91st Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

91ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE -- (Extensions of Remarks - April 27, 2006)

* Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, 91 years ago, a systematic and deliberate campaign of genocide was initiated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire against its Armenian population. Beginning in 1915, and continuing over the next eight years, over one and a half million Armenians were tortured and murdered, and another half million were forced from their homeland into exile.

* In his annual April 24th commemoration statement, President Bush once again failed to acknowledge this annihilation of a people as genocide. In a time when the denial of the Armenian genocide is again on the rise in Turkey--and through its agents, even here in the United States as witnessed by a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts opposed to our public school history curriculum on genocide--President Bush once again squandered an opportunity to demonstrate American courage and leadership and speak out with moral clarity on the issue of genocide. By failing to affirm the Armenian Genocide, President Bush insults the suffering endured by the Armenian people and especially the remaining survivors of the genocide, most of whom are now in their 90s.

* Luckily, such leadership and courage is not lacking among the Armenian-American community. Not only do they continue their historic work on the recognition and documentation of the Armenian Genocide, but they are genuine leaders and partners in efforts to educate Americans about the other genocides of the 20th and 21st Centuries--the Holocaust of World War II, Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, to note some of the most prominent.

* Most recently, the Armenian-American community has been actively engaged in bringing to the attention of U.S. and world leaders the genocide going on right now in Darfur, Sudan. I would like to honor, in particular, the work of Mr. George Aghjayan, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of Central Massachusetts, who has been especially active in education and organizing activities about Darfur. Mr. Aghjayan, who lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, has helped rally interest and support on Darfur not only from his own community, but from college students, religious leaders, and genocide survivors.

* I'm proud to be a member of the House Caucus on Armenian Issues, and to support the activities taking place today in the U.S. Congress in memory of the Armenian Genocide. I am more proud, however, to have had the opportunity to meet and learn from the extensive Armenian-American community in central Massachusetts and from their exemplary community leaders, like George Aghjayan and his wife, Joyce. Through them I have found my own voice and determination to denounce genocide wherever it is taking place, and to confront the culture of denial that would erase the historical record of the Armenian Genocide.

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