Dianne Feinstein
PRESS RELEASE: Contact: Scott Gerber 202/224-9629
Wednesday, March 14, 2007 http://feinstein.senate.gov/
Senator Feinstein Cosponsors Senate Resolution Calling on
President Bush to Recognize the Armenian Genocide
Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today
announced that she would cosponsor a Senate resolution offered by
Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), calling on the President to recognize
the Armenian Genocide.
The following statement by Senator Feinstein was submitted today to the Congressional Record:
"Mr. President, as we approach the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, I rise today in support of a resolution introduced by Senator Richard Durbin, calling on the President to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
Specifically, this resolution would:
- Encourage the President to incorporate the memory and lessons
of the Armenian Genocide into the foreign policies of the United States, and;
- Urge the President to accurately portray this terrible episode
as 'genocide' in his annual statement.
Between 1915 and 1923, as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished and 500,000 were exiled by the Ottoman government in a systematic campaign of murder, deportation, and forced starvation.
92 years later, nearly all of the survivors are no longer with us. Yet their solemn voices still echo, urging us to remember them and work to ensure that their suffering was not in vain.
In my 15 years in the United States Senate, I have received thousands of letters from members of the Armenian-American community in my home state of California, encouraging our government to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Many of them are descendants of the genocide's survivors, who immigrated to the United States and, over the course of a few decades, built a strong and vibrant community in California and elsewhere.
For the genocide's victims, there can be no justice. But by preserving and cherishing their memory, we can begin healing the wounds that still linger.
The recent murder of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist who championed human rights and advocated Turkish recognition of the Armenian Genocide, serves as a chilling reminder of the dangers that loom in our silence. An open, informed, and tolerant discussion of the genocide is necessary for true and lasting reconciliation between present-day Turkey and the Armenian people.
Equally important, recalling the Armenian Genocide is essential to the prevention of ongoing and future atrocities, including the genocide in Darfur. By taking an unequivocal stance against genocide-regardless of where or when it occurs-we and other members of the international community will send a strong message that such atrocities will not be tolerated. Let us remember Adolf Hitler's ominous words on the eve of the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland: 'Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'
So today, let us speak loudly. Let us join the hundreds of thousands of Armenian-Americans in my home state of California and across the United States, as well as millions of people around the world, in acknowledging and commemorating the Armenian Genocide. Let us ensure that the legacy of these atrocities is one of reconciliation and hope.
And let us fulfill the promises our parents made us, and we made to our children: never again."
____________________________ Scott Gerber Director of Communications Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein scott_gerber@feinstein.senate.gov 202-224-9629