[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5557]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  (Mr. COSTA asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, 97 years ago, the Ottoman Empire 
orchestrated a murderous campaign that resulted in the death of 1.5 
million Armenian men, women, and children and forced hundreds of 
thousands into exile.
  Growing up in Fresno, California, the place William Saroyan, a great 
American author of Armenian descent, called home, I heard the stories 
of this tragic time between 1915 and 1923. The sons and daughters of 
survivors, time and time again, told the stories of their families.
  The facts are clear. What happened 97 years ago can only be called by 
one name: genocide--the first genocide of the 20th century. Yet after 
nearly a century, the House of Representatives and current and past 
American Presidents have refused to recognize the Armenian genocide as 
such.
  We cannot wait for a convenient moment, for it's not a convenient 
truth. Man's inhumanity to mankind never is. Now is the time to pass 
House Resolution 304 that I am a cosponsor of and formally recognize 
the Armenian genocide.

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