ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ISSUE DRAWS CLOSE TO A NEW HOUSE VOTE
By Michael Doyle
Miami Herald, FL
July 2 2007
CONGRESS
A resolution recognizing the slaughter of Armenians in the early 20th
century is again moving through the U.S. House of Representatives.
WASHINGTON — It’s crunch time for an Armenian genocide resolution,
where foreign policy meets ethnic politics and a familiar plot keeps
recurring.
As of Friday, a majority of the House of Representatives supports a
resolution recognizing the slaughter of Armenians between 1915 and
1923 as genocide.
With that important hurdle crossed, Armenian Americans and their
congressional champions now must see what congressional leaders have
in mind.
"We’re making sure we have all of our ducks lined up," said Rep. Adam
Schiff, D-Calif.
Schiff and Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., are the chief sponsors
of the genocide resolution, introduced in its latest form five months
ago. Radanovich acknowledged recently that he’s "a little concerned"
that the House Foreign Relations Committee hasn’t yet considered it.
Different concerns motivate the White House and the Turkish
government. Both vigorously resist the resolution that they say will
endanger diplomatic relations. Already, a new poll finds that 83
percent of Turkish residents view the United States negatively.
This year’s version is backed by 218 House members, a majority.
Backers secured additional sponsors in recent days, following a
telephone campaign through the Armenian National Committee of America.
Many historians, including the International Association of Genocide
Scholars, have concluded that 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 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
last year.
To help spread this viewpoint, the Turkish government is paying former
Rep. Robert Livingston, R-La., $750,000 every six months.
In May, public records also show, the Turkish government signed a
$100,000-a-month lobbying contract with the firm of former House
Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.
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 current House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California,
supported 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.
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