[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 54 (Thursday, April 28, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S4536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      COMMEMORATING THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to honor the memory of the victims 
of the Armenian genocide.
  This week marks the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide 
that ultimately took the lives of one-and-a-half million Armenian men, 
women and children. On April 24, 1915, 200 Armenian religious, 
intellectual and political leaders in Constantinople were arrested by 
the Government of the Ottoman Empire and murdered. It was the beginning 
of the first genocide of the 20th century, and it continued until 1923. 
It was a vicious, organized crime against humanity that included 
murder, deportation, torture and slave labor.
  The Armenian genocide was followed by a concerted effort to destroy 
any record of the Armenians in Asia Minor, including the destruction of 
religious and cultural monuments, and the changing of place names. I am 
saddened that there are those who would prefer to forget the Armenian 
genocide. To ignore it is to desecrate the memory of those who lost 
their lives. And such denial sends the message that genocide will be 
tolerated by the world.
  To deny the genocide of the Armenians, or any atrocity of this scale, 
is to forsake the value we place on human life and the principles of 
liberty upon which this country is based. Those who turn a deaf ear to 
the Armenian genocide, knowingly or unknowingly, abet the future of 
genocide by failing to raise public consciousness about this tragic 
reality.
  As we remember those whose lives were brutally taken during the 
Armenian genocide, we also pay tribute to the survivors, the living 
testimony of this historic crime, and to their families, many of whom 
are now Armenian-Americans. We must assure them that we, as the leaders 
of the democratic world, will not forget this tragedy, but rather gain 
the wisdom and knowledge necessary to ensure that we can prevent its 
repetition.
  Recognizing the Armenian genocide takes on added importance in the 
face of the genocide occurring right now in the Darfur region of Sudan. 
As we pause to reflect upon this grievous example of man's inhumanity 
to man, let us honor the victims of the Armenian genocide and all 
crimes against humanity by not only acknowledging their suffering, but 
by acting to halt similar atrocities that are occurring now before our 
very eyes.

                          ____________________