[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 56 (Friday, April 15, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E765-E766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 STATEMENT OF REP. EDWARD J. MARKEY ON THE NINETY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
                         THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 15, 2011

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today, we remember and honor the victims of 
the Armenian Genocide, and we call, once again, for passage of a 
resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide in the U.S. Congress.
  Between 1915 and 1923, a campaign conceived and executed by the 
Ottoman Empire forcibly deported nearly 2 million Armenians from their 
homes, resulting in the deaths of 1.5 million innocent children, women 
and men. The history surrounding this issue is abundantly clear--
genocide did occur.
  While the target of this campaign of extermination was the Armenian 
people, it was indeed a crime against all people--and we must not 
forget lest we let it happen again. On this day every year, communities 
across our nation and across the world come together to remember this 
great tragedy. On this day, we are all Armenians.
  The term ``genocide'' had not yet been coined in 1915, when the first 
Armenians were driven from their homes. The definition of this most 
profound crime against humanity came in 1944 from Raphael Lemkin, a 
Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust by fleeing to America after the 
fall of Warsaw to the Nazis. In the wake of World War Two, Lemkin led 
the international community to establish the United Nations Convention 
on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. Lemkin's definitive 
example of genocide was the crimes against the Armenians.
  And as we commemorate the Armenian Genocide, we must redouble our 
efforts to stop similar crimes being committed today. The scorched 
towns of Darfur, in western Sudan, continue to suffer mass murder, 
displacement, rape, and torture at the hands of the government and its 
militia allies. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, armed forces 
continue to target ethnic populations with abductions and violence, 
leading to more than 5.4 million civilian deaths in the past 15 years. 
And just weeks ago, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders was 
forced to suspend clinics in eastern Congo due to attacks from armed 
Congolese soldiers. These ongoing genocides must be stopped. 
Immediately.
  In order to eliminate these genocides in the future, we must keep 
alive the memories of genocides past.
  The U.S. House of Representatives has had before it, for many years 
now, a resolution which clearly affirms the United States record on the 
Armenian Genocide. I have been a strong supporter and vocal cosponsor 
of this resolution in every Congress, and I remain so today.
  Last year, when the Foreign Affairs Committee voted in support of the 
resolution, Turkey recalled its Ambassador to the United States. 
Turkey's leaders continue to say that properly recognizing the Armenian 
Genocide will harm U.S.-Turkey relations--that it is not the right time 
to pass this resolution. But it is always ``the right time'' for the 
truth.
  Already, 43 states and 20 nations have officially recognized the 
Armenian Genocide, and it is time for the United States to do the same. 
After all, how can we have the moral authority to call out and condemn 
the genocides in Darfur or Rwanda when we are unable to acknowledge the 
tragedy of Armenia? I look forward to the day that this truth can be 
spoken aloud, in one voice, by our government, and by governments 
around the world. Because it is the truth.
  In 2009, the governments of Turkey and Armenia announced a roadmap 
for normalizing relations between the two countries. In a process 
brokered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the two countries 
signed protocols to resume diplomacy and end the Turkish blockade of 
Armenia. However, before the ink had dried on those accords, the 
Turkish government backtracked on its commitment by adding additional 
preconditions.
  The people of Armenia continue to face the devastating hardships 
wrought by the dual blockades of Turkey and Azerbaijan. These

[[Page E766]]

blockades severely impede Armenia's ability to export goods, 
restricting the country's GDP by almost 40 percent of what it could be. 
In the face of these ongoing blockades, the United States must fully 
restore its economic aid to Armenia while working to reestablish the 
Turkish government's commitment to normalized relations.
  Armenia has come a long way to free itself from terror and tyranny--
free from the Ottoman Empire, free from the Soviet Union, and free from 
the horrors of the genocide that we remember every April 24th. This 
journey continues today, with our shared responsibility to ensure that 
the Armenian people are able to build their own, independent and 
prosperous future. If Armenians want to stay in Armenia and make a life 
there, they should be able to do so in peace and prosperity, and we 
should support them. And so, I look forward to continuing to work with 
the Armenian-American community and Members of the Congressional Caucus 
on Armenia to address the issues facing this longtime friend and 
important ally of the United States, so that together we can build 
something positive, something hopeful, something good for the future--
an Armenia that is respected and honored by its allies and neighbors. 
And this cannot come without universal acknowledgement of the great 
humanitarian horror that was the Armenian Genocide.
  Elie Wiesel once wrote, ``A destruction, an annihilation that only 
man can provoke, only man can prevent.'' Nearly one century later, that 
is our responsibility--to remember the Armenian Genocide so that we can 
prevent such atrocities from happening again, and to continue standing 
together with the Armenian people in building a better future.

                          ____________________