[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10463-10464]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               88TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the 88th 
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, in which 1\1/2\ million men, 
women, and children lost their lives as a result of the brutal 
massacres and wholesale deportation conducted by the Ottoman Turkish 
rulers against their Armenian citizens. This was the first genocide of 
the 20th

[[Page 10464]]

century. Today, as we remember the bravery and sacrifice of the 
Armenian people in the face of great suffering, we renew our commitment 
to protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of all humanity.
  As time passes, we must not forget the terrible blows that befell the 
Armenians in 1915. On April 24 of that year, more than 250 Armenian 
intellectuals and civil leaders in Constantinople were rounded up and 
killed, in what was the first stage of a methodical plan to exterminate 
the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. Next, Armenian soldiers 
serving in the Ottoman army were segregated into labor battalions and 
brutally murdered. In towns and villages across Anatolia, Armenian 
leaders were arrested and killed. And then the remaining Armenian 
population, women, children, and the elderly, were driven from their 
homes and deported to the Syrian desert.
  ``Deportation'' was merely a euphemism for what were, in reality, 
death marches. Ottoman Turkish soldiers allowed brigands and released 
convicts to kill and rape the deportees at will; often the soldiers 
themselves participated in the attacks. Driven into the desert without 
food and water, weakened by the long march, hundreds of thousands of 
deportees succumbed to starvation. In areas of Anatolia where 
deportation was not deemed practicable, other vicious means were used. 
In the towns along the Black Sea coast, for example, thousands of 
Armenians were packed on boats and drowned.
  The efforts to destroy the Armenian population did not pass unnoticed 
at the time. Leslie Davis, a U.S. diplomat stationed in eastern 
Anatolia, wrote in a State Department cable of July 24, 1915: ``It has 
been no secret that the plan was to destroy the Armenian race as a 
race, but the methods used have been more cold-blooded and barbarous, 
if not more effective, than I had at first supposed.''
  Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey at the time and who 
personally made vigorous appeals to stop the genocide, called it ``the 
greatest horror in history.'' He later wrote: ``Whatever crimes the 
most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever 
refinements of persecutions and injustice the most debased imagination 
can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people. I am 
confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such 
horrible episode as this.''
  Despite this testimony from U.S. diplomats who were witness to the 
events, and the abundance of evidence documenting the Armenian 
genocide, the argument continues to be made in some quarters that it 
never occurred. Much of that evidence was collected by our diplomats, 
and along with survivors' accounts, is housed in our National Archives. 
I have no doubt that if he were told that some continue to reject it, 
Ambassador Morgenthau would be astonished and outraged. Coming to terms 
with history is a difficult and painful process, as the experiences of 
South Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Bloc have shown. 
But we have also learned how pernicious attempts to falsify history 
are. Not only do they insult the memory of those who suffered or 
perished, but they leave us all more vulnerable because they weaken the 
fabric of our common humanity.
  Many survivors of the genocide settled in this country, built new 
lives for themselves, and raised families here. They have made 
extraordinary contributions to every aspect of our national life, while 
preserving their own rich faith and cultural traditions. That Americans 
of Armenian origin have prospered in so many different ways stands as a 
rebuke to those who would deny the horrors of 1915. Americans of all 
backgrounds join them in commemorating the tragedy of the Armenian 
genocide. Together we must commit to building a world in which history 
shall not repeat itself.

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