[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 46 (Wednesday, April 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2182-H2183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fossella). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the leaders of the 
Armenian Caucus for bringing us together to honor the memory of a 
tragedy, not just in Armenian history, but a tragedy in world history, 
a tragedy that holds for us an important historical lesson and one that 
should be acknowledged.
  As discussed, it was 85 years ago that the Ottoman Empire set out on 
a deliberate campaign to exterminate the Armenian people. Over a period 
of years, between 1915 and 1923, as they went house to house, village 
to village, they massacred men, women, and children, a total of 1.5 
million, and a half million deported from their homelands to escape 
their terror.
  At the end of these 8 years, the Armenian population in certain areas 
in Turkey, in Anatolia, in Western Armenia, that population was 
virtually eliminated.
  At the time, as we have heard from our colleagues, Henry Morgantheau, 
the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, depicted the Turkish order 
for deportations as a death warrant to a whole race.
  Our ambassador recognized that this was ethnic cleansing. It is 
unfortunate that the Turkish government to this day does not recognize 
that this was ethnic cleansing. Let me just say that willful ignorance 
of the lessons of history doom people to repeat those same actions 
again and again.
  We have also heard from our colleagues tonight how Adolph Hitler 
learned that same lesson, as he said, who remembers the Armenian 
genocide? Well, it is important for us to remember these genocides. It 
is important that we learn the lesson from this 85-year-old tragedy.
  In my home State of California, the State Board of Education has 
incorporated the story of the Armenian genocide in the social studies 
curriculum, and this is the right thing to do.
  I am a cosponsor of House Resolution 398, which calls upon the 
President of the United States to provide for appropriate training and 
materials on the Armenian genocide to all foreign service officers and 
all State Department officials.
  Why is this important? Because we want them to better understand 
genocide wherever it threatens to erupt. We want them to understand the 
nature and origins of genocide. We want them to help raise the world's 
public opinion

[[Page H2183]]

against genocide, wherever it starts to foment.
  By recognizing and learning about the crime against humanity, 
specifically about the Armenian genocide, we can begin to honor the 
courage of its victims and commemorate the strides made by its 
survivors and hope that others will not have to go down the track 
following the experiences that were suffered by the people of Armenia, 
only to be followed by the Jewish genocide and other genocides that we 
have seen, such as the one going on in Southern Sudan today.
  So, again, let me commemorate and let me thank the Armenian Caucus 
for bringing this issue to us on this anniversary of that genocide.

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