[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 50 (Friday, April 22, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E738]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ANTHONY D. WEINER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 21, 2005

  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, April 24th marks the 90th commemoration of 
the Armenian genocide. On that day, Ottoman Turkish leader Talaat 
Paskha uttered the frightening directive to ``Kill every Armenian man, 
woman, and child without concern.''
  Between 1915 and 1921, more than 1.5 million Armenians were 
slaughtered, approximately 80 percent of the population. Men were tied 
together with ropes, taken to the outskirts of their town and shot or 
bayoneted by death squads. Women were brutally raped and hundreds of 
thousands were starved to death. 75 percent of those who were forced 
into death marches perished, especially children and the elderly. And 
those who survived the ordeal were herded into the desert without 
water, thrown off cliffs, burned alive, or drowned.
  Ninety years after that first genocide of the 20th century, it is 
hard for many Americans to conceive of a tragedy on such a scale. An 
equivalent massacre on U.S. soil would claim the lives of 236 million 
Americans. That's every man, woman, and child in 48 of the 50 United 
States.
  Some mistakenly believe that recent events make the Armenian tragedy 
seem long ago. To the contrary, its relevance has a heightened 
importance today. One week before Hitler invaded Poland in the fall of 
1939, he ordered his generals ``to kill without pity or mercy all men, 
women, and children of Polish race or language. Only in such a way will 
we win the vital space that we need. Who still talks nowadays about the 
Armenians?''
  That is precisely why we must still talk about the Armenians today. 
And we must still talk about the Jews, and the Poles, and the Russians, 
and the Catholics, and the Tutsis, and the moderate Hutus, and the 
Sudanese whose lives have been lost to genocide.
  That is why this week's commemoration here in the United States 
Congress and those events going on this week are so crucial. If the 
world fails to remember the Armenian genocide of the early 20th 
century, we will have abandoned the collective commitment to fight the 
evils that communities have unleashed upon another.
  In these early years of the 21st century, Armenians understand the 
War on Terror. It is a war they have now been fighting for ninety 
years. A war the world community still refuses to recognize. As we 
gather today to pay tribute, it is time for the U.S. Congress to 
finally designate what we all know to be a case of genocide. While 
tragically it may not be last, it is time to correct the history in the 
minds of many and finally declare the Armenian genocide the holocaust 
that it was.

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