BOXER, COLLEAGUES URGE ADMINISTRATION TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Targeted News Service
April 20, 2010 Tuesday 9:04 PM EST
The office of Sen. Barbara A. Boxer, D-Calif., issued the following
news release:
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and a bipartisan group of 13 Senate
colleagues today wrote President Barack Obama asking him to formally
recognize the Armenian Genocide on April 24, Armenian Remembrance
Day 2010.
While affirming the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship, the
letter asks President Obama to "stand on the right side of history"
and acknowledge that the brutal murder of more than 1.5 million
Armenians by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 was genocide.
The full text of the letter is below:
April 20, 2010
President Barack Obama The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As you know, April 24 marks Armenian Remembrance Day 2010, the
ninety-fifth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Despite an
irrefutable body of evidence, the United States Government has yet
to recognize the events of 1915-1923 by their rightful name. We
urge you–on this April 24–to correct this injustice and finally
acknowledge one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century for
what it was–genocide.
Over the years, this deliberate massacre of the Armenians has been
well-documented through eye-witness accounts and confirmed by numerous
scholars. Simply put–between 1915 and 1923, more than 1.5 million
Armenians were marched to their deaths in the deserts of the Middle
East, murdered in concentration camps, drowned at sea, and forced to
endure horrific acts of brutality at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
In his memoirs, Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire between 1913 and 1916, wrote: "When the Turkish
authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely
giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well,
and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt
to conceal the fact." And even as it was just beginning, the New
York Times reported the mass killing of Armenians as "systematic,"
"authorized," and "organized by the government."
Tragically, Adolf Hitler even used the Ottoman Empire’s action against
the Armenians to justify the extermination of the Jews, saying in 1939,
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
The fact is that many have affirmed the Armenian Genocide, and it
is long past time that the United States do the same, joining with
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy,
Lebanon, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden,
Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela, the Vatican and over 40 U.S. states.
While we fully acknowledge the importance of the U.S.-Turkey
relationship, we should never, for any reason, fail to call a tragedy
of this magnitude by its rightful name. As such–on this April 24–we
urge you to stand on the right side of history and unequivocally
affirm the Armenian Genocide.
Thank you for your consideration of this important request.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer, United States Senator
Carl Levin, United States Senator
Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator
Robert Menendez, United States Senator
Jack Reed, United States Senator
Frank R. Lautenberg, United States Senator
Russell D. Feingold, United States Senator
Sherrod Brown, United States Senator
John Ensign, United States Senator
Charles E. Schumer, United States Senator
Senator Debbie Stabenow, United States Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse, United States Senator
Joseph I. Lieberman, United States Senator
Barbara A. Mikulski, United States Senator