PRESS RELEASE:
Contact: Scott Gerber 202/224-9629
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Senator Feinstein Cosponsors Senate Resolution Calling on
President Bush to Recognize the Armenian Genocide
Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today
announced that she would cosponsor a Senate resolution offered by
Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), calling on the President to recognize
the Armenian Genocide.
The following statement by Senator Feinstein was submitted today to the
Congressional Record:
"Mr. President, as we approach the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide, I rise today in support of a resolution introduced by Senator
Richard Durbin, calling on the President to recognize the Armenian
Genocide.
Specifically, this resolution would:
* Encourage the President to incorporate the memory and lessons
of the Armenian Genocide into the foreign policies of the United States,
and;
* Urge the President to accurately portray this terrible episode
as ‘genocide’ in his annual statement.
Between 1915 and 1923, as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished and
500,000 were exiled by the Ottoman government in a systematic campaign
of murder, deportation, and forced starvation.
92 years later, nearly all of the survivors are no longer with us. Yet
their solemn voices still echo, urging us to remember them and work to
ensure that their suffering was not in vain.
In my 15 years in the United States Senate, I have received thousands of
letters from members of the Armenian-American community in my home state
of California, encouraging our government to recognize the Armenian
Genocide. Many of them are descendants of the genocide’s survivors, who
immigrated to the United States and, over the course of a few decades,
built a strong and vibrant community in California and elsewhere.
For the genocide’s victims, there can be no justice. But by preserving
and cherishing their memory, we can begin healing the wounds that still
linger.
The recent murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who
championed human rights and advocated Turkish recognition of the
Armenian Genocide, serves as a chilling reminder of the dangers that
loom in our silence. An open, informed, and tolerant discussion of the
genocide is necessary for true and lasting reconciliation between
present-day Turkey and the Armenian people.
Equally important, recalling the Armenian Genocide is essential to the
prevention of ongoing and future atrocities, including the genocide in
Darfur. By taking an unequivocal stance against genocide-regardless of
where or when it occurs-we and other members of the international
community will send a strong message that such atrocities will not be
tolerated. Let us remember Adolf Hitler’s ominous words on the eve of
the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland: ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?’
So today, let us speak loudly. Let us join the hundreds of thousands of
Armenian-Americans in my home state of California and across the United
States, as well as millions of people around the world, in acknowledging
and commemorating the Armenian Genocide. Let us ensure that the legacy
of these atrocities is one of reconciliation and hope.
And let us fulfill the promises our parents made us, and we made to our
children: never again."
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____________________________
Sc ott Gerber
Director of Communications
Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein
scott_gerber@feinstein.senate.gov
202-22 4-9629