13-R222
2013 -- H 6034
Enacted 04/24/13
H O U S E R E S
O L U T I O N
DESIGNATING
APRIL 24TH, 2013, AS "RHODE
Introduced By: Representatives Kazarian, Corvese, Nunes, Mattiello, and Chippendale
Date Introduced: April 24, 2013
WHEREAS, Armenians
living in their historic homeland in
severe persecution and brutal injustice by the Turkish
rulers of the
after the turn of the twentieth century, including
widespread acts of destruction, mayhem, and
murder during the period from 1894 to 1896, and again in
1909; and
WHEREAS, The horrible experience of the Armenians at the hands of
their Turkish
oppressors culminated with what is known by historians as the
"First Genocide of the Twentieth
Century" or the "Forgotten Genocide";
and
WHEREAS, The Armenian
Genocide began with the murder of hundreds of Armenian
intellectuals and political, religious, and business leaders who
were arrested and taken from their
homes in
WHEREAS, The Young Turk
regime then in control of the empire planned and executed
the unspeakable atrocities committed against the
Armenians from 1915 through 1923, including
the torture, starvation, and murder of 1.5 million
Armenians, death marches into the Syrian
desert, and the exile of more than 500,000 innocent people;
and
WHEREAS, While there
were some Turks who jeopardized their safety in order to
protect Armenians from the slaughter being perpetrated by the
Young Turk regime, the massacres
of the Armenians constituted one of the most atrocious violations
of human rights in the history
of the world; and
WHEREAS, The United
States Ambassador to the
Sr., stated "Whatever crimes the most perverted
instincts of the human mind can devise, and
whatever refinements of persecutions and injustice the most
debased imagination can
conceive, became the daily misfortunes of other devoted
people. I am confident that the whole
history of the human race contains no such horrible episode
as this. The great massacres and
persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared
to the sufferings of the
Armenian race in 1915. The killing of the Armenian people was accompanied by
the systematic
destruction of churches, schools, libraries, treasures of art,
and cultural monuments in an
attempt to eliminate all traces of a noble civilization with
a history of more than 3,000 years";
and
WHEREAS, Contemporary
newspapers like the
including, "Tales of Armenian Horrors Confirmed,"
"Million Armenians Killed or in Exile,"
and "Wholesale Massacre of Armenians by Turks";
and
WHEREAS, Adolph Hitler,
in persuading his army commanders that the merciless
persecution and killing of Jews, Poles, and other groups of
people would bring no retribution,
declared, "Who after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians"; and
WHEREAS, Unlike other groups and governments that have admitted the
abuses and
crimes of predecessor regimes, and despite the overwhelming weight
of the evidence, the
Young Turk rulers, and those denials compound the
grief of the few remaining survivors of the
atrocities and desecrate the memory of the victims; and
WHEREAS, Nations of the
world have suffered reprisals and condemnations by
because of efforts to commemorate the Armenian Genocide; and
WHEREAS, There have been
concerted efforts to revise history through the
dissemination of propaganda suggesting that Armenians were
responsible for their fate in the
period from 1915 through 1923 and by
the funding of programs at American
educational
institutions for
the purpose of furthering the cause of this revisionism and
to counter, in
the words of a Turkish official, "the Armenian
view"; and
WHEREAS, Leaders of
nations with strategic, commercial, and cultural ties to the
efforts to distort facts and deny the history of events surrounding
the Armenian Genocide; and
WHEREAS, The accelerated level and scope of denial and revisionism,
coupled with the
passage of time and the fact that very few survivors remain
who serve as reminders of
indescribable brutality and tormented lives, compel a sense of
urgency in efforts to solidify
recognition of historical truth; and
WHEREAS, By consistently remembering and
forcefully condemning the atrocities
committed against the
Armenians and honoring the survivors, as well as other victims of similar
heinous conduct, we guard against repetition of those acts of
genocide; and
WHEREAS,
have enriched our state through their leadership in the
fields of business, agriculture, academia,
medicine, government, and the arts and are proud and patriotic
practitioners of American
citizenship; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED,
That this House of Representatives of the State of
Providence Plantations
hereby designates April 24, 2013, as "Rhode Island Remembrance of the
Armenian Genocide of 1915 -
1923"; and be it further
RESOLVED,
That this House hereby respectfully memorializes the
Congress of the
RESOLVED,
That the Secretary of State be and hereby is
authorized and directed to
transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to The
Honorable Barack Obama,
President of the
Governor of the State of
D.C.
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LC02411
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