[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 50 (Thursday, March 22, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H2933-H2934]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   H. RES. 106 AND THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GENOCIDE SCHOLARS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to urge my colleagues this evening 
to support House Resolution 106, a resolution that reaffirms the 
Armenian genocide.
  I also wish to express my support for its swift passage in the House 
of Representatives. As the first genocide of the 20th century, it is 
morally imperative that we remember this atrocity and collectively 
demand reaffirmation of this crime against humanity.
  The resolution, which I introduced with Representatives Schiff, 
Radanovich and Knollenberg, has over 180 cosponsors. It's also the 
exact same resolution that passed the International Affairs Committee 
last Congress by an overwhelming majority.
  I strongly believe it is important for Members to understand that 
this is a matter of historical fact. Many Turkish deniers have been 
meeting with Members of Congress and sending correspondence, 
discouraging this resolution. They are claiming that passage of such a 
resolution would be untimely and counterproductive.
  Mr. Speaker, for 92 years this has not been reaffirmed here in this 
Congress. I think 92 years is far too long for a proper recognition to 
be made, and its reaffirmation is a matter of conscience.
  In the meantime, the Turkish Government has threatened to close 
supply routes to U.S. troops in Iraq if this resolution is considered. 
It's appalling that a country who claims to be our ally would put the 
lives of soldiers at risk in the pursuit of its desperate campaign to 
deny the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians.
  The highly reputable International Association of Genocide Scholars 
recently wrote to Members of Congress urging support for the Armenian 
genocide resolution, and I request permission to insert their letter in 
the Record.
                                      International Association of


                                             Genocide Scholars

                                                    March 7, 2007.
       Dear Members of the United States Congress: We write to you 
     as the international organization of scholars who study 
     genocide. We strongly urge you to co-sponsor H. Res. 106, the 
     House Resolution recognizing and commemorating the Armenian 
     Genocide.
       In three previous statements of the International 
     Association of Genocide Scholars--first, a unanimous 
     resolution declaring that the Turkish massacres of Armenians 
     in 1915-1918 constituted genocide; second, an Open Letter to 
     Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan calling upon him to 
     acknowledge the Armenian Genocide; and third, an Open Letter 
     concerning scholars who deny the Armenian Genocide--we have 
     made our position clear: the historical record on the 
     Armenian Genocide is unambiguous and documented by 
     overwhelming evidence. It is proven by foreign office records 
     of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and 
     perhaps most importantly, of Turkey's World War I allies, 
     Germany and Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the 
     Ottoman Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of 
     scholarship.
       We believe it is important for Members of Congress to 
     understand that Turkey's nine-decade-long campaign to deny 
     the facts of the Armenian Genocide is driven by a government 
     that has yet to engage in the honest historical self-critique 
     that is a vital part of the democratic process. The numerous 
     trials and imprisonments of Turkish intellectuals and 
     journalists and the assassination of the Armenian-Turkish 
     journalist Hrant Dink in January make this clear. It should 
     be noted that there are Turkish scholars who are urging their 
     government to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, and many 
     parts of Turkish society share this pro-democratic 
     perspective. We would note, however, that a government that 
     still encourages extreme, uncritical nationalism has created 
     a false narrative about the Armenian Genocide in order to 
     absolve its predecessors of responsibility for the 
     extermination of the Armenian people and their culture in the 
     Ottoman Empire in 1915.
       We are aware that you may be pressured by a small number of 
     academics who support Turkey's denialist stance for often 
     self-interested reasons. Such academics willingly falsify, 
     distort, and manipulate the evidence in sometimes subtle ways 
     to present a false view of history. These academics violate 
     the ethical obligations of historical scholarship. We have 
     noted that academics who deny the Armenian Genocide are no 
     different than academics who deny the Holocaust, the Rwandan 
     Genocide, or the Cambodian Genocide. The recent conference in 
     Teheran devoted to Holocaust denial is a case in point. 
     ``Where scholars deny genocide in the face of decisive 
     evidence . . . they contribute to false consciousness that 
     can have the most dire reverberations. Their message, in 
     effect, is . . . mass murder requires no confrontation, but 
     should be ignored, glossed over. In this way scholars lend 
     their considerable authority to the acceptance of this 
     ultimate crime'' (Roger Smith, Eric Markusen, Robert Jay 
     Lifton ``Professional Ethics and the Denial of the Armenian 
     Genocide,'' Journal of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 
     9, Spring, 1995).
       We urge you to reject the Turkish campaign of denial, as 
     you may be meeting with groups and individuals who are ardent 
     deniers. We would underscore that the Armenian Genocide is 
     not controversial, but rather is denied only by the Turkish 
     government and its apologists.
       We urge you to pass H. Res. 106:
       (1) It is a recognition of an historical turning point in 
     the twentieth century, the event that inaugurated the era of 
     modern genocide. In spite of its importance, the Armenian 
     Genocide has gone unrecognized until recently, and warrants a 
     symbolic act of moral commemoration. The Armenian-American 
     community first arrived in the United States as refugees and 
     survivors of this great catastrophe and of earlier massacres 
     in the late 19th century.
       (2) Congress will honor America's extraordinary foreign 
     service officers (among them Leslie A. Davis, Jesse B. 
     Jackson, Oscar Heizer, and Ambassador Henry Morgenthau) who 
     often risked their lives rescuing Armenian citizens in 1915. 
     These courageous American diplomats left behind some 4,000 
     reports totaling 37,000 pages, now in the National Archives, 
     documents that prove the Armenian mass murders were 
     government-planned, systematic extermination--what Raphael 
     Lemkin named genocide. By this resolution the U.S. Congress 
     would demonstrate that the moral principles and courage of 
     those foreign service officers continues to represent a 
     powerful example of American leadership. It is in the 
     interest of the United States to support the principles of 
     human rights that are at the core of American democracy.
       (3) Inasmuch as the popular effort in the United States to 
     rescue and bring relief to the Armenians, first from 
     massacres in the 1890s and then from genocide in 1915, set 
     the

[[Page H2934]]

     stage for the era of modern human rights activism, H. Res. 
     106 would honor this significant contribution to United 
     States history.
       (4) We expect that the United States would not permit 
     foreign governments to intrude on its own legislative 
     process. We also expect that the U.S. government would not be 
     influenced by threats to close American military bases or cut 
     off sales of military hardware, especially when that pressure 
     comes from a country with a deeply disturbing human rights 
     record today, including violence and repressive measures 
     against writers, minorities, intellectuals, and scholars.
       (5) As crimes of genocide continue to plague the world, 
     Turkey's policy of denying the Armenian Genocide gives 
     license to those who perpetrate genocide everywhere. Just as 
     we would not sanction denying the Holocaust, we cannot give 
     credence to Turkey's falsification of the facts of 1915. 
     Denial is the final stage of genocide, as it seeks to 
     demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators.
       We believe that it is in the interest of the Turkish people 
     and their future as proud participants in the international 
     democratic community to acknowledge the responsibility of a 
     previous government for the genocide of the Armenian people, 
     just as the German government has done in the case of the 
     Holocaust.
       We would be happy to meet with you in person, and would 
     gladly supply you with the scholarly evidence that has led to 
     the unanimous resolution of the International Association of 
     Genocide Scholars that the Turkish massacre of over one 
     million Armenians from 1915 to 1918 was a crime of genocide.
           Sincerely,
                                             Israel Charny, Ph.D.,
        President, International Association of Genocide Scholars.
                                  Gregory H. Stanton, J.D., Ph.D.,
            Vice President, International Association of Genocide 
                                                         Scholars.

  I would say, if I could quote some sections of that letter, in that 
letter the scholars state their position clearly, noting that the 
Armenian genocide ``is proven by foreign office records of the United 
States, France, Great Britain, Russia and even of Turkey's World War I 
allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary.''
  They also say: ``Just as we would not sanction denying the Holocaust, 
we cannot give credence to Turkey's falsification of the facts of 1915; 
denial is the final stage of genocide.'' They are unanimous in their 
findings.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people and this Congress should deserve a 
full and truthful account of the role of the Turkish Government in 
denying the Armenian genocide. Congress should be allowed to reaffirm 
that genocide was orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 to 
exterminate its Armenian citizens.

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