GEORGE CLOONEY JOINS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL EFFORTS
10:44, 10 Mar 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
Leaders in the Armenian diaspora, preparing to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the Armenian genocide, have collaborated with Hollywood
celebrities and human rights advocates to create a prize to be awarded
annually to those who put themselves at risk to ensure that others
survive, The New York Timesreports.
The humanitarian prize, to be announced on Tuesday in New York, is
part of an expansive effort by prominent Armenians to ensure that
the history of the genocide by Turkish Ottoman troops, which is still
disputed by Turkey’s government, is documented and archived through
the stories of survivors and their saviors, in ways similar to the
chronicling of the Jews’ suffering in the Holocaust.
The effort, the Armenian sponsors said, will emphasize how survivors of
the genocide — people who in some cases were protected by sympathetic
Turks — went on to lead successful lives as they and their descendants
spread throughout the world, many of them relocating to Russia and
the United States.
About 1.5 million Armenians died from 1915 to 1923 in what is widely
acknowledged as the 20th century’s first genocide. About 500,000
survived, many because of interventions by foreign individuals and
institutions. The official commemoration of the genocide in Armenia
begins next month.
“The humanity, generosity, strength and sacrifice shown by those who
saved so many Armenians compels us to tell these stories,” said Ruben
Vardanyan, an Armenian investment banker and philanthropist who grew
up in Russia and is a co-sponsor of the commemoration effort, known
as the 100 Lives Initiative.
“My grandfather was saved by a missionary,” Mr. Vardanyan said in an
interview, crediting his existence today to that event.
Along with commemorating the survivors and those who saved them, the
effort will establish a $1 million award, to be called the Aurora Prize
for Awakening Humanity, to be given starting next year. The winners
will not keep the money, instead presenting it to the organizations
that they identify as the inspirations for their work.
The award is named after a survivor of the genocide, Aurora
Mardiganian, who as a child was forced to witness the deaths of family
members. She devoted her life to raising awareness of the genocide
and starred in a 1919 film called “Ravished Armenia.”
Mr. Vardanyan and his associates collaborated with Not On Our Watch,
an organization founded by George Clooney and other celebrities —
including Don Cheadle, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt — that seeks to
prevent mass atrocities. Its principal undertaking in the past few
years has been to document, through satellite imagery, evidence of
possible atrocities in parts of Africa; the effort is known as the
Satellite Sentinel Project.
In a statement, Mr. Clooney said his group shared a common goal with
the Armenian sponsors, “to focus global attention on the impact of
genocide as well as putting resources toward ending mass atrocities
around the world.”
Members of the selection committee for the prize, which has yet to
be finalized, resembles a Who’s Who of personalities in human rights
advocacy and Armenian success. They include Mr. Clooney as well as the
Nobel Peace Prize winners Elie Wiesel and Óscar Arias; Mary Robinson,
a former United Nations high commissioner for human rights; Gareth
Evans, an adviser to the United Nations on genocide prevention; and
Vartan Gregorian, an Iranian-born American academic who is president
of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Mr. Clooney is to award the inaugural prize at a ceremony to be held
in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, on April 24, 2016, the sponsors
said in a statement.