[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5183-5184]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1015
                           ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 101st 
anniversary of the Armenian genocide. Over the years in Rhode Island, I 
have spoken with many Armenian Americans who have recounted the stories 
their parents or grandparents told them about living through the horror 
of the Armenian genocide. Even after 100 years, there is still a deep 
wound in the heart of the Armenian people, particularly as genocide and 
atrocious human rights violations continue to be used as weapons of war 
in the 21st century.
  Today, hardly a week goes by without news of horrific human rights 
violations somewhere around the world. The first step to stop these 
abuses is to acknowledge them for what they are and then to confront 
them. That is why it is important that the United States Government 
finally recognize and call the Armenian genocide what it is and what it 
was: a systematic attempt by the Ottoman Empire to annihilate the 
Armenian people.
  The challenges, of course, continue today for the people of Armenia. 
All of us know that earlier this month, violence once again erupted in 
Nagorno-Karabakh. President Serzh Sargsyan called it ``the most wide-
scale military action that Azerbaijan has tried to carry out since the 
establishment of the 1994 ceasefire regime.''

[[Page 5184]]

  It is critical that the United States remain deeply engaged in 
resolving this conflict. I recently met with the Armenian Ambassador to 
the United States, Ambassador Grigor Hovhannissian, to discuss 
relations between our two countries and what role the United States 
must play to help promote a resolution of this longstanding conflict. I 
have received briefings on the current situation, and I will continue 
to advocate for critical American leadership to protect the innocent 
men, women, and children who are living in Nagorno-Karabakh.
  But as we address this current crisis, it is also critical that we 
continue to push for recognition of the Armenian genocide. History is 
clear: 101 years ago, 1\1/2\ million Armenian men, women, and children 
were brutally and systematically murdered while living under the 
Ottoman Empire. That is not an opinion, it is not an interpretation, 
and it is not an allegation. It is a fact.
  In a cable sent to the U.S. Secretary of State on July 10, 1915, the 
U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire confirmed the persecution of 
Armenians by ``systematic attempts to uproot peaceful Armenian 
populations, and through arbitrary arrests, terrible tortures, 
wholesale expulsions, and deportations from one end of the empire to 
other accompanied by frequent instances of rape, pillage, and murder, 
turning into massacre, to bring destruction and destitution on them.''
  After 101 years of waiting, it is time for our President and the 
United States Government to recognize this fact and to acknowledge this 
atrocity as the first genocide of the 21st century. Armenia is an 
important friend and ally of the United States, and it is critical that 
we stand with our friends and honestly acknowledge the evil of the 
Armenian genocide.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to leave you with the words of 
Pope Francis who last year reminded all of us that ``whenever memory 
fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or 
denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without 
bandaging it.''
  After more than 100 years of waiting, it is time for the United 
States Government to finally recognize the Armenian genocide as the 
first genocide of the 21st century.

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