[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 56 (Friday, April 15, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E744-E745]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               96TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 15, 2011

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the record these 
remarks I gave at a Capitol Hill ceremony commemorating the 96th 
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
  Tonight we commemorate a truly unjust and tragic chapter in human 
history--and just as importantly, we acknowledge that chapter as an 
historic fact. From 1915 to 1923, officials of the Ottoman Empire 
carried out a systematic campaign of massacres and forced deportations 
of Armenians from their historic homeland. In the end, this genocide 
cost the lives of one and a half million murdered men, women, and 
children. Another half million lost their homes.
  In a July 24, 1915 cable, American Consul Leslie Davis said of the 
genocide, ``I do not believe there has ever been a massacre in the 
history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now being 
perpetrated in this region or that a more fiendish, diabolical scheme 
has ever been conceived by the mind of man.''
  We commemorate the 20th century's first genocide not only to honor 
the lives of the dead, but because its effects are still very much with 
us. The Armenian Genocide has been a terrifying inspiration for mass 
murderers from Cambodia to Rwanda to the

[[Page E745]]

former Yugoslavia to Darfur. As early as 1897, a French Jew named 
Bernard Lazare reflected on the massacres of Armenians that had already 
taken place and speculated that the Jew-haters of Europe might one day 
turn to an ``Armenian solution'' of their own. Four decades later--the 
Holocaust.
  At the same time, the Armenian Genocide reminds us of our collective 
responsibility in the face of such crimes. In fact, it was in a 
statement from the Allied Powers denouncing the massacres that the 
phrase ``crime against humanity'' first appeared. The Armenian Genocide 
helped set a precedent that a murderous crime against a minority is a 
crime against us all--that there is a collective responsibility to 
prevent genocide.
  That precedent and that responsibility came too late to save 1.5 
million Armenians--along with all those killed in genocides that 
stopped too late. We have lived up to the responsibility first 
formulated in the wake of the Armenian Genocide all too imperfectly. 
But may this commemoration remind us of that responsibility--as the 
United Nations Genocide Convention tells us, a responsibility not only 
to address genocide after the fact, but to prevent it. We have a 
responsibility for action, not apathy: action to end crimes against 
humanity and punish the perpetrators.
  We share the same goal: seeing the truth of the Armenian Genocide 
recognized by Congress. I hope to see a bill recognizing the genocide 
pass, and I wish that had happened in December. Unfortunately, by our 
count, the votes were not there--and in our opinion, a loss would have 
been a set-back cheered by genocide deniers. But I applaud the work you 
to do preserve the memory and the lessons of this historic truth. And I 
believe the day will come when Congress recognizes that truth, as well. 
You can count on my vote.
  The evil of the first recognized crime against humanity can never be 
undone, and the dead cannot be restored to their families and their 
homeland. But may the memory of their lives inspire us to speak out and 
take action against crimes against humanity in our own time, and to 
pursue the justice that was denied to those 1.5 million.

                          ____________________