April 11, 1995

Delaware State Senate

138th General Assembly

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 19,


DESIGNATING APRIL 24, 1995 AS A DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OF "MAN'S INHUMANITY TO MAN" FOR THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915-1923.

WHEREAS, 1,500,000 people of Armenian ancestry were victims of the Genocide perpetrated by the governments of the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923; and

WHEREAS, at the outbreak of World War I, the "Young Turks" regime ordered the entire Armenian population of about 1,750,000 deported to Syria and Mesopotamia; and

WHEREAS, the plan for Genocide consisted of deporting all Armenians of whatever age or health to the totally-barren Der-El-Zor region of what is now Syria and Mesopotamia; and

WHEREAS, the Armenians were deported to Der-El-Zor on foot, a death march in which more than one million people died of starvation or were killed; and

WHEREAS, Armenians were rounded up and brutally driven from their ancestral homes and land, separated from their families, robbed of everything they owned and stripped of everything they carried with them; and

WHEREAS, thousands of Orthodox Christian Armenians were tortured and murdered for refusing to accept Islam as their religion; and

WHEREAS, the atrocities inflicted on Armenians held in concentration camps and on the death march to Der-El-Zor in the Syrian desert resemble those of the Holocaust of World War II; and

WHEREAS, the massacre of Armenians who escaped deportation and remained in Turkey was called the "most colossal crime of all ages" by the examining military mission's report to the U.S. congress; and

WHEREAS, in a telegram sent by then- U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau to the U.S. Secretary of State, Ambassador Morgenthau warned that a "campaign of race extermination is in progress under the pretext of reprisal against rebellion"

NOW THEREFORE:

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the 138th General Assembly of the State of Delaware, the House of Representatives thereof concurring therein, that we proclaim April 24, 1995 a Day of Remembrance of "Man's Inhumanity to Man" on the 80th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we call upon the people of the State of Delaware to observe that day by remembering the 1,500,000 people of Armenian ancestry who lost their lives in the Genocide of 1915-1923.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that, upon its enactment, suitable copies of this Resolution be forwarded to the Armenian National Committee and the United Hellenic American Action Societies of Delaware.


Sponsor: Sen. McDowell; Sen. Marshall; Reps. Dipinto and Jonkiert