Maria Cantwell: “Elie Wiesel once told us that ``a destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.'' Our…”

“Elie Wiesel once told us that ``a destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.'' Our American heritage calls upon each of us to stand up, to speak out, and to act when we witness human rights abuses. As a global leader, the United States has a special and solemn obligation. We must live up to this responsibility. This week marked both Armenian Remembrance Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day. In the final years of the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923, the world witnessed the mass killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children. Five-hundred thousand survivors were expelled from their homes. Our U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau organized and led protests by foreign officials against one of the most horrible tragedies of the 20th century. Sadly and almost unimaginably, more human devastation followed. Later years witnessed the Holocaust--the Nazis' systematic state-sponsored persecution and murder of 6 million Jews. In 1945, the U.S. Third Army's 6th Armored Division liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp and the U.S. Seventh Army's 45th Infantry Division liberated Dachau in Germany. We reflect in order to remember--honoring the dead, pledging never to forget atrocities of the past, and fighting to stop them today. In 2004, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that genocide has been committed in the Sudanese region of Darfur.…”