ANCA CONDEMNS U.S. POLICY ON GENOCIDE

news.am
Dec 21 2009
Armenia

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) this week 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, ANCA website reports.

"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," reads the written
testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human
Rights and the Law by ANCA Government Affairs Director Kate Nahapetian.

Nahapetian also stated 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."