PRESS RELEASE Date: June 7, 2013
ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA
Contact: Taniel Koushakjian
Telephone: (202) 393-3434
Email: [email protected]
Web:
PRESIDENT OBAMA NOMINATES HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENOCIDE EXPERT SAMANTHA
POWER AS NEXT U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, President Barack Obama nominated
Samantha Power to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
(U.N.), reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly). Power
previously served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior
Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the White House.
Samantha Power is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of “A Problem from
Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide (2002), which extensively
covers the Armenian Genocide.
Reflecting on the conception of the idea to universally ban genocide,
Power wrote: `If the international community ever hoped to prevent
mass slaughter of the kind the Armenians had suffered, he insisted,
the world’s states would have to unite in a campaign to ban the
practice. With that end in mind, Lemkin had prepared a law that would
prohibit the destruction of nations, races, and religious groups.’
In her 2007 article in TIME Magazine entitled `The U.S. and Turkey:
Honesty is the Best Policy,’ Power wrote about the Armenian Genocide
at the hands of the `Young Turk’ regime, the birth of the term
genocide by Raphael Lemkin, and the litany of excuses proffered by the
government of Turkey in their decades-long struggle to deny the
Armenian Genocide. While making her case for U.S. recognition of the
Armenian Genocide, Power unambiguously presented her view that `a
stable, fruitful, 21st Century relationship’ with Turkey `cannot be
built on a lie.’
`She showed us that the international community has a moral
responsibility and a profound interest in resolving conflicts and
defending human dignity,’ Obama said when announcing Samantha Power’s
nomination. `To those who care deeply about America’s engagement and
indispensable leadership in the world, you will find no stronger
advocate for that cause than Samantha,’ the President added.
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-AZ)
released a statement in support of Power’s nomination. `I believe she
is well-qualified for this important position and hope the Senate will
move forward on her nomination as soon as possible,’ McCain said.
In 2002, Power provided critical guidance to the International Center
for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) regarding the definition of genocide
and the question of the applicability of the U.N. Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to the Armenian
case when commissioned by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation
Commission (TARC), which it ultimately confirmed.
Power also previously served as a columnist at Time Magazine and, in
her journalism career, reported from such places as Bosnia, East
Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, and contributed regularly
to the New Yorker Magazine, the New York Review of Books, and the New
Republic.
The Assembly expects a robust U.S. Senate confirmation process in the
coming weeks.
Established in 1972, the Armenian Assembly of America is the largest
Washington-based nationwide organization promoting public
understanding and awareness of Armenian issues. The Assembly is a
non-partisan, 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.
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NR# 2013-012
Photo Caption (L-R): Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny, Former
U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John M. Evans, Henry Morgenthau III,
Samantha Power, Assembly Board President Carolyn Mugar, and Assembly
Board Chairman Hirair Hovnanian at an award ceremony honoring
Ambassador Evans with the Henry Morgenthau Award for Meritorious
Public Service in Boston, Massachusetts in 2007.