BILL NUMBER: AJR 15 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 19, 2007
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Krekorian and Aghazarian
( Principal coauthors:
Assembly Members Charles Calderon, De Leon,
Leno, Ma, Nunez, and
Portantino )
(Principal coauthor: Senator
Scott coauthors: Senators
Scott and Simitian )
FEBRUARY 23, 2007
Relative to the Armenian Genocide.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AJR 15, as amended, Krekorian. Armenian Genocide: Day of
Remembrance.
This measure would designate April 24, 2007, as "California Day of
Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923." It would
memorialize the Congress and the President of the United
States to act likewise to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
Fiscal committee: no.
WHEREAS, The Armenian people, living in their 3,000-year historic
homeland in eastern Asia Minor and throughout the Ottoman Empire,
were subjected to severe persecution and brutal injustice by the
rulers of the Ottoman Empire before and after the turn of the 20th
century, including widespread massacres, usurpation of land and
property, and acts of wanton destruction during the period from 1894
to 1896, inclusive, and again in 1909; and
WHEREAS, The horrible experience of the Armenians at the hands of
their oppressors culminated in 1915 in what is known by historians as
the "First Genocide of the Twentieth Century," and as the prototype
of modern day mass killing; and
WHEREAS, The Armenian Genocide began with the arrest, exile, and
murder of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, and business,
political, and religious leaders, starting on April 24, 1915; and
WHEREAS, The regime then in control of the empire, known as the
"Young Turks," planned and executed the unspeakable atrocities
committed against the Armenian people from 1915 to 1923, inclusive,
which included the torture, starvation, and murder of 1,500,000
Armenians, death marches into the Syrian Desert, the forced exile of
more than 500,000 innocent people, and the loss of the traditional
Armenian homelands; and
WHEREAS, While there were some Turks and others who jeopardized
their safety in order to protect Armenians from the crimes being
perpetrated by the Young Turk regime, the genocide of the Armenian
people constituted one of the most egregious violations of human
rights in the history of the world; and
WHEREAS, The United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry
Morgenthau, 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 this 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, In discussing World War I, President Theodore Roosevelt
wrote that "... the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the
war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it ... the
failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk
of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous
nonsense"; and
WHEREAS, Winston Churchill wrote: "As for Turkish atrocities: ...
massacring uncounted thousands of helpless Armenians, men, women, and
children together, whole districts blotted out in one administrative
holocaust--these were beyond human redress"; and
WHEREAS, Contemporary newspapers like the New York Times commonly
carried headlines such as "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 on the
eve of World War II that the merciless persecution and killing of
Poles, Jews, and other peoples would bring no retribution, declared,
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?";
and
WHEREAS, Unlike other peoples and governments that have admitted
and denounced the abuses and crimes of predecessor regimes, and
despite the overwhelming weight of evidence,
proof of genocidal intent, the Republic of Turkey has
inexplicably and adamantly denied the occurrence of the crimes
against humanity committed by the Young Turk rulers, and those
denials compound the grief of the few remaining survivors of the
atrocities, desecrate the memory of the victims, and cause continuing
trauma and pain to the descendants of the victims; and
WHEREAS, The Turkish Government has engaged in concerted efforts
to revise history through the dissemination of propaganda falsely
suggesting that Armenians were responsible for their fate in the
period from 1915 to 1923, inclusive, and by the funding of programs
at American educational institutions for the purpose of furthering
the cause of this revisionism; and
WHEREAS, The Republic of Turkey has been condemned by Amnesty
International and other huma n rights organizations
for making free speech a crime by enacting Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code, which makes "public denigration of Turkishness. .
. the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial
institutions of the State, the military or security structures"
punishable by imprisonment, and has used this device to harass,
intimidate, prosecute, and imprison Turkish citizens who have written
or spoken honestly about the Armenian Genocide, including Nobel
Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk; and
WHEREAS, Among those charged with "denigration of Turkishness" by
Turkish prosecutors for his forthright acknowledgement of the
Armenian Genocide was journalist Hrant Dink, and in this atmosphere
of intolerance of dissent, Mr. Dink was assassinated for his views on
January 19, 2007; and
WHEREAS, The accelerated level and scope of denial and
revisionism, coupled with the passage of time and the fact that few
survivors remain who serve as personal eyewitnesses to the
indescribable brutality and torment, compel a sense of urgency in
achieving formal recognition and reaffirmation of the historical
truth of the Armenian Genocide; and
WHEREAS, By honoring the victims and survivors, and consistently
remembering and forcefully condemning the atrocities committed
against the Armenian people as well as the persecution of the
Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire, we guard
against repetition of the crime of genocide; and
WHEREAS, California has become home to the largest population of
Armenians in the world outside of Armenia, including Armenian
Genocide survivors and their descendents, and those citizens have
enriched our state and our Nation through leadership in academia,
medicine, business, law, agriculture, government, the arts, and many
other worthy endeavors, and they are proud and patriotic
practitioners of American citizenship; and
WHEREAS, The State of California has been at the forefront
in of encouraging and promoting a
curriculum relating to human rights and genocide in order to empower
future generations to prevent recurrence of the crime of genocide;
now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly and Senate of the State of California,
jointly, That the Legislature of the State of California hereby
designates April 24, 2007, as the "California Day of Remembrance for
the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923"; and be it further
Resolved, That the State of California commends its conscientious
educators who teach about human rights and genocide; and be it
further
Resolved, That the State of California respectfully memorializes
the Congress and the President of the United States to act
likewise and to formally recognize and reaffirm the historical truth
that the atrocities committed against the Armenian people
constituted genocide; and be it further
Resolved, That the State of California calls upon the Republic of
Turkey to acknowledge the facts of the Armenian Genocide and to work
toward a just resolution; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the President of the United States, Members of the
United States Congress, the Governor, and the Turkish Ambassador to
the United States.