[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 DARFUR

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, Elie Wiesel once told us that ``a 
destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can 
prevent.'' Our American heritage calls upon each of us to stand up, to 
speak out, and to act when we witness human rights abuses. As a global 
leader, the United States has a special and solemn obligation. We must 
live up to this responsibility.
  This week marked both Armenian Remembrance Day and Holocaust 
Remembrance Day. In the final years of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 
and 1923, the world witnessed the mass killing of as many as 1.5 
million Armenian men, women, and children. Five-hundred thousand 
survivors were expelled from their homes. Our U.S. Ambassador to the 
Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau organized and led protests by foreign 
officials against one of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th 
century.
  Sadly and almost unimaginably, more human devastation followed. Later 
years witnessed the Holocaust--the Nazis' systematic state-sponsored 
persecution and murder of 6 million Jews. In 1945, the U.S. Third 
Army's 6th Armored Division liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp 
and the U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau in 
Germany.
  We reflect in order to remember--honoring the dead, pledging never to 
forget atrocities of the past, and fighting to stop them today. In 
2004, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.S. Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee that genocide has been committed in the 
Sudanese region of Darfur. A consistent, widespread, and terrible 
pattern of atrocities and burning of villages continues as the 
situation in Darfur remains grim. I believe the U.S. must lead urgent 
international efforts to stop the killing in Darfur. We must act 
immediately, working with the United Nations, NATO, and the African 
Union to stop the ongoing violence. We must remain focused and never 
waver in our fight to bring an end to the genocide.

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