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An emerging political presence stepped farther out into the Colorado spotlight Monday, as Armenians of Colorado opened the Western regional office of in the basement of the First Baptist Church, across 14th Street from the Capitol.

The office will be a hub for the state’s nearly 5,000 Armenian-Americans, as well as serving all the Western states outside of California.

The office will help raise the profile of Armenian immigrants and the unrest in the homeland, as well as assisting Coloradans of Armenian descent with voter registration, political involvement and educational opportunities, said Elan Asatryan, executive director for ANCA, headquartered in Los Angeles.

The opening of our joint offices in the year following the Armenian Genocide centennial warrants nationwide celebration, as it signifies the strides of our community against all odds,” Asatryan said. “A people on the verge of annihilation, Armenians have in fact risen like a phoenix from the ashes, and have mobilized into an active citizenry and grassroots


force with unparalleled vigor and resolve.”

ANCA board member Pierre Yenokian noted that the Denver First Baptist Church has deep significance for Armenians. Relief efforts were coordinated there after the he said.

Asatryan added, “One hundred years later, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those whose lives were saved will be using for their headquarters from where they will tirelessly work on the grassroots level to preserve the Armenian cultural heritage and impact change both locally and statewide.

Simon Maghakyan, who launched ANCA’s Colorado chapter, is the organization’s Denver-based community development coordinator.

Last year, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper dedicated to all victims of crimes against humanity. In December, ANCA p.

Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt, a Republican from Colorado Springs, attended the grand opening. He caused an uproar after he took to the House floor to of Armenia last month in violation of terms of a 1994 ceasefire. He said he received push-back from Azerbaijani American consulate, which told him he didn’t understand the complexities of the conflict.

Klingenschmitt said hostilities continue to endanger the region’s Christian minority and he stands firm with Armenia.

“I believe in religious liberty for all people,” Klingenschmitt, a Christian minister, said on the doorstep of the First Baptist Church. “Violence leads to violence. I urge peace from all sides.”

Later in the morning Monday, the Colorado House welcomed a delegation of Armenian business people and visiting dignitaries.

Rep. Alec Garnett, a Democrat from Denver, introduced a tribute in the House to recognize “the work both Armenian organizations have done to advance the interests of the Armenian-American community and further the understanding of the Armenian history and culture.”

It states:

WHEREAS, This year marks the 101st anniversary of the first genocide of the 20th century, the Armenian genocide, when 1.5 million men, women, and children of Armenian descent were victims of a brutal genocide perpetrated by the Turkish Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923; and

WHEREAS, As a result, there are fewer than 75,000 indigenous Armenians living within the borders of modern Turkey today; and


WHEREAS, The former United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., stated in 1915, “Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whatever refinements of persecutions and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of this devoted people.”; and

WHEREAS, The killing of the Armenian people was followed by the systematic destruction of churches, schools, libraries, treasures of art, and cultural monuments that continues to this day in an attempt to eliminate all traces of a noble civilization with a history of more than 3,000 years; and

WHEREAS, Colorado newspapers widely reported the extermination of the Armenian people, and Colorado communities generously raised funds to assist the survivors, known at that time as the “Starving Armenians”, as illustrated in the January 16, 1919, Denver Post front-page story titled “Campaign for Armenian Relief is Making Splendid Headway” and a July 30, 1922, Denver Post front-page story titled “$60,000,000 from U.S. Keeps Armenians from extinction”; and

WHEREAS, In response to the genocide and at the behest of President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. State Department, the Near East Relief organization was founded and became the first congressionally sanctioned American philanthropic effort created exclusively to provide humanitarian assistance and rescue the Armenian Nation and other Christian minorities from annihilation, and many of those rescued went on to survive, revive, and thrive outside of their ancestral homeland all over the world and specifically in the state of Colorado; and

WHEREAS, Near East Relief succeeded, with the active participation of many Coloradans, including Governor Oliver Shoup, who concurrently served as Colorado State Chairman for Near East Relief, in delivering $117 million of assistance and saving more than one million refugees, including 132,000 orphans, between 1915 and 1930 by delivering food, clothing, and materials for shelter and setting up refugee camps, clinics, hospitals, and orphanages; and

WHEREAS, In 2009, the New York Times reported on an official


Ottoman document revealing that 972,000 Armenians disappeared from population records within one year, between 1915 and 1916; and

WHEREAS, Each April, Armenians throughout the world honor their martyrs and commemorate the Armenian genocide, a term first used by Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who coined the word “genocide” and drafted the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, explaining on CBS television in 1949 that he “became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians; and . . . their criminals . . . were not punished”; and

WHEREAS, We commend Armenians of Colorado, Inc., the


Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action, and other human rights organizations for their ongoing efforts to bring awareness and to educate the community, including our youth, about the Armenian genocide; now, therefore,


9 Be It Resolved by the Senate of the Seventieth General Assembly of the State of Colorado, the House of Representatives concurring herein:

(1) That we pause in our deliberations to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the Armenian genocide, which will be formally recognized at a memorial service at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 24, 2016, at the Armenian Garden, established in 1982 in the northeast quadrant on the State Capitol grounds;

(2) That we, the members of the General Assembly, hereby acknowledge April 24, 2016, and April 24 of each year thereafter, as “Colorado Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide”; and

(3) That we express support for efforts toward constructive and durable Armenian-Turkish relations based upon acknowledgment of the facts and ongoing consequences of the Armenian genocide, and a fair, just, and comprehensive international resolution of this crime against humanity.

Be It Further Resolved, That copies of this Joint Resolution be sent to the Honorable Barack Obama, President of the United States; the members of Colorado’s congressional delegation; the members of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues; the Honorable John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado; the Armenian Assembly of America in Washington, D.C.; the Armenian National Committee of America in Washington, D.C.; the Armenian Embassy in Washington, D.C.; the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan, Armenia; the Colorado Coalition for Genocide Awareness and Action; Rocky Mountain Hye Advocates; and Armenians of Colorado, Inc.