[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 6999]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    IN RECOGNITION OF THE 93RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. STEPHEN F. LYNCH

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 24, 2008

  Mr. LYNCH. Madam Speaker, I rise today to join with Armenians 
throughout the United States, Armenia, and the world in commemorating 
the 93rd anniversary of the Armenian genocide, one of the darkest 
episodes in Europe's recent past. This week, members and friends of the 
Armenian community gather to remember April 24, 1915, when the arrest 
and murder of 200 Armenian politicians, academics, and community 
leaders in Constantinople marked the beginning of an 8-year campaign of 
extermination against the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire.
  Between 1915 and 1923, approximately 1.5 million Armenians were 
killed and more than 500,000 were exiled to the desert to die of thirst 
or starvation. The Armenian genocide was the first mass murder of the 
20th century, a century that was sadly to be marked by many similar 
attempts at racial or ethnic extermination, from the Holocaust to the 
Rwandan genocide and now the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
  While today is the day in which we solemnly remember the victims of 
the Armenian genocide, I believe it is also a day in which we can 
celebrate the extraordinary vitality and strength of the Armenian 
people, who have fought successfully to preserve their culture and 
identity for over a thousand years. The Armenian people withstood the 
horrors of genocide, two world wars, and several decades of Soviet 
dominance in order to establish modern Armenia. Armenia has defiantly 
rebuilt itself as a nation and a society--a triumph of human spirit in 
the face of overwhelming adversity.
  It is my firm belief that only by learning from and commemorating the 
past can we work toward a future free from racial, ethnic, and 
religious hate. By acknowledging the Armenian genocide and speaking out 
against the principles by which it was conducted, we can send a clear 
message: never again.

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