Former Gov. Deukmejian speaks about Armenia, South Africa, Mandela, in LA Times story

The Saturday edition of the Los Angeles Times features a story on former California Gov. George Deukmejian and his efforts throughout the 1980s to bring justice to South Africa.

STORY LINK: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-cap-mandela-20131212,0,3818068.column?page=1#axzz2nQhICPxg

The story comes on the heals of the passing of Nelson Mandela, the former South African president who passed away last week at the age of 95.

George Skelton of the Capitol Journal wrote the article, entitled "Leading the way to justice in South Africa."

He writes: Nelson Mandela and George Deukmejian never met. They never even communicated. But Mandela's freedom and the demise of South African apartheid resulted in no small part because of California's governor.

Deukmejian, who is interviewed for the Times story, says "My father lost a sister. She just sort of disappeared," Deukmejian told me. "Genocide was being carried out against Armenians. My father and his brothers escaped to the U.S. My mother's family also was in Turkey and suffered."

... "More people were being injured and killed," Deukmejian says. "I began to think about it a little differently and remembering the many stories I had heard when I was growing up from my Armenian parents and family.

"They were in Turkey and nobody was helping. A lot of refugees were hoping to get on British and French ships and be rescued, but those countries didn't come through. They were left on their own with no means to protect themselves.

"I was equating that in my mind to what was happening to blacks in South Africa."