III 

111TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 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 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

OCTOBER 21, 2009 

Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself and Mr. ENSIGN) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 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 SHORT TITLE

3 SEC. 1. This resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Affirma4 tion of the United States Record on the Armenian Geno5 cide Resolution’’. 


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1 FINDINGS

2 SEC. 2. The Senate finds the following: 

3 (1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and car4 ried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, re5 sulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, 

6 of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, 

7 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and the 

8 elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians 

9 in their historic homeland. 

10 (2) On May 24, 1915, the Allied Powers of England, 

11 France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly 

12 charging for the first time ever another government of 

13 committing ‘‘a crime against humanity’’. 

14 (3) This joint statement stated that ‘‘the Allied Gov15 ernments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that 

16 they will hold personally responsible for these crimes all 

17 members of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of 

18 their agents who are implicated in such massacres’’. 

19 (4) The post-World War I Turkish Government in20 dicted the top leaders involved in the ‘‘organization and 

21 execution’’ of the Armenian Genocide and in the ‘‘mas22 sacre and destruction of the Armenians’’. 

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

24 Young Turk Regime were tried and convicted, as charged, 


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1 for organizing and executing massacres against the Arme2 nian people. 

3 (6) The chief organizers of the Armenian Genocide, 

4 Minister of War Enver, Minister of the Interior Talaat, 

5 and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all condemned to 

6 death for their crimes, but, the verdicts of the courts were 

7 not enforced. 

8 (7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judi9 cial failures are documented with overwhelming evidence 

10 in the national archives of Austria, France, Germany, 

11 Great Britain, Russia, the United States, the Vatican and 

12 many other countries, and this vast body of evidence at13 tests to the same facts, the same events, and the same 

14 consequences. 

15 (8) The United States National Archives and Record 

16 Administration holds extensive and thorough documenta17 tion on the Armenian Genocide, especially in its holdings 

18 under Record Group 59 of the United States Department 

19 of State, files 867.00 and 867.40, which are open and 

20 widely available to the public and interested institutions. 

21 (9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States 

22 Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, 

23 organized and led protests by officials of many countries, 

24 among them the allies of the Ottoman Empire, against 

25 the Armenian Genocide. 


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1 (10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to 

2 the Department of State the policy of the Government of 

3 the Ottoman Empire as ‘‘a campaign of race extermi4 nation,’’ and was instructed on July 16, 1915, by Sec5 retary of State Robert Lansing that the ‘‘Department ap6 proves your procedure . . . to stop Armenian persecu7 tion’’. 

8 (11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12, 64th Con9 gress, agreed to February 9, 1916, resolved that ‘‘the 

10 President of the United States be respectfully asked to 

11 designate a day on which the citizens of this country may 

12 give expression to their sympathy by contributing funds 

13 now being raised for the relief of the Armenians,’’ who 

14 at the time were enduring ‘‘starvation, disease, and untold 

15 suffering’’. 

16 (12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and also 

17 encouraged the formation of the organization known as 

18 Near East Relief, chartered by the Act of August 6, 1919, 

19 66th Congress (41 Stat. 273, chapter 32), which contrib20 uted some $116,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid Arme21 nian Genocide survivors, including 132,000 orphans who 

22 became foster children of the American people. 

23 (13) Senate Resolution 359, 66th Congress, agreed 

24 to May 11, 1920, stated in part that ‘‘the testimony ad25 duced at the hearings conducted by the sub-committee of 


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1 the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations have clearly 

2 established the truth of the reported massacres and other 

3 atrocities from which the Armenian people have suffered’’. 

4 (14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, re5 port to the Senate of the American Military Mission to 

6 Armenia led by General James Harbord, that stated 

7 ‘‘[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death have left their 

8 haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian val9 leys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from 

10 the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages’’. 

11 (15) As displayed in the United States Holocaust Me12 morial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military 

13 commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 

14 1939, dismissed objections by saying ‘‘[w]ho, after all, 

15 speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’’ and 

16 thus set the stage for the Holocaust. 

17 (16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ‘‘geno18 cide’’ in 1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the 

19 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punish20 ment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a defini21 tive example of genocide in the 20th century. 

22 (17) The first resolution on genocide adopted by the 

23 United Nations at Mr. Lemkin’s urging, the December 11, 

24 1946, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96(1), 

25 and the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and 


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1 Punishment of Genocide recognized the Armenian Geno2 cide as the type of crime the United Nations intended to 

3 prevent and punish by codifying existing standards. 

4 (18) In 1948, the United Nations War Crimes Com5 mission invoked the Armenian Genocide, ‘‘precisely . . . 

6 one of the types of acts which the modern term ‘crimes 

7 against humanity’ is intended to cover,’’ as a precedent 

8 for the Nuremberg tribunals. 

9 (19) The Commission stated that ‘‘[t]he provisions 

10 of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obvi11 ously intended to cover, in conformity with the Allied note 

12 of 1915 . . . , offenses which had been committed on 

13 Turkish territory against persons of Turkish citizenship, 

14 though of Armenian or Greek race. This article constitutes 

15 therefore a precedent for Article 6c and 5c of the Nurem16 berg and Tokyo Charters, and offers an example of one 

17 of the categories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as under18 stood by these enactments’’. 

19 (20) House Joint Resolution 148, 94th Congress, 

20 adopted on April 8, 1975, resolved, ‘‘That April 24, 1975, 

21 is hereby designated as ‘National Day of Remembrance 

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

23 United States is authorized and requested to issue a proc24 lamation calling upon the people of the United States to 

25 observe such day as a day of remembrance for all the vicVerDate Nov 24 2008 19:49 Oct 22, 2009 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR316.IS SR316

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1 tims of genocide, especially those of Armenian ancestry 

2 . . .’’. 

3 (21) President Ronald Reagan, in proclamation num4 ber 4838, dated April 22, 1981 (95 Stat. 1813), stated 

5 that, in part ‘‘[l]ike the genocide of the Armenians before 

6 it, and the genocide of the Cambodians, which followed 

7 it—and like too many other persecutions of too many 

8 other people—the lessons of the Holocaust must never be 

9 forgotten’’. 

10 (22) House Joint Resolution 247, 98th Congress, 

11 adopted on September 10, 1984, resolved, ‘‘That April 24, 

12 1985, is hereby designated as ‘National Day of Remem13 brance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man’, and the President 

14 of the United States is authorized and requested to issue 

15 a proclamation calling upon the people of the United 

16 States to observe such day as a day of remembrance for 

17 all the victims of genocide, especially the one and one-half 

18 million people of Armenian ancestry . . .’’. 

19 (23) In August 1985, after extensive study and delib20 eration, the United Nations Sub-Commission on Preven21 tion of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities voted 

22 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled ‘‘Study of the Question 

23 of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Geno24 cide,’’ which stated that ‘‘[t]he Nazi aberration has unfor25 tunately not been the only case of genocide in the 20th 


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1 century. Among other examples which can be cited as 

2 qualifying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians 

3 in 1915–1916’’. 

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

5 1,000,000, and possibly well over half of the Armenian 

6 population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or 

7 death marched by independent authorities and eye-wit8 nesses. This is corroborated by reports in United States, 

9 German and British archives and of contemporary dip10 lomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally 

11 Germany’’. 

12 (25) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 

13 an independent Federal agency, unanimously resolved on 

14 April 30, 1981, that the United States Holocaust Memo15 rial Museum would include the Armenian Genocide in the 

16 Museum and has since done so. 

17 (26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later 

18 retracted) by the Department of State asserting that the 

19 facts of the Armenian Genocide may be ambiguous, the 

20 United States Court of Appeals for the District of Colum21 bia in 1993, after a review of documents pertaining to the 

22 policy record of the United States, noted that the assertion 

23 on ambiguity in the United States record about the Arme24 nian Genocide ‘‘contradicted longstanding United States 

25 policy and was eventually retracted’’. 


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1 (27) On June 5, 1996, the House of Representatives 

2 adopted an amendment to House Bill 3540, 104th Con3 gress (the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Re4 lated Programs Appropriations Act, 1997), to reduce aid 

5 to Turkey by $3,000,000 (an estimate of its payment of 

6 lobbying fees in the United States) until the Government 

7 of Turkey acknowledged the Armenian Genocide and took 

8 steps to honor the memory of its victims. 

9 (28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on April 

10 24, 1998, stated: ‘‘This year, as in the past, we join with 

11 Armenian-Americans throughout the nation in commemo12 rating one of the saddest chapters in the history of this 

13 century, the deportations and massacres of a million and 

14 a half Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years 

15 1915–1923.’’. 

16 (29) President George W. Bush, on April 24, 2004, 

17 stated: ‘‘On this day, we pause in remembrance of one 

18 of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the an19 nihilation of as many as 1,500,000 Armenians through 

20 forced exile and murder at the end of the Ottoman Em21 pire.’’. 

22 (30) Despite the international recognition and affir23 mation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the do24 mestic and international authorities to punish those re25 sponsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why simiVerDate Nov 24 2008 19:49 Oct 22, 2009 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\SR316.IS SR316

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1 lar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, 

2 and that just resolution of this issue will help prevent fu3 ture genocides. 

4 DECLARATION OF POLICY

5 SEC. 3. The Senate— 

6 (1) calls upon the President to ensure that the for7 eign policy of the United States reflects appropriate un8 derstanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to 

9 human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented 

10 in the United States record relating to the Armenian 

11 Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a 

12 just resolution; and 

13 (2) calls upon the President in the President’s annual 

14 message commemorating the Armenian Genocide issued 

15 on or about April 24, to accurately characterize the sys16 tematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Arme17 nians as genocide and to recall the proud history of United 

18 States intervention in opposition to the Armenian Geno19 cide. 

Æ 


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