Pan Armenian News

WASHINGTON NOT ACKNOWLEDGING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE – ASSISTANCE TO TURKISH
DISHONORABLE POLICY

26.04.2005 04:54

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “While we appreciate the President George Bush’s
willingness to join with Armenians around the world, we remain deeply
troubled by his continued use of evasive and euphemistic terminology to
obscure the moral, historical, and legal meaning of Turkey’s genocide
against the Armenian people,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), the Yerkir newspaper
reported. “This statement, sadly, once again, represents a form of
complicity in the Turkish government’s shameful campaign to deny a crime
against humanity,” he added. The ANCA has also expressed concern that the
Administration’s refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide reflects a
broader unwillingness to confront genocide – as evidenced by the White
House’s failure to take decisive steps to bring an end to the genocide in
the Darfur region of Sudan. The ANCA is working with a broad coalition of
organizations to pressure the Administration to respond in a timely and
meaningful way to the worsening crisis in Darfur. “If we are to end the
cycle of genocide, we must, as a nation, generate the resolve to forcefully
intervene to stop genocide when it takes place, to unequivocally reject its
denial, to hold the guilty accountable, and to secure for the victims the
justice they deserve,” added Hamparian. It should be noted that in February
of 2000, then presidential candidate George W. Bush, campaigning for votes
among Armenian voters in the Michigan Republican primary, pledged to
properly characterize the genocidal campaign against the Armenian people.
However, in his statements as President, he has consistently avoided any
clear reference to the Armenian Genocide, and his Administration has
consistently opposed legislation marking this crime against humanity.