BILL NUMBER: SJR 26	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Senator Cogdill

                        MARCH 13, 2008

   Relative to Armenian Genocide.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   SJR 26, as introduced, Cogdill. Armenian Genocide: Day of
Remembrance.
   This measure would designate April 24, 2008, as "California Day of
Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923." It would
memorialize the Congress 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 on April 24, 1915, with the arrest,
exile, and murder of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, and
political, religious, and business leaders 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 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, 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, 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, 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 to 1923,
inclusive, and through the funding of programs at American
educational institutions for the purpose of furthering this
revisionism; and
   WHEREAS, In the last several years, Turkish and Armenian writers
and journalists have been persecuted and criminally indicted for
daring to write about the Armenian Genocide, and some United States
political and military leaders have regrettably capitulated to
unseemly demands that they actively undermine efforts to gain
appropriate recognition of the historic fact of the Armenian
Genocide; and
   WHEREAS, Leaders of nations with strategic, commercial, and
cultural ties to the Republic of Turkey should be reminded of their
duty to encourage Turkish officials to desist from 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 few
survivors remain who serve as reminders of the indescribable
brutality and torment, compel a sense of urgency in efforts to
solidify recognition and reaffirmation of historical truth; and
   WHEREAS, By honoring the 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 United States, and those citizens have enriched our
state through leadership in the fields of academia, medicine,
business, agriculture, government, and the arts, and they are proud
and patriotic practitioners of American citizenship; and
   WHEREAS, California has been at the forefront in 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, 2008, as the "California Day of Remembrance for
the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923"; and be it further
   Resolved, That California commends its conscientious educators who
teach about human rights and genocide; and be it further
   Resolved, That California respectfully memorializes the Congress
of the United States to act likewise and to commemorate the Armenian
Genocide; 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, and the Governor.