Political Quotes

“I speak today, with both sorrow and anger, in commemoration of the massacre of over one and a half million Armenians between 1915 and 1923. The systematic persecution of the Armenian people by the Ottoman Empire clearly ranks among the worst examples of man's inhumanity to man. The culmination of a long campaign of official oppression and slaughter, the Armenian genocide virtually eliminated the Armenian people in their homeland. The slaughter took a now all-too-familiar pattern: first, the leaders and professionals were arrested and executed, then the able bodied men. The women, children, and the elderly were then at the mercy of their attackers, and were raped, tortured, and mutilated as they were driven from their homes. They then were forced into death marches, where most died from starvation, disease, or massacre. Three-quarters of the entire Armenian population perished, and the rest were driven into exile. The cruelty of these deeds, and their massive scale, compel us to remember. To remember, and to condemn, is the first step in the long struggle against genocide. Whether it is the 'race extermination' of the Armenians, the 'final solution' of the Jews, or the 'ethnic cleansing' of the Bosnian Moslems, we must take a stand against the inhuman and criminal slaughter of innocents. We must not allow the lessons of the Armenian genocide to be forgotten.”