[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7543-7544]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, today, as in previous years, I would like 
to honor the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide. This year 
marks the 90th anniversary of the brutal campaign to eliminate 
Armenians from the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
  April 24 was chosen as the day of remembrance because on that date in 
1915, more than 5,000 Armenians including civic leaders, intellectuals, 
writers, priests, scientists, and doctors were systematically rounded 
up and murdered. The systematic and intentional killing continued until 
1923, leaving nearly 1.5 million Armenians dead.
  There are those who attempt to deny that this atrocity ever occurred. 
But there is no denying the overwhelming historical record and 
eyewitness accounts that documented the appalling events of 1915-23, 
which occurred during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The United States 
Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, stated at the time 
that ``When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these 
deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole 
race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, 
they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact . . . I am 
confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such 
horrible episode as this.''
  The annual remembrance of the Armenian genocide is not a condemnation 
of our ally, the present day Republic of Turkey. But, our mutual 
interest with our NATO partner and our friendship with, and respect 
for, the Turkish people are not reasons to ignore historical fact. 
Nobel Laureate writer Elie Wiesel has said that the denial of genocide 
constitutes a ``double killing'' for it seeks to rewrite history by 
absolving the perpetrators of violence while ignoring the suffering of 
the victims.
  During my time in the Senate, I have spoken about the Armenian 
Genocide many times. It is important that we take time to remember and 
honor the victims, and pay respect to the survivors who are still with 
us. In addition, we must reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that 
history is not repeated. This is the highest tribute we can pay to the 
victims of any genocide.
  Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to honor the memory of the 1.5 
million Armenian genocide victims by recognizing that there are still 
those in the world who will stop at nothing to perpetuate campaigns of 
hate, intolerance, and unthinkable violence. We must do all we can to 
stop atrocities, like those in the Darfur region of Sudan, from 
occurring as well as continue to provide adequate recovery aid to 
survivors. In doing so, we will truly honor the memory of genocide 
victims and fulfill our responsibilities as a world leader.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the 90th 
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the first genocide of the 20th 
century. One and a half million men, women, and children lost their 
lives as a result of the violent massacres and extensive deportation 
carried out by the Ottoman Turkish rulers against their Armenian 
citizens. 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.
  Nine decades have passed since the terrible blows that befell the 
Armenian people in 1915. On April 24 of that year, more than 250 
Armenian intellectuals and civic leaders in Constantinople were rounded 
up and killed, in what was the first step in a systematic plan to 
exterminate the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. After the 
round-up, 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. Finally, 
the remaining Armenian population, women, children, and the elderly, 
were driven from their homes and deported to the Syrian Desert.
  In reality, ``deportation'' was merely a euphemism for 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 Armenians 
succumbed to starvation. In areas of Anatolia where deportation was not 
deemed practicable, other vicious actions were undertaken. In the towns 
along the Black Sea coast, for example, thousands of Armenians were 
packed on boats and drowned.
  The efforts to annihilate the Armenian population were well 
documented in first-hand accounts, press reports, and other testimony. 
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey at the time, personally 
made vigorous appeals to stop the genocide, calling it ``a campaign of 
race extermination'' and ``the greatest horror in history''. Leslie 
Davis, a U.S. diplomat stationed in eastern Anatolia, had a similar 
account, writing once to the State Department, ``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.'' Even Germany, Ottoman 
Turkey's own ally, condemned the Turkish ``acts of horror.''
  Despite the testimony from U.S. diplomats who were witness to the 
events and the abundance of credible, international evidence 
documenting the Armenian genocide, there are still those who refuse to 
acknowledge its occurrence. To anyone who doubts this brutal history, I 
would recommend a visit to the National Archives, where much of the 
evidence collected by our diplomats, along with survivors' accounts, 
are stored.
  I do not deny that coming to terms with history is a difficult and 
painful process, as those who lived in South Africa and the countries 
of the former Soviet bloc can tell us. But the challenge of acceptance 
does not justify the distortion of truth. Falsifying history insults 
the memory of those who suffered and threatens our very understanding 
of justice and humanity.
  We have a national interest in seeking that our foreign policy is 
grounded

[[Page 7544]]

in the same principles on which this Nation was founded, a respect for 
the truth, the rule of law, and democratic institutions. Clearly, this 
was in part the administration's motivation for its recognition last 
fall of the genocide in Darfur. In his testimony before the Foreign 
Relations Committee on September 9, Secretary Powell declared that 
``the evidence corroborates the specific intent of the perpetrators to 
destroy 'a group in whole or in part'.'' This begs the question: if 
Darfur, why not Armenia? Did the Ottomans not seek to destroy the 
Armenians to this same extent?
  Although Americans of Armenian origin, many of whom came to this 
country fleeing persecution and looking to rebuild, make up a 
relatively small community among the multitudes that comprise our 
Nation, they have enriched our national life beyond proportion to their 
numbers, in the arts and sciences, in medicine, in business, and in the 
daily life of communities across the Nation. I support Americans of 
Armenian origin in calling for recognition of the genocide committed 
against their relatives 90 years and just a few generations ago. In 
recognizing this tragedy, we reinforce our commitment to building a 
world in which history will not repeat itself.

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