[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 7534]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



          HONORING THE ARMENIAN VICTIMS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

 Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the memory 
of the 1.5 million ethnic Armenians that were systematically murdered 
at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923. The 84th anniversary 
of the beginning of this brutal annihilation was marked on April 24.
  During this nine year period, another 250,000 ethnic Armenians were 
forced to flee their homes to escape the certain death that awaited 
them at the hands of a government-sanctioned force determined to 
extinguish their existence. A total of 1.75 million ethnic Armenians 
were either slaughtered or forced to flee, leaving fewer than 80,000 in 
what is present-day Turkey.
  I have come to the floor to commemorate this horrific chapter in 
human history each year I have been a member of this body, both to 
honor those who died and to remind the American people of the chilling 
capacity for violence that, unfortunately, still exists in the world. 
It is all too clear from the current ethnically and religiously 
motivated conflicts in such places as Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Sudan 
that we have not learned the lessons of the past.
  The ongoing campaign of violence and hate perpetrated by Slobodan 
Milosevic and his thugs against the Kosovar Albanians is but the latest 
example of the campaigns of terror carried out against innocent 
civilians simply because of who they are. These people are not 
combatants and they have committed no crimes--they are simply ethnic 
Albanians who wish to live in peace in their homes in Kosovo. But, 
because they are ethnic Albanians, they have been murdered or driven 
out, their possessions have been looted, and their homes have been 
burned. Many more are hiding in the mountains of Kosovo, caught in a 
dangerous limbo, afraid to try to flee across the border to safety and 
unable to go home.
  On April 13, we marked Yom Hashoah, the annual remembrance of the 6 
million Jews who were exterminated by Nazi Germany. People around the 
world gathered to light candles and read the names of those who died. 
Today, let us take a moment to remember the victims of the 1915-1923 
Armenian genocide, and all the other innocent people who have died in 
the course of human history at the hands of people who hated them 
simply for who they were.

                          ____________________