[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H2182]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, as a proud member of the 
Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues and the representative of a 
large and vibrant community of Armenian Americans, some of whom lost 
their loved ones in the genocide, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
the sad commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.
  I would like to thank my colleagues and cochairs of the Armenian 
Caucus, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Porter), for their dedication and their hard work on 
this issue and other issues of human rights.
  Today, we pause to remember the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide. 
More than 1.5 million Armenians were systematically murdered at the 
hands of the young Turks and more than 500,000 more were deported from 
their homes. Monday, April 24, will mark the 85th anniversary of the 
beginning of the Armenian genocide. It was on that day in 1915 that 
more than 200 Armenian religious, political, and intellectual leaders 
were arrested in Constantinople, now Istanbul, and killed. This was the 
beginning of a brutal, organized campaign to eliminate the Armenian 
presence from the Ottoman Empire that lasted for more than 8 years, but 
Armenians are strong people, and their dreams of freedom did not die.
  More than 70 years after the genocide, the new Republic of Armenia 
was born as the Soviet Union crumbled. Today, we pay tribute to the 
courage and strength of a people who would not know defeat; yet 
independence has not meant an end to their struggle. There are still 
those who question the reality of the Armenian slaughter. There are 
those who have failed to recognize its very existence; and my 
colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) spoke earlier 
about efforts at UCLA to buy a chair that would really focus its time 
and attention to erasing the existence of this horrible occurrence.

                              {time}  1745

  I join him in applauding UCLA and other institutions that have turned 
down this request to put forward a lie.
  As a strong supporter of human rights, I am dismayed that the Turkish 
government continues to deny the systemic killing of 1.5 million 
Armenians in their country.
  We must not allow the horror of the Armenian genocide to be either 
diminished or denied, and we must continue to speak out and preserve 
the memory of the Armenian loss.
  We can never let the truth of this tragedy be denied. Nothing we can 
do or say will bring back those who perished. But we can hold high the 
memories with everlasting meaning by teaching the lessons of the 
Armenian genocide to future generations. We will not forget. We will 
continue to bring this to the floor every single year. We will not 
forget.

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