Armenian Assembly of America
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MEDIA ALERT
February 18, 2005
CONTACT: Christine Kojoian
Email: ckojoian@aaainc.org
RE: Rep. Pallone’s Statement Before the House of Representatives
The Armenian Assembly of America would like to bring to your attention
the following statement made by Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues
Co-Chair Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) before the House of Representatives
on February 17. In his remarks, Congressman Pallone entered into the
congressional record the full text of Armenia Foreign Minister Vartan
Oskanian’s speech before the UN General Assembly on the occasion of
the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps.
The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness
of Armenian issues. It is a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt membership
organization.
NR#2005-014
THE HONORABLE FRANK PALLONE
STATEMENT BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 17, 2005
Mr. Speaker, I was proud to join my colleagues last month in
commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz.
On that solemn occasion, Congress remembered the heroic forces that
helped bring an end to this crime against humanity, and we reminded
ourselves and others to never forget the lessons of the past.
At the request of the United States, Canada, the European Union,
Australia, New Zealand, and Russia, the United Nations, for the first
time, also observed the liberation of Auschwitz. Armenia’s Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Vartan Oskanian, was among a select group of foreign
ministers who addressed the United Nations 28th Special Session in
New York.
As a people victimized by genocide under the cover of WWII, all
Armenians have a special empathy for the victims, survivors and
descendants of the Holocaust. As Minister Oskanian said at the UN
General Assembly:
“After Auschwitz, we are all Jews, we are all Gypsies, we are all
unfit, deviant and undesirable, for someone, somewhere.”
As the Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues,
I am pleased to submit the Minister’s full remarks as delivered
to the Congressional Record. By remembering all instances of man’s
inhumanity to man, we renew our commitment always to prevent this
crime’s recurrence, and therefore negate the dictum that history is
condemned to repeat itself.
Statement of H. E.Vartan Oskanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic
of Armenia At the 28th Special Session on the 60th Anniversary of
the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps
New York, January 24, 2005
Mr. President
Your Excellencies
Dear Friends,
On behalf of the people and government of Armenia, and as a descendant
of genocide survivors, I feel compelled to be here today, to join
other survivors and descendants, of both victims and perpetrators,
to take part in this commemoration. I am also duty-bound to urge us
all to confront more effectively the threat of genocide anywhere,
at any time, regardless of cost and political discomfort.
The liberation of Auschwitz is, indeed, cause for commemorative
celebration. However, in this commemoration, with each uttering of the
name Auschwitz, we are forced to reflect: to look back, look around,
look deep, look at the other, but also look inward, at ourselves.
After 9/11 and reacting to the unusually high number of victims
of a singular event, an editorialist proclaimed “We are all
Americans”. Sympathy, solidarity, anxiety, and indignation bound us
together. How much more intense our feelings about Auschwitz and
the singularity of its horror, its synonymity with the technology
of death-making, its eerily ordinary commitment to efficiency, to
pragmatic, effective, result-oriented administration.
After Auschwitz, we are all Jews, we are all Gypsies, we are all unfit,
deviant and undesirable, for someone, somewhere. After Auschwitz, the
conscience of man cannot remain the same. Man’s inhumanity to men,
to women, to children, and to the elderly, is no longer a concept
in search of a name, an image, a description. Auschwitz lends its
malefic aura to all the Auschwitzes of history, our collective history,
both before and after.
In the 20th century alone, with its 15 genocides, the victims
have their own names for places of infamy. What the French call
‘les lieux infames de memoire’ are everywhere. Places of horror,
slaughter, of massacre, of the indiscriminate killing of all those
who have belonged to a segment, a category, an ethnic group, a
race or a religion. For Armenians, it is the desert of Deir-El-Zor,
for Cambodians they are the killing fields, for the children of the
21st century, it is Darfur. For the Jews and Poles and for a whole
generation of us growing up after The War, it is Auschwitz.
Mr. President,
Just as we all were, or are, or might be victims, we all were or are
or might also be guilty. It is only through the engagement of those
who have seen and done the unimaginable, and who have had the dignity,
the grace, the sensitivity, the decency and courage to acknowledge
wrongdoing, that we may achieve the requisite collective political
will and its expression.
This is not as naïve, unrealistic, idealistic as some might wish
to label it, perhaps in order to dismiss it. Genocide is not about
individuals who act insanely, do evil, commit crimes, perpetrate
irrevocable wrongs. Genocide is the undertaking of a state apparatus,
which must, by definition, act coherently, pragmatically, with
structure and organization.
Thus, this is not a plea to reform human beings, but an appeal to
take conscious account of the role of our national institutions and
international institutions must play to insure that no one can expect
to enjoy impunity.
After Auschwitz one would expect that no one any longer has a right to
turn a blind eye or a deaf ear. As an Armenian, I know that a blind
eye, a deaf ear and a muted tongue perpetuate the wounds. It is a
memory of suffering unrelieved by strong condemnation and unequivocal
recognition. The catharsis that the victims deserve, which societies
require in order to heal and move forward together, obligates us
here at the UN, and in the international community, to be witness,
to call things by their name, to remove the veil of obfuscation,
of double standards, of political expediency.
Mr. Chairman,
Following the Tsunami-provoked disaster, we have become painfully
aware of a paradox. On the one hand, multilateral assistance efforts
were massive, swift, generous and without discrimination. But, when
compared and contrasted with today’s other major tragedy, in Africa,
it is plain that for Darfur, formal and ritual condemnation has not
been followed by any dissuasive action against the perpetrators.
The difference with the Tsunami, of course, was that there were no
perpetrators. No one wielded the sword, pulled the trigger or pushed
the button that released the gas.
Recognizing the victims and acknowledging them is also to recognize
that there are perpetrators. But this is absolutely not the same
as actually naming them, shaming them, dissuading or warning them,
isolating or punishing them.
If these observations signal a certain naiveté that overlooks the
enduring structures of our political and security interests, then,
on this occasion, when we have gathered to commemorate this horrible
event, then allow me this one question: if not here and now, then
where and when?
Mr. Chairman,
The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, who has been quoted
here, admonished us to remember the past, or be condemned to repeat
it. This admonition has significance for me personally, because the
destruction of my people, whose fate in some way impinged upon the
fate of the Jews of Europe, should have been viewed more widely seen
as a warning of things to come.
Jews and Armenians are linked forever by Hitler. Who, after all,
speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? said Adolf Hitler,
days before he entered Poland.
Hitler’s cynical remembrance of Armenians is prominently displayed
in the Holocaust Memorial in Washington because it is profound
commentary about the crucial role of third parties in genocide
prevention and remembrance. Genocide is the manifestation of the break
in the covenant that governments have with their peoples. Therefore,
it is third parties who become crucial actors in genocide prevention,
humanitarian assistance and genocide remembrance.
We are commemorating today, because the Soviet troops marched into
Auschwitz 60 years ago. I am here today because the Arabs provided
sanctuary to Armenian deportees 90 years ago.
Third parties, indeed, can make the difference between life and
death. Their rejection of the behaviors and policies which are neither
in anyone’s national interest nor in humanity’s international interest,
is of immense moral and political value.
What neighbors, well-wishers, the international community can’t
accomplish, is the transcending and reconciling which the parties
must do for themselves. The victims, first, must exhibit the dignity,
capacity and willingness to move on, and the perpetrators, first and
last, must summon the deep force of humanity and goodness and must
overcome the memory of the inner evil which had already prevailed, and
must renounce the deed, its intent, its consequences, its architects
and executors.
Auschwitz signifies the worst of hate, of indifference, of
dehumanization. Remembrance of Auschwitz and its purpose, however
abhorrent, is a vital step to making real the phrase “Never Again”.
Thank you.
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