Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

[Alexandros]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman

Verbatim, as delivered

Thursday, March 04, 2010

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.

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[Alexandros]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA



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[Mukuch]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

H. RES. 252

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes.

The House of Representatives finds the following:

(1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their historic homeland.

(2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, England, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly charging for the first time ever another government of committing `a crime against humanity'.

(3) This joint statement stated `the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their agents who are implicated in such massacres'.

(4) The post-World War I Turkish Government indicted the top leaders involved in the `organization and execution' of the Armenian Genocide and in the `massacre and destruction of the Armenians'.

(5) In a series of courts-martial, officials of the Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, for organizing and executing massacres against the Armenian people.

(6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Genocide, Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all condemned to death for their crimes, however, the verdicts of the courts were not enforced.

(7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judicial failures are documented with overwhelming evidence in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast body of evidence attests to the same facts, the same events, and the same consequences.

(8) The United States National Archives and Record Administration holds extensive and thorough documentation on the Armenian Genocide, especially in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the United States Department of State, files 867.00 and 867.40, which are open and widely available to the public and interested institutions.

(9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials of many countries, among them the allies of the Ottoman Empire, against the Armenian Genocide.

(10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to the United States Department of State the policy of the Government of the Ottoman Empire as `a campaign of race extermination,' and was instructed on July 16, 1915, by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the `Department approves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian persecution'.

(11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of February 9, 1916, resolved that `the President of the United States be respectfully asked to designate a day on which the citizens of this country may give expression to their sympathy by contributing funds now being raised for the relief of the Armenians', who at the time were enduring `starvation, disease, and untold suffering'.

(12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and also encouraged the formation of the organization known as Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which contributed some $116,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid Armenian Genocide survivors, including 132,000 orphans who became foster children of the American people.

(13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11, 1920, stated in part, `the testimony adduced at the hearings conducted by the sub-committee of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly established the truth of the reported massacres and other atrocities from which the Armenian people have suffered'.

(14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, report to the Senate of the American Military Mission to Armenia led by General James Harbord, that stated `[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages'.

(15) As displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying `[w]ho, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?' and thus set the stage for the Holocaust.

(16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term `genocide' in 1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century.

(17) The first resolution on genocide adopted by the United Nations at Lemkin's urging, the December 11, 1946, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96(1) and the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide itself recognized the Armenian Genocide as the type of crime the United Nations intended to prevent and punish by codifying existing standards.

(18) In 1948, the United Nations War Crimes Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide `precisely . . . one of the types of acts which the modern term `crimes against humanity' is intended to cover' as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals.

(19) The Commission stated that `[t]he provisions of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obviously intended to cover, in conformity with the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had been committed on Turkish territory against persons of Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent for Article 6c and 5c of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Charters, and offers an example of one of the categories of `crimes against humanity' as understood by these enactments'.

(20) House Joint Resolution 148, adopted on April 8, 1975, resolved: `[t]hat April 24, 1975, is hereby designated as `National Day of Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity to Man', and the President of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide, especially those of Armenian ancestry . . .'.

(21) President Ronald Reagan in proclamation number 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part `like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it--and like too many other persecutions of too many other people--the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten'.

(22) House Joint Resolution 247, adopted on September 10, 1984, resolved: `[t]hat April 24, 1985, is hereby designated as `National Day of Remembrance of Man's Inhumanity to Man', and the President of the United States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide, especially the one and one-half million people of Armenian ancestry . . .'.

(23) In August 1985, after extensive study and deliberation, the United Nations SubCommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities voted 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled `Study of the Question of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,' which stated `[t]he Nazi aberration has unfortunately not been the only case of genocide in the 20th century. Among other examples which can be cited as qualifying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 1915-1916'.

(24) This report also explained that `[a]t least 1,000,000, and possibly well over half of the Armenian population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or death marched by independent authorities and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in United States, German and British archives and of contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally Germany.'.

(25) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, an independent Federal agency, unanimously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include the Armenian Genocide in the Museum and has since done so.

(26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later retracted) by the United States Department of State asserting that the facts of the Armenian Genocide may be ambiguous, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after a review of documents pertaining to the policy record of the United States, noted that the assertion on ambiguity in the United States record about the Armenian Genocide `contradicted longstanding United States policy and was eventually retracted'.

(27) On June 5, 1996, the House of Representatives adopted an amendment to House Bill 3540 (the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1997) to reduce aid to Turkey by $3,000,000 (an estimate of its payment of lobbying fees in the United States) until the Turkish Government acknowledged the Armenian Genocide and took steps to honor the memory of its victims.

(28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on April 24, 1998, stated: `This year, as in the past, we join with Armenian-Americans throughout the nation in commemorating one of the saddest chapters in the history of this century, the deportations and massacres of a million and a half Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years 1915-1923.'.

(29) President George W. Bush, on April 24, 2004, stated: `On this day, we pause in remembrance of one of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the annihilation of as many as 1,500,000 Armenians through forced exile and murder at the end of the Ottoman Empire.'.

(30) Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, and that a just resolution will help prevent future genocides.

The House of Representatives:

(1) calls upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution; and

(2) calls upon the President in the President's annual message commemorating the Armenian Genocide issued on or about April 24, to accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history of United States intervention in opposition to the Armenian Genocide.

[Federate]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

At least we can count on the Catalonians.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Catalonia Parliament recognizes the Armenian Genocide

05.03.2010 18:13

On the initiative of the members of Barcelona’s Friendship Union with Armenia, member of the Catalonian Parliament Maria Ross Fortuni and Jose Samartin, the Parliament of Catalonia unilaterally passed a decision on recognition of the Armenian Genocide, Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia reports.

http://www.armradio.am/news/?part=pol&id=16947

[ashot24]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

At least we can count on the Catalonians.

They are by far one of the most culturalized peoples of Spain and they themselves suffered genocide, mostly cultural genocide, but genocide at the end.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

ADL won't back US resolution recognizing Armenian genocide
michal lando, jerusalem post correspondent

Foxman: By siding with the Armenians, "we risk important relationships that are important to the J3wish community worldwide."



Despite the Anti-Defamation League's reversal this week of its longstanding refusal to recognize the massacre of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks almost 90 years ago as genocide, it has stopped short of supporting a resolution currently before Congress that calls on the Bush administration to give it formal recognition. Talking to The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said: "Most j3ws understand it's a very difficult choice. There's very little I can do [for the Armenians, who can't be brought back to life]." "[But] I can put at jeopardy [ties with Turkey]," he said. By siding with the Armenians, "we put at risk some very important relationships that are important to the j3wish community worldwide," because it could endanger the Turkish j3wish community and relations between Israel and Turkey, Foxman said. Foxman's earlier refusal to change the ADL stance sparked division within the organization last week, when Foxman fired New England regional director Andrew Tarsy for his public recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Two other members of the ADL's regional board - Boston City Council member Mike Ross and former Polaroid Corp chairman Stewart Cohen - resigned in protest. Foxman said he reversed the ADL's position because "what I was seeing in Boston was the j3wish community being ripped apart." It was "a gesture to try to save our unity." Following the resignation of the two board members, several Boston-based j3wish organizations - including the Combined j3wish Philanthropies, the Russian Community Association of Massachusetts, the Hillel Council of New England, the Bureau of j3wish Education, and the David Project Center for j3wish Leadership - signed a petition to support Tarsy and to recognize the genocide.

"I think he saw this issue dividing the j3wish community in a very significant and potentially harmful way," said Steven Grossman, a former ADL board member and ex-AIPAC chairman. "He recognized potentially losing the moral high ground they have occupied for so many years, and relations with other communities possibly eroding." The "rock solid unanimity" of Boston's j3wish community paved the way for Foxman's change of heart, Grossman said. "Such unified and highly charged emotional consensus that failure to call this genocide, when most historians have referred to it as genocide, became an untenable position," Grossman said.

"Considering the potential damage to ADL's effectiveness, it was impossible to maintain their long-held position." Nancy Kaufman, the executive director of the j3wish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, also welcomed Foxman's reversal. "We think it's terrific," Kaufman said. "The willingness to change his position is admirable and surprising, and we are delighted here that it happened." The New England Regional ADL met Wednesday, and was expected to approve a resolution calling for Tarsy to return as regional director. Although it welcomed the ADL's decision to use the genocide label, the Armenian National Committee of America called the organization's continued opposition to the Congressional resolution a "gesture intended to appease the Turkish government." Boston-based j3wish organizations continued to back the resolution.

"I think ADL should support the congressional bill. As much as I understand taking into consideration relations between Israel and Turkey, this is something you have to do even though it's politically difficult," said Samuel Mendales, director of Hillel Council of New England. Other j3wish groups, however, refrained from supporting the resolution. Earlier this year, the ADL - along with the American j3wish Committee, B'nai B'rith International and the j3wish Institute for National Security Affairs - opposed the legislation in a letter sent to congressional leaders. "We've said this before - the issue is best resolved by the interested parties not by a third party," said Kenneth Bandler, AJC communications director. "It's not going to be helpful for an arm of the US government to lay in with a resolution declaring genocide." Hilary Leila Krieger contributed to this report.

http://www.jpost.com/J3wishWorld/J3w....aspx?id=72968

[ara87]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

I think there has never been a better year for the congress to at least pass this resolution. The congress has a a majority of democrats who are worried with this new wave of conservatism, that they will lose their seats and control of washington. If enough people actually call and write their congressmen and congresswomen, to ask them to vote yes, it just might be enough to swing the vote our way, because even if you can't get the member to vote yes, if enough people abstain, instead of saying no, it betters the odds.

For example, there were 5 members from Texas; 3 which voted no, 1 that voted yes, and 1 that abstained.


Ted Poe-No
Gene Green-Yes
Sheila Jackson Lee- abstain
Michael T McCaul-no
Ron Paul-No

If Sheila Jackson Lee voted "No" the vote would have been tied. If the other 3 members who voted "No" simply abstained, the vote would have been 23 yes and 19 no votes, instead of 23 to 22


It really doesn't take much effort, the last time this happened, it took one phone call for one rep to say he would vote yes, but unfortunately it got shelved, we also had others who said they would abstain.

If you go to http://www.capwiz.com/anca/issues/al...ertid=14355131 you can look up your representative, and email/fax/call them, and tell them to vote "yes"

This also works best if you bombard both their state office and DC office with calls and letters. It also works better if you get odars to call in, last time I got 50 odars from work to call their reps, if every Armenian actually did this, we'd get alot more accomplished, maybe at least have a glimmer of hope that it could pass the house.

If it does pass the house (it already did once), I don't think Obama will be to quick to kill it, seeing as he realizes everyone is mad at him for not bringing the changes he promised fast enough. Also, Iraq is over next year, and Afghanistan is led by NATO forces, not American ones, so even if Turkey is mad at us, they can't screw over the rest of NATO

[Federate]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

Yes, this is a good time to pass this motion. America's top three (four with Clinton) all have a track record of accepting the AG on more than one occassion and the xxxs and Turks are not kissing each other's asses as much.

[Armanen]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

Yeah I know, but I mean today as off right now after the current events. I am referring to the danger that would be (and currently is a likely and growing possibility) to have both Turkey and Azerbaijan united by rage looking at Armenia with hateful eyes and ideas of revenge. That can be no good for Armenia both at a short term and a long term periods, tensions are high and will be high in the coming times and we must strengthen our positions now in every sense...as to me respects, I am quite worried because of that. I am now just hoping that Turkey is as reliable an serious as Azerbaijan is when it comes to make threats and taking 'measures'...

It's safe to say that you shouldn't worry. Neither, azerbaijan nor turkey is stupid enough to attack Armenia, it would cause a major war, and very likely change the political landscape of the entire region, which wouldn't better either nations lot.

The only thing I see happening is anti-Armenian feeling within turkey resulting in attacks on Armenians and/or their properties.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Recognition of Armenian Genocide by USA

Why do Armenians in America keeping trying to pass this bill when they know the J3wish lobby is against it? The definition of insanity... trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Had they spent all this time and money over the generations to build a stronger diaspora, we could have spawned young Armenians who would have gotten into positions of law, academics, media, govenment and could have crushed the opposition by now.