IV 

109TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 316

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 

JUNE 14, 2005

Mr. RADANOVICH (for himself, Mr. KNOLLENBERG, Mr. SCHIFF, Mr. 

PALLONE, Mr. DREIER, Mr. WEINER, Mr. SAXTON, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. 

SOUDER, Ms. WATSON, Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. MCNULTY, 

Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, Mr. SCHWARZ of Michigan, Mr. CARDOZA, Mr. 

COSTELLO, Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. ISRAEL, Mrs. 

NAPOLITANO, Mrs. MALONEY, Mr. KIRK, Mr. FILNER, Mr. SHERMAN, 

Ms. ESHOO, Mr. ROGERS of Michigan, Mr. MCKEON, Mr. MCGOVERN, 

Mr. MEEHAN, Mr. VISCLOSKY, Mr. BRADLEY of New Hampshire, Mr. 

BASS, Mr. BERMAN, Mr. NUNES, Mr. ANDREWS, Mr. SHAW, Mr. 

GRIJALVA, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. HINCHEY, Mr. SWEENEY, 

Mr. COSTA, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. MENENDEZ, Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD, 

Mr. ISSA, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. LANGEVIN, Mr. BILIRAKIS, 

Mr. FOLEY, Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island, Mr. ROTHMAN, Mr. SMITH

of New Jersey, and Mr. ROYCE) 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 
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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’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 The House of Representatives finds the following: 

8 (1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and 

9 carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 

10 1923, resulting in the deportation of nearly 

11 2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, 

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

13 were expelled from their homes, and which succeeded 

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

15 Armenians in their historic homeland. 

16 (2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers, Eng17 land, France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement 

18 explicitly charging for the first time ever another 

19 government of committing ‘‘a crime against human20 ity’’. 

21 (3) This joint statement stated ‘‘the Allied Gov22 ernments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte 

23 that they will hold personally responsible for these 

24 crimes all members of the Ottoman Government, as 
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1 well as those of their agents who are implicated in 

2 such massacres’’. 

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

4 indicted the top leaders involved in the ‘‘organization 

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

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

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

8 Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as 

9 charged, for organizing and executing massacres 

10 against the Armenian people. 

11 (6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Geno12 cide, Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior 

13 Talaat, and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all 

14 condemned to death for their crimes, however, the 

15 verdicts of the courts were not enforced. 

16 (7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic 

17 judicial failures are documented with overwhelming 

18 evidence in the national archives of Austria, France, 

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

20 the Vatican and many other countries, and this vast 

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

22 events, and the same consequences. 

23 (8) The United States National Archives and 

24 Record Administration holds extensive and thorough 

25 documentation on the Armenian Genocide, especially 
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1 in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the United 

2 States Department of State, files 867.00 and 

3 867.40, which are open and widely available to the 

4 public and interested institutions. 

5 (9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United 

6 States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 

7 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials 

8 of many countries, among them the allies of the 

9 Ottoman Empire, against the Armenian Genocide. 

10 (10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly de11 scribed to the United States Department of State 

12 the policy of the Government of the Ottoman Em13 pire as ‘‘a campaign of race extermination,’’ and was 

14 instructed on July 16, 1915, by United States Sec15 retary of State Robert Lansing that the ‘‘Depart16 ment approves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian 

17 persecution’’. 

18 (11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of Feb19 ruary 9, 1916, resolved that ‘‘the President of the 

20 United States be respectfully asked to designate a 

21 day on which the citizens of this country may give 

22 expression to their sympathy by contributing funds 

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

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

25 and untold suffering’’. 
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1 (12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and 

2 also encouraged the formation of the organization 

3 known as Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of 

4 Congress, which contributed some $116,000,000 

5 from 1915 to 1930 to aid Armenian Genocide sur6 vivors, including 132,000 orphans who became foster 

7 children of the American people. 

8 (13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11, 

9 1920, stated in part, ‘‘the testimony adduced at the 

10 hearings conducted by the sub-committee of the Sen11 ate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly es12 tablished the truth of the reported massacres and 

13 other atrocities from which the Armenian people 

14 have suffered’’. 

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

16 report to the Senate of the American Military Mis17 sion to Armenia led by General James Harbord, that 

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

19 have left their haunting memories in a hundred 

20 beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that 

21 region is seldom free from the evidence of this most 

22 colossal crime of all the ages’’. 

23 (15) As displayed in the United States Holo24 caust Memorial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering 

25 his military commanders to attack Poland without 
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1 provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying 

2 ‘‘[w]ho, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of 

3 the Armenians?’’ and thus set the stage for the Hol4 ocaust. 

5 (16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term 

6 ‘‘genocide’’ in 1944, and who was the earliest pro7 ponent of the United Nations Convention on the 

8 Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, invoked the 

9 Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide in 

10 the 20th century. 

11 (17) The first resolution on genocide adopted 

12 by the United Nations at Lemkin’s urging, the De13 cember 11, 1946, United Nations General Assembly 

14 Resolution 96(1) and the United Nations Convention 

15 on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide itself 

16 recognized the Armenian Genocide as the type of 

17 crime the United Nations intended to prevent and 

18 punish by codifying existing standards. 

19 (18) In 1948, the United Nations War Crimes 

20 Commission invoked the Armenian Genocide ‘‘pre21 cisely . . . one of the types of acts which the modern 

22 term ‘crimes against humanity’ is intended to cover’’ 

23 as a precedent for the Nuremberg tribunals. 

24 (19) The Commission stated that ‘‘[t]he provi25 sions of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres 
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1 were obviously intended to cover, in conformity with 

2 the Allied note of 1915 . . ., offenses which had been 

3 committed on Turkish territory against persons of 

4 Turkish citizenship, though of Armenian or Greek 

5 race. This article constitutes therefore a precedent 

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

7 Charters, and offers an example of one of the cat8 egories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as understood 

9 by these enactments’’. 

10 (20) House Joint Resolution 148, adopted on 

11 April 8, 1975, resolved: ‘‘[t]hat April 24, 1975, is 

12 hereby designated as ‘National Day of Remembrance 

13 of Man’s Inhumanity to Man’, and the President of 

14 the United States is authorized and requested to 

15 issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the 

16 United States to observe such day as a day of re17 membrance for all the victims of genocide, especially 

18 those of Armenian ancestry . . .’’. 

19 (21) President Ronald Reagan in proclamation 

20 number 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part 

21 ‘‘like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and 

22 the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed it—

23 and like too many other persecutions of too many 

24 other people—the lessons of the Holocaust must 

25 never be forgotten’’. 
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1 (22) House Joint Resolution 247, adopted on 

2 September 10, 1984, resolved: ‘‘[t]hat April 24, 

3 1985, is hereby designated as ‘National Day of Re4 membrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man’, and the 

5 President of the United States is authorized and re6 quested to issue a proclamation calling upon the 

7 people of the United States to observe such day as 

8 a day of remembrance for all the victims of geno9 cide, especially the one and one-half million people of 

10 Armenian ancestry . . . ’’. 

11 (23) In August 1985, after extensive study and 

12 deliberation, the United Nations SubCommission on 

13 Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Mi14 norities voted 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled 

15 ‘‘Study of the Question of the Prevention and Pun16 ishment of the Crime of Genocide,’’ which stated 

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

18 the only case of genocide in the 20th century. 

19 Among other examples which can be cited as quali20 fying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians 

21 in 1915–1916’’. 

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

23 1,000,000, and possibly well over half of the Arme24 nian population, are reliably estimated to have been 

25 killed or death marched by independent authorities 
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1 and eye-witnesses. This is corroborated by reports in 

2 United States, German and British archives and of 

3 contemporary diplomats in the Ottoman Empire, in4 cluding those of its ally Germany.’’. 

5 (25) The United States Holocaust Memorial 

6 Council, an independent Federal agency, unani7 mously resolved on April 30, 1981, that the United 

8 States Holocaust Memorial Museum would include 

9 the Armenian Genocide in the Museum and has 

10 since done so. 

11 (26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression 

12 (later retracted) by the United States Department of 

13 State asserting that the facts of the Armenian Geno14 cide may be ambiguous, the United States Court of 

15 Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1993, after 

16 a review of documents pertaining to the policy 

17 record of the United States, noted that the assertion 

18 on ambiguity in the United States record about the 

19 Armenian Genocide ‘‘contradicted longstanding 

20 United States policy and was eventually retracted’’. 

21 (27) On June 5, 1996, the House of Represent22 atives adopted an amendment to House Bill 3540 

23 (the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Re24 lated Programs Appropriations Act, 1997) to reduce 

25 aid to Turkey by $3,000,000 (an estimate of its pay-
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1 ment of lobbying fees in the United States) until the 

2 Turkish Government acknowledged the Armenian 

3 Genocide and took steps to honor the memory of its 

4 victims. 

5 (28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on 

6 April 24, 1998, stated: ‘‘This year, as in the past, 

7 we join with Armenian-Americans throughout the 

8 nation in commemorating one of the saddest chap9 ters in the history of this century, the deportations 

10 and massacres of a million and a half Armenians in 

11 the Ottoman Empire in the years 1915–1923.’’. 

12 (29) President George W. Bush, on April 24, 

13 2004, stated: ‘‘On this day, we pause in remem14 brance of one of the most horrible tragedies of the 

15 20th century, the annihilation of as many as 

16 1,500,000 Armenians through forced exile and mur17 der at the end of the Ottoman Empire.’’. 

18 (30) Despite the international recognition and 

19 affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of 

20 the domestic and international authorities to punish 

21 those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a 

22 reason why similar genocides have recurred and may 

23 recur in the future, and that a just resolution will 

24 help prevent future genocides. 
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1 SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY. 

2 The House of Representatives—

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

4 foreign policy of the United States reflects appro5 priate understanding and sensitivity concerning 

6 issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and 

7 genocide documented in the United States record re8 lating to the Armenian Genocide and the con9 sequences of the failure to realize a just resolution; 

10 and 

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

12 annual message commemorating the Armenian 

13 Genocide issued on or about April 24, to accurately 

14 characterize the systematic and deliberate annihila15 tion of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide and to re16 call the proud history of United States intervention 

17 in opposition to the Armenian Genocide.

Æ