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Museum Plans Are Stymied Armenian Dream Now Under Threat

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  • Museum Plans Are Stymied Armenian Dream Now Under Threat

    Worcester Telegram & Gazette
    Dec 23, 2007

    Museum plans are stymied Armenian dream now under threat

    By Colleen Sullivan SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE


    WASHINGTON- Since it opened in 1993, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
    has attracted more than 25 million visitors, the vast majority of them
    non-xxxs. That number has astonished many observers: Many experts
    thought that such a large museum devoted to so somber and discomforting
    a subject would have difficulty attracting visitors.

    It gave Anoush Matevosian, a member of the Armenian National Institute's
    board of governors, an idea. A museum could open up a new front in the
    struggle to gain wider public recognition and remembrance of the
    Armenian genocide "No one had quite imagined constructing a museum
    dedicated to this sad subject," said Rouben Adalian, director of the
    Armenian National Institute. "The Holocaust Museum set an example which
    can be emulated and learned from, and I think the Armenian-American
    community was very much impressed and inspired by that example." But
    building it would prove more difficult than anticipated.



    The Armenian National Institute is a lobbying group devoted to
    preserving the memory of thousands of Armenians massacred in 1915 by the
    Ottoman Empire, an event Armenians describe as genocide. Turkey, the
    Ottoman state's modern heir, vigorously objects to that description of
    the event.



    The institute and other Armenian groups have waged a worldwide campaign
    to have governments recognize the killings as genocide; dozens of
    governments have passed resolutions to that effect, including Russia,
    Argentina, Sweden, and Canada. France passed a law in 2006 that made
    denial of the genocide a crime.

    A measure recognizing the genocide has languished in Congress since the
    Clinton administration. In October, the nonbinding resolution passed the
    House Foreign Affairs Committee on a 27-21 vote, but Turkish protests
    and pleas from President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
    succeeded in quashing the effort.

    The need to preserve access to crucial bases and airports in Turkey to
    supply the U.S. Army in Iraq was a factor cited by many opponents of the
    resolution, but even before the war in Iraq, the desire of the U.S.
    government to maintain Turkey as a close ally in the Middle East has
    stymied Armenian activists.

    Enter Gerard Cafesjian. A stout, balding man who wears a black eyepatch,
    Mr. Cafesjian, 82, is a former executive and part owner of West
    Publishing, a Minnesota-based legal database firm that was sold to
    Thomson Corp. in 1996 for $3.4 billion. Mr. Cafesjian retired from West
    following the sale, but still manages a wide array of business and
    charitable ventures. He has a stake in a chain of restaurants, is one of
    the producers behind last year's "Prairie Home Companion" film, and paid
    for the restoration of a historic carousel at the Minnesota State Fair,
    now known as the Cafesjian carousel.

    He is better known in Armenia, where he operates a satellite TV station
    - which has come under criticism for a perceived strong bias toward the
    government of President Robert Kocharian. In Armenia, ground has been
    broken on a museum, funded by Mr. Cafesjian and named after him, which
    will house his extensive collection of Armenian art.

    The institute approached Mr. Cafesjian in 1997 for help with the
    genocide museum and in 2000 his family foundation contributed $3.5
    million to help purchase the former national bank building on G Street
    in downtown Washington, D.C., is just a short stroll from the White
    House. Mr. Cafesjian also contributed $500,000 to the project in the
    form of a promissory note.

    Mr. Cafesjian helped to purchase additional lots adjacent to the old
    bank. In 2002, articles appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles
    Times and The Washington Post detailing the project and its goals,
    including a $75 million, 115,000-square-foot project to be opened in
    2008.

    And then, silence. Public silence, anyway. Behind closed doors, there
    was much to discuss. Mr. Cafesjian had hired an architect, Edgar
    Papazian, to create a design. The rest of the museum board raised
    questions about the scale and elaborate design of the proposal. While
    the board wrangled, the project remained in limbo.

    Then last year, Mr. Cafesjian sued to get his money back from the board.
    Lawsuits have been filed both in Minnesota - where Mr. Cafesjian's
    charitable foundation is run - and in Washington. He is seeking $15
    million, more than half of the museum's endowment. Were he to win, some
    of the land purchased for the museum would have to be given to Mr.
    Cafesjian to settle the claim.

    "We think the reason he wants the property back is that the value of the
    property has increased significantly since he donated it," said museum
    lawyer Arnold Rosenfeld of K&L Gates. "He wants the property back so he
    can make a big profit."

    Armenian community members in Central Massachusetts expressed
    disappointment over the project delays.

    "It's too bad that political games are being played," said Van Aroian of
    Worcester and a member of Armenian Church of Our Saviour. "That's a
    tragedy that hurts the memory of the people, including my mother's
    family and my father-in-law's family."

    He hopes the parties will resolve their differences. While he would love
    to have a museum dedicated to the Armenian genocide, he said, it would
    be more meaningful if it paid homage to all the other contemporary and
    ongoing genocides.

    "I would incorporate it with all evil acts of humanity in the past," he
    said.

    George Aghjayan, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of Central
    Massachusetts, agreed a museum to educate people about the Armenian
    genocide in particular, as well as genocides in general, is an important
    and worthwhile goal.

    "We're saddened that there are issues that are preventing the museum
    >From moving forward," he said. "We think a genocide museum in the
    capital would be fitting."

    Even if he ultimately loses the court case, all the legal wrangling may
    result in Mr. Cafesjian obtaining his wish. A provision in the original
    grant returns the property he acquired to him if the museum isn't built
    by 2010.

    "By stopping them now, they can't possibly get the museum built by 2010,
    and he'll get his property back that way," Mr. Rosenfeld said.

    The museum board has taken action, hiring its own architectural firm,
    Martinez & Johnson, and exhibit designers, Gallagher & Associates, to
    get to work on the plans.

    The new plans call for a 50,000-square-foot facility, with the bank as
    its centerpiece but including a modern addition, in part to accommodate
    disabled visitors. The museum planners are aiming to attract not only
    Armenian Americans, but the broader public as well.

    "In the case of the Armenian genocide, the United States played a very
    constructive and positive role from the very beginning, and the fact of
    the matter is we know the story of the Armenian genocide primarily
    because of the way American witnesses documented and recorded the
    events," Mr. Adalian said.

    But as long as the case remains in court, even the extent of the
    facilities cannot be fully mapped out, which is a threat to the broader
    public role supporters envision the museum serving.

    "There have been other people who have been subjected to genocide," Mr.
    Adalian said. "And the problem keeps repeating itself into our own
    times."

    Colleen Sullivan reports for the Washington, D.C., bureau of Boston
    University News Service. Lisa D. Welsh of the Telegram & Gazette staff
    contributed to this report.


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