians can. He has lived it. 
Last year he told the Daily News of Los Angeles that he had seen his 
mother pulled away, never to be seen again. The story he has to tell is 
like those echoed in history books, college classrooms and town halls 
across the Nation. However, he did not live in Bosnia, Uganda, Cambodia 
or Nazi Germany. As a child Haig lived in Armenia.
  Between 1915 and 1923 over 1 million Armenians, who had inhabited 
their homeland since the time of Christ, were displaced, deported, 
tortured and killed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire. Families were 
split, homes were destroyed, lives were torn apart. In the years since, 
officials from what is now Turkey have dismissed these charges as a 
mere civil war. But men like Mr. Baronian tell a different tale, and 
today I ask my colleagues to join me in remembering his family and his 
neighbors, and to seek justice so that future generations will never 
again face tragedy at the hands of their own government.
  Mr. Speaker, as their friends and family were killed before them, 
nearly a million managed to escape and build new lives in the United 
States. Of these, nearly 100,000 Armenians now live in the Los Angeles 
area. What is inspiring to me is witnessing their climb from tragedy to 
triumph as dedicated, informed and prosperous members of our community. 
And while the story of Armenians in America is truly a success story, 
an injustice to friends, neighbors and to history still remains.
  Every April 24 we in Congress gather to recognize the contributions 
of Armenian Americans and to remember the Armenian genocide. As we look 
to a new century we must be mindful of our dual obligation both to 
diplomacy and to justice. Like my colleagues, I rise today in the 
interests of justice, to call on humanity to put to rest one of the 
darkest episodes in history.
  Mr. Speaker, for 10 years the Ottoman Empire tried to strip the 
Armenian people of their dignity, their property and their lives. What 
they failed to do was rob them of their soul and their will to survive 
and prosper.
  In recognition of Haig Baronian and his fellow Armenians, both at 
home and abroad, who suffered at the hands of the Ottomans, I ask my 
colleagues to join me and for Congress to commit itself to the interest 
of justice and to the cause of peace. I ask that we remember the past 
so, as we have been warned before, we shall not be condemned to repeat 
it.

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