[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 68 (Tuesday, April 20, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H1959]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Schiff) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, an open letter to President Joseph Biden:
  Mr. President, in just 5 days, the world will mark the 106th 
anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide, the systematic 
murder and displacement of 1.5 million Armenian women, men, and 
children by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. This will be the 
first April 24 of your Presidency and your first opportunity to follow 
through on your promise to recognize the genocide and your decades of 
leadership on this issue.
  On behalf of hundreds of thousands of Armenian Americans, the 
children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of genocide survivors, 
I ask you to keep that promise and recognize the Armenian genocide.
  The facts of the genocide are not in serious dispute. They were 
recorded in real time by American diplomats who lacked a name for the 
barbaric and systematic extermination of the Armenian people but knew 
that it was without precedent in human history. Millions of Armenians 
were beaten, raped, killed, and marched across deserts by the Ottoman 
Empire.
  From the blood and rubble, the Armenian people survived. Tens of 
thousands of orphaned children owe their lives to the generosity of 
Americans who created the Near East Relief Foundation. Those children 
and their descendants crossed the ocean to build lives in Los Angeles 
and across the Nation.
  You know these facts well, and you have spoken about them directly, 
including as a candidate for President. As President, it is now in your 
power to help right decades of denial and in so doing give meaning to 
your statement last year when you acknowledged the genocide and said 
that silence is complicity.
  As a candidate and now as President, you have spoken of your 
commitment to human rights. You have spoken of an America who leads not 
by example of our power, but by the power of our example. If that 
principle is to have meaning, we cannot waver from it just because it 
may be inconvenient.
  The word genocide is significant because genocide is not a problem of 
the past, it is a problem of today, including in Xinjiang where Uighurs 
face a relentless campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to wipe out 
their culture. And it is a danger today in Artsakh where Turkey 
assisted Azerbaijan in making war on the Armenians again, and in so 
doing, threaten another potential genocide. What a comfort it would be 
to the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in the present day if 
the most powerful nation on Earth could be cowed into silence about the 
events of a century ago.
  In recognizing the genocide, you will be joining both the House and 
the Senate who voted overwhelmingly in 2019 to do so.
  Mr. President, we must not resort to euphemisms or half-truths. The 
murder of 1.5 million Armenians was an atrocity--that is surely true--
but it was more than that. The act of seeking to destroy a people and a 
culture is a different kind of evil, and it was not until Raphael 
Lemkin coined the term genocide that we had a word to describe it.
  Millions of Armenians, in Yerevan and across the world, tens of 
thousands of my constituents, Mr. President, will look to you later 
this week to see if you will join leaders in France, Germany, the 
European Union, the Vatican, and in 49 States in recognizing the 
genocide.
  It is my deepest wish that you will speak the truth in all of its 
horror and recognize the Armenian genocide.

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