IV

106TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION H. RES. 155

Calling upon the President to provide in a collection all United States records

related to the Armenian genocide and the consequences of the failure

to enforce the judgments of the Turkish courts against the responsible

officials, and to deliver the collection to the Committee on International

Relations of the House of Representatives, the library of the United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and to the Armenian Genocide

Museum in Yerevan, Armenia.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

APRIL 28, 1999

Mr. RADANOVICH (for himself, Mr. ACKERMAN, Mr. ANDREWS, Mr. BERMAN,

Mr. BILBRAY, Mr. BLAGOJEVICH, Mr. BLILEY, Mrs. CAPPS, Mr.

CAPUANO, Mr. CLAY, Mr. COSTELLO, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. DIXON, Mr.

DOOLEY of California, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. FRANKS of New Jersey, Mr.

HEFLEY, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. HORN, Mr. KASICH, Mr. KENNEDY of

Rhode Island, Mr. KILDEE, Mr. KING, Mr. KLECZKA, Mr. KNOLLENBERG, Mr. LARSON, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mrs. MALONEY of New

York, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. MARTINEZ, Mrs. MCCARTHY of New York, Mr.

MCGOVERN, Mr. MCHUGH, Mr. MCKEON, Mr. MCNULTY, Mr. MEEHAN,

Mr. MENENDEZ, Mr. MOAKLEY, Mr. MORAN of Virginia, Mrs. MORELLA,

Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts, Mr. OBEY, Mr. OLVER, Mr. PALLONE, Mr.

PORTER, Mr. ROGAN, Mr. ROTHMAN, Mr. ROYCE, Mr. RUSH, Mr.

SAXTON, Mr. SHERMAN, Ms. STABENOW, Mr. TIERNEY, Mr. THOMAS,

Mr. VISCLOSKY, Mr. WAXMAN, Ms. WOOLSEY, and Mr. WYNN) submitted

the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Government Reform, and in addition to the Committee on International Relations, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each

case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of

the committee concerned

RESOLUTION

Calling upon the President to provide in a collection all
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United States records related to the Armenian genocide

and the consequences of the failure to enforce the judgments of the Turkish courts against the responsible officials, and to deliver the collection to the Committee on

International Relations of the House of Representatives,

the library of the United States Holocaust Memorial

Museum, and to the Armenian Genocide Museum in

Yerevan, Armenia.

1 Resolved,

2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

3 This resolution may be cited as the ‘‘United States

4 Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution’’.

5 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

6 The Congress finds the following:

7 (1) The Armenian genocide was conceived and

8 carried out by Ottoman Turkish Governments from

9 1915 to 1923, resulting in the killing of 1,500,000

10 Armenian men, women, and children, the deporta11 tion of more than 500,000 survivors, and practically

12 succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year

13 Armenian presence of Armenians in their historic

14 homeland.

15 (2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, Eng16 land, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement

17 explicitly charging for the first time ever another

18 government of committing ‘‘a crime against human19 ity’’.
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1 (3) This joint statement stated ‘‘[i]n view of

2 these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and

3 civilization, the Allied Governments announce pub4 licly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold person5 ally responsible for these crimes all members of the

6 Ottoman Government, as well as those of their

7 agents who are implicated in such massacres’’.

8 (4) The post-World War I Turkish Government

9 indicted the top leaders involved in the ‘‘organization

10 and execution’’ of the Armenian genocide and in the

11 ‘‘massacre and destruction of the Armenians’’.

12 (5) In a series of courts-martial, officials of the

13 Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as

14 charged, for organizing and executing massacres

15 against the Armenian people.

16 (6) The chief organizers of the Armenian geno17 cide, Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior

18 Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all

19 condemned to death for their crimes, however, the

20 verdicts of the courts were not enforced.

21 (7) The Armenian genocide and these domestic

22 judicial failures are documented with overwhelming

23 evidence in the national archives of Austria, France,

24 Germany, Great Britain, Russia, the United States,

25 the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast
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1 body of evidence attests to the same facts, the same

2 events, and the same consequences.

3 (8) The national archives of Turkey should also

4 include all of the records pertaining to the indict5 ment, trial, and conviction of the Ottoman authori6 ties responsible for the Armenian genocide.

7 (9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United

8 States Ambassador to the Ottoman Turkish Empire

9 from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by

10 officials of many countries, among them the allies of

11 the Ottoman Turkish Empire, against the Armenian

12 genocide.

13 (10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly de14 scribed to the Department of State the policy of the

15 Young Turk government as ‘‘a campaign of race ex16 termination’’, and was instructed on July 16, 1915,

17 by Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the ‘‘De18 partment approves your procedure . . . to stop Ar19 menian persecution’’.

20 (11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of Feb21 ruary 9, 1916, resolved that ‘‘the President of the

22 United States be respectfully asked to designate a

23 day on which the citizens of this country may give

24 expression to their sympathy by contributing funds

25 now being raised for the relief of the Armenians’’,
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1 who at the time were enduring ‘‘starvation, disease,

2 and untold suffering’’.

3 (12) President Wilson concurred and also en4 couraged the formation of the organization known as

5 Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress,

6 which contributed some $113,000,000 from 1915 to

7 1930 to aid the Armenian genocide survivors, includ8 ing 132,000 orphans who became foster children of

9 the American people.

10 (13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 13,

11 1920, stated in part, ‘‘the testimony adduced at the

12 hearings conducted by the subcommittee of the Sen13 ate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly es14 tablished the truth of the reported massacres and

15 other atrocities from which the Armenian people

16 have suffered’’.

17 (14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920,

18 report to the Senate of the American Military Mis19 sion to Armenia led by General James Harbord, that

20 stated ‘‘[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death

21 have left their haunting memories in a hundred

22 beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that

23 region is seldom free from the evidence of this most

24 colossal crime of all the ages’’.
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1 (15) Setting the stage for the Holocaust, Adolf

2 Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to at3 tack Poland without provocation in 1939, dismissed

4 objections by saying ‘‘[w]ho, after all, speaks today

5 of the annihilation of the Armenians?’’.

6 (16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term

7 ‘‘genocide’’ in 1944, and who was the earliest pro8 ponent of the Genocide Convention, invoked the Ar9 menian case as a definitive example of genocide in

10 the 20th century.

11 (17) Raphael Lemkin described the crime as

12 ‘‘the systematic destruction of whole national, racial

13 or religious groups. The sort of thing Hitler did to

14 the Jews and the Turks did to the Armenians’’.

15 (18) The first resolution on genocide adopted

16 by the United Nations at Lemkin’s urging, the De17 cember 11, 1946, United Nations General Assembly

18 resolution (96–1) and the United Nations Genocide

19 Convention itself recognized the Armenian genocide

20 as the type of crime the United Nations intended to

21 prevent by codifying existing standards.

22 (19) In 1948 the United Nations War Crimes

23 Commission invoked the Armenian genocide

24 ‘‘precisely . . . one of the types of acts which the

25 modern term ‘crimes against humanity’ is intended
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1 to cover’’ as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribu2 nals.

3 (20) The commission stated that ‘‘[t]he provi4 sions of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Se ́vres

5 were obviously intended to cover, in conformity with

6 the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had

7 been committed on Turkish territory against persons

8 of Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek

9 race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent

10 for Article 6c and 5c of the Nuremberg and Tokyo

11 Charters, and offers an example of one of the cat12 egories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as understood

13 by these enactments.’’.

14 (21) The United Nations Commission on

15 Human Rights adopted in 1985 a report entitled

16 ‘‘Study of the Questions of the Prevention and Pun17 ishment of the Crime of Genocide’’, which stated

18 ‘‘[t]he Nazi aberration has unfortunately not been

19 the only case of genocide in the twentieth century.

20 Among other examples which can be cited as quali21 fying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians

22 in 1915–1916’’.

23 (22) This report also explained that ‘‘[a]t least

24 1 million, and possibly well over half of the Arme25 nian population, are reliably estimated to have been
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1 killed or death marched by independent authorities

2 and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in

3 United States, German and British archives and of

4 contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, in5 cluding those of its ally Germany’’.

6 (23) The tragedy of the Armenian genocide has

7 been acknowledged by countries and international

8 bodies such as Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the

9 Council of Europe, Cyprus, the European Par10 liament, France, Great Britain, Greece, Lebanon,

11 Russia, the United Nations, the United States, and

12 Uruguay.

13 (24) The United States Holocaust Memorial

14 Council, an independent Federal agency, unani15 mously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United

16 States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include

17 the Armenian genocide in the Museum and has since

18 done so.

19 (25) President Reagan in proclamation number

20 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part ‘‘like the

21 genocide of the Armenians before it, and the geno22 cide of the Cambodians, which followed it—and like

23 too many other persecutions of too many other peo24 ple—the lessons of the holocaust must never be for25 gotten’’.
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1 (26) In 1988 President Bush, speaking of the

2 Armenian genocide, stated ‘‘we must consciously and

3 conscientiously recognize the genocides of the past—

4 the enormous tragedies that have darkened this cen5 tury and that haunt us still. We must not only com6 memorate the courage of the victims and of their

7 survivors, but we must also remind ourselves that

8 civilization cannot be taken for granted . . . We

9 must all be vigilant against this most heinous crime

10 against humanity’’.

11 (27) President Bush stated further ‘‘[t]he

12 United States must acknowledge the attempted

13 genocide of the Armenian people in the last years of

14 the Ottoman Empire, based on the testimony of sur15 vivors, scholars, and indeed our own representatives

16 at the time, if we are to insure that such horrors are

17 not repeated’’.

18 (28) On August 13, 1992, President Clinton

19 stated ‘‘[t]he Genocide of 1915, years of communist

20 dictatorship, and the devastating earthquake of

21 1988 have caused great suffering in Armenia during

22 this century’’.

23 (29) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression

24 (later retracted) by the Department of State assert25 ing that the facts of the Armenian genocide may be
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1 ambiguous, the United States Court of Appeals for

2 the District of Columbia in 1993, after a review of

3 documents pertaining to the policy record of the

4 United States, noted that the assertion on ambiguity

5 in the United States record about the Armenian

6 genocide ‘‘contradicted longstanding United States

7 policy and was eventually retracted’’.

8 (30) Despite the international recognition and

9 affirmation of the Armenian genocide, the failure of

10 the domestic and international authorities to punish

11 those responsible for the Armenian genocide is a

12 reason why similar genocides have recurred and may

13 recur in the future, and that a proper judicial and

14 firm response, holding the guilty accountable and re15 quiring the prompt enforcement of verdicts would

16 have spared humanity needless suffering.

17 SEC. 3. REPORT.

18 The House of Representatives calls upon the Presi19 dent to provide, not later than 6 months after the date

20 of the adoption of this resolution, in a collection all United

21 States records related to the Armenian genocide and the

22 consequences of the failure to enforce the judgments of

23 the Turkish courts against the responsible officials, to—

24 (1) the Committee on International Relations of

25 the House of Representatives;
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1 (2) the library of the United States Holocaust

2 Memorial Museum for incorporation into its holdings

3 of official documentation on genocide and for pur4 poses of public awareness and education; and

5 (3) the Armenian Genocide Museum in

6 Yerevan, Armenia, in order to document and affirm

7 the United States record of protest and recognition

8 of this crime against humanity.

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