Daily Breeze, CA
Oct 13 2007

Armenian museum’s planners fight donor

Organizers of U.S. genocide memorial say backer interfered. He says
he was forced out.

By Stephen Manning
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – As diplomatic tensions flare over a House committee’s
approval of a resolution labeling the World War I-era killings of
Armenians in Turkey as genocide, another dispute has roiled plans to
build a museum and memorial to the victims.

In a series of lawsuits, the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial
and its backers are wrestling with a major donor over control and
finances of the long-planned project honoring the hundreds of
thousands of Armenians who died between 1915 and 1917. The memorial
would be the first permanent exhibit dedicated to the subject outside
of Armenia.

Museum organizers say the litigation won’t affect the redevelopment
of a former bank just a few blocks from the White House. First
conceived in the 1990s, the museum recently signed contracts for
design and planning of the 35,000-square-foot facility.

But a major funder, retired Armenian-American publisher Gerard
Cafesjian, has filed several lawsuits that seek to reclaim much of
the $15 million in money and property he donated. Cafesjian claims
the museum has forced him out of the project and significantly scaled
it down.

"Mr. Cafesjian is the museum," said his attorney, Tim Thornton.
"Gerry Cafesjian is 90 percent responsible for everything the museum
has."

The museum has countersued, claiming Cafesjian is meddling with real
estate titles for the bank and other property to be used for the
museum. The museum argues Cafesjian has tried to use the nonprofit
venture for personal gain, and is trying to get his contributions
back to cash in on a big increase in the property’s value.

"He has done everything he can to scuttle the building of the
genocide museum," said Arnold Rosenfeld, an attorney for the
nonprofit group behind the project.

The museum is intended to memorialize and study the killings of
Armenians in the Turkish Ottoman Empire during World War I. Armenians
claim it was a systematic genocide that killed 1.5 million people;
Turkey says the death totals are inflated and that the killings were
largely the result of internal civil strife, not organized mass
murder.

Earlier this week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a
resolution labeling the killings as genocide despite opposition from
President Bush and Turkish-American groups. Turkish officials
condemned the vote and Turkey’s ambassador to the United States
returned to Ankara this week for consultations.

The Bush administration, worried about alienating a strategically
important U.S. ally, is trying to patch up diplomatic relations with
Turkey and has warned against passage of the resolution by the full
House.

Plans for the museum came out of the Armenian Assembly of America, a
Washington-based advocacy group that helped push for the
congressional resolution. According to court papers, assembly leaders
in the 1990s approached Cafesjian, who agreed to use his foundation
to help buy the bank for $7.25 million. Plans initially called for
the museum to open by 2002 at a cost of $40million.

Cafesjian, born to Armenian parents in the United States, came from a
family that lost numerous relatives during the killings, according to
Thornton. He was a top executive for Minnesota-based legal publisher
West Publishing, retiring after it was sold to Thompson Corp. in
1996.

Cafesjian, born to Armenian parents in the United States, came from a
family that lost numerous relatives during the killings, according to
Thornton. He was a top executive for Minnesota-based legal publisher
West Publishing, retiring after it was sold to Thompson Corp. in
1996.