[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 62 (Friday, April 27, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E699-E700]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ANNIVERSITY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 27, 2012

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day occurred 
earlier this week.
  For many years I have cosponsored a resolution, introduced in 
multiple sessions of Congress, affirming the United States Record on 
the Armenian genocide.
  From 1915 to 1923, over 1,500,000 people were murdered by the Turkish 
Ottoman Empire because of their Christian faith and Armenian ethnicity. 
To this day, Turkey continues to deny that the mass murder, rape, 
forced marches and deportations that occurred actually constituted 
genocide.
  Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish legal scholar who coined the word genocide 
and tirelessly advocated for international law defining it and 
preventing it, was driven largely by what happened to the Armenians. 
He, and others after him, recognized that there is power in accurately 
describing these events so that future horrors, like the Nazi-
perpetuated Holocaust and genocides in Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda and 
Darfur are prevented. Sadly, genocide and crimes against humanity are 
hardly relegated to the past--even today we see racially and ethnically 
motivated violence in Sudan's Nuba Mountains perpetrated by an 
internationally indicted war criminal--and the world does little.
  This year's observance of the anniversary of the Armenian genocide is 
especially meaningful. In December 2011, the House of Representatives 
adopted H. Res 306, which I was pleased to cosponsor. The resolution 
calls on the Secretary of State to urge Turkey to end religious 
discrimination and return all Christian places of worship and religious 
artifacts to their rightful owners. Thousands of these sacred sites and 
artifacts were confiscated by the Ottoman Empire during and after the 
Armenian Genocide.
  It is important that we take this time to remember the Armenian 
genocide, even though it occurred nearly a century ago. Only through 
such acts of remembrance can we hope to prevent future acts of 
genocide.

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