82S10973 MMS-D
By: Naishtat H.R. No. 258
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, Over the past 100 years, human history has witnessed
the horror of the Holocaust and other genocides, and in 2009, the
Texas Legislature established the Texas Holocaust and Genocide
Commission to further educate Texans about those tragedies and to
coordinate memorial events; and
WHEREAS, Because numerous genocides have originated in April
or have stemmed from events that occurred in April, many
institutions around the world have designated that month as a time
for raising awareness about how such catastrophes become possible;
and
WHEREAS, In April 1933, shortly after Adolf Hitler became
chancellor of Germany, the Nazis issued decrees that defined
millions of Germans as non-Aryan, that banned most non-Aryans from
the practice of law and from employment in the civil service, and
that restricted their enrollment in schools of higher education; as
the ferocious campaign to protect the purity of Aryan blood
progressed, millions of people became caught up in the increasingly
murderous system; the victims included individuals from many
ethnic, national, religious, and secular groups, together with such
perceived undesirables as homosexuals, persons with disabilities,
prisoners of war, trade unionists, and Communists; targeted for
total extermination were the Jews and the Roma; by the time World
War II ended, approximately six million Jews, two-thirds of those
living in Europe, had perished; estimates for Roma losses range
from about 250,000 to 500,000, including approximately
three-fourths of those in Germany and half of those in Austria; and
WHEREAS, In April 1975, the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh,
the capital of Cambodia, and initiated the evacuation of that and
all other Cambodian cities and towns in order to reorganize the
country as a classless peasant society; during the reign of the
Khmer Rouge, it is estimated that more than two million people died
as a result of torture and execution, as well as of disease,
starvation, and overwork on the new communal farms; and
WHEREAS, In April 1992, Serbian forces laid siege to
Sarajevo, the Muslim-controlled capital of the newly independent
country of Bosnia and Herzegovina; the attack on Sarajevo began a
period of "ethnic cleansing," which was aimed at expelling Muslims
from territory claimed by the Serbs; among the atrocities that
followed, the most notorious was the massacre at Srebenica, in
which some 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed; and
WHEREAS, In April 1994, the airplane of the Rwandan
president, a member of the Hutu ethnic group, was shot down; the
attack set in motion the slaying of moderate Hutu leaders by Hutu
hardliners and the slaughter, over the next three months, of
800,000 Tutsis; in April 2003, the displacement of Darfurians began
in Sudan, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and the
displacement of millions; and
WHEREAS, In 2008, the Prevention of Genocide Task Force,
convened by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the
American Academy of Diplomacy, and the United States Institute of
Peace, issued a report stating that in order to stop future
genocides and mass atrocities, effective prevention measures must
be implemented before a crisis erupts; central to this notion was
the idea that educating the public serves to protect individual
rights and promotes a culture of lawfulness that can help to prevent
future genocides; and
WHEREAS, Genocide often begins with the stratification of a
community in such a way that one group is ostracized and dehumanized
and a spirit of intolerance is created that can lead to the mass
murder of the targeted group and its supporters; it is hoped that
learning about past and current genocides will create a recognition
of the need for society to act when presented with instances of
hatred and intolerance and will encourage people to rally to the
protection of individual rights; and
WHEREAS, The Texas House of Representatives has chosen the
month of April to emphasize the need to heighten public awareness of
the early stages of human behavior that spawn acts of genocide, the
need to build strong communities and prevent future genocides, and
the need at the state and national levels to continue to honor all
who have been victimized by genocide; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 82nd Texas
Legislature, 1st Called Session, hereby recognize the month of
April 2011 as Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month as a tribute
to all whose lives have been touched by genocide and as a reminder
of the need for the protection of human rights and for vigilance
against the forces of intolerance.