IV

106TH CONGRESS

2D SESSION H. RES. 596

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United

States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning

issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide,

and for other purposes.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SEPTEMBER 27, 2000

Mr. RADANOVICH submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the

Committee on International Relations

RESOLUTION

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy

of the United States reflects appropriate understanding

and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights,

ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United

States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and

for other purposes.

1 Resolved,

2 SECTION. 1. SHORT TITLE.

3 This resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Affirmation of

4 the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Reso5 lution’’.
2

•HRES 596 IH

1 SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

2 The House of Representatives finds the following:

3 (1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and

4 carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to

5 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly

6 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men,

7 women, and children were killed, 500,000 survivors

8 were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded

9 in the elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of

10 Armenians in their historic homeland.

11 (2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, Eng12 land, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement

13 explicitly charging for the first time ever another

14 government of committing ‘‘a crime against human15 ity’’.

16 (3) This joint statement stated ‘‘[i]n view of

17 these new crimes of Turkey against humanity and

18 civilization, the Allied Governments announce pub19 licly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold person20 ally responsible for these crimes all members of the

21 Ottoman Government, as well as those of their

22 agents who are implicated in such massacres’’.

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

24 indicted the top leaders involved in the ‘‘organization

25 and execution’’ of the Armenian Genocide and in the

26 ‘‘massacre and destruction of the Armenians’’.
3

•HRES 596 IH

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

2 Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as

3 charged, for organizing and executing massacres

4 against the Armenian people.

5 (6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Geno6 cide, Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior

7 Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all

8 condemned to death for their crimes, however, the

9 verdicts of the courts were not enforced.

10 (7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic

11 judicial failures are documented with overwhelming

12 evidence in the national archives of Austria, France,

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

14 the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast

15 body of evidence attests to the same facts, the same

16 events, and the same consequences.

17 (8) The United States National Archives and

18 Record Administration holds extensive and thorough

19 documentation on the Armenian Genocide, especially

20 in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the United

21 States Department of State, files 867.00 and

22 867.40, which are open and widely available to the

23 public and interested institutions.

24 (9) The national archives of Turkey should also

25 include all of the records pertaining to the indict-
4

•HRES 596 IH

1 ment, trial, and conviction of the Ottoman authori2 ties responsible for the Armenian Genocide.

3 (10) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United

4 States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from

5 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials

6 of many countries, among them the allies of the

7 Ottoman Empire, against the Armenian Genocide.

8 (11) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly de9 scribed to the United States Department of State

10 the policy of the Young Turk government as ‘‘a cam11 paign of race extermination’’, and was instructed on

12 July 16, 1915, by United States Secretary of State

13 Robert Lansing that the ‘‘Department approves your

14 procedure . . . to stop Armenian persecution’’.

15 (12) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of Feb16 ruary 9, 1916, resolved that ‘‘the President of the

17 United States be respectfully asked to designate a

18 day on which the citizens of this country may give

19 expression to their sympathy by contributing funds

20 now being raised for the relief of the Armenians’’,

21 who at the time were enduring ‘‘starvation, disease,

22 and untold suffering’’.

23 (13) President Wilson concurred and also en24 couraged the formation of the organization known as

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

•HRES 596 IH

1 which contributed some $116,000,000 from 1915 to

2 1930 to aid the Armenian Genocide survivors, in3 cluding 132,000 orphans who became foster children

4 of the American people.

5 (14) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11,

6 1920, stated in part, ‘‘the testimony adduced at the

7 hearings conducted by the sub-committee of the Sen8 ate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly es9 tablished the truth of the reported massacres and

10 other atrocities from which the Armenian people

11 have suffered’’.

12 (15) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920,

13 report to the Senate of the American Military Mis14 sion to Armenia led by General James Harbord, that

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

16 have left their haunting memories in a hundred

17 beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that

18 region is seldom free from the evidence of this most

19 colossal crime of all the ages’’.

20 (16) Setting the stage for the Holocaust, Adolf

21 Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to at22 tack Poland without provocation in 1939, dismissed

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

24 of the annihilation of the Armenians?’’.
6

•HRES 596 IH

1 (17) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term

2 ‘‘genocide’’ in 1944, and who was the earliest pro3 ponent of the Genocide Convention, invoked the Ar4 menian case as a definitive example of genocide in

5 the 20th century.

6 (18) Raphael Lemkin described the crime as

7 ‘‘the systematic destruction of whole national, racial

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

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

10 (19) The first resolution on genocide adopted

11 by the United Nations at Lemkin’s urging, the De12 cember 11, 1946, United Nations General Assembly

13 Resolution 96(1) and the United Nations Genocide

14 Convention itself recognized the Armenian Genocide

15 as the type of crime the United Nations intended to

16 prevent by codifying existing standards.

17 (20) In 1948 the United Nations War Crimes

18 Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide ‘‘pre19 cisely . . . one of the types of acts which the mod20 ern term ‘crimes against humanity’ is intended to

21 cover’’ as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals.

22 (21) The Commission stated that ‘‘[t]he provisions of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Se ́ 23 vres

24 were obviously intended to cover, in conformity with

25 the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had
7

•HRES 596 IH

1 been committed on Turkish territory against persons

2 of Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek

3 race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent

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

5 Charters, and offers an example of one of the cat6 egories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as understood

7 by these enactments’’.

8 (22) The United Nations Commission on

9 Human Rights adopted in 1985 a report entitled

10 ‘‘Study of the Question of the Prevention and Pun11 ishment of the Crime of Genocide’’, which stated

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

13 the only case of genocide in the twentieth century.

14 Among other examples which can be cited as quali15 fying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians

16 in 1915–1916’’.

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

18 1 million, and possibly well over half of the Arme19 nian population, are reliably estimated to have been

20 killed or death marched by independent authorities

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

22 United States, German and British archives and of

23 contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, in24 cluding those of its ally Germany’’.
8

•HRES 596 IH

1 (24) The tragedy of the Armenian Genocide has

2 been acknowledged by countries and international

3 bodies such as Argentina, Belgium, Canada, the

4 Council of Europe, Cyprus, the European Par5 liament, France, Great Britain, Greece, Lebanon,

6 Russia, the United Nations, the United States, and

7 Uruguay.

8 (25) The United States Holocaust Memorial

9 Council, an independent Federal agency, unani10 mously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United

11 States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include

12 the Armenian Genocide in the Museum and has

13 since done so.

14 (26) President Reagan in proclamation number

15 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part ‘‘like the

16 genocide of the Armenians before it, and the geno17 cide of the Cambodians, which followed it—and like

18 too many other persecutions of too many other peo19 ple—the lessons of the holocaust must never be for20 gotten’’.

21 (27) President Bush, in 1988, speaking of the

22 Armenian Genocide, stated ‘‘we must consciously

23 and conscientiously recognize the genocides of the

24 past—the enormous tragedies that have darkened

25 this century and that haunt us still. We must not
9

•HRES 596 IH

1 only commemorate the courage of the victims and of

2 their survivors, but we must also remind ourselves

3 that civilization cannot be taken for granted....

4 We must all be vigilant against this most heinous

5 crime against humanity’’.

6 (28) President Bush, in 1988, stated further

7 ‘‘[t]he United States must acknowledge the at8 tempted genocide of the Armenian people in the last

9 years of the Ottoman Empire, based on the testi10 mony of survivors, scholars, and indeed our own rep11 resentatives at the time, if we are to insure that

12 such horrors are not repeated’’.

13 (29) President Clinton, on August 13, 1992,

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

15 dictatorship, and the devastating earthquake of

16 1988 have caused great suffering in Armenia during

17 this century’’.

18 (30) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression

19 (later retracted) by the United States Department of

20 State asserting that the facts of the Armenian Geno21 cide may be ambiguous, the United States Court of

22 Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after

23 a review of documents pertaining to the policy

24 record of the United States, noted that the assertion

25 on ambiguity in the United States record about the
10

•HRES 596 IH

1 Armenian Genocide ‘‘contradicted longstanding

2 United States policy and was eventually retracted’’.

3 (31) Despite the international recognition and

4 affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of

5 the domestic and international authorities to punish

6 those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a

7 reason why similar genocides have recurred and may

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

9 firm response, holding the guilty accountable and re10 quiring the prompt enforcement of verdicts would

11 have spared humanity needless suffering.

12 (32) In a commendable letter on April 9, 1999,

13 Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, then Under Secretary

14 of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural

15 Affairs, pledged that the administration would raise

16 with the Republic of Turkey the issue of the recov17 ery of Armenian assets from the genocide period

18 held by the Imperial Ottoman Bank.

19 (33) It is important that the President ensure

20 that the foreign policy of the United States reflects

21 appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning

22 issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and

23 genocide documented in the United States record re24 lating to the Armenian Genocide and the con-
11

•HRES 596 IH

1 sequences of the failure to enforce the judgments of

2 the Turkish courts against the responsible officials.

3 SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY.

4 The House of Representatives—

5 (1) calls upon the President to ensure that the

6 foreign policy of the United States reflects appro7 priate understanding and sensitivity concerning

8 issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and

9 genocide documented in the United States record re10 lating to the Armenian Genocide and the con11 sequences of the failure to enforce the judgments of

12 the Turkish courts against the responsible officials;

13 and

14 (2) calls upon the President in the President’s

15 annual message commemorating the Armenian

16 Genocide issued on or about April 24 to characterize

17 the systematic and deliberate annihilation of

18 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to recall the

19 proud history of United States intervention in oppo20 sition to the Armenian Genocide.

Æ