Targeted News Service
March 4, 2010 Thursday 12:08 AM EST
House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard L. Berman (D-CA), Chairman
WASHINGTON
The House Foreign Affairs Committee issued the following news release:
Chairman Berman’s opening remarks at markup of the Armenian Genocide
resolution, H. Res. 252
Turkey is a vital and, in most respects, a loyal ally of the United
States in a volatile region. We have also been a loyal ally to Turkey,
and should continue to be so. Be that as it may, nothing justifies
Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the reality of the Armenian Genocide.
It is regrettable, for example, that Turkey’s Nobel-Prize-winning
novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was essentially hounded out of his native
country for speaking out on this subject. Now I don’t pretend to be a
professional historian. I haven’t scoured the archives in Istanbul
looking for original documents.
But the vast majority of experts – the vast majority – academics,
authorities in international law, and others who have looked at this
issue for years, agree that the tragic massacres of the Armenians
constitute genocide.
In a letter to members of congress two years ago, the International
Association of Genocide Scholars stated the following, and I quote:
"The historical record on the Armenian Genocide is unambiguous and
documented by overwhelming evidence. It is proven by foreign office
records of the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and
perhaps most importantly, of Turkey’s World War I allies, Germany and
Austria-Hungary, as well as by the records of the Ottoman
Courts-Martial of 1918-1920, and by decades of scholarship."
"As crimes of genocide continue to plague the world, Turkey’s policy
of denying the Armenian Genocide gives license to those who perpetrate
genocide everywhere."
The Genocide Scholars urged the House to pass a resolution
acknowledging the Armenian Genocide because, they said, it would
constitute – and I quote again — "recognition of a historical turning
point in the twentieth century, the event that inaugurated the era of
modern genocide. In spite of its importance, the Armenian Genocide has
gone unrecognized until recently, and warrants a symbolic act of moral
commemoration."
Professor Yehuda Bauer, a highly respected scholar at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, has written that the Armenian Genocide is, in
his words, "the closest parallel to the Holocaust."
In a 1985 report, a subcommission of the UN Commission on Human Rights
found that the massacres of the Armenians qualified as genocide.
And Raphael Lemkin, the Polish lawyer who coined the word "genocide"
and drafted the international genocide convention, told an interviewer
that, quote "I became interested in genocide because it happened to
the Armenians."
Nearly two dozen other countries – including France, Canada, Russia,
Switzerland and Chile – have formally recognized the Armenian
Genocide. So has the European Parliament.
As the world leader in promoting human rights, the United States has a
moral responsibility to join them.
The Turks say passing this resolution could have terrible consequences
for our bilateral relationship, and indeed perhaps there will be some
consequences. But I believe that Turkey values its relations with the
United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey.
And I believe the Turks, however deep their dismay today,
fundamentally agree that the U.S.-Turkish alliance is simply too
important to get sidetracked by a non-binding resolution passed by the
House of Representatives.
At some point, every nation must come to terms with its own history.
And that is all we ask of Turkey.
Germany has accepted responsibility for the Holocaust. South Africa
set up a Truth Commission to look at Apartheid. And here at home, we
continue to grapple with the legacies of slavery and our horrendous
treatment of Native Americans.
It is now time for Turkey to accept the reality of the Armenian Genocide.
This will most likely be a difficult and painful process for the
Turkish people, but at the end of the day, it will strengthen Turkish
democracy and put the U.S.-Turkey relationship on a better footing.
I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.
Contact: Lynne Weil, 202/225-5021