Michael Bilirakis: “I rise today to join my colleagues from California Congressman Lehman and Congresswoman Eshoo, in commemoration of one…”

“I rise today to join my colleagues from California Congressman Lehman and Congresswoman Eshoo, in commemoration of one of the saddest and most tragic events of human history: The genocide of the Armenian People during the latter half of the 19th century. In joining my colleagues, I also want to heartily commend them for taking this time that we may speak about this very disturbing chapter in world history. It is a story that is widely known, however, there is little mention of it in our history books. For while it may be painful to review these events, as long as this is the case--as long as we experience this discomfort and pain--there is hope for humanity. Unfortunately, the plight of the Armenians and the attempted genocide of 1915 by the Ottoman Turks is an event that the U.S. Government has still not recognized. In a time where human rights are in the forefront of all of our minds we must recognize the struggles that the Armenians have gone through in 1915 as well as the present with the current Azerbijan blockade. Indeed, in few other instances has man's inhumanity to man been demonstrated so starkly than in the persecution of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. And while some 1,500,000 Armenian people died and another 500,000 were exiled between 1915 and 1923, this was but the brutal culmination of events stretching back to 1894.”