US Armenians gear up "genocide" campaign

U.S. Armenians have sped up a campaign to convince the country’s president to declare the events of 1915 as “genocide” in the run-up to April 24, "Armenian Remembrance Day" in the United States.

Members of the community are preparing to hold a protest against President Barack Obama in Los Angeles on Thursday for allegedly breaking pre-election pledges in 2008 to Armenians and Armenian groups to recognize their genocide claims. The group’s congressional supporters are hoping that the president finally recognizes the "Armenian genocide" this time around.

"On Thursday, April 21 at 3 p.m, Armenian-Americans from throughout southern California and across the American and Armenian political spectrums will join together for a public protest calling upon President Obama to honor his broken campaign pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide," the lobby group the Armenian National Committee of America, or ANCA, said Tuesday.

"The demonstration, organized by the Armenian Genocide Community Task Force, will be held outside the president's first major fundraiser in southern California for next year's presidential election," ANCA said.

"California's Armenian American community is eager to see President Obama in Los Angeles," said ANCA Western Region Chairman Andrew Kzirian. "With the president's 2012 re-election effort now under way, the Armenian-American community will remind him of the profound moral and serious geopolitical costs of his decision to break his promise to clearly and unequivocally recognize the Armenian genocide.”

Armenians have urged numerous U.S. presidents and Congress members to officially recognize the World War I-era deaths of their kinsmen in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide," but their efforts have so far been unsuccessful. Turkey has warned that any formal U.S. recognition of genocide will worsen bilateral ties with the United States in a major and lasting way.

Around two dozen members of Congress met at the Senate on April 14 to commemorate what they see as the "Armenian genocide," ANCA said.

Pro-Armenian Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, urged Obama to recognize the "Armenian genocide."

"I expect my president, whom I have supported, to finally come through and stand up for what is right..., stand up as U.S. president today to say... there was an Armenian genocide," Menendez said.

'Reparations'

"Once we complete the work of recognition of the Armenian genocide, we must quickly move to the subject of reparations, which I think is also important as we move forward," said David Cicillini, a Democratic representative from Rhode Island, according to ANCA.

The Armenian Assembly of America, or AAA, the second largest U.S. Armenian group after ANCA, also joined the call for the claims to be recognized.

"We strongly urge President Barack Obama to fulfill his campaign promise and expand upon his statement last year, wherein he used the Armenian term – ‘metz yeghern’ – to describe the Armenian genocide, and for this year, use the proper English term: Armenian genocide," the AAA said in a written statement.

But one Washington-based analyst familiar with the matter and speaking on condition of anonymity, said Obama was again unlikely to describe the Armenian deaths as "genocide."

U.S. presidents traditionally release press statements every April 24, denouncing the Armenian killings. But they also traditionally decline to classify the deaths as "genocide."

Pro-Armenian legislators came close to winning a congressional endorsement of the genocide claims last December, shortly before the previous Congress expired, when they intensified their efforts for a floor vote in the House of Representatives on a "genocide" bill, which passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee last March.

But under strong behind-the-scene pressure by the Obama administration, the bill did not come to a floor vote.


/Hurriyet Daily News/