Activists pursue genocide payment

SOUTH GLENDALE — Armenian activists insisted Wednesday that a recent federal appeals court ruling would not stop them from seeking payments from life insurance companies on the policies of those killed in the Armenian Genocide.

Representatives from the Armenian National Committee and Armenian Youth Federation, among other groups, assured attendees during a town hall meeting at St. Mary’s Apostolic Church that the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, which number in the thousands, would win a favorable decision from the court as the group fights a recent legal hurdle.

The group’s goal is to sway a split three-judge appellate panel, attorney Mark Geragos said.

“We’re hoping it just takes one vote,” he said of plans for an appeal.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 20 that descendants of Armenian Genocide victims could not request payment from insurance companies, despite a state law that allowed them to do so, because it would interfere with U.S. foreign policy.

“The federal government has made a conscious decision not to apply the politically charged label of ‘genocide’ to the deaths of these Armenians during World War I,” said Judge David R. Thompson, who wrote the majority opinion in the ruling. “Whether or not California agrees with this decision, it may not contradict it.”

That logic, agreed to by two of the three judges on the appellate panel, drew harsh criticism not only from town hall attendees, but also from Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who has written legislation to push for national acknowledgment of the genocide and, as an state senator, co-wrote California’s law allowing the descendants of genocide victims to claim insurance benefits.

“The problem with that is that there is no federal policy against genocide recognition and there has never been,” said Schiff, who petitioned the court this week to reconsider its ruling.

Congress has considered three resolutions in the last decade that would have paved the way for official recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

But the White House has worked to kill each effort, fearing they would damage relations with Turkey, which denies a genocide took place.

The U.S. government currently has no official position on the mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians that occurred between 1915 and 1923 in Ottoman Turkey.