IV 

111TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. RES. 252 

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 

MARCH 17, 2009 

Mr. SCHIFF (for himself, Mr. RADANOVICH, Mr. PALLONE, Mr. KIRK, Mr. 

BERMAN, Mr. CANTOR, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. ACKERMAN, Mr. ROYCE, 

Mr. WAXMAN, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, Ms. WATSON, Mr. BILIRAKIS, 

Mr. CROWLEY, Mr. SENSENBRENNER, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. SHERMAN, Mr. 

WU, Mr. SIRES, Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California, Mr. BARRETT

of South Carolina, Ms. ESHOO, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. WEINER, Mr. HONDA, 

Mrs. MALONEY, Mr. LANGEVIN, Mr. WALZ, Mr. PETERS, Ms. SUTTON, 

Mr. COSTA, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts, Mr. SOUDER, 

Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey, Mr. WOLF, Mr. MARKEY of Massachusetts, 

Mr. NEAL of Massachusetts, Mr. CARDOZA, Mr. LIPINSKI, Mr. ABERCROMBIE, Mrs. CAPPS, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. HIMES, Mr. 

BACA, Ms. HIRONO, Mr. ROTHMAN of New Jersey, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. 

MCCOLLUM, Mr. FATTAH, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. SPACE, Ms. 

DELAURO, Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin, Mr. CALVERT, Mr. POLIS of Colorado, Mr. LANCE, Ms. LORETTA SANCHEZ of California, Mr. OLVER, Mr. 

GRIJALVA, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. GONZALEZ, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. 

SARBANES, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Ms. TITUS, Mr. STARK, Mr. JACKSON of 

Illinois, Mr. KENNEDY, Ms. TSONGAS, Mrs. TAUSCHER, Ms. WOOLSEY, 

Mr. DREIER, Mr. NUNES, Mr. TONKO, and Mr. TIERNEY) submitted the 

following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

RESOLUTION 

Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
2 

•HRES 252 IH 

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. 

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

5 the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Reso6 lution’’. 

7 FINDINGS

8 SEC. 2. 

9 The House of Representatives finds the following: 

10 (1) The Armenian Genocide was conceived and car11 ried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, re12 sulting in the deportation of nearly 2,000,000 Armenians, 

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

14 500,000 survivors were expelled from their homes, and 

15 which succeeded in the elimination of the over 2,500-year 

16 presence of Armenians in their historic homeland. 

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

18 France, and Russia, jointly issued a statement explicitly 

19 charging for the first time ever another government of 

20 committing ‘‘a crime against humanity’’. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
3 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 (3) This joint statement stated ‘‘the Allied Govern2 ments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they 

3 will hold personally responsible for these crimes all mem4 bers of the Ottoman Government, as well as those of their 

5 agents who are implicated in such massacres’’. 

6 (4) The post-World War I Turkish Government in7 dicted the top leaders involved in the ‘‘organization and 

8 execution’’ of the Armenian Genocide and in the ‘‘mas9 sacre and destruction of the Armenians’’. 

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

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

12 for organizing and executing massacres against the Arme13 nian people. 

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

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

16 and Minister of the Navy Jemal were all condemned to 

17 death for their crimes, however, the verdicts of the courts 

18 were not enforced. 

19 (7) The Armenian Genocide and these domestic judi20 cial failures are documented with overwhelming evidence 

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

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

23 many other countries, and this vast body of evidence at24 tests to the same facts, the same events, and the same 

25 consequences. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
4 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 (8) The United States National Archives and Record 

2 Administration holds extensive and thorough documenta3 tion on the Armenian Genocide, especially in its holdings 

4 under Record Group 59 of the United States Department 

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

6 widely available to the public and interested institutions. 

7 (9) The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States 

8 Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, 

9 organized and led protests by officials of many countries, 

10 among them the allies of the Ottoman Empire, against 

11 the Armenian Genocide. 

12 (10) Ambassador Morgenthau explicitly described to 

13 the United States Department of State the policy of the 

14 Government of the Ottoman Empire as ‘‘a campaign of 

15 race extermination,’’ and was instructed on July 16, 1915, 

16 by United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that 

17 the ‘‘Department approves your procedure . . . to stop 

18 Armenian persecution’’. 

19 (11) Senate Concurrent Resolution 12 of February 

20 9, 1916, resolved that ‘‘the President of the United States 

21 be respectfully asked to designate a day on which the citi22 zens of this country may give expression to their sympathy 

23 by contributing funds now being raised for the relief of 

24 the Armenians’’, who at the time were enduring ‘‘starva25 tion, disease, and untold suffering’’. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
5 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 (12) President Woodrow Wilson concurred and also 

2 encouraged the formation of the organization known as 

3 Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which 

4 contributed some $116,000,000 from 1915 to 1930 to aid 

5 Armenian Genocide survivors, including 132,000 orphans 

6 who became foster children of the American people. 

7 (13) Senate Resolution 359, dated May 11, 1920, 

8 stated in part, ‘‘the testimony adduced at the hearings 

9 conducted by the sub-committee of the Senate Committee 

10 on Foreign Relations have clearly established the truth of 

11 the reported massacres and other atrocities from which 

12 the Armenian people have suffered’’. 

13 (14) The resolution followed the April 13, 1920, re14 port to the Senate of the American Military Mission to 

15 Armenia led by General James Harbord, that stated 

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

17 haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian val18 leys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from 

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

20 (15) As displayed in the United States Holocaust Me21 morial Museum, Adolf Hitler, on ordering his military 

22 commanders to attack Poland without provocation in 

23 1939, dismissed objections by saying ‘‘[w]ho, after all, 

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

25 thus set the stage for the Holocaust. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
6 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 (16) Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ‘‘geno2 cide’’ in 1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the 

3 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punish4 ment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a defini5 tive example of genocide in the 20th century. 

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

7 United Nations at Lemkin’s urging, the December 11, 

8 1946, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96(1) 

9 and the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and 

10 Punishment of Genocide itself recognized the Armenian 

11 Genocide as the type of crime the United Nations intended 

12 to prevent and punish by codifying existing standards. 

13 (18) In 1948, the United Nations War Crimes Com14 mission invoked the Armenian Genocide ‘‘precisely . . . 

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

16 against humanity’ is intended to cover’’ as a precedent for 

17 the Nuremberg tribunals. 

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

19 of Article 230 of the Peace Treaty of Sevres were obvi20 ously intended to cover, in conformity with the Allied note 

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

22 Turkish territory against persons of Turkish citizenship, 

23 though of Armenian or Greek race. This article constitutes 

24 therefore a precedent for Article 6c and 5c of the Nurem25 berg and Tokyo Charters, and offers an example of one 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
7 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 of the categories of ‘crimes against humanity’ as under2 stood by these enactments’’. 

3 (20) House Joint Resolution 148, adopted on April 

4 8, 1975, resolved: ‘‘[t]hat April 24, 1975, is hereby des5 ignated as ‘National Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhu6 manity to Man’, and the President of the United States 

7 is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling 

8 upon the people of the United States to observe such day 

9 as a day of remembrance for all the victims of genocide, 

10 especially those of Armenian ancestry . . .’’. 

11 (21) President Ronald Reagan in proclamation num12 ber 4838, dated April 22, 1981, stated in part ‘‘like the 

13 genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of 

14 the Cambodians, which followed it—and like too many 

15 other persecutions of too many other people—the lessons 

16 of the Holocaust must never be forgotten’’. 

17 (22) House Joint Resolution 247, adopted on Sep18 tember 10, 1984, resolved: ‘‘[t]hat April 24, 1985, is here19 by designated as ‘National Day of Remembrance of Man’s 

20 Inhumanity to Man’, and the President of the United 

21 States is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation 

22 calling upon the people of the United States to observe 

23 such day as a day of remembrance for all the victims of 

24 genocide, especially the one and one-half million people of 

25 Armenian ancestry . . .’’. 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
8 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 (23) In August 1985, after extensive study and delib2 eration, the United Nations SubCommission on Preven3 tion of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities voted 

4 14 to 1 to accept a report entitled ‘‘Study of the Question 

5 of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Geno6 cide,’’ which stated ‘‘[t]he Nazi aberration has unfortu7 nately not been the only case of genocide in the 20th cen8 tury. Among other examples which can be cited as quali9 fying are . . . the Ottoman massacre of Armenians in 

10 1915–1916’’. 

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

12 1,000,000, and possibly well over half of the Armenian 

13 population, are reliably estimated to have been killed or 

14 death marched by independent authorities and eye-wit15 nesses. This is corroborated by reports in United States, 

16 German and British archives and of contemporary dip17 lomats in the Ottoman Empire, including those of its ally 

18 Germany.’’. 

19 (25) The United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 

20 an independent Federal agency, unanimously resolved on 

21 April 30, 1981, that the United States Holocaust Memo22 rial Museum would include the Armenian Genocide in the 

23 Museum and has since done so. 

24 (26) Reviewing an aberrant 1982 expression (later 

25 retracted) by the United States Department of State asVerDate Nov 24 2008 00:11 Mar 19, 2009 Jkt 079200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR252.IH HR252

wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
9 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 serting that the facts of the Armenian Genocide may be 

2 ambiguous, the United States Court of Appeals for the 

3 District of Columbia in 1993, after a review of documents 

4 pertaining to the policy record of the United States, noted 

5 that the assertion on ambiguity in the United States 

6 record about the Armenian Genocide ‘‘contradicted long7 standing United States policy and was eventually re8 tracted’’. 

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

10 adopted an amendment to House Bill 3540 (the Foreign 

11 Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Ap12 propriations Act, 1997) to reduce aid to Turkey by 

13 $3,000,000 (an estimate of its payment of lobbying fees 

14 in the United States) until the Turkish Government ac15 knowledged the Armenian Genocide and took steps to 

16 honor the memory of its victims. 

17 (28) President William Jefferson Clinton, on April 

18 24, 1998, stated: ‘‘This year, as in the past, we join with 

19 Armenian-Americans throughout the nation in commemo20 rating one of the saddest chapters in the history of this 

21 century, the deportations and massacres of a million and 

22 a half Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the years 

23 1915–1923.’’. 

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

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


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
10 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century, the an2 nihilation of as many as 1,500,000 Armenians through 

3 forced exile and murder at the end of the Ottoman Em4 pire.’’. 

5 (30) Despite the international recognition and affir6 mation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the do7 mestic and international authorities to punish those re8 sponsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why simi9 lar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, 

10 and that a just resolution will help prevent future geno11 cides. 

12 DECLARATION OF POLICY

13 SEC. 3. 

14 The House of Representatives— 

15 (1) calls upon the President to ensure that the for16 eign policy of the United States reflects appropriate un17 derstanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to 

18 human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented 

19 in the United States record relating to the Armenian 

20 Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a 

21 just resolution; and 

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

23 message commemorating the Armenian Genocide issued 

24 on or about April 24, to accurately characterize the sys25 tematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Arme26 nians as genocide and to recall the proud history of United 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS
11 

•HRES 252 IH 

1 States intervention in opposition to the Armenian Geno2 cide. 

Æ 


wwoods2 on PRODPC68 with BILLS