[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 47 (Wednesday, April 24, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H1596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               87TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 87th 
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
  On April 24, 1915, the government of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire 
rounded up approximately 600 leaders and intellectuals of the Armenian 
community and executed them. This was the beginning of the first 
genocide of the 20th Century.
  Shortly after that, the Ottoman-Turkish government disarmed all of 
the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army, separated them from their 
units and executed them, too.
  From 1915 to 1923 the Ottoman-Turkish government, on a systematic 
campaign to wipe out the Armenians, killed more than 1.5 million men, 
women, and children.
  Despite the eyewitness accounts from then U.S. Ambassador to the 
Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, detailing the events in 1915, the 
U.S. government did nothing. And if that isn't bad enough, since 1915 
the U.S. has refused to recognize that the Armenian Genocide even 
occurred.
  Elie Wiesel has called the denial of the genocide a ``double 
killing'': ``denial of genocide,'' he wrote, ``seeks to reshape history 
in order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators and 
is, in effect, the final stage of genocide.''
  And Elie Wiesel was right. But what is most horrific, is that today, 
87 years after the Armenian Genocide began, the United States still has 
yet to officially recognize this tragedy.
  We came close in the 106th Congress when a vote was scheduled on 
House Resolution 398. This resolution would have acknowledged the 
Armenian Genocide and provided training for our Foreign Service 
officers so they would be able to recognize and react to ethnic 
cleansing and genocide. But a vote never occurred. We chose not to act.
  Last year, in April 2001, the President called the events of 1915 a 
``forced exile and annihilation'' but he would not call this a 
genocide.
  Some listening to this debate may wonder why it is so important that 
we bring this message to the House floor year, after year, after year. 
Simple. It is important for two reasons. The first is that we must 
honor those who lost their lives during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. 
The second reason is that while the Armenian Genocide was the first 
Genocide of the 20th Century, it was not the last. In Germany in the 
1930s, Cambodia in the 1970's, Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and Rwanda in 
1994 we saw history repeat itself again, and again and again and again.
  Until the United States is willing to acknowledge the Armenian 
Genocide and take concrete steps to acknowledge this tragedy, we cannot 
say that we are any closer to preventing this from happening again.
  I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from Michigan 
for arranging this very important special order today and yield back 
the balance of my time.

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