[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 46 (Tuesday, April 23, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S3164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               87TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

 Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, tomorrow marks the 87th 
anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide, and I rise today to 
honor the victims of this horrific event.
  As we take time to reflect on this dark chapter of world history, I 
am not sure what is more troubling: The fact that so many people no 
longer remember the Armenian genocide, or that there are still people 
who deny it ever took place. To those who would deny it, I refer them 
to the U.S. National Archives which contains thousands of pages of 
source material proving the Armenian genocide did occur. To those who 
no longer remember, we must tell the story or face the possibility that 
history may repeat itself.
  On April 24, 1915, approximately 200 Armenian religious, political, 
and intellectual leaders were arrested in Constantinople and 
subsequently killed. Shortly afterward, the entire Armenian people were 
forcibly removed from their homeland in present-day eastern Turkey and 
deported. Over a million and a half Armenians were killed or died as a 
result of the deportation between 1915 and 1923, and another 500,000 
were forced into exile. All told, one-third of the Armenian population 
was killed during this brutal episode.
  Despite having their population decimated and scattered into exile, 
the Armenian people have been able to maintain a rich culture and a 
strong sense of their own history. They should be proud of their many 
accomplishments in the nearly nine decades since the genocide. It is 
with this strong sense of the past that the Armenian people today are 
building a brighter future.
  As we know all too well, the Armenian genocide was the first, but not 
the last, genocide of the 20th Century. We join with the Armenian 
people to remember the victims and to keep alive the memory to ensure 
such a tragic event never occurs again.

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