Armenian National Committee of America
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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 14, 2005
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918
REPS. RADANOVICH, SCHIFF, KNOLLENBERG, AND PALLONE
INTRODUCE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LEGISLATION
— Resolution Reaffirms U.S. Record on the Armenian Genocide
WASHINGTON, DC – A bipartisan group of over 50 U.S. Representatives
joined today with lead sponsors George Radanovich (R-CA), Adam
Schiff (D-CA), and Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairmen Frank
Pallone (D-NJ) and Joe Knollenberg (R-MI) in introducing the
Armenian Genocide Resolution in the House of Representatives,
reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
“We join with Armenian Americans across the United States in
welcoming the introduction today of the Armenian Genocide
Resolution by Congressmen Radanovich, Schiff, Knollenberg, and
Pallone,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “We look
forward to working with our Congressional friends, community
partners, and the growing genocide-prevention coalition to build
bipartisan support for this measure and to help secure its timely
adoption by the House of Representatives.”
The resolution enjoys the support of the ANCA, Armenian Assembly,
and the entire Armenian American community. It will be referred
to the House International Relations Committee for consideration.
The Radanovich-Schiff-Knollenberg-Pallone Resolution calls upon the
President “to ensure that the foreign policy of the Untied States
reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning
issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide
documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian
Genocide.” The resolution includes thirty detailed findings from
past U.S. hearings, resolutions and Presidential statements on the
Armenian Genocide from 1916 through the present, as well as
references to statements by international bodies and organizations.
Upon introduction of the measure, Rep. Radanovich noted that “By
properly acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, we recognize this
atrocity and renew our commitment to prevent other occurrences of
man’s inhumanity to man. I am proud to have been a leader in this
community for the past decade as one voice for a people who were
silenced for too long.”
Members of Congress joining Representatives Radanovich, Schiff,
Knollenberg and Pallone as original cosponsors of the resolution
are: Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Charles Bass (R-NH), Howard Berman (D-CA),
Michael Bilirakis (R-FL), Jeb Bradley (R-NH), Dennis Cardoza (D-CA),
John Conyers (D-MI), Jim Costa (D-CA), Jerry Costello (D-IL),
Joseph Crowley (D-NY), David Dreier (R-CA), Anna Eshoo (D-CA),
Bob Filner (D-CA) , Mark Foley (R-FL), Barney Frank (D-MA), Scott
Garrett (R-NJ), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) , Maurice Hinchey (D-NY),
Steve Israel (D-NY), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Patrick Kennedy (D-RI),
Mark Kirk (R-IL), James Langevin (D-RI), Sander Levin (D-MI),
Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), Jim McDermott
(D-WA), James McGovern (D-MA), Buck McKeon (R-CA), Michael
McNulty (D-NY), Marty Meehan (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ),
Candice Miller (R-MI), Grace Napolitano (D-CA), Devin Nunes (R-CA),
Mike Rogers (R-MI), Steve Rothman (D-NJ), Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA),
Ed Royce (R-CA), Jim Saxton (R-NJ), Joe Schwarz (R-MI), E. Clay Shaw
(R-FL), Brad Sherman (D-CA), John Shimkus (R-IL), Chris Smith (R-NJ),
Mark Souder (R-IN), John Sweeney (R-NY), Peter Visclosky (D-IN),
Diane Watson (D-CA), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY).
The text of the resolution is similar to one introduced in 1999,
during the 106th Congress, again led by Rep. Radanovich, spearheaded
along with then House Democratic Whip David Bonior (D-MI) and the
Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs. That bill secured the
support of over 140 cosponsors and, following extensive hearings,
was overwhelmingly adopted by the House International Relations
Committee by a vote of 24 to 11, and scheduled for a floor vote.
Despite the clear bipartisan support for the measure, it was
withdrawn from the House calendar in October of 2000 by the Speaker
of the House, under heavy pressure from President Clinton.
The text of the resolution follows.
#####
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TEXT OF RADANOVICH-SCHIFF-KNOLLENBERG-PALLONE
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
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Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide
RESOLUTION
Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the
United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity
concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and
genocide documented in the United States record relating to the
Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes.
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This resolution may be cited as the “Affirmation of the United
States Record on the Armenian Genocide.”
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The House of Representatives finds the following:
1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the
Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of
nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and
children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their
homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-
year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.
2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia,
jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time
ever another government of committing “a crime against humanity.”
3) This joint statement stated “[i]n view of these new crimes of
Turkey against humanity and civilization, the Allied Governments
announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold
personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman
Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in
such massacres.”
4) The post-World War I Turkish Government indicted the top leaders
involved in the “organization and execution” of the Armenian
Genocide and in the “massacre and destruction of the Armenians.”
5) In a series of courts-martial, officials of the Young Turk
Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, for organizing and
executing massacres against the Armenian people.
6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Genocide, Minister of War
Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, and Minister of the Navy
Jemal were all condemned to death for their crimes, however, the
verdicts of the courts were not enforced.
7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judicial failures are
documented with overwhelming evidence in the national archives of
Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States,
the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast body of
evidence attests to the same facts, the same events, and the same
consequences.
8) The United States National Archives and Record Administration
holds extensive and thorough documentation on the Armenian
Genocide, especially in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the
United States Department of State, files 867.00 and 867.40, which
are open and widely available to the public and interested
institutions.
9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by
officials of many countries, among them the allies of the Ottoman
Empire, against the Armenian Genocide.
10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to the United States
Department of State the policy of the Government of the Ottoman
Empire as “a campaign of race extermination,” and was instructed on
July 16, 1915, by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing
that the “Department approves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian
persecution.”
11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of February 9, 1916, resolved
that “the President of the United States be respectfully asked to
designate a day on which the citizens of this country may give
expression to their sympathy by contributing funds now being raised
for the relief of the Armenians”, who at the time were enduring
“starvation, disease, and untold suffering.”
12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and also encouraged the
formation of the organization known as Near East Relief, chartered
by an Act of Congress, which contributed some $116,000,000 from
1915 to 1930 to aid Armenian Genocide survivors, including 132,000
orphans who became foster children of the American people.
13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11, 1920, stated in part, “the
testimony adduced at the hearings conducted by the sub-committee of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly established
the truth of the reported massacres and other atrocities from which
the Armenian people have suffered.”
14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, report to the
Senate of the American Military Mission to Armenia led by General
James Harbord, that stated “[m]utilation, violation, torture, and
death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful
Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free
from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages.”
15) As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum,
Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland
without provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying “[w]ho,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” and
thus set the stage for the Holocaust.
16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide” in 1944, and who
was the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as
a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century.
17) The first resolution on genocide adopted by the United Nations
at Lemkin’s urging, the December 11, 1946, United Nations General
Assembly Resolution 96(1) and the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of Genocide itself recognized the
Armenian Genocide as the type of crime the United Nations intended
to prevent and punish by codifying existing standards.
18) In 1948 the United Nations War Crimes Commission invoked the
Armenian Genocide “precisely . . . one of the types of acts which
the modern term ‘crimes against humanity’ is intended to cover” as
a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals.
19) The Commission stated that “[t]he provisions of Article 230 of
the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obviously intended to cover, in
conformity with the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had
been committed on Turkish territory against persons of Turkish
citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek race. This article
constitutes therefore a precedent for Article 6c and 5c of the
Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and offers an example of one of the
categories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as understood by these
enactments.”
20) House Joint Resolution 148, adopted on April 8, 1975, resolved:
“[t]hat April 24, 1975 is hereby designated as ‘National Day of
Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man’, and the President of the
United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation
calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day as
a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide, especially
those of Armenian ancestry. . . .”
21) President Ronald Reagan in proclamation number 4838, dated
April 22, 1981, stated 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.”
22) House Joint Resolution 247, adopted on September 10, 1984,
resolved: “[t]hat April 24, 1985, is hereby designated as ‘National
Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man’, and the President
of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a
proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to
observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of
genocide, especially the one and one-half million people of
Armenian ancestry . . . .”
23) In August 1985, after extensive study and deliberation, the
United Nations SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities voted 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled
“Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide,” which stated “[t]he Nazi aberration has
unfortunately not been the only case of genocide in the twentieth
century. Among other examples which can be cited as qualifying are
. . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916.”.
24) This report also explained that “[a]t least 1 million, and
possibly well over half of the Armenian population, are reliably
estimated to have been killed or death marched by independent
authorities and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in
United States, German and British archives and of contemporary
diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally
Germany.”
25) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent
Federal agency, unanimously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include the Armenian
Genocide in the Museum and has since done so.
26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later retracted) by the
United States Department of State asserting that the facts of the
Armenian Genocide may be ambiguous, the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after a review of
documents pertaining to the policy record of the United States,
noted that the assertion on ambiguity in the United States record
about the Armenian Genocide “contradicted longstanding United
States policy and was eventually retracted.”
27) On June 5, 1996, the House adopted an amendment to the Fiscal
Year 1997 Foreign Operations Appropriation Act to reduce aid to
Turkey by $3 million (an estimate of its payment of lobbying fees
in the U.S.) until the Turkish government acknowledged the Armenian
Genocide and took steps to honor the memory of its victims.
28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on April 24, 1998, stated
in part “This year, as in the past, we join with Armenian-Americans
throughout the nation in commemorating one of the saddest chapters
in the history of this century, the deportations and massacres of a
million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years
1915-1923.”
29) President George W. Bush, on April 24, 2004 stated in part “On
this day, we pause in remembrance of one of the most horrible
tragedies of the 20th century, the annihilation of as many as 1.5
million Armenians through forced exile and murder at the end of the
Ottoman Empire.”
30) Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the
Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international
authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide
is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in
the future, and that a just resolution will help prevent future
genocides.
SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY.
The House of Representatives –
1) Calls upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of
the United States reflects appropriate understanding and
sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic
cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record
relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the
failure to realize a just resolution;
2) Calls upon the President in the President’s annual message
commemorating the Armenian Genocide issued on or about April 24 to
accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation
of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history
of United States intervention in opposition to the Armenian
Genocide.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress