Letter to Barack Obama, President of the United States - Recognize the Armenian Genocide

Letter

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer and a bipartisan group of 13 Senate colleagues today wrote President Barack Obama asking him to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide on April 24, Armenian Remembrance Day 2010.

While affirming the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship, the letter asks President Obama to "stand on the right side of history" and acknowledge that the brutal murder of more than 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 was genocide.

The full text of the letter is below:

April 20, 2010

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As you know, April 24 marks Armenian Remembrance Day 2010, the ninety-fifth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Despite an irrefutable body of evidence, the United States Government has yet to recognize the events of 1915-1923 by their rightful name. We urge you--on this April 24--to correct this injustice and finally acknowledge one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century for what it was--genocide.

Over the years, this deliberate massacre of the Armenians has been well-documented through eye-witness accounts and confirmed by numerous scholars. Simply put--between 1915 and 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenians were marched to their deaths in the deserts of the Middle East, murdered in concentration camps, drowned at sea, and forced to endure horrific acts of brutality at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

In his memoirs, Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1913 and 1916, wrote: "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact." And even as it was just beginning, the New York Times reported the mass killing of Armenians as "systematic," "authorized," and "organized by the government."

Tragically, Adolf Hitler even used the Ottoman Empire's action against the Armenians to justify the extermination of the Jews, saying in 1939, "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

The fact is that many have affirmed the Armenian Genocide, and it is long past time that the United States do the same, joining with Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela, the Vatican and over 40 U.S. states.

While we fully acknowledge the importance of the U.S.-Turkey relationship, we should never, for any reason, fail to call a tragedy of this magnitude by its rightful name. As such--on this April 24--we urge you to stand on the right side of history and unequivocally affirm the Armenian Genocide.

Thank you for your consideration of this important request.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer, United States Senator
Carl Levin, United States Senator
Dianne Feinstein, United States Senator
Robert Menendez, United States Senator
Jack Reed, United States Senator
Frank R. Lautenberg, United States Senator
Russell D. Feingold, United States Senator
Sherrod Brown, United States Senator
John Ensign, United States Senator
Charles E. Schumer, United States Senator
Senator Debbie Stabenow, United States Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse, United States Senator
Joseph I. Lieberman, United States Senator
Barbara A. Mikulski, United States Senator