[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H2181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 WE MUST REMEMBER THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SO THAT IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I rise to 
remember the Armenian Genocide which took place over several years, but 
the remembrance day is to remember an event 85 years ago, so this is a 
particularly important anniversary of that genocide.
  We are asked why it is so important to come to this floor again and 
again to remember. We must remember so that it never happens again, and 
we must remember because there is an organized effort to hide and to 
disclaim this genocide; and we must overcome that effort, and we must 
never forget.
  Let us look at the historical record. The American ambassador to the 
Ottoman Empire in 1919 was an eyewitness. In his memoirs, he said, 
``When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations 
they were merely giving the death warrant to an entire race. They 
understood this well and in their conversations with me made no 
particular attempt to conceal this fact.''
  He went on to describe what he saw at the Euphrates River, and he 
said, as our eyes and ears in the Ottoman Empire, because that is the 
role an ambassador plays, in the year 1919, ``I have by no means told 
the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic 
orgies of which they, the Armenian men and women, are victims can never 
be printed in an American publication. Whatever crimes the most 
perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, whatever refinements 
of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, 
became the daily misfortune of the Armenian people.''
  As other speakers have pointed out, this was the first genocide of 
the 20th century, and it laid the foundation for the Holocaust to 
follow.
  We can never forget that 8 days before he invaded Poland, Adolf 
Hitler turned to his inner circle and said, ``Who today remembers the 
extermination of the Armenians?'' The impunity with which the Turkish 
government acted in annihilating the Armenian people emboldened Adolf 
Hitler and his inner circle to carry out the Holocaust of the Jewish 
people. Unfortunately, today there is an organized effort to expunge 
from the memory of the human race this genocide, and it focuses on our 
academic institutions.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a proud graduate of UCLA; and a few years ago UCLA 
was offered a million dollars to create a special chair that would be 
under the partial control of the Turkish government, a chair in history 
that would have been used to cover up and to disclaim and to deny the 
first genocide of the 20th century.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of UCLA for many things. I was there 
when Bill Walton led us to the NCAA championship, but I was never 
prouder of my alma mater than when UCLA said no to a million dollars; 
and it is important that every American academic institution say no to 
genocide denial.
  It is also important that the State Department go beyond shallow, 
hollow reminders and remembrances of this day and step forward and use 
the word genocide in describing the genocide of the Armenian people at 
the hands of the Turks.
  It is time for Turkey to acknowledge this genocide, because only in 
that way can they rise above it. The German government has been quite 
forthcoming in acknowledging the Holocaust, and in doing so it has at 
least been respected by the peoples of the world for its honesty. 
Turkey should follow that example rather than trying to buy chairs at 
American universities to deny history.
  Mr. Speaker, we must go beyond merely remembering the Armenian 
Genocide and also insist that the survivors of that genocide are 
treated justly, that the people of Armenia and Artsakh enjoy freedom 
and independence; and we must end the blockade of Armenia imposed by 
Turkey.
  Mr. Speaker, when it comes to this genocide, we must say, and say 
loudly, never again and never forget.

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