GENOCIDE RESOLUTION STALLS
By Michael Doyle

Fresno Bee, CA
July 1 2007

House leaders can decide to put measure on Armenian deaths to vote.

WASHINGTON — The push for a congressional resolution that would
label the slaughter of Armenians between 1915 and 1923 a "genocide"
has cleared a key hurdle, winning the support of a majority of House
members.

Now the real fighting begins.

As of Friday, 218 House members support the controversial resolution.

The San Joaquin Valley’s Armenian-Americans and their congressional
champions next must discover what congressional leaders have in mind.

It will be up to House leaders to decide whether and when the measure
comes up for a vote.

"We’re making sure we have all of our ducks lined up," said Rep. Adam
Schiff, D-Pasadena.

Schiff and Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, are the chief
congressional sponsors of the resolution, introduced in its latest
form five months ago. Radanovich acknowledged recently that he is
"a little concerned" that the bill hasn’t yet been considered by the
House Foreign Relations Committee.

Different concerns motivate the White House and the Turkish government,
both vigorously resisting the resolution they say would endanger
diplomatic relations. A recent poll found that 83% of Turkish residents
view the United States negatively.

"This is a very sensitive time to be bringing up this resolution,"
cautioned Rep. Phil English, R-Pa. "Right now, we need to be reaching
out to Turkey."

English’s own change of heart illustrates the complicated politics
of genocide recognition. English is one of five House members who
initially endorsed the Armenian genocide resolution this year but
later withdrew support.

English said he dropped his sponsorship, six weeks after signing onto
the bill, following a meeting with members of the Turkish parliament.

English’s congressional district in far northwestern Pennsylvania
lacks a sizable Armenian-American population.

By contrast, more than 50,000 Armenian-Americans live in California’s
San Joaquin Valley, and the Armenian genocide issue is acutely
important for the region’s politicians.

Backers secured additional sponsors in recent days, following an
extended telephone campaign organized through the Armenian National
Committee of America.

The resolution is symbolic, articulating a viewpoint that lacks the
force of law. It urges President Bush to "accurately characterize
the systematic and deliberate annihilation" of Armenians as genocide.

"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 [and] 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes,"
the resolution says.

Genocide was defined as a crime under international law in 1948,
after the Ottoman Empire had ended. It means "an intent to destroy" a
population "in whole or in part." It includes killing and "deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction."

Many historians, including the International Association of Genocide
Scholars, have concluded the murders and forced deportations of
Armenians into the unforgiving Syrian desert amounted to genocide.

The Turkish government disputes the overall death count and says the
Armenians were in any event caught in a tumultuous time of war.

"Unlike the Holocaust, the numbers, dates, facts and the context
associated with this period are all contested, and objective scholars
remain deeply divided," Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy declared in
a statement last year.

To help spread this viewpoint, the Turkish government is paying former
Republican congressman Robert Livingston $750,000 every six months.

In May, public records also show, the Turkish government also signed
a $100,000-a-month lobbying contract with the firm of former House
Minority Leader Richard Gephardt.

A Democrat, and one-time presidential candidate, Gephardt had supported
versions of the genocide resolution when he was in Congress.

"The Turkish government is lobbying heavily," Radanovich said.

"They’ve been working it."

The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it,
emphasizes the diplomatic costs of alienating Turkey. The last time
Radanovich came close to getting a House vote on a genocide resolution,
in 2000, then-House Speaker Dennis Hastert pulled the bill from the
floor at the last minute at President Clinton’s request.

The current House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, backed previous
genocide resolutions when she was a rank-and-file House member.

Ultimately, Radanovich said, it will be Pelosi’s call on whether the
resolution gets a vote. Schiff said, "I think we have a good shot
at this."