California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 34

Introduced by Assembly Members Achadjian, Nazarian, and Wilk

(Principal coauthor: Senator De León)

March 16, 2016

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 34—Relative to the Armenian Genocide.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AJR 34, as introduced, Achadjian. Armenian Genocide.

This measure would, among other things, designate the year of 2016 as “State of California Year of Commemoration of the Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923,” designate April 24, 2016, as “State of California Day of Commemoration of the 101st Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923,” and would call upon the President of the United States and the United States Congress to formally and consistently reaffirm the historical truth that the atrocities committed against the Armenian people constituted genocide.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, Armenians have resided in Asia Minor and the
Caucasus for approximately four millennia, and have a long and
rich history in the region, including the establishment of many
kingdoms, and despite Armenians’ historic presence, stewardship,
and autonomy in the region, Turkish rulers of the Ottoman Empire
and the Republic of Turkey subjected Armenians to severe and
unjust persecution and brutality, including wholesale massacres
beginning in the 1890s; and

WHEREAS, The Armenian nation was subjected to a systematic
and premeditated genocide officially beginning on April 24, 1915,
at the hands of the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman Empire
from 1915-1919 and continued at the hands of the Kemalist
Movement of Turkey from 1920-1923 whereby over 1.5 million
Armenian men, women, and children were slaughtered or marched
to their deaths in an effort to annihilate the Armenian nation in the
first genocide of modern times, while thousands of surviving
Armenian women and children were forcibly converted and
Islamized, and hundreds of thousands more were subjected to
ethnic cleansing during the period of the modern Republic of
Turkey from 1924-1937; and

WHEREAS, During the genocides of the Christians living in
the Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions, which occurred
during the first one-half of the 20th century, 1.5 million men,
women, and children of Armenian descent, and hundreds of
thousands of Assyrians, Greeks, and other Christians, lost their
lives at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the Republic
of Turkey, constituting one of the most atrocious violations of
human rights in the history of the world; and

WHEREAS, These crimes against humanity also had the
consequence of permanently removing all traces of the Armenians
and other targeted people from their historic homelands of more
than four millennia, and enriching the perpetrators with the lands
and other property of the victims of these crimes, including the
usurpation of several thousand churches; and

WHEREAS, In response to the genocide and at the behest of
President Woodrow Wilson and the United States State
Department, the Near East Relief organization was founded, and
became the first congressionally sanctioned American philanthropic
effort created exclusively to provide humanitarian assistance and
rescue to the Armenian nation and other Christian minorities from
annihilation, who went on to survive and thrive outside of their
ancestral homeland all over the world and specifically in this state;
and

WHEREAS, Near East Relief succeeded, with the active
participation of the citizens from this state, in delivering $117
million in assistance, and saving more than one million refugees,
including 132,000 orphans, between 1915 and 1930, by delivering
food, clothing, and materials for shelter, setting up refugee camps,
clinics, hospitals, and orphanages; and

WHEREAS, The Armenian nation survived the genocide despite
the attempt by the Ottoman Empire to exterminate it; and

WHEREAS, Adolf Hitler, in persuading his army commanders
that the merciless persecution and killing of Jews, Poles, and other
people would bring no retribution, declared, “Who, after all, speaks
today of the annihilation of the Armenians?”; and

WHEREAS, On November 4, 1918, immediately after the
collapse of the Young Turk regime and before the founding of the
Republic of Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, the
Ottoman Parliament considered a motion on the crimes committed
by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) stating: “A
population of one million people guilty of nothing except belonging
to the Armenian nation were massacred and exterminated,
including even women and children.” The Minister of Interior at
the time, Fethi Bey, responded by telling the Parliament: “It is the
intention of the government to cure every single injustice done up
until now, as far as the means allow, to make possible the return
to their homes of those sent into exile, and to compensate for their
material loss as far as possible”; and

WHEREAS, On August 1, 1926, in an interview published in
the Los Angeles Examiner, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk admitted:
“These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should
have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian
subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes
and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. They
have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become
inimical to any idea or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn
their living by the honest sweat of their brow”; and

WHEREAS, The Parliamentary Investigative Committee
proceeded to collect relevant documents describing the actions of
those responsible for the Armenian mass killings and turned them
over to the Turkish Military Tribunal. CUP’s leading figures were
found guilty of massacring Armenians and hanged or given lengthy
prison sentences. The Turkish Military Tribunal requested that
Germany extradite to Turkey the masterminds of the massacres
who had fled the country. After German refusal, they were tried
in absentia and sentenced to death; and

WHEREAS, Unlike other people and governments that have
admitted and denounced the abuses and crimes of predecessor
regimes, and despite the Turkish government’s earlier admissions
and the overwhelming proof of genocidal intent, the Republic of
Turkey inexplicably and adamantly has denied the occurrence of
the crimes against humanity committed by the Ottoman and Young
Turk rulers for many years, and continues to do so a full century
since the first crimes constituting genocide occurred; and

WHEREAS, Those denials compound the grief of the few
remaining survivors and deprive the surviving Armenian nation
of its individual and collective ancestral lands, property, cultural
heritage, financial assets, and population growth; and

WHEREAS, The Republic of Turkey has escalated its
international campaign of Armenian Genocide denial, maintained
its blockade of Armenia, and increased its pressure on the small
but growing movement in Turkey acknowledging the Armenian
Genocide and seeking justice for this systematic campaign of
destruction of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other
Christians upon their biblical-era homelands; and

WHEREAS, Those citizens of Turkey, both Armenian and
non-Armenian, who continue to speak the truth about the Armenian
Genocide, such as human rights activist and journalist Hrant Dink,
continue to be silenced by violent means; and

WHEREAS, There is continued concern about the welfare of
Christians in the Republic of Turkey, their right to worship and
practice freely, and the legal status and condition of thousands of
ancient Armenian churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and other
historical and cultural structures, sites, and antiquities in the
Republic of Turkey; and

WHEREAS, The United States is on record as having officially
recognized the Armenian Genocide in the United States
government’s May 28, 1951, written statement to the International
Court of Justice regarding the Reservations to the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, through
President Ronald Reagan’s April 22, 1981, Proclamation No. 4838,
and by congressional legislation including House Joint Resolution
148 adopted on April 9, 1975, and House Joint Resolution 247
adopted on September 12, 1984; and

WHEREAS, Prior to the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United States had a
record of seeking just and constructive means to address the
consequences of the Ottoman Empire’s intentional destruction of
the Armenian people, including through United States Senate
Concurrent Resolution 12 adopted on February 9, 1916, United
States Senate Resolution 359 adopted on May 11, 1920, and
President Woodrow Wilson’s November 22, 1920, decision
entitled, “The Frontier between Armenia and Turkey,” which was
issued as a binding arbitral award, yet has not been enforced to
this date despite its legally binding status; and

WHEREAS, President Barack Obama entered office “calling
for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide” and on
April 24, 2013, and similarly on April 24, 2014, he further stated,
“A full, frank, and just acknowledgment of the facts is in all of
our interests. Peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a more
just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with
painful elements of the past”; and

WHEREAS, California is home to the largest
Armenian-American population in the United States, and
Armenians living in California have enriched our state through
their leadership and contribution in business, agriculture, academia,
government, and the arts, many of whom have family members
who experienced firsthand the horror and evil of the Armenian
Genocide and its ongoing denial; and

WHEREAS, Every person should be made aware and educated
about the Armenian Genocide and other crimes against humanity;
and

WHEREAS, The State of California has been at the forefront
of encouraging and promoting a curriculum relating to human
rights and genocide in order to empower future generations to
prevent the recurrence of genocide; and

WHEREAS, April 24, 1915, is globally observed and recognized
as the commencement of the Armenian Genocide; and

WHEREAS, Armenians in the State of California and throughout
the world, have not been provided with justice for the crimes
perpetrated against the Armenian nation despite the fact that over
a century has passed since the crimes were first committed; and

WHEREAS, The Armenian people in the State of California
and throughout the world, remain resolved and their spirit continues
to thrive more than a century after their near annihilation; now,
therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature hereby designates the year
of 2016 as “State of California Year of Commemoration of the
Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923” and in
doing so, intends, through the enactment of legislation, that the
Armenian Genocide is properly commemorated and taught to its
citizens and visitors through statewide educational and cultural
events; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby designates April 24, 2016,
as “State of California Day of Commemoration of the 101st
Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923”; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Legislature commends its conscientious
educators who teach about human rights and genocide, and intends
for them, through the enactment of legislation, to continue to
enhance their efforts to educate students at all levels about the
experience of the Armenians and other crimes against humanity;
and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature hereby commends the
extraordinary service which was delivered by Near East Relief to
the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and the Assyrian
Genocide, including thousands of direct beneficiaries of American
philanthropy who are the parents, grandparents, and
great-grandparents of many Californian Armenians and Assyrians,
and pledges its intent, through the enactment of legislation, to
working with community groups, nonprofit organizations, citizens,
state personnel, and the community at large to host statewide
educational and cultural events; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature deplores the persistent, ongoing
efforts by any person, in this country or abroad, to deny the
historical fact of the Armenian Genocide; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature respectfully calls upon the
President of the United States and the United States Congress to
formally and consistently reaffirm the historical truth that the
atrocities committed against the Armenian people constituted
genocide; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature calls on the President of the
United States to work toward equitable, constructive, stable, and
durable Armenian-Turkish relations; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Majority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative
from California in the Congress of the United States, to the
Governor of California, to every member of the California State
Legislature, and to the Superintendent of Public Instruction.