[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 57 (Wednesday, April 24, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  COMMEMORATING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DEVIN NUNES

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 24, 2013

  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the Armenian 
Genocide, one of the bloodiest, most tragic occurrences of the 
twentieth century.
  In 1915, the Ottoman Empire began implementing a program to 
systematically exterminate its Armenian population. Committing crimes 
so vast that they nearly defy belief, the Ottomans resorted to death 
marches, human burnings, mass starvation, extermination camps, and 
other outrages that still shock the human conscience. More than a 
million people were slaughtered in the carnage.
  It is hard to image anyone today visiting Armenia's Tzidzemagapert, 
the genocide monument and memorial, without being shaken by the 
experience, as I was. The site is a permanent reminder of the 
horrifying depravity mankind is capable of when unshackled from any 
notion of mercy or compassion.
  That the Armenian people could recover from such a tragedy, and 
recover from the ensuing decades of Soviet rule, to establish an 
independent state in which they control their own destiny, is a tribute 
to the amazing resiliency and love of freedom harbored by the Armenian 
nation.
  On this anniversary of the beginning of the Genocide, let us remember 
and honor the victims of this terrible crime.

                          ____________________