EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION
for Justice and Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B-1000 Bruxelles
Tel: +322 732 70 26
Tel/Fax: +322 732 70 27
Email: [email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
April 13, 2007
Contact: Vartenie ECHO
Tel: +322 732 70 26
A TOP-RANKING UN OFFICER CEDES TO TURKEY’S DENIAL
The European Armenian Federation calls upon the United Nations to
reverse its decision to cancel an exhibition dedicated to the Tutsi
genocide.
In a letter sent to Mr Kiyotaka Akasaka, a U.N. General
Undersecretary, the European Armenian Federation protested against his
decision to cancel an exhibition on the 13th anniversary of the Tutsi
genocide in Rwanda that would have taken place in the international
organisation’s buildings in New York.
The exhibition, sponsored by the Aegis Trust NGO, would have been
inaugurated on Monday 9th April by Mr Ban Ki-Moon, the General
Secretary of the United Nations. In order to illustrate the Tutsi
genocide, the exhibition recalled the historical continuity of
genocidal processes; in this regard, one of the displayed panels said
that `after the First World War, during which one million Armenians
were killed in Turkey, the Polish lawyer Raphaël Lemkin urged the
Society of Nations to recognize barbarian crimes as international
crimes’.
However, after pressure from Turkey, which was caused by this allusion
to the Armenian Genocide, Mr Akasaka unacceptably decided to cancel
the exhibition on his own initiative.
`Your decision, as reported by the press, is a severe retreat that
questions the credibility of your institution’ wrote Hilda Tchoboian,
the chairperson of the European Armenian Federation. `It would be
immoral and politically dangerous for an exhibition, which actually
aims at preventing genocides and denouncing the heinous ideologies
leading to them, to allow, under your auspices, the triumph of denial
that is supposed to be opposed by the United Nations’ continued the
chairperson of the Federation.
In the past, the UN successfully resisted Turkey’s denial: despite ten
years of threats and various manoeuvres from the Turkish government, a
report prepared by the British Benjamin Whitaker, mentioning the
Armenian genocide among past genocides, was adopted in August 1985 by
a specialist subcommittee at the United Nations. `We solemnly ask Mr
Akasaka to reconsider his decision and to allow this exhibition to
proceed, without any censorship or alteration, in compliance with the
leading principles of the United Nations’ concluded Tchoboian.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
