[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 52 (Tuesday, April 24, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1531-H1532]
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 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few minutes to add my 
voice and join my colleagues in remembering and paying tribute to those 
Armenians who lost their lives and national identity during one of the 
20th century's tragic examples of persecution and intolerance, the 
Armenian genocide of 1915-1923.
  Many Armenians in America, particularly Indiana, are the children and 
grandchildren of survivors. In fact, tonight I may represent the fewest 
number here. I think I have either two or six Armenians in my district. 
But some 20 years ago my friend, Zohrab Tazian, did a presentation to a 
Rotary Club as I watched the historical film in the background of how 
the Armenians were destroyed and chased, and listened to his personal 
story of how his family fled down to Lebanon; and eventually he made 
his way to the United States. It touched me, as do other human rights 
tragedies such as this.
  We commemorate this tragedy because it marks the beginning of the 
persecution, ethnic cleansing of the Armenian people by the Ottoman 
Turks on April 24, 1915. Armenian political, intellectual and religious 
leaders were arrested, forcibly moved from their homeland and killed. 
The brutality continued against the Armenian people as families were 
uprooted from their homes and marched to concentration camps in the 
desert where many would eventually starve to death.
  In 1919 when recalling the event, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman 
Empire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr. said, ``I

[[Page H1532]]

am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such 
horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the 
past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the 
Armenian race in 1915.'' As we heard Hitler say when he moved into the 
Holocaust period, ``Who remembers the Armenians?''
  By 1923, the religious and ideological persecution by the Ottoman 
Turks resulted in the murder of 1.5 million Armenian men, women and 
children and the displacement of an additional 500,000 Armenians.
  The 20th century has borne witness to many acts of brutality and 
savagery by despotic regimes who sought to deny people human rights and 
religious freedoms. Examples abound, such as Stalin against the 
Russians, Hitler against the Jews, Mao Tse-tung against the Chinese, 
Pol Pot against the Cambodians, and currently Bashir against the 
Sudanese.
  Genocide has devastating consequences for society as a whole because 
of the problems created by uprooting entire populations. It is bad 
enough to see the persecutions that we see in Tiananmen Square, where 
governments do not acknowledge the shooting of civilians; but when you 
uproot entire subgroups based on their background, as has happened in 
Bosnia, as Serbia was trying to do, and clearly on a massive scale in 
Turkey vis-a-vis the Armenians, it is tragic. The survivors become the 
ones who carry the memory of the suffering and the realization that 
their loved ones are gone. They are the ones who no longer have a home 
and may feel ideological and spiritual abandonment.
  Part of the healing process for any victims of genocide, including 
Armenian survivors and families of survivors, involves acknowledgment 
of the atrocity and the admission of wrongdoing by those who 
perpetrated the persecution. It is only through acknowledgment and 
forgiveness that it is possible to move beyond the past.
  Unfortunately, those responsible for ordering the systematic removal 
of the Armenians were never brought to justice, and the Armenian 
Genocide has become a dark moment in history, even an unacknowledged 
moment.
  It is important that we remember this tragic event and show strong 
leadership by denouncing the persecution of people due to their 
differences in political and religious ideology. Who can visit the 
Holocaust Museum and not be personally touched? By establishing and 
continuing a discourse, we are acknowledging the tragedies of the past 
and remembering those awful moments in history so they will not be 
repeated.
  As my friend the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg) says, history 
may not repeat itself but often it rhymes. Acknowledgment of the 
Armenian Genocide by Turkey will help to remove this decades-old 
barrier and allow greater cooperation and understanding between these 
two people.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all those Members who have come down 
here tonight to recognize and make sure that regardless of what Turkey 
does and regardless of what this Congress does, that the American 
people still hear a voice on behalf of the Armenians in this country 
and remember the Armenian Genocide of 1915 to 1923, as well as our 
thanking all the Armenian organizations who have worked so hard to keep 
this issue at the forefront of our minds to serve as an example of the 
brutality of man against man.

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