ANCA CONFRONTS US SILENCE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.12.2009 11:34 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
called the attention of an influential U.S. Senate panel to how the
failure of U.S. policy-makers to confront past genocides has materially
contributed to an international environment which tolerates continued
crimes against humanity, reported the Armenian National Committee of
America (ANCA).

"Considering the moral and legal obligations we have undertaken as
parties to the Genocide Convention, it is truly astonishing that the
United States has more recently pursued a policy of complicity in
Turkey’s state-sponsored denial of the Armenian Genocide and has even
gone to the lengths of assisting Turkey in covering up a crime that
was publicly cited by Raphael Lemkin as one of the major motivating
factors in the very drafting of the Genocide Convention," explained
ANCA Government Affairs Director Kate Nahapetian in written testimony
submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and
the Law for a hearing titled "The Law of the Land: U.S. Implementation
of Human Rights Treaties."

Nahapetian continued, noting that, "Turkey’s success in silencing
one of the most powerful countries in the world on one of the best
documented cases of genocide emboldens other states to commit genocide
and undermines the ability of the U.S. and the international community
to prevent crimes against humanity. The starkest example of this
consequence is Sudan’s mimicking of Turkish genocide denial tactics
and the growing alliance between these two countries."