WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama issued his annual statement on the Armenian Genocide, and as it was announced earlier this week, he failed to use the word Genocide to describe the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire, instead choosing, once again, to bow to Turkish pressure.
“The sad spectacle of President Obama playing word games with genocide, so obviously dodging the truth at the direction of a foreign power, falls beneath the dignity of the American people,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the Armenian National Committee of America.
“Candidate Obama was right when he said that ‘America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides.’ He has, regretfully, proven to the world today that he is not that president. In fact, it’s now clear that President Obama’s misguided attempt to appease Ankara has only isolated Washington,” he added.
The full text of the White House Statement is provided below.
Statement by the President on Armenian Remembrance Day
This year we mark the centennial of the Meds Yeghern, the first mass atrocity of the 20th Century. Beginning in 1915, the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths. Their culture and heritage in their ancient homeland were erased. Amid horrific violence that saw suffering on all sides, one and a half million Armenians perished.
As the horrors of 1915 unfolded, U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr. sounded the alarm inside the U.S. government and confronted Ottoman leaders. Because of efforts like his, the truth of the Meds Yeghern emerged and came to influence the later work of human rights champions like Raphael Lemkin, who helped bring about the first United Nations human rights treaty.
Against this backdrop of terrible carnage, the American and Armenian peoples came together in a bond of common humanity. Ordinary American citizens raised millions of dollars to support suffering Armenian children, and the U.S. Congress chartered the Near East Relief organization, a pioneer in the field of international humanitarian relief. Thousands of Armenian refugees began new lives in the United States, where they formed a strong and vibrant community and became pillars of American society. Rising to great distinction as businesspeople, doctors, scholars, artists, and athletes, they made immeasurable contributions to their new home.
This centennial is a solemn moment. It calls on us to reflect on the importance of historical remembrance, and the difficult but necessary work of reckoning with the past. I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view has not changed. A full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests. Peoples and nations grow stronger, and build a foundation for a more just and tolerant future, by acknowledging and reckoning with painful elements of the past. We welcome the expression of views by Pope Francis, Turkish and Armenian historians, and the many others who have sought to shed light on this dark chapter of history.
On this solemn centennial, we stand with the Armenian people in remembering that which was lost. We pledge that those who suffered will not be forgotten. And we commit ourselves to learn from this painful legacy, so that future generations may not repeat it.
Mr. President Obama,
Once again in the front of the world community and Armenians in particular you lost your trust. Shame on you.
You mentioned in your speech that you welcome what Pope said and what Raphael Lampkin had said about the facts of the Armenian Genocide yet you did not have the courage to tell the ” G ” word. Shame on you.
You once said that America deserves a president who would recognize the Armenian Genocide but over your years of presidency you lied and lied to everyone and bowed to Genocidal Turkish pressure and sold your principled stance on the Armenian Genocide. Shame on you.
As an American I am ashamed of you and your entire administration and sincerely ask you not and ever not make any statement to the Armenian people in regards to your feelings and thoughts on the eve of April 24 of each year. Shame on you.
Looking on the picture of this site, I can see your fake but grim face as you are in sympathy with those who were vanished from this earth by the barbarian Geonocidal Turkey. I do no trust you anymore. You are a fake person. You are not a good leader of this world of ours. Shame on you.
Yes, as you said, America deserves a president who truly would call the the facts as Genocide. Yes you lied to everyone and you lied to yourself. You are not that deserving president. Shame on you.
America and the civilized world need true leaders and true human beings. You are not that individual and you are not leader. Your name will not remain in the history books as Woodrow Wilson our president who was a champion of human causes of the world.
Shame on you Obama and your collective administration.
America needs a courageous leader not a coward. Obama screwed this up royally. I will not tolerate obama’s weasel words any longer and neither will our community. Its time he grew a pair.
Obambi business as usual.
No comment…
Sorry, the last sentence of the last paragraph is incomplete – so that future generations may not repeat “it”. Can they precise what “it” stands for?
He is nothing but a stooge! Why we voted for him I will never understand ! Next time we will not make the same mistake .
To bow to pressure from Armenia about their human loss, would mean to bow to pressure about the Ottoman human loss (480,000). Not to mention the genocide against the Azerbaijan in recent history at the hands of Armenia. Let the dead rest, why not divert your energy to peace so our children don’t end up full of anger like the current generation. Do’nt just react to my comment with “oh but Turkey did this and Turkey did that”, then I will say you did this and you did that, this must stop.
We taught u a lesson in the artsakh war, our generation next time around will really teach you who you what you created.
We taught u a lesson in the artsakh war, our generation next time around will really teach another lesson. Who does a turk represent who give us advice. Get a life enjoy our lands you are occupying our revenge is on the horizon.
Obama’s name has already been added in the dark pages of the Armenian History. Shame on Obama. He promised and lied and gave nothing to the mankind. He gave nothing to the Armenians but a false hope. He will be remembered as Armenian’s Judah.
What an empty suit this president turned out to be…
ONCE AGAIN … CAPITULATION TO ISIS SUPPORTING TURKEY. TURKEY IS NOT ALLY OF USA . WHAT HAPPEN TO AMERICAN VALUES OF DEMOCRCY AND HUMANITY.
Obama protects American constitution, free speech and human rights now on April 24, 2011.
He knows very well what is Armenia and what is an Armenian in USA.
He has the criminal and human rights violations records from FBI and CIA.
Obama protects American constitution, free speech and human rights now on April 24, 2014.
He knows very well what is Armenia and what is an Armenian in USA.
He has the criminal and human rights violations records from FBI and CIA.
Obama protects American constitution, free speech and human rights now on April 24, 2015.
He knows very well what is Armenia and what is an Armenian in USA.
He has the criminal and human rights violations records from FBI and CIA.
America has not had a President since JFK. Everyone after him has just been a puppet pushing Israeli Zionist agendas at the expense of everyone else. The young Turks (Kemal, enver etc), ataturk were all Jewish, and after the genocide when rothschilds started getting their filthy hands on the oil in Baku, they decided never to side with Christian Armenians as they are in the way of their oil business. Is it any surprise that turkey, Britain, and israel don’t and won’t recognize the AG ?
When will we expose the Zionists who have been against anything Armenian since forever ? Turkey and azerbaijan are the sword, but Zionists are the arm holding the sword. Wake up, it’s hard sometimes to see the real enemy as they are very good at divide and conquer political games, and stay hidden in the shadows while others fight for their benefit. I wish armenians were as organized, caring, supportive of one another like Jews. Maybe one day.
President Obama says “A full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts is in all our interests.” Yet he contradicts himself by doing the very opposite. It is obvious in every word and in between each line he utters that his hands are not just tied but shackled. I was under the impression that above all else, Americans cherished and protected the ideal of “Freedom of Speech.” Yet the so called most powerful man in the world cannot spit out the one word he wants to say – Genocide. He must stand in the shadows of other courageous leaders by saying he agrees with their words. It is only pity that I could feel for this man as he delivered his speech.
I would be embarrassed if someone like him had anything to do with Armenians…He is best friends with Turkey who are best bodies with ISIS. Why would I want someone like him even say the word Armenia in any shape or form. His days are numbered in the White House and he will always be remembered as a coward! That is punishment enough for him!
Meanwhile in The Telegraph today on the coverage of the Armenian Genocide. …Even after 100 years that is what they write about Armenians…..just because some newspaper cover a story about
Armenians, it does not mean anything. Please read and write to them complaining. Here is aWho is right?
“The Turks are right to say that there is no exact parallel with the Holocaust of the Jews in the Second World War, no order for a “final solution” to exterminate the Armenian people. It is also true that the Ottoman government, in terminal decline, had reason to fear that Russia and other Western, Christian nations were intent on exploiting its weakness to carve out new spheres of influence in collaboration with disaffected minorities.”
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-happened-during-the-armenian-genocide-and-why-turkey-denies-it-2015-4#ixzz3YEzvCVKon extract:
Read between the lines…some ignorant journalists or most probably corrupt ones in The Daily Telegraph, write that “there was no final solution to exterminate the Armenian people. The Armenian political scientists should write to this newspaper in no uncertain terms and demand that they either write the truth or nothing at all. The Guardian is not that far off either! Don’t get fooled by couple of articles that seem pro Armenian, they are forever against stating the truth! Wake up!
So what happened to the Africans was not really slavery. It was more in line with a cultural exchange. Like moving to a better neighborhood. Relocation, that’s it. After all, over there they were eating snakes and each other, and here they eat hamburgers.
It’s No pressure at all…. Obama has a Romance with Erdogan
A dirty romance too!
Our lands. All of it. Enough of begging.
President Obama, like the leaders of Great Britain and Israel, has failed us and refuses to join the rest of the world in acknowledging the term genocide as it applies to the Armenians who were brutally killed en masse through deportations and murder. My father and grandmother were survivors who made it to America in 1922. My father watched his father shot in front of his home and his brother and sister die of starvation. Our Armenian story is more than our victimization during this period. Our story goes back thousands of years and that is the strength we draw from. I am shocked by my President’s fear of the truth. But then, look at all the other genocides that our country denies, like those of our native americans who we savagely killed by the millions. The truth being silent hurts us all.
Slayers Hands, Slain Homeland*
We are phalanges
Of artful vanished hands,
Narrating a penning
Left decades, unsound.
Knowing exactly
What the slaughters’ brutal rule did,
Ending innocent lives;
Unknown in known’s creed.
Let our screams
From bleeding, tearful souls
Reach senators, MPs
Dressed in men’s clothes,
Who solemnly pretend,
Unable to announce . . .
Unable to face
The criminal’s dice.
Let us help every soul
Who speaks in a ‘True Voice’
On terrains . . . where . . .
The fleshes decay, uncanned!
Where recognition
Of human rights remains just,
Even if almost a century
Of cruelties has elapsed
Since all brutalities
Was committed
By vicious hands
And vile minds!
Dr. Sylva Portoian
From my Poetry collection which is once againmodified to be Published in my new Book
“BRING OUT OUR GENOCIDED SKULLS & ARTFUL HANDS”: In 2015 I hope…
_______________
*Armenian Genocide began on April 24, 1915, and continued until 1923.
There were many massacres before, but they were not defined as Genocide.
The verse is published in Conversation Poetry Quarterly, UK, Issue No 8:p.33, 2009
Dear folks,
As Americans say, money talks and bullshit walks. As long as there is petroleum in Azerbaijan and turkey is the big brother of hers, we should not expect any changes in USA policy for Armenian genocide and it’s recognition by any US president and allies like great Britain and also Israel. They do not care about 2.5 millions Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks and etc. who were killed by Ottoman turks,.They care for their profits. I personally believe even Adam Shiff gets elected to US presidency, He might not recognize it. let’s face the truth. I am sick and tired of every politician. They are big liars. No one has the guts to use the G word.