Armenian National Committee of America
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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2006
Contact: Elizabeth S. Chouldjian
Tel: (202) 775-1918
ANCA SHARES GENOCIDE PREVENTION ADVOCACY EXPERIENCE WITH
CHRISTIAN ACTIVISTS WORKING TO END THE DARFUR GENOCIDE
— Executive Director Speaks to Annual Gathering
of Christian Leaders Working for Peace and
Justice in Africa and the Middle East
WASHINGTON, DC – As part of the Armenian National Committee of
America’s (ANCA) ongoing outreach to the broader genocide-
prevention community, Executive Director Aram Hamparian shared the
Armenian American advocacy experiences with participants in
Ecumenical Advocacy Days, an annual gathering of over a thousand
Christian activists from around the nation concerned about U.S.
foreign policy in Africa and the Middle East.
In his March 11th presentation on the Darfur Genocide, Hamparian
began by noting the profound gratitude of Armenians for the role
that Christian churches played in raising protests during the
Armenian Genocide, providing relief to its survivors, and in
establishing orphanages for the countless thousands of children
left parentless by this crime. Stressing the special
responsibility that Armenians bear as victims of the 20th Century’s
first genocide, Hamparian discussed the efforts by the Armenian
American community to bear witness to the horrific human costs of
genocide, to press for action to end the genocide in Darfur, and,
more broadly, to help generate the political will to ensure that
this crime is never again visited upon any other peoples – anywhere
in the world. He then spent the remainder of his presentation
outlining the policy-based and practical political steps needed to
build an effective anti-genocide constituency at both the
grassroots and national levels.
Also speaking as part of this panel discussion were Elnour Adam
from the Darfur Rehabilitation Project and John Heffernan, the
Genocide Prevention Initiative Director of the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience. The panel discussion
was moderated by Marie Clarke Brill, Africa Action’s Director for
Public Education and Mobilization.
Among the organizations sponsoring the program were the World
Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, American
Friends Service Committee, Children’s Defense Fund, Episcopal
Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian
Church (USA), United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist
Church. Featured speakers at the program included E.J. Dionne,
Jr., a columnist for the Washington Post; Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson
Cook, Senior Pastor at the Believers Christian Fellowship and
President of the 10,000 member Hampton (Virginia) University
Ministries’ Conference, and; Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, who is
widely regarded as a leading voice in the ecumenical movement. He
formerly served as the Executive Secretary of the World Council of
Churches’ Faith and Order Commission.
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