Transcript [PDF] - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

17
dignity of the Armenian people. The issue behind this resolution,
Mr. Chairman, is, when another government denies genocide,
whether Congress has a responsibility to insist that our Government
at least acknowledge it. I believe that we do.
We have a record of recognizing genocide—the Holocaust, the
Ukrainian infamous famine wrought by Stalin, the Cambodian and
the Darfur genocides. In 2005, I was the author of H. Res. 199,
which recognized the Srebrenica genocide, and which had a very
beneficial effect in clearing the political climate in Bosnia.
The Armenian tragedy was by any measure a genocide. In 1915,
there were about 2 million Armenians living in what was then the
Ottoman Empire. They were living in a region they had inhabited
for 2,500 years. By 1923, well over 90 percent of these Armenians
had disappeared. Most of them, as many as 1.5 million, were dead.
The remainder had been forced into exile. A few of those exiled are
here in the audience today.
The Government of the Empire, whose leaders were members of
the movement known as the Young Turks, called this campaign
against Armenians a mass deportation rather than a mass murder,
but the United States Ambassador to Turkey at the time, Henry
Morgenthau, called it a ‘‘campaign of race extermination.’’
The British, French and Russian Governments accused the
Young Turk Government of a crime against humanity, the first
time in history that that charge was ever made by one state
against another. Though after World War I the term genocide
didn’t exist, the world understood what had been done to the Armenians.
The Government of Turkey convicted a number of high-ranking
Young Turk officials for their role in what the Turkish Government
indictment called ‘‘the massacre and destruction of the Armenians.’’
Unfortunately, the Turkish Government later changed course.
For Armenians everywhere, the Turkish Government’s campaign of
genocide denial is a cruel slap in the face. It is not only the genocide
of 90 years ago, but also the aggressive, ongoing official denial
that brings us here today.
I want to note here that this House, this Congress, the Government
of the United States, is a friend to Turkey, but friends don’t
let friends commit crimes against humanity or act as accomplices
in their denial after they have been committed.
I would recall to you that, in judging the post-World War I case
against the prime movers of the genocide, the Turkish President of
the court stated, and I quote, ‘‘The perpetuation of such atrocities
is not only incompatible with Ottoman’s laws and the constitution,
but also is contrary to the dictates of the Muslim faith.’’
I admire him for saying this. He said this for the good of his
country, and his words were truly patriotic. We could take some
comfort in the growing willingness of some Turkish citizens, especially
scholars, journalists and writers, to acknowledge the Armenian
Genocide.
In standing for truth against their government, these brave men
and women are standing for Turkey’s real interests and for the Armenian-Turkish
reconciliation which can only build on an honest
acknowledgement of the past by all sides and by all governments.
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