Targeted News Service
 Tuesday 9:20 AM EST


Rep. Hoyer Issues Statement on Anniversary of Armenian Genocide

WASHINGTON

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, issued the following
statement on the 103rd anniversary of the Armenian genocide:

"As we mark the 103rd anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian
Genocide, we remember the 1.5 million people killed and the millions
of other lives uprooted. America has a responsibility to be a moral
leader in the world by promoting tolerance, human rights, and justice
- just as we have a responsibility to partner with the international
community to prevent and deter ethnic violence wherever it occurs.
Today, the most fitting remembrance of the Armenian Genocide, the
first genocide of the twentieth century, is to recommit ourselves to
the work of stopping ethnic violence in the twenty-first century - in
Myanmar, in Darfur, and elsewhere.

"I join with the Armenian-American community, many members of which
are descendants of the Genocide's survivors, in marking this somber
anniversary. No one can deny history, nor can we shun the obligations
that history bequeaths us: to remember, to educate, and to be agents
of peace and refuge when confronted with the evils of hatred and
injustice."