Title: Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
This resolution states that it is U.S. policy to (1) commemorate the Armenian Genocide, the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923; (2) reject efforts to associate the U.S. government with efforts to deny the existence of the Armenian Genocide or any genocide; and (3) encourage education and public understanding about the Armenian Genocide.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 296 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 296

      Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             April 8, 2019

 Mr. Schiff (for himself, Mr. Bilirakis, Mr. Pallone, Mr. King of New 
    York, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Carbajal, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Costa, Mr. 
     Lowenthal, Mr. Raskin, Miss Rice of New York, Ms. Judy Chu of 
    California, Mr. Beyer, Mr. DeFazio, Ms. Pingree, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. 
Cicilline, Mr. Correa, Mr. Nunes, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, 
 Ms. Gabbard, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Espaillat, Ms. Lee of California, Mrs. 
 Napolitano, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Gallego, Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney of 
 New York, Ms. DeGette, Ms. Meng, Mr. King of Iowa, Mr. Courtney, Mr. 
  Krishnamoorthi, Mr. Tonko, Mr. Takano, Mr. Langevin, Ms. Titus, Mr. 
 Pappas, Mr. Ted Lieu of California, Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Spano, Mr. Neal, 
Mr. Morelle, Mr. Cardenas, Mrs. Trahan, Mrs. Lawrence, Mr. Khanna, Mr. 
 Perlmutter, Mr. Cisneros, Mr. Lipinski, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Mr. 
    Schneider, Mr. Crenshaw, Mrs. Lesko, Mr. Gottheimer, Mr. Cox of 
California, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Mr. Deutch, Mr. Garamendi, Mr. 
 Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mr. Sires, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. Levin of Michigan, 
    Mr. Gomez, Mr. Harder of California, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Mr. 
   Sherman, Mr. Moulton, Ms. Speier, Mr. Sarbanes, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. 
Nadler, Mr. Suozzi, Mr. Vargas, Ms. Lofgren, Ms. Roybal-Allard, and Ms. 
Shalala) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
      Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.

Whereas the United States has a proud history of recognizing and condemning the 
        Armenian Genocide, the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman 
        Empire from 1915 to 1923, and providing relief to the survivors of the 
        campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, 
        Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians;
Whereas the Honorable Henry Morgenthau, United States Ambassador to the Ottoman 
        Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and led protests by officials of 
        many countries against what he described as the empire's ``campaign of 
        race extermination'', and was instructed on July 16, 1915, by United 
        States Secretary of State Robert Lansing that the ``Department approves 
        your procedure . . . to stop Armenian persecution'';
Whereas President Woodrow Wilson encouraged the formation of the Near East 
        Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which raised $116,000,000 (over 
        $2,500,000,000 in 2019 dollars) between 1915 and 1930, and the Senate 
        adopted resolutions condemning these massacres;
Whereas Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term ``genocide'' in 1944, and who was 
        the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the 
        Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a 
        definitive example of genocide in the 20th century;
Whereas, as displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Adolf 
        Hitler, on ordering his military commanders to attack Poland without 
        provocation in 1939, dismissed objections by saying ``[w]ho, after all, 
        speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?'', setting the stage 
        for the Holocaust;
Whereas the United States has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide, 
        through the United States Government's May 28, 1951, written statement 
        to the International Court of Justice regarding the Convention on the 
        Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, through President 
        Ronald Reagan's Proclamation No. 4838 on April 22, 1981, and by House 
        Joint Resolution 148, adopted on April 8, 1975, and House Joint 
        Resolution 247, adopted on September 10, 1984; and
Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018 (Public 
        Law 115-441) establishes that atrocities prevention represents a United 
        States national interest, and affirms that it is the policy of the 
        United States to pursue a United States Government-wide strategy to 
        identify, prevent, and respond to the risk of atrocities by 
        ``strengthening diplomatic response and the effective use of foreign 
        assistance to support appropriate transitional justice measures, 
        including criminal accountability, for past atrocities'': Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that 
it is the policy of the United States to--
            (1) commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official 
        recognition and remembrance;
            (2) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
        associate the United States Government with denial of the 
        Armenian Genocide or any other genocide; and
            (3) encourage education and public understanding of the 
        facts of the Armenian Genocide, including the United States 
        role in the humanitarian relief effort, and the relevance of 
        the Armenian Genocide to modern-day crimes against humanity.
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