[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 53 (Thursday, April 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     COMMEMORATION OF THE 89TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. SANDER M. LEVIN

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 22, 2004

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 89th 
anniversary of one of history's most terrible tragedies, the Armenian 
Genocide.
  On April 24, 1915, 300 Armenian leaders, intellectuals and 
professionals were rounded up in Constantinople, deported and killed, 
under orders from the Young Turk government. This was the beginning of 
a campaign of terror resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians 
and the deportation of more than 500,000.
  The government of the Ottoman Empire justified this policy by 
claiming it was necessary to suppress revolts being launched by 
Armenians as a consequence of the ongoing military operations of World 
War I. This assertion was patently denied by survivors and witnesses. 
United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morganthau 
reported at that time, ``Deportation of and excesses against peaceful 
Armenians is increasing and from harrowing reports of eyewitnesses it 
appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a 
pretext of reprisal against rebellion.''
  Not content with perpetrating this atrocity, the Young Turks denied a 
genocide had taken place. Generations have since been raised denying 
this tragedy. Such denials are refuted by the archival documents and 
first-hand accounts found in such recent scholarly works as Peter 
Balakian's The Burning Tigris and Samantha Power's A Problem From Hell. 
Director Atom Egoyan presented the horror of the siege of Van in his 
film Ararat, which was based, in part, on the memoirs of Clarence 
Ussher, an American physician and missionary working in Turkey at the 
time.
  In Detroit and its surrounding suburbs live one of the largest 
Armenian-American communities in the United States, many of whom are 
the children and grandchildren of survivors or actual survivors 
themselves. This weekend, I will be attending a commemoration ceremony 
at St. John's Armenian Church in Southfield, Michigan, in which some of 
these individuals will be in attendance. To those who suggest that this 
ruthless genocide of a people and culture did not happen, I ask, what 
further testimony could the world possibly want?
  Mr. Speaker, for myself and my constituents, I rise today to urge 
those who deny this genocide to accept it as fact. Only then can we 
move forward and stop these atrocities from repeating themselves over 
and over again.

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