[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 12771-12772] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE WITHDRAWAL OF AMBASSADOR EVANS' AWARD ______ HON. FRANK PALLONE, JR. of new jersey in the house of representatives Wednesday, June 15, 2005 Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to express my disappointment with the American Foreign Service Association, and its decision to withdraw awarding a ``Constructive Dissent'' award to U.S. Armenian Ambasador John Evans. Ambassador Evans was due to receive the Christian A. Heter Award for intellectual courage, initiative, and integrity later this week. The award was a result of courageous statements he made regarding the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. In a series of public statements, Ambassador Evans, who has studied Russian history at Yale and Columbia and Ottoman history at the Kennan Institute, stated, ``I will today call it the Armenian Genocide.'' Mr. Speaker, Ambassador Evans has studied the history of Armenia, and based on his substantial studies of the issue, he was willing to go on the record and define the actions taken against Armenians as genocide. The Armenian Genocide was the systematic extermination--the murder-- of one-and-one-half million Armenian men, women and children. To this day, the Repulic of Turkey refuses to acknowledge the fact that this massive crime against humanity took place on soil under its control, and in the name of Turkish nationalism. Unfortunately, some 90 years later, the U.S. State Department continues to support Turkey's denials despite all evdence to the contrary. It's not likely that the State Department was happy with their Ambassador to Armenia acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. Therefore, Evans retracted his remarks after receiving substantial pressure from the State Department. Well, now the selectton committee at the American Foreign Service Association has decided to withdraw the award with no reason for its actions. I find the timing of the decision peculiar. The sharp turnaround came right before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Washington for a meeting with President Bush. Based on past history, it's clear that the State Department, the Bush Administration, and the powerful pro-Turkish lobby pressured A-F-S-A to withdraw Ambassador Evans' Award. It is simply unacceptable for this administration to continue to penalize the ambassador for his comments. Ambassador Evans did a courageous thing; his statements did not contradict U.S. policy, but rather articulated the same message that this Administration has sent to the public. The only difference in this case is that Ambassador Evans assigned a word to define the actions taken against the Armenians. This was a refreshing break from a pattern on the part of the State Department of using evasive and euphemistic terminology to obscure the full reality of the Armenian Genocide, Ambassador Evans pointed out that, ``No American official has ever denied it,'' and went on to say that, ``I think we, the U.S. government, owe you, our fellow citizens a more frank and honest way of discussing this problem.'' Ambassador Evans was merely recounting the historical record, which has been attested to by over 120 Holocaust and genocide scholars from around the world. By doing this, he earned a prestigious award that was taken from him because of politics and denial. I want to add my voice to all those who, in Ambassador Evans' own words, (and I'm quoting) ``think it is unbecoming of us as Americans to play word games here. I believe in calling things by their name.'' Evans was right, and the American Foreign Services Association was correct in awarding him the Christian A. Heter Award. We should encourage our Ambassadors to speak the truth, and, more boadly, end, once and for all, our complicity in Turkey's campaign of genocide denial. Mr. Speaker, Ambassador Evans has been penalized for telling the truth. The American Foreign Service Association has set a terrible example by retracting Ambassador Evans' award. I guess even in America the Turkish Government is able to stifle debate. [From the California Courier] Rescinding of ``Dissent'' Award Triggers International Uproar (By Harut Sassounian) Last week, in this column, I disclosed the news that the American Foreign Service Association had just reversed itself, taking the unprecedented step of withdrawing the ``Constructive Dissent'' award from John Evans, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia. This was a shocking development, as this award is given to high-ranking diplomats for their ``intellectual courage, initiative and integrity in the context of constructive dissent [and] for demonstrating the courage to speak out and challenge the system on a subject related to their work.'' Last February, Ambassador Evans had forthrightly and appropriately referred to the Armenian Genocide, as a genocide, to the chagrin of the Turkish government and its supporters in the Bush administration. It was highly ironic that the U.S. Ambassador would lose this award for the very reason that it was given to him in the first place-- ``dissent.'' So much for encouraging honesty and integrity at the State Department. I posted my last week's column on the groong web site in the evening of June 6, a couple of hours after being informed by AFSA that it had just decided to rescind the award. Little did I know then that within a couple of days, my column would trigger a national and international uproar and would be picked up by scores of newspapers and wire services from around the world, such as the Washington Post, the Associated Press, the UPI, Hurriyet, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Turkish Daily News, AzerTag (Azerbaijan), Webindia123 (India), and Armenian newspapers in several countries. Even the spokesman for the State Dept., Sean McCormack, was asked about this controversial [[Page 12772]] issue during his daily press briefing on June 9. Despite attempts AFSA and State Dept. officials to cover up the real reasons for the withdrawal of the award, it has become clear that the award was rescinded after direct pressure was brought to bear on AFSA from the State Dept. When John Limbert, the president of AFSA, was asked by the Washington Post to explain the reason for his group's action, he replied: ``State Department officials would have to explain their concerns.'' The Award Committee is composed of current and former State Department officials. L. Bruce Laingen, who chaired the selection committee, was more forthcoming. He told the Post that ``very serious people from the State Department in particular'' expressed concerns about this award being given to Amb. Evans. Laingen said that the award committee had not focused on the criterion that dissent had to be expressed within the system, until it was reminded of that by the State Department! Once again, as a result of the over-reaction of Turkish officials and their Washington cronies, the issue of the Armenian Genocide was publicized worldwide. All of the above newspapers and wire services, even the Turkish and Azeri ones, reported that the award had been withdrawn from Amb. Evans because of his comments on the Armenian Genocide. The Washington Post wrote that Amb. Evans had characterized ``as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.'' It included in its article lengthy quotations from the statements Amb. Evans had made last February on the Armenian Genocide--the same quotations that I had cited in my last week's column. The Washington Post also wrote: ``the timing of the association's decision appeared curious, given it came just before Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Washington for a meeting with President Bush to bolster strained U.S.-Turkish relations. John W. Limbert, president of the association, said that no one at the organization can remember an award being withdrawn after it had been announced. `It is not something we do easily,' he said.'' Ironically, if the State Department thought that by withdrawing this award it would avoid the awkward situation of honoring the U.S. ambassador to Armenia for acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, at a time when the Turkish Prime Minister was meeting with Pres. Bush, it actually ended up creating a bigger embarrassment, as the national and international media reported AFSA's controversial decision, while the Turkish leader was still in Washington. By withdrawing the ``Dissent'' award, AFSA and the State Department made fools of themselves in front of the whole world. Their unwarranted action not only undermined the credibility of the award, but also the reputations of both AFSA and the U.S. government which acted in this case with intolerance more typical of oppressive third world regimes. ____ [From the California Courier] Foreign Service Agency Wrongly Withdraws Award From Amb. Evans (By Harut Sassounian) The American Foreign Service Association took the very unusual step this week of rescinding the prestigious ``Constructive Dissent'' award that it had decided to bestow upon U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans, during a special ceremony that was to be held at the Benjamin Franklin Diplomatic Reception Room of the State Department on June 17. The AFSA is the professional association of the United States Foreign Service. It represents 26,000 active and retired Foreign Service employees of the Department of State and Agency for International Development. The Secretary of State usually attends the group's annual award ceremony. Last February, during his tour of various Armenian communities in the United States, Amb. Evans publicly referred to the extermination of the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide. ``I will today call it the Armenian Genocide,'' the U.S. Ambassador said. ``I informed myself in depth about it. I think we, the U.S. government, owe you, our fellow citizens, a more frank and honest way of discussing this problem. Today, as someone who has studied it, . . . there is no doubt in my mind what happened. . . . I think it is unbecoming of us, as Americans, to play word games here. I believe in calling things by their name.'' Referring to ``the first Genocide of the 20th century,'' Amb. Evans said, ``I pledge to you, we are going to do a better job at addressing this issue.'' Amb. Evans knew that his frank comments ran counter to the official line of recent U.S. administrations that have avoided using the term genocide to characterize the mass killings of Armenians. After complaints from Turkish officials to the U.S. government, Amb. Evans was forced by his superiors to issue ``a clarification,'' stating that he used the term ``genocide'' in his personal capacity--and he now found that to be ``inappropriate.'' To make matters worse, Amb. Evans was then forced to correct his clarification,'' replacing the word ``genocide'' with ``Armenian tragedy.'' Since Amb. Evans had dared to challenge the position of his own superiors, he was nominated for the AFSA's coveted ``Constructive Dissent'' award. The AFSA's web site explains that this award ``publicly recognizes individuals who have demonstrated the intellectual courage to challenge the system from within, to question the status quo and take a stand, no matter the sensitivity of the issue or the consequences of their actions.'' The AFSA states: ``The purpose of the Dissent Awards is to encourage Foreign Service career employees to speak out frankly and honestly.'' It also states that the Constructive Dissent Awards ``offer an opportunity to publicly recognize and honor the courageous and thoughtful actions of our colleagues, over and above their responsibilities.'' Last week, Haygagan Jamanag, a newspaper published in Yerevan, reported that Amb. Evans was the winner of this year's ``Constructive Dissent'' award. Since the name of the honoree was not yet officially announced, I contacted the AFSA in Washington, D.C., and was told that Amb. Evans was indeed the winner of this prestigious award. I was also told that he was selected because of his stand on the Armenian Genocide. As this column was about to go to print, I received an unexpected call from an AFSA official in Washington, informing me that the Award Committee had just met and decided to reverse itself and ``withdraw the award'' from Amb. Evans. When I asked why, the answer was ``no comment.'' We can safely speculate that the same cast of characters at the upper echelons of the Bush Administration, who had earlier forced Amb. Evans to withdraw his remarks on the Armenian Genocide, had now succeeded in forcing the AFSA to rescind this award. Incredibly, what they were taking away from Amb. Evans was not just any award. It was an award for dissenting from the Bush administration's immoral position on the Armenian Genocide. It was an award for simply telling the truth Amb. Evans was basically repeating what President. Ronald Reagan had said back in 1981 in his Presidential Proclamation, acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. It would seem that Bush administration officials are not afraid to go after an Ambassador, but they would not dare to take on President. Reagan who committed the same sin of telling the truth! It is a telling sign of decadent times that an individual has to be given an award for having ``the courage'' to tell the truth--and worse yet, have that award unfairly taken away from him. All those who side with truth and justice, should complain to the AFSA ([email protected]) for its withdrawal of Amb. Evans' award and ask that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (http://contact-us.state.gov) have it reinstated promptly. ____________________