A powerful documentary premiered and several times rerun by CNN late last week has elicited critical responses from at least two Diaspora-based Armenian organizations and raised questions among specialists and ordinary viewers inside Armenia.

“Scream Bloody Murder” anchored by Christiane Amanpour offered a gripping look at Genocide throughout history and those who witnessed and warned a deaf world about such atrocities.

But the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and the Armenian National Committee of Armenia (ANCA) criticized the CNN chief international correspondent for failing to adequately discuss the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

Both advocacy groups released statements urging the public to contact CNN to draw attention to
Amanpour’s “serious shortcoming” in her documentary and ask that the company immediately amend its “inadequate reporting”.

“This documentary calls attention to the brave individuals who called out to their respective governments and alerted the international community about the atrocities being committed. Sadly, less than 1 minute was devoted to the Armenian Genocide,” the AAA said. “The Armenian Genocide was the prototypical Genocide repeated throughout the 20th century. The tactics used in 1915 are omnipresent today in Darfur, including denial, the final stage of genocide.”

The ANCA said: “Sadly, however, in a disservice to its millions of viewers, CNN neglected to include the Armenian Genocide as the first such event, despite the fact that it was this atrocity that first prompted international lawyer Raphael Lemkin to coin the word “genocide,” and to work toward the eventual adoption of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

Amanpour’s documentary begins with the roots of the word Genocide and chronicles the stormy conflicts within Lemkin, who, as Amanpour puts it, was affected by the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks and was prompted to coin the phrase Genocide.

As Ara Khachatourian wrote in an Asbarez editorial (www.asbarez.com) late last week,
“in the almost 90-minute press screener, the Armenian Genocide was mentioned for about 45 seconds as an anecdotal reference to Lemkin’s struggle for human justice. Using photographs now familiar to all Armenians and possibly obtained from Armin T. Wegner Collection, Amanpour illustrates the horror of the Armenian Genocide but does not delve into it in as in-depth and compelling manner as she does the other instances of Genocide.”

After watching the film, Hayk Demoyan, who heads the Armenian Genocide Institute-Museum in Yerevan, said he felt he had seen only the second part of it.

“I think Christiane Amanpour has forgotten to present the first part of the documentary, the part that deals with the Armenian Genocide, which is a classical example of the genocide at the beginning of last century. And it is the impunity for the Armenian Genocide that led to all the other genocides of the century,” Demoyan told ArmeniaNow.

According to Demoyan, the author of the documentary should have mentioned the fact that the first feature film about the Armenian Genocide based on documental evidence was produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in California as far back as in 1918, the time when the atrocities were still continuing in the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

“The script writer of that movie, Arshaluys Martikanyan, was herself a witness of the genocide, The movie was for the first time shown at New York Plaza Hotel in 1919, with about 7,000 prominent New Yorkers attending the premier,” Demoyan said.