Statement by Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)
 
 Mr. Speaker, my colleague Mr. Brad Sherman mentioned this evening that UCLA is establishing a Turkish Studies chair funded by the Government of Turkey.  I would like to join the gentleman in expressing my serious concern about this unfortunate use of a major prestigious university as the vehicle of indoctrination by another country.
 In my home state of New Jersey, we had a similar situation where Princeton University set up a study program that was financed by the Government of Turkey.  And as a result, the information that was coming out of this study program essentially denied the Armenian Genocide.  There has been a history with the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey to basically deny that the Armenian Genocide ever occurred.  My concern, and I know that of Mr. Sherman as well, is that by establishing these chairs or these Turkish study programs in different parts of the country, in my case at Princeton, in his [Mr. Sherman's] case at UCLA, the Turkish Government is using these study programs to deny history and deny the facts of the Armenian Genocide.
 In fact, it's really a brazen attempt by a foreign government to manipulate an American university for the denial of the historically verified genocide of the Armenian nation.  The Turkish Government is not setting up scholarships -- these are propaganda and propaganda alone.
 It would be like a German government that had not acknowledged the Holocaust funding a Nazi Studies program at an American university.  The difference is that Germany at least accepts responsibility and apologizes for the Holocaust of the Jewish people.  The Turkish Government still denies in the historical record that the Armenian Genocide ever happened.
 I would like this evening to join with the Armenian community in the United States in appealing to the officials at UCLA in the same way that I did at Princeton University about a year ago, and ask the board of Regents to stop this effort of filling the heads of young Americans with revisionist propaganda in the name of so-called scholarship.  This is something that we've seen happen more and more, where the Turkish Government has been financing these study programs or chairs at various American universities in order to deny the Armenian Genocide.
 Mr. Speaker, I would also like to repeat something that Mr. Sherman also mentioned this evening.  I rise to join in this effort to focus more attention on the plight of the Kurdish people.  I want to thank my colleague from California, Mr. Filner, for organizing this much-needed discussion of the ongoing human tragedy in the mountains of Kurdistan.  The Turkish Government, which has of course denied the Armenian Genocide and continues to, is also trying to obliterate, not only individually by killing Kurds in Turkey, but also by denying Kurds the ability to speak their language, to learn about their culture, and to go to school in Kurdish.
 There has been a group of Kurds and Americans who have been fasting on the main steps of the Capitol for a few weeks, in order to highlight the plight of the Kurdish people.  One of the fasters includes the human rights activist Kathryn Cameron Porter, who is the spouse of the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Mr. John Porter.  These fasters deserve tremendous credit for their dedication, courage and perseverance.  It's been getting cold lately here in Washington, but that has not deterred the fasters.  Last Friday, I joined with a group of my colleagues, Members from both sides of the aisle, to visit with the fasters and their supporters.  Every day, as we pass by these people sacrificing for the causes of peace and human rights, the sight of these protesters on the Capitol steps is a reminder to all people of conscience of the plight of the Kurds, and the governments that hold them down -- most notably, the Government of the Republic of Turkey.
 In particular, Mr. Speaker, as we come into the Capitol to cast votes on legislation -- sent here to do a job by the constituents who elected us -- I hope we will remember one of our fellow elected legislators who does not have the opportunity to represent her constituents: Mrs. Leyla Zana, one of the most prominent victims of Turkey's cruel, irrational anti-Kurd policies.  Leyla Zana was elected to a seat in the Turkish Parliament in 1991, representing her hometown of Diyarbakir.  She was elected with 84 percent of the total vote.  She became the first Kurd to break the ban on the Kurdish language in the Turkish Parliament, for which she was later tried and convicted.  She had uttered the following words: "I am taking this [constitutional] oath for the brotherhood of the Turkish and Kurdish peoples."
 On May 17, 1993, she and one of her colleagues addressed the Helsinki Commission of the United States Congress.  This testimony was used against her in a court of law.  On March 2, 1994, her constitutional immunity as a member of Parliament was revoked, and she was arrested, taken into custody, tried in a one-sided mockery of justice, convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.  Leyla Zana, who is 35 years old and the mother of two children, is well into the third year of her 15-year sentence at a prison in Ankara, the Turkish capital.
 Leyla Zana's pursuit of democratic change by non-violent means was honored by the European Parliament, which unanimously awarded her the 1995 Sakharov Peace Prize.  She has received major consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize.  More than 150 Members of this House have written to President Clinton on her behalf, and I hope a majority of the Members of this House will join with the European Parliament in defending the human and civil rights of this brave woman -- and, I might remind my colleagues -- a fellow Parliamentarian, a fellow-elected official.  We owe her our moral support, and to urge our ambassador in Ankara to raise Mrs. Zana's case with the Turkish authorities at the highest levels.
 Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with the Members of this Body, and anyone watching us [on C-SPAN], some of the basic goals of Mrs. Zana, of the fasters outside this building, and of the repressed Kurdish people of Turkey:
 -- The Kurdish identity must be recognized;
 -- The use of the Kurdish language in conversation and in writing should by legalized;
 -- All cultural rights should be conceded;
 -- Kurdish political parties must be given full Constitutional rights; and
 -- A general amnesty for all political prisoners must be granted.
 Mr. Speaker, we often hear -- from our own Administration, from other apologists for Turkey -- about what a great democracy the Republic of Turkey is.  Yet this is how a duly elected representative of that so-called democracy is being treated, for the crime of speaking her language and defending the rights of her people.
 Mr. Speaker, this cannot go on.  For many years we have witnessed a clear pro-Turkish tilt on the part of the State Department.  We often hear about the strategic importance of Turkey, its pivotal location.  I don't discount these arguments completely.  But we have to balance these factors against some other very important considerations.  Turkey continues to spend billions of dollars on obtaining sophisticated weapons systems, not only from the U.S., but from France, Russia and elsewhere.  Much of this military hardware is then used to repress and terrorize the Kurdish people, citizens of Turkey who should be extended the protection of their country's armed forces, and not be victimized by those armed forces.  Meanwhile, Turkey does not have a strong industrial base and is lacking in infrastructure in many key areas.  Why is Turkey, our ally, throwing away so much of its limited resources on sophisticated weapons to use against its Kurdish residents, when it could be investing in better schools, health care and other services that could help put Turkey on a par with the Western nations it seeks to be associated with?
 About half of the worldwide Kurdish community lives within the borders of the Republic of Turkey, where their treatment is an absolute affront to the basic fundamentals of human rights.  At least one-quarter of the population of Turkey is Kurdish.  Yet, in Turkey, the Kurds are subjected to a policy of forced assimilation, which is essentially written into the Turkish constitution.  To date, 3,134 Kurdish villages have been destroyed, and more than 3 million of their residents have been forced to become refugees, either in Kurdistan or abroad.
 I would venture to say, Mr. Speaker, that in many ways, what we're seeing happen in Kurdistan today is in some ways the prelude to the same type of genocide that occurred by the Turks against the Armenian people some 80 years ago.
 While the situation for the Kurdish people in such nations as Iraq, Iran and Syria is also deplorable, I wish to draw particular attention to the situation in Turkey for some basic reasons.  Turkey is, after all, a military ally of the U.S., a member of NATO.  As such, Turkey has received billions of dollars in military and economic assistance -- courtesy of the American taxpayers.  In addition, Turkey aspires to participate in other major Western organizations and institutions, such as the European Union.
 Mr. Speaker, I believe that most Americans would be frankly appalled to know that a country that has received so much in the way of American largesse is guilty of so many breaches of international law and simple human decency.  I have joined with many of my colleagues in denouncing Turkey's illegal blockage of Armenia, its failure to acknowledge responsibility for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, its ongoing illegal occupation of Cyprus, and its threatening military maneuvers in the Aegean Sea.  The brutal treatment of the more than 15 million Kurds living within Turkish borders offers a major argument for cutting back on military and economic aid to Turkey, or to at least attach very stringent conditions to the provision of this aid.  If Turkey wants the benefits of inclusion in Western institutions that are supposed to be founded on the defense of democracy and human rights, then that country should start living up to the agreements it has signed.
 Again, the situation in Kurdistan is just another example of the type of treatment that Turkey has done historically, with the Armenian peoples and other peoples, and it must stop.