Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Geoncide

COMMEMORATING THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to honor the memory of the victims of the Armenian genocide.

This week marks the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide that ultimately took the lives of one-and-a-half million Armenian men, women and children. On April 24, 1915, 200 Armenian religious, intellectual and political leaders in Constantinople were arrested by the Government of the Ottoman Empire and murdered. It was the beginning of the first genocide of the 20th century, and it continued until 1923. It was a vicious, organized crime against humanity that included murder, deportation, torture and slave labor.

The Armenian genocide was followed by a concerted effort to destroy any record of the Armenians in Asia Minor, including the destruction of religious and cultural monuments, and the changing of place names. I am saddened that there are those who would prefer to forget the Armenian genocide. To ignore it is to desecrate the memory of those who lost their lives. And such denial sends the message that genocide will be tolerated by the world.

To deny the genocide of the Armenians, or any atrocity of this scale, is to forsake the value we place on human life and the principles of liberty upon which this country is based. Those who turn a deaf ear to the Armenian genocide, knowingly or unknowingly, abet the future of genocide by failing to raise public consciousness about this tragic reality.

As we remember those whose lives were brutally taken during the Armenian genocide, we also pay tribute to the survivors, the living testimony of this historic crime, and to their families, many of whom are now Armenian-Americans. We must assure them that we, as the leaders of the democratic world, will not forget this tragedy, but rather gain the wisdom and knowledge necessary to ensure that we can prevent its repetition.

Recognizing the Armenian genocide takes on added importance in the face of the genocide occurring right now in the Darfur region of Sudan. As we pause to reflect upon this grievous example of man's inhumanity to man, let us honor the victims of the Armenian genocide and all crimes against humanity by not only acknowledging their suffering, but by acting to halt similar atrocities that are occurring now before our very eyes.

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