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Schiff Makes Remarks in Armenian Marking Genocide Anniversary

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  • Schiff Makes Remarks in Armenian Marking Genocide Anniversary

    WATCH: Schiff Makes Remarks in Armenian Marking Genocide Anniversary

    http://asbarez.com/109601/schiff-makes-remarks-in-armenian-marking-genocide-anniversary/
    Wednesday, April 24th, 2013

    WASHINGTON-On Wednesday Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead sponsor of
    the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress, delivered his remarks in
    Armenian on the House Floor to honor the more than one and a half
    million Armenian men, women and children who were murdered by the
    Ottoman government.

    In a historic first in the Congress, Representative Schiff said in his
    Armenian address, `I speak to you from the floor of the House of
    Representatives in the language of your grandparents and your great
    grandparents - the language they used to speak of their hopes, their
    dreams, their lives and their loves in the years before 1915 ... I speak
    to you in the language of sons who watched their fathers murdered ... I
    speak to you in the language of the girls begging the gendarmes for
    mercy ...'

    `My Armenian friends, here and around the world, today on the 98th
    anniversary of the [genocide day], I speak to you from the floor of
    the House of Representatives in the language of your grandparents and
    your great grandparents - the language they used to speak of their
    hopes, their dreams, their lives and their loves in the years before
    1915.

    `Throughout the Ottoman Empire, tens of thousands were to be killed outright.

    `I speak to you in the language of the sons who watched their fathers' murdered.

    `Women were raped by the thousands.

    `I speak to you in the language of the girls begging the gendarmes for mercy.

    `Families were force marched through desert heat as the Ottoman
    government sought to destroy a people.

    `I speak you in the language of the children begging for a drop of water.

    `By the time it was over in 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenian men,
    women and children were dead. It was the first genocide of the 20th
    Century.

    `I speak to you in the language of the mothers who died with their
    babies in their arms.

    `A nation was scattered around the world... To the Middle East, to
    Europe and to America.

    `I speak to you in the language of the survivors who came to America
    for freedom and made a new life

    `For almost a century, Turkey has denied the genocide. In the face of
    overwhelming evidence - much of it from American diplomats and
    journalists - Ankara has denied that the genocide ever happened. They
    want the world to forget.

    `I speak to you in the language of those who were lost. Their voices
    drift across the decades - begging us to remember.

    `I am not a descendant of the fallen, but I speak to you in their
    beautiful language because on this day, we are all Armenian. And not
    just on this day. Whenever we speak out against mass murder, whenever
    we refuse to be cowed into silence, we are all Armenian.

    `For many years I have sat with you and listened - to the stories of
    those who were lost in the genocide and those who survived.

    `I speak to you in their language to thank you for sharing your
    history with me. And I speak to you from this place, this House,
    because Americans have always shown the courage to look horror in the
    eye and speak its name, and I look forward to the day when its leaders
    will do the same.

    `And because I know that day will come. May it come soon, so the last
    of the survivors may hear its awesome sound.

    `May God hear our voices.

    `Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back.'

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