HR0870 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0870 LRB103 41716 MST 74937 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Illinois and the United States have been a refuge for those seeking protection from persecution and oppression, whether by reason of religion or nationality; and

WHEREAS, Those who cherish freedom can never take it for granted, and those who respect justice can never be completely secure in it; and

WHEREAS, Those who value freedom are duty-bound to promote it and to protect it by using their voices and influence to meet the challenges that might confront its sanctity and to help protect the life and liberty of those who depend upon freedom and human dignity; and

WHEREAS, No other human rights violation deserves greater vigilance, protest, and recognition while demanding the strongest condemnation by freedom loving people than the crime of genocide; and

WHEREAS, For the Greeks of Asia Minor, Pontos, and Eastern Thrace, the horror and inhumanity of this savagely brutal crime began as pogroms in 1913 to 1923 by the Ottoman and Kemalist governments, in what is today known as Turkey; and

WHEREAS, In July and August 1914, months before the Ottoman entry into World War I, Greek Christian men between the ages of 18 and 48 years were drafted into the notorious labor battalions of the Ottoman army where most of them died due to brutal labor conditions, malnutrition, and extreme weather; and

WHEREAS, The Honorable George Horton, U.S. Consul General in Smyrna at the time of the genocides, affirmed that from 1914 to 1923 Greeks of Asia Minor and Thrace endured immeasurable cruelty resulting in genocide during a systematic Ottoman government-sanctioned campaign to kill and to displace the Greek population; and

WHEREAS, The Asia Minor Greeks and the Pontian Greeks whose ancestors had lived for three millennia in communities in Anatolia and along the shores and in the mountains of the Black Sea coast, in what is today northern Turkey, were singled out by the Ottoman and Kemalist authorities for murder and expulsion from their ancestral lands, resulting in approximately one million deaths; and

WHEREAS, The biblical city of Smyrna, once called The Jewel of the Mediterranean, was a cosmopolitan hub settled by Greeks in 1200 BCE and populated by large, highly-educated Greek, Armenian, and Jewish communities with a flourishing commercial and middle-class; and

WHEREAS, In September 1922, Smyrna was sacked, and the Greek and Armenian quarters were set on fire and destroyed by Kemalist forces; tens of thousands of Smyrna's Greek and Armenian inhabitants were then massacred, turning the pier of Smyrna into a scene of death and desperation, forcing many to jump to their deaths rather than be cut down by Kemal's soldiers or consumed by the flames; and

WHEREAS, The remaining Christian inhabitants of Anatolia were then forced to give up their homes, businesses, and their ancient connection to the land in a forced exchange of populations through the Lausanne Agreement, sanctioned by the U.S. and western nations, in order to safeguard their lives from future massacres; it marked the end of 3,000 years of Greek presence and historic contributions to the western world; and

WHEREAS, Silence is the final stage of genocide as it erases all memory of the victims of the crime as if they never existed; this silence can only encourage future genocides by other rogue nations that feel unbound by international laws; and

WHEREAS, In an historic 2007 resolution, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), representing hundreds of the world's leading genocide scholars, affirmed the fact of the genocide against the Pontian and other Asia Minor Greeks and Assyrians as comparable to the genocide of the Armenians; and

WHEREAS, Acknowledgment of these past crimes should serve as a deterrent to future aggressions by the Turkish government and all other governments around the world; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we recognize the genocide of the Greeks of Pontos, Asia Minor, and Eastern Thrace and urge the Turkish government to do the same as a means of bringing closure to the descendants of the victims of these genocides and preventing such atrocities in the future; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we act in the spirit of justice and humanity and recognize September 14, 1922 as the end of their presence in their homeland of 3,000 years.