April 9, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 61 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Page S2333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SENATE RESOLUTION 150--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT IT IS 
 THE POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES TO COMMEMORATE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 
              THROUGH OFFICIAL RECOGNITION AND REMEMBRANCE

  Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Van Hollen, Ms. Stabenow, 
Mr. Markey, Ms. Warren, Mr. Peters, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Wyden, Ms. 
Duckworth, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Reed, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Udall, 
and Ms. Harris) submitted the following resolution; which was referred 
to the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 150

       Whereas the United States has a proud history of 
     recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, the killing 
     of an estimated 1,500,000 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, Sr., 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 ``a campaign of race extermination,'' and, on 
     July 16, 1915, was instructed 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 Near East Relief, chartered by an Act of Congress, which 
     raised approximately $116,000,000 (more than $2,500,000,000 
     in 2019 dollars) between 1915 and 1930, and the Senate 
     adopted resolutions condemning the 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 the Crime 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, ``Who, 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--
       (1) through the May 28, 1951, written statement of the 
     United States Government to the International Court of 
     Justice regarding the Convention on the Prevention and 
     Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and Proclamation No. 4838 
     issued by President Ronald Reagan on April 22, 1981; and
       (2) by House Joint Resolution 148, 94th Congress, agreed to 
     April 8, 1975, and House Joint Resolution 247, 98th Congress, 
     agreed to September 10, 1984; and
       Whereas the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention 
     Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-441) establishes that the 
     prevention of atrocities is a national interest of the United 
     States 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 Senate that it is the 
     policy of the United States--
       (1) to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official 
     recognition and remembrance;
       (2) to reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise 
     associate the United States Government with denial of the 
     Armenian Genocide or any other genocide; and
       (3) to encourage education and public understanding of the 
     facts of the Armenian Genocide, including the role of the 
     United States in humanitarian relief efforts, and the 
     relevance of the Armenian Genocide to modern-day crimes 
     against humanity.

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