Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
Web:
PRESS RELEASE
March 15, 2007
CONTACT: Karoon Panosyan
E-mail: [email protected]
KEY SUBCOMMITTEE HOLDS HEARING ON THE DARFUR ACCOUNTABILITY ACT
Armenian Assembly Submits Testimony
Washington, DC – Today on Capitol Hill, a key House Subcommittee held
a hearing on the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act
(H. R. 180). The bill, spearheaded by Representative Barbara Lee
(D-CA), prohibits U.S. government contracts with companies that
conduct business operations in Sudan, with the purpose of exerting
economic pressure against the government of the Republic of Sudan for
its human rights abuses and participation in the crime of genocide.
The Armenian Assembly submitted testimony for the record in support of
current efforts to bring legitimate pressure on the government, to
affect change in its domestic and international conduct, toward
addressing the dire humanitarian situation in Darfur, and preventing
future violence in that region.
The Assembly’s testimony said in part, "Armenian-Americans, as
descendants of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, cannot remain
indifferent to the suffering of the people of Darfur. Inaction is not
an acceptable course of action."
The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness
of Armenian issues. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership
organization.
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NR#2007-038
Below is the full text of the Armenian Assembly’s Testimony:
Testimony of Bryan Ardouny
Executive Director of the Armenian Assembly of America
Before the
House Financial Services Committee
Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and
Technology
March 20, 2007
The Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act
Chairman Guiterrez, Ranking Member Paul and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for holding this important hearing on this
compelling human rights issue. The Armenian Assembly of America is
pleased to offer testimony in support of H.R. 180, the Darfur
Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007. We would also like to take
this opportunity to commend the sponsor of the legislation,
Congresswoman Barbara Lee. H.R. 180 prohibits U.S. government
contracts with companies that conduct business operations in Sudan,
with the purpose of exerting economic pressure against the government
of the Republic of Sudan for its role in, and responsibility for, the
continuing grave abuses of human rights on the territory of its Darfur
province, including the crime of genocide, and with a goal to stop the
atrocities.
This legislation sets forth a laudable precedent of taking practical
action against the financial and economic interests of a regime
engaged in the systematic killing of an entire people. The
implementation of this measure will provide for important further
steps toward identifying and undermining the financial nexus of the
genocidal war in Darfur, and toward bringing long-sought stability,
relief and rehabilitation to its people.
The United States has a proud record of humanitarian intervention in
various parts of the world, to save lives and bring relief to millions
of people – victims of crimes against humanity. In the early 20th
century, the U.S. led the humanitarian effort to save the survivors of
the Armenian Genocide. In fact, the Honorable Henry Morgenthau,
U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916, organized and
led protests by officials of many countries, among them the allies of
the Ottoman Empire, against the Armenian Genocide. Ambassador
Morgenthau explicitly described to the Department of State the policy
of the Government of the Ottoman Empire as "a campaign of race
extermination," and was instructed on July 16, 1915, by Secretary of
State Robert Lansing that the "Department approves your procedure
… to stop Armenian persecution."
Our interventions in Kosovo and Bosnia helped arrest the ethnic
cleansing associated with these wars and helped bring stability and
rehabilitation to the Balkans. International action in Kosovo and
Bosnia, however, came largely as a result of the bitter lesson learned
in an earlier crisis in Rwanda, where the tragic inaction of the world
community led to the commission of some of the most heinous crimes
against innocent populations.
H.R. 180 answers in part the questions raised about Darfur by actor
and activist Don Cheadle in his testimony in February of this year
before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law:
"I ask you what will be done – not what can be done, for that question
has been asked ad nauseam and contains within it connotations of
powerlessness and surrender. What will be done is a very different
query."
The U.S. can and should do everything it can to stem the loss of life
and end the cycle of genocidal violence. Nicholas Kristof, of The New
York Times, who has written extensively, passionately and with
clear-sighted pragmatism on this matter enumerated in his November 29,
2005 editorial, "What’s To Be Done About Darfur?" six policy
recommendations (a copy of this article is attached) and concluded
that "Finding the right policy tools to confront genocide is an
excruciating challenge, but it’s not the biggest problem. The hardest
thing to find is the political will."
Armenian-Americans, as descendants of the survivors of the Armenian
Genocide, cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of the people of
Darfur. Inaction is not an acceptable course of action. Therefore, we
support the current effort to bring legitimate pressure on the
government of Sudan, to affect change in its domestic and
international conduct, toward addressing the dire humanitarian
situation in Darfur, and preventing future violence in that region.
The Armenian Assembly of America strongly endorses the Darfur
Accountability and Divestment Act, and urges all parties of good will
to follow its recommendations in full.
Thank you.
What’s to Be Done About Darfur? Plenty
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
29 November 2005
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved.
In 1915, Woodrow Wilson turned a blind eye to the Armenian
genocide. In the 1940’s, Franklin Roosevelt refused to bomb the rail
lines leading to Auschwitz. In 1994, Bill Clinton turned away from the
slaughter in Rwanda. And in 2005, President Bush is acquiescing in the
first genocide of the 21st century, in Darfur.
Mr. Bush is paralyzed for the same reasons as his predecessors. There
is no great public outcry, there are no neat solutions, we already
have our hands full, and it all seems rather distant and hopeless.
But Darfur is not hopeless. Here’s what we should do.
First, we must pony up for the African Union security force. The
single most disgraceful action the U.S. has taken was Congress’s
decision, with the complicity of the Bush administration, to cut out
all $50 million in the current budget to help pay for the African
peacekeepers in Darfur. Shame on Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona
— and the White House — for facilitating genocide.
Mr. Bush needs to find $50 million fast and get it to the
peacekeepers.
Second, the U.S. needs to push for an expanded security force in
Darfur. The African Union force is a good start, but it lacks
sufficient troops and weaponry. The most practical solution is to
”blue hat” the force, making it a U.N. peacekeeping force built
around the African Union core. It needs more resources and a more
robust mandate, plus contributions from NATO or at least from major
countries like Canada, Germany and Japan.
Third, we should impose a no-fly zone. The U.S. should warn Sudan that
if it bombs civilians, then afterward we will destroy the airplanes
involved.
Fourth, the House should pass the Darfur Peace and Accountability
Act. This legislation, which would apply targeted sanctions and
pressure Sudan to stop the killing, passed the Senate unanimously but
now faces an uphill struggle in the House.
Fifth, Mr. Bush should use the bully pulpit. He should talk about
Darfur in his speeches and invite survivors to the Oval Office. He
should wear a green ”Save Darfur” bracelet — or how about getting a
Darfur lawn sign for the White House? (Both are available, along with
ideas for action, from .) He can call Hosni Mubarak
and other Arab and African leaders and ask them to visit Darfur. He
can call on China to stop underwriting this genocide.
Sixth, President Bush and Kofi Annan should jointly appoint a special
envoy to negotiate with tribal sheiks. Colin Powell or James Baker III
would be ideal in working with the sheiks and other parties to hammer
out a peace deal. The envoy would choose a Sudanese chief of staff
like Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a leading Sudanese human rights activist
who has been pushing just such a plan with the help of Human Rights
First.
So far, peace negotiations have failed because they center on two
groups that are partly composed of recalcitrant thugs: the government
and the increasingly splintered rebels. But Darfur has a traditional
system of conflict resolution based on tribal sheiks, and it’s crucial
to bring those sheiks into the process.
Ordinary readers can push for all these moves. Before he died, Senator
Paul Simon said that if only 100 people in each Congressional district
had demanded a stop to the Rwandan genocide, that effort would have
generated a determination to stop it. But
Americans didn’t write such letters to their members of Congress then,
and they’re not writing them now.
Finding the right policy tools to confront genocide is an excruciating
challenge, but it’s not the biggest problem. The hardest thing to find
is the political will.
For all my criticisms of Mr. Bush, he has sent tons of humanitarian
aid, and his deputy secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, has traveled
to Darfur four times this year. But far more needs to be done.
As Simon Deng, a Sudanese activist living in the U.S., puts it: ”Tell
me why we have Milosevic and Saddam Hussein on trial for their crimes,
but we do nothing in Sudan. Why not just let all the war criminals
go. When it comes to black people being slaughtered, do we look the
other way?”
Put aside for a moment the question of whether Mr. Bush misled the
nation on W.M.D. in Iraq. It’s just as important to ask whether he was
truthful when he declared in his second inaugural address, ”All who
live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not
ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.”
Mr. Bush, so far that has been a ringing falsehood — but, please,
make it true.