[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   RECOGNIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN

                            of rhode island

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 16, 2005

  Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend U.S. Ambassador to 
Armenia John Evans for properly labeling the atrocities committed by 
the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as genocide and to urge the 
President to follow his example and accurately characterize this crime 
against humanity in his commemorative statement next month.
  Ambassador Evans recently completed his first U.S. visit to major 
Armenian-American communities to share his initial impressions of 
Armenia and our programs there. During his public exchanges with 
Armenian-American communities throughout the United States late last 
month, Ambassador Evans declared that ``the Armenian Genocide was the 
first genocide of the twentieth century.''
  By employing this term, the Ambassador is building on previous 
statements by Presidents Reagan and Bush, as well as the repeated 
declarations of numerous world-renowned scholars. In effect, Evans has 
done nothing more than succinctly name the conclusions enunciated by 
those before him.
  In 1981, President Reagan issued a presidential proclamation that 
said in part: ``like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the 
genocide of the Cambodians which followed it--and like too many other 
persecutions of too many other people--the lessons of the Holocaust 
must never be forgotten . . .'' President Bush, himself, has invoked 
the textbook definition of genocide in his preceding April 24th 
statements by using the expressions ``annihilation'' and ``forced exile 
and murder'' to characterize this example of man's inhumanity to man.
  Furthermore, Evans' remarks correspond with the signed statement in 
2000 by 126 Genocide and Holocaust scholars affirming that the World 
War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable historical fact and 
accordingly urging the governments of Western democracies to likewise 
recognize it as such. The petitioners, among whom is Nobel Laureate for 
Peace Elie Wiesel, also asked the Western Democracies to urge the 
Government and Parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms with a 
dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the Armenian 
Genocide.
  The Ambassador's declarations also conform to the summary conclusions 
of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) when it 
facilitated an independent legal study on the applicability of the 1948 
Genocide Convention to events that occurred during the early twentieth 
century. The ICTJ report stated that ``the Events, viewed collectively, 
can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of 
genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as 
historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be 
justified in continuing to so describe them.''
  The Armenian people's ability to survive in the face of the 
repression carried out against them stands as a monument to their 
endurance and will to live. Therefore, it is critically important that 
the United States speak with one voice in condemning the horrors 
committed against the Armenians. Only by working to preserve the truth 
about the Armenian Genocide can we hope to spare future generations 
from the horrors of the past.
  In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I join the Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs, 
Representatives Frank Pallone and Joe Knollenberg, in applauding the 
statements of Ambassador Evans and others, and in urging the President 
to reaffirm the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide.

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