[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            AFFIRMING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL BILIRAKIS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 17, 2005

  Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John 
Evans, in public forums with the Armenian community, recently 
characterized what President George W. Bush has described as an 
``appalling tragedy of the 20th century, the massacre of as many as 1.5 
million Armenians through forced exile and murder at the end of the 
Ottoman Empire,'' as Genocide.
  I rise today to join with Ambassador Evans and other public officials 
who have affirmed the truth and recognize that reconciling with the 
past is an important first step in creating a better future. 
Recognition of the Armenian Genocide is widely acknowledged. One 
hundred and twenty-six Holocaust scholars publicly affirmed the 
incontestable fact of the Armenian Genocide during the 30th Anniversary 
of the Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. And in 
1981, former President Ronald Reagan stated: ``Like the genocide of the 
Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed 
it--and like too many other such persecutions of too many other 
peoples--the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.''
  In addition, a recent study released by the International Center for 
Transitional Justice (ICTJ) on the use of the term Armenian Genocide 
and the applicability of the 1948 Genocide Convention to events which 
occurred during the early twentieth century in Ottoman Turkey, found 
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.''
  As we approach the 90th commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, we 
must ensure that we do not forget the lessons of the past. Archbishop 
Desmond Tutu, in the Preface to the Encyclopedia of Genocide, published 
in 1999 by the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, 
writes: ``It is sadly true what a cynic has said, that we learn from 
the history that we do not learn from history. And yet it is possible 
that if the world had been conscious of the genocide that was committed 
by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians, the first genocide of the 
twentieth century, then perhaps humanity might have been more alert to 
the warning signs that were being given before Hitler's madness was 
unleashed on an unbelieving world.''
  Mr. Speaker, let us never forget and let us affirm the truth.

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