Sam Gejdenson: “I come and join my friends from California to ask my colleagues to join the debt of history here. This is a people, the…”

“I come and join my friends from California to ask my colleagues to join the debt of history here. This is a people, the Armenians, who have suffered through history. Their lands had been taken; they had faced the first modern genocide. They were oppressed by the Soviet Union. And now, as we see the hope for opportunity and democracy, their neighbor, besides that economic strangulation, is the solution for their own internal problems. In the post-Soviet era, we all have to develop systems for resolving disputes which do not heighten tensions with our neighbors but, indeed, those that reduce the tensions with our neighbors. The facts are clear here. The Congress has spoken repeatedly, recognizing history, recognizing the failure of nations of this planet to speak out, when Armenian men, women and children face genocide, that we cannot allow ourselves today to have the Armenian Government strangled by a blockade because we treasure oil more than human beings. The battle lines are fairly clear here. The economic interests of powerful oil companies would have us abandon the people of Armenia once again. I do not know what responsibility we have here as Members of Congress to all of the world and its causes, but I know as people who believe in human rights, people who believe in history and the responsibility of a great Nation, that this Congress dare not turn its back on the Armenians once more.”