ANCA SENDS A LETTER OF PROTEST TO UN

Arminfo
2007-04-12 18:39:00

The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA) Kenneth V. Hachikian has sent a letter of protest to
Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information
Kiyotaka Akasaka following his decision to allow the Turkish
authorities to delay UN exhibit on Rwanda Genocide.

The letter says:

Dear Under-Secretary Akasaka:

I am writing to voice the Armenian American community’s profound
disappointment over your decision to allow the Turkish government to
delay – and quite possibly cancel – a United Nations exhibit intended
to help ensure that the lessons of the Rwanda Genocide are used to
help prevent future genocides.

Your actions, as reported by the Associated Press and the New York
Times, represent a troubling retreat from the founding principles of
the United Nations. In allowing Turkey’s protest over the exhibit’s
historically accurate mention of the Armenian Genocide to delay its
opening, you have, very unfortunately, undermined the credibility of
the United Nations on a central issue of our time – ending forever
the cycle of genocide. Rather than rightfully standing up for the
organization’s highest values, you permitted the immoral objections
of one member state, Turkey, to drag the entire institution into
complicity in that nation’s shameless campaign of genocide denial.

We join with Armenians worldwide, and with all people committed to
ending the cycle of genocide, in respectfully calling upon you to
reverse your decision, and to immediately facilitate the opening of
the Aegis Trust’s complete Rwanda Genocide exhibit.