Armenian National Committee of America
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Tel: (202) 775-1918
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E-mail: anca@anca.org
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PRESS RELEASE
May 27, 2005
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918

ANCA & AFRICA ACTION CALL ON BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO TAKE DECISIVE
ACTION ON DARFUR GENOCIDE AT WHITE HOUSE VIGIL

— Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) Draws Parallels between Darfur and Armenian
Genocides

WASHINGTON, DC — Armenian Americans from the Greater Washington DC
area joined with local student leaders and community activists this
week to protest the ongoing Genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was
among speakers at the May 25th White House vigil, organized by the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

Rep. Pallone thanked attendees for calling attention to the
situation in Darfur, Sudan, and went on to draw parallels between
Armenian and Darfur genocides. “It’s very reminiscent of what
happened in the case of the Armenian Genocide,” stated Rep.
Pallone. “There were people that were speaking out that were not
listened to. In the case of the Turks, they were out there in the
fields, constantly killing people and moving people into the
desert. While there were those who were speaking out [about the
Armenian Genocide], the Western powers really weren’t doing
anything about it. We don’t want to be in that situation again here
in the United States.”

Rep. Pallone went on to praise the leadership of fellow New Jersey
Senator Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) in
spearheading the Darfur Accountability Act (S.495/H.R. 1424) in the
Senate and House. The ANCA has joined with Africa Action and other
groups in nationwide ANCA WebFax campaigns calling for the passage
of the legislation. ANCA Government Affairs Director Kate
Nahapetian updated attendees about the status of each bill and
called on activists to urge House International Relations Committee
Chairman Henry Hyde (R-IL) to work for final adoption of the
measure.

During the vigil, representatives of the ANCA, Africa Action, the
Armenian Youth Federation, Genocide Education Project, Armenian
American activists and supporters gave impassioned remarks about
the importance of continued activism to press for decisive action
by the Bush Administration to end the violence in Darfur. Among the
speakers joining Rep. Pallone and Nahapetian were ANCA Executive
Director Aram Hamparian; Communications Director Elizabeth
Chouldjian; Africa Action Executive Director Salih Booker, Director
for Public Education and Mobilization Marie Clarke Brill, and
Program Associate Akenji Ndumu; Genocide Education Project
Education Director Sara Cohan; Armenian American activist Sylvia
Parsons; and AYF member Megan Young.

Hamparian expressed concern about the U.S. Government’s inaction
following a September, 2004, statement properly characterizing the
killings and rapes in Darfur as “genocide”. “By using the term
genocide – and not acting on our legal and moral obligations, our
invocation of the term genocide is hollowed of meaning. Our
commitment to the Genocide Convention is undermined. Those whose
lives it was within our power to save are abandoned,” explained
Hamparian.

Booker concurred and noted that “President Bush’s senior advisors
have been asked, “Is the President still engaged on the issue of
genocide in Darfur?” And the Presidential aides, the White House
aides have said: yes, the President remains engaged on the subject
of genocide, but there are other more important matters requiring
his attention. We are here on the lawn of the White House to ask:
What is more important than stopping genocide?”

Booker went on to thank the ANCA for providing the leadership for
the vigil, and for providing leadership “not just today, not
just over the weeks, not just being an ally, but providing
leadership in this country to get people to understand what the
crime of genocide is and why it’s unacceptable anywhere that it
occurs on this earth.” The complete texts of Hamparian’s and
Booker’s statements are 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.

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.

For more information about Darfur:

To send a free ANCA WebFax protesting the Darfur Genocide:

#####

===============================================================Remarks by Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA), at the May 25th Armenian
American White House Vigil to call for decisive U.S. action to help
end the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.
===============================================================
Dear Friends,

It has been more than eight months since the President and
Secretary of State, in September of last year, concluded that
genocide is taking place in Darfur.

Since that time one hundred and ten U.S. Representatives and
Thirty-seven Senators have supported legislation calling for U.S.
action. Editorial boards across the nation have called for U.S.
leadership. A broad-based coalition of civil society groups has
demanded action. Among them: the National Council of Churches,
Physicians for Human Rights, American Jewish Committee, NAACP, and
the United Methodist Church.

We have as a nation, a government and a people clearly defined the
situation in Darfur as genocide.

In this sense, we have made a measure of progress from the days of
Rwanda, when the Clinton Administration refused to call the
systematic destruction of hundreds of thousands by their proper
name – “Genocide.”

But in another sense – a profoundly important sense – we have
retreated even further from our nation’s commitment to the
universal ideals of the Genocide Convention. By using the term
genocide – and not acting on our legal and moral obligations:

Our invocation of the term genocide – hollowed of meaning.

Our commitment to the Genocide Convention – undermined.

Those whose lives it was within our power to save – abandoned.

Consider, for a moment, the implications of this failure to act.

The President and the bipartisan majority of Congress; the
Secretary of State; a broad cross-section of the media and civil
society. They have all raised the alarm of Genocide. Yet nothing
meaningful has resulted. Tens and hundreds of thousands have died –
and continue to die. Yet it is business as usual at the White
House.

Consider, my friends, the implications of this failure to act. Not
only for Darfur, but also for America.

We work today to save lives in Darfur – to urge our government to
action to end the brutality and suffering.

But we are also working to bring about change here at home. To
answer the question: “Who speaks for America?”

Are we satisfied to be represented by those who offer hollow
rhetoric in the face of overwhelming evidence of genocide?

Are we satisfied to be represented by those who make excuses for
inaction, despite death tolls of staggering dimension?

Are we satisfied to be represented by those who accept genocide
denial and the denial of justice for the worst of all crimes?

Or will we do what is needed so that we can live in a nation that –
in word and deed – lives up to our commitments to the Genocide
Convention?

Will we do what is needed so that our government prioritizes the
crystal clear moral imperative of genocide prevention over
political considerations?

Will we do what is needed to see that the great power of our nation
and the moral standing of our democratic tradition are used to end
forever the plague of genocide?

We can, we should, and we must do all that is within our power to
demand a government that lives up our ideals, values and interests
as Americans – and we can hold no higher ideal, more enduring
value, or profound interest than in preventing genocide.

Thank you.

===============================================================Remarks by Africa Action Executive Director Salih Booker at the May
25th White House Vigil Calling for Decisive U.S. Action to End the
Genocide of Darfur, Sudan.
===============================================================
Dear Friends,

I really want to thank so much the Armenian National Committee of
America for providing the leadership for today’s vigil. But also
for providing leadership not just today, not just over the weeks,
not just being an ally, but providing leadership in this country to
get people to understand what the crime of genocide is and why it’s
unacceptable anywhere that it occurs on this earth.

As of course you all know, we’re speaking to the White House as
well and they might need some reminding, this year marks the 90th
year that we commemorate the Armenian genocide, the 60th year that
we commemorate the Holocaust, the 11th since the genocide in
Rwanda.

Genocide is a unique crime against humanity. It is an attempt to
destroy in whole or in part a community of people on the basis of
their race, their religion, their ethnicity, or their nationality.
It is not just a crime against the targeted group, but a crime
against all of humanity. And therefore it is also the
responsibility of all of humanity to stop that crime. War crimes,
crimes against humanity, genocide, perhaps the ultimate crime
against humanity, continue to occur in our world in part because
those who commit such crimes have rarely been punished. Their
culpability for these crimes is often covered up, or denied, or
erased from the historical record in order clean up the records not
only of those who perpetrated the crime of genocide, but all those
states and governments that refused to act to stop genocide.

And so along comes the next criminal regime with genocidal intent
occupancied by genocidal actions and it believes that it will
easily get away with these crimes. Why? Because as in 1939, Adolf
Hitler went to the front to visit his commanders on the night
before they launched their assault on Poland. There were over 60
general officers in the meeting, and Hitler told them that he knew
that some had qualms about attacking a peaceful neighboring
country, some had qualms about his plans to exterminate a people,
and some worried about how the world will react. And then Hitler
paused and he said, “Who, today, remembers the Armenians?” Adolf
Hitler was confident that the world would remain indifferent to the
plight of the people that he was planning to exterminate because
the Turks had gotten away with the very same. Who remembers the
Armenians? We remember the Armenians. We do. And we remember the
Jews and the Gypsies and others targeted for slaughter by Hitler.
And we remember the Cambodians, and the Bosnians, and the Rwandans.

And we ask ourselves, how do we honor the dead? We honor them by
remembering them. And we ask ourselves, how do we honor the dead?
And we answer by protecting the living. By protecting those who are
struggling right now at this moment to survive a genocide and to
stop a genocide.

We are here because this genocide in Darfur is continuing. The
Government of Sudan’s genocidal intent and its actions are well
documented, as are the consequences, which have been laid out
before you already. President Bush’s senior advisors have been
asked, “Is the President still engaged on the issue of genocide in
Darfur?” And the Presidential aides, the White House aides have
said, “Yes, the President remains engaged on the subject of
genocide, but there are other more important matters requiring his
attention.” We are here on the lawn of the White House to ask: What
is more important than stopping genocide?

And so we are here to emphasize that what we are asking is very
simple. The first priority has to be to protect the people. To
protect the people who are still living, but who are vulnerable to
the continuing violence. The US must provide the leadership to give
a mandate of protection to an international force that can provide
that protection. And such a force can stop the killing, the raping,
the destruction of homes. Such a force can provide the security so
that millions of people who need humanitarian relief can receive
food, water, and shelter that they need for their survival. A
protection force can enforce a cease-fire and create a climate
where political negotiations can take place. And finally, a
protection force can facilitate the return of people to their land
to allow them to rebuild their lives and rebuild their homes that
have been destroy because otherwise this genocide continues, unless
there are those kinds of reparations and rehabilitation.

So I want to thank you for coming out today because we all say now
when someone asks, “Who remembers the Armenians?” We all do, and we
all remember the people in Darfur, who need us to stand with them
now and I am so proud that the Armenian-American community is
standing so strongly with the people of Darfur, Sudan.

Thank you very much.