Opinion: Congress and historical ‘genocide’

The absurdity is that the genocide of 1915 was not perpetrated by today’s Turkish Republic, established in 1923, but by the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed at the end of World War I. You might as well blame the United States for the deportation of Acadians from Nova Scotia during the French and Indian Wars.

Indeed, the 110th US Congress appears willing to follow in the footsteps of the French Parliament by attempting to legislate on past historical events. [...] This attempt to use the force of the law to promote a particular historical interpretation is reminiscent of the 2001 French law which acknowledges the existence of the Armenian genocide in 1915. One may hope, however, that Resolution 106 will not have the votes to pass on the House floor and that history will be left to historians. [...] The American congressional resolution may also be opposed on the grounds that no individual country has the moral authority to sanction particular historical truths regarding events in which it is not, directly or indirectly, involved. On the contrary, what I would call ‘historical imperialism’, the action of legislating to sanctify a particular interpretation of a past event which took place in another country, appears to be counterproductive. [...] If the causes of historical truth and the prevention of future genocides are the genuine concerns of those in favor of adopting Resolution 106, strict adherence to human rights standards at home and the non-selective defense of those standards abroad would certainly constitute a wiser policy than legislating on other countries’ historical misdeeds.

the policies of aggression and ethnic cleansing as implemented by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 meet the terms defining the crime of genocide in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; [...] the United Nations and its member states should accept their share of responsibility for allowing the Srebrenica massacre and genocide to occur in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 by failing to take sufficient, decisive, and timely action, and the United Nations and its member states should constantly seek to ensure that this failure is not repeated in future crises and conflict.

urges governments and educators throughout the world to teach the lessons of the Holocaust in order that future generations will understand that racial, ethnic, and religious intolerance and prejudice can lead to the genocide carried out in camps such as Auschwitz.

Whereas this man-made famine resulted in the deaths of at least 5,000,000 men, women, and children in Ukraine and an estimated 1-2 million people in other regions; Whereas the famine took place in the most productive agricultural area of the former Soviet Union while foodstocks throughout the country remained sufficient to prevent the famine and while the Soviet regime continued to export large quantities of grain; Whereas many Western observers with first-hand knowledge of the famine, including The New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reporting from the Soviet Union, knowingly and deliberately falsified their reports to cover up and refute evidence of the famine in order to suppress criticism of the Soviet regime; Whereas Western observers and scholars who reported accurately on the existence of the famine were subjected to disparagement and criticism in the West for their reporting of the famine; Whereas the Soviet regime and many scholars in the West continued to deny the existence of the famine until the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991 resulted in many of its archives being made accessible, thereby making possible the documentation of the premeditated nature of the famine and its harsh enforcement; Whereas the final report of the United States Government’s Commission on the Ukraine Famine, established on December 13, 1985, concluded that the victims were `starved to death in a man-made famine’ and that `Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933’; and Whereas, although the Ukraine famine was one of the greatest losses of human life in the 20th century, it remains insufficiently known in the United States and in the world: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that--(1) the millions of victims of the man-made famine that occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933 should be solemnly remembered and honored in the 70th year marking the height of the famine