Reaction to Obama’s refusal to use term Genocide in Apr 24 address

Reaction to Obama’s refusal to use term Genocide in Apr 24 address

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead sponsor of the Armenian Genocide Truth and Justice Resolution in Congress, released a statement after the White House confirmed to Armenian-American community leaders that the President would not use the word Genocide in his April 24 address.

“I’m deeply disappointed that the President, once again, will fail to properly describe the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 for what it was – genocide. How long must the victim's and their families wait before our nation has the courage to confront Turkey with the truth about the murderous past of the Ottoman Empire? If not this President, who spoke so eloquently and passionately about recognition in the past, whom? If not after one hundred years, when?” Schiff said.

“The United States has long prided itself for being a beacon of human rights, for speaking out against atrocity, for confronting painful chapters of its own past and that of others. This cannot be squared with a policy of complicity in genocide denial by the President or Congress. Last week, the Pope spoke powerfully of the need to bind the wound that continues to bleed in the absence of recognition – I only wish Washington had been listening,” he said.

City Councilmember Paul Krekorian, the first Armenian-American elected to city government in Los Angeles, responded to Obama’s refusal with a following statement:

“America has always been a beacon of hope to people throughout the world who yearn for freedom and seek to escape tyranny and oppression. It is especially shameful that our government yields its own freedom to a foreign power, especially one that bears responsibility for one of the most grotesque examples of tyranny and oppression in world history. Turkey's paranoid obsession with denying its moral responsibility for the Armenian Genocide is an outrage in the modern world. By allowing Turkey's leaders to decide how we can or cannot speak about historical truth, our own government fails to uphold its own fundamental principles of freedom. Turkey's supposed importance as an ‘ally’ is a miserable excuse, especially since that government has so often failed to support American military and foreign policy needs, and even now is failing to take reasonable steps to stop Islamist outrages in Syria and elsewhere in the region. Our country was born when we stood up against the mightiest nation on Earth—certainly we should now have the strength and moral courage to stand up to Turkish denialists.”

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