96th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Floor Speech

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the record these remarks I gave at a Capitol Hill ceremony commemorating the 96th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Tonight we commemorate a truly unjust and tragic chapter in human history--and just as importantly, we acknowledge that chapter as an historic fact. From 1915 to 1923, officials of the Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic campaign of massacres and forced deportations of Armenians from their historic homeland. In the end, this genocide cost the lives of one and a half million murdered men, women, and children. Another half million lost their homes.

In a July 24, 1915 cable, American Consul Leslie Davis said of the genocide, ``I do not believe there has ever been a massacre in the history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now being perpetrated in this region or that a more fiendish, diabolical scheme has ever been conceived by the mind of man.''

We commemorate the 20th century's first genocide not only to honor the lives of the dead, but because its effects are still very much with us. The Armenian Genocide has been a terrifying inspiration for mass murderers from Cambodia to Rwanda to the former Yugoslavia to Darfur. As early as 1897, a French Jew named Bernard Lazare reflected on the massacres of Armenians that had already taken place and speculated that the Jew-haters of Europe might one day turn to an ``Armenian solution'' of their own. Four decades later--the Holocaust.

At the same time, the Armenian Genocide reminds us of our collective responsibility in the face of such crimes. In fact, it was in a statement from the Allied Powers denouncing the massacres that the phrase ``crime against humanity'' first appeared. The Armenian Genocide helped set a precedent that a murderous crime against a minority is a crime against us all--that there is a collective responsibility to prevent genocide.

That precedent and that responsibility came too late to save 1.5 million Armenians--along with all those killed in genocides that stopped too late. We have lived up to the responsibility first formulated in the wake of the Armenian Genocide all too imperfectly. But may this commemoration remind us of that responsibility--as the United Nations Genocide Convention tells us, a responsibility not only to address genocide after the fact, but to prevent it. We have a responsibility for action, not apathy: action to end crimes against humanity and punish the perpetrators.

We share the same goal: seeing the truth of the Armenian Genocide recognized by Congress. I hope to see a bill recognizing the genocide pass, and I wish that had happened in December. Unfortunately, by our count, the votes were not there--and in our opinion, a loss would have been a set-back cheered by genocide deniers. But I applaud the work you to do preserve the memory and the lessons of this historic truth. And I believe the day will come when Congress recognizes that truth, as well. You can count on my vote.

The evil of the first recognized crime against humanity can never be undone, and the dead cannot be restored to their families and their homeland. But may the memory of their lives inspire us to speak out and take action against crimes against humanity in our own time, and to pursue the justice that was denied to those 1.5 million.

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