Armenian National Committee of America
888 17th St., NW, Suite 904
Washington, DC 20006
Tel: (202) 775-1918
Fax: (202) 775-5648
E-mail: anca@anca.org
Internet:

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2005
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918
ANCA TO HOLD DARFUR GENOCIDE VIGIL AT WHITE HOUSE

— May 25th Protest to Call for Decisive
U.S. Response to Unfolding Genocide

WASHINGTON, DC – Armenian Americans, the descendents of the
first genocide of the 20th century, will host a White House
vigil on May 25th to help bring an end to the first genocide of
the 21st century – the systematic massacres, mass starvation,
and ethnic cleansing taking place today in the Darfur region of
Sudan, reported the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA).

Up to 400,000 people have already died and more than 2,000,000
dislocated in Darfur over the past two years. Recent reports
confirm that the situation on the ground is deteriorating, and
the humanitarian crisis is reaching desperate proportions.

This special Armenian American vigil, hosted by the ANCA, will
take place on Wednesday, May 25th vigil, from 5:30 – 6:30 pm in
Lafayette Park, across from the White House on Pennsylvania
Avenue. The gathering will be the most recent in a series of
vigils, organized every Wednesday by Africa Action, a leading
advocate for U.S. and international action on the Darfur
Genocide. For directions or more information, contact ANCA at
(202) 775-1918 or anca@anca.org.

New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof, a leading voice for
U.S. action on Darfur, has written to the ANCA about the
situation in Sudan. In a powerfully worded letter, he touched
on the unique responsibility of Armenians, as victims of
genocide, to help end the ongoing suffering in Darfur and to
work toward preventing future crimes against humanity. In
congratulating the ANCA for holding the vigil, he stressed that,
“Obviously, crimes against any part of humanity require a
response from all the rest of humanity, but I think any group
that has suffered a systematic attack also has a particular
responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen again to some
other group.” The full text of Kristof’s letter is provided
below.

The ANCA has participated in previous Darfur vigils, protested
outside the Sudanese Embassy, spoken at genocide prevention
conferences, and generated support – both at the grassroots
level and in Washington, DC – for Congressional legislation
aimed at ending the slaughter in the Darfur region.

For more information about Darfur:

To send a free ANCA WebFax protesting the Darfur Genocide:

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Text of letter from Nicholas Kristof (NY Times) to the ANCA

Dear Aram,

Congratulations on holding the vigil against the genocide in
Darfur. Obviously, crimes against any part of humanity require a
response from all the rest of humanity, but I think any group
that has suffered a systematic attack also has a particular
responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen again to some
other group.

In 1915, Americans didn’t despise Armenians or want them to die.
But rather the feeling was very similar to that today: the
Ottoman Empire was a long way away, the victims spoke a
different language and belonged to a different culture and so it
was difficult for average Americans to identify with them, the
president was absorbed by other foreign policy considerations,
like staying out of World War 1, and there was no magic solution
to solve the killings. And so President Woodrow Wilson did next
to nothing, just as President Bush is doing far too little about
the genocide in Darfur today.

Because Darfur is even farther away today, culturally, than the
Ottoman empire was then, let me just tell you what I saw on one
of my trips to Darfur. People were spread across the horizon,
seeking refuge near some wells and under trees. Under the first
tree I visited, I found a man who had been shot in the throat
and jaw and left for dead along with the bodies of his wife, his
children and his parents; his brother came back that night and
carried him to safety. Under the next tree I found a woman whose
husband and children were missing and presumed dead. Under the
third tree were two small orphans, malnourished, aged four and
one, whose parents had both been killed. And under the fourth
tree was a woman whose husband had been killed, whose two
children had then been killed in front of her, and who then had
been kidnapped with her two sisters and gangraped. Afterward,
her sisters were killed, but she was mutilated but released to
limp away naked as a warning to what would happen to women in
the area. Those were the people under just four trees next to
each other — there were more trees, more victims, more
tragedies, as far as the eye could see.

Those are the kinds of incidents that occurred to Armenians 90
years ago, and that America did not respond to adequately. And
today, they are happening to another people, the black Africans
of Darfur, and again we are not responding adequately. We always
say “Never Again” to genocide, but we interpret it too narrowly,
to mean that Armenians will not be massacred again in Turkey, or
that Jews will not be slaughtered again in Germany, while the
real meaning should be that the world will not tolerate another
people to be systematically killed because of who they are. And
the best way of giving meaning to dead Armenians, or dead Jews,
or dead Rwandans, is to make that phrase “Never Again” truly
meaningful — by ensuring that we act to limit the number of
Dead Darfurians tomorrow.

Nicholas Kristof
May 12, 2005