Congressional Record: March 17, 2005
>>From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
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HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN
of rhode island
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend U.S. Ambassador to
Armenia John Evans for properly labeling the atrocities committed by
the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians as genocide and to urge the
President to follow his example and accurately characterize this crime
against humanity in his commemorative statement next month.
Ambassador Evans recently completed his first U.S. visit to major
Armenian-American communities to share his initial impressions of
Armenia and our programs there. During his public exchanges with
Armenian-American communities throughout the United States late last
month, Ambassador Evans declared that “the Armenian Genocide was the
first genocide of the twentieth century.”
By employing this term, the Ambassador is building on previous
statements by Presidents Reagan and Bush, as well as the repeated
declarations of numerous world-renowned scholars. In effect, Evans has
done nothing more than succinctly name the conclusions enunciated by
those before him.
In 1981, President Reagan issued a presidential proclamation that
said in part: “like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the
genocide of the Cambodians which followed it–and like too many other
persecutions of too many other people–the lessons of the Holocaust
must never be forgotten . . .” President Bush, himself, has invoked
the textbook definition of genocide in his preceding April 24th
statements by using the expressions “annihilation” and “forced exile
and murder” to characterize this example of man’s inhumanity to man.
Furthermore, Evans’ remarks correspond with the signed statement in
2000 by 126 Genocide and Holocaust scholars affirming that the World
War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable historical fact and
accordingly urging the governments of Western democracies to likewise
recognize it as such. The petitioners, among whom is Nobel Laureate for
Peace Elie Wiesel, also asked the Western Democracies to urge the
Government and Parliament of Turkey to finally come to terms with a
dark chapter of Ottoman-Turkish history and to recognize the Armenian
Genocide.
The Ambassador’s declarations also conform to the summary conclusions
of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) when it
facilitated an independent legal study on the applicability of the 1948
Genocide Convention to events that occurred during the early twentieth
century. The ICTJ report stated that “the Events, viewed collectively,
can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of
genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as
historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be
justified in continuing to so describe them.”
The Armenian people’s ability to survive in the face of the
repression carried out against them stands as a monument to their
endurance and will to live. Therefore, it is critically important that
the United States speak with one voice in condemning the horrors
committed against the Armenians. Only by working to preserve the truth
about the Armenian Genocide can we hope to spare future generations
from the horrors of the past.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I join the Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs,
Representatives Frank Pallone and Joe Knollenberg, in applauding the
statements of Ambassador Evans and others, and in urging the President
to reaffirm the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide.
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