PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
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Statement of H.E. Vartan Oskanian
At the UN Human Rights Council
Geneva, Switzerland
March 13, 2004

Mr. President of the Council,
Madame High Commissioner,

In this first year of this new Council, together with the human rights
community, we have been refining the processes that will empower this body
in order for it to meet our shared high expectations. The expectations of
this Council were high at the outset. They would have remained high, even
if the world were not embroiled in destructive explosive conflicts. It is
no surprise that at the heart of most of those conflicts, lies an absence
of a respect for basic human rights.

Our collective responsibility is to those individuals and groups, those
millions represented through their governments here, as well as to those
whose voices remain muted. They are not interested in our debates, they
know little about the nuance and the detail, but our seriousness and
sincerity will be judged either by their trust and confidence or by their
cynicism and disdain.

With this realization, the strengths of the Commission on Human Rights
drove the need for an even more powerful body. The limitations of that
Commission compelled the creation of a more effective structure with
broader reach. The Universal Periodic Review process, if it lives up to
its name, holds the promise of the impartiality and inclusiveness we seek
and require, in order for the process to transform itself from a means to
an end – from a way of investigating the human rights environment to
enabling an environment where there are human rights.

Our objective is a world where the rights of individuals and groups are
respected, where each neighborhood and each community, each city and
country, each region and continent, are safe havens for all who live or
travel there. Religion does tear people apart, as do economic disparities,
language and ideology. But the frustrating and fascinating contradiction
is that
faith has also bound people together, prosperity has been a common goal,
language and ideology have been shared.

Mr.President, this universal truism is also true in our region.
Unfortunately, the human rights record in our whole region during the past
fifteen years is nothing to be envied; it is a case study in how human
rights abuses lead to conflict and how conflicts heighten human rights
abuses. From pogroms to ethnic cleansing, from destruction of spiritual
markers to vilification of ethnic groups, we have lived through the worst
that man can do to man. It is no wonder that the region has been mired in
conflict since the first days of independence. As we search for ways to
build a peace atop this pain and destruction, however, it is clear that
solutions can only be found through the genuine and universal acceptance
and application of basic, fundamental individual and collective human
rights. There is the formula for peace: The violation of human rights
brought us to this quagmire; the respect for human rights will get us out.

Indeed it is an entangled web of human rights abuses of varied scope,
nature and depth that has brought our region to this situation. First,
there is the total disrespect of the cultural values of other people. When
a government intentionally plans and executes the destruction of
centuries-old monuments of profound cultural, artistic and religious
significance, that government has violated the spirits of the dead and the
trust of the living. Five thousand Armenian monuments have been destroyed
by the Azerbaijani government in the region of Nakhichevan in the past few
years, simply to eliminate the trace of a whole nation from that
territory.

Second, there is the violation of the right of people to
self-determination. In the waning days of the USSR, the people of Nagorno
Karabakh opted for self-determination. The Azerbaijani authorities decided
to attack their own citizens to suppress those calls. And by doing so,
they lost the political and moral right to govern people they considered
their own citizens.

Third, there are the negative consequences of the double denialism of the
Turkish government. The denial of the right of their own people to freely
discuss and debate their common past with Armenians, and the denial to
both Armenians and Turks to forge a common future, by keeping borders
closed. Hrant Dink, the Turkish-Armenian journalist who fell victim to an
assassin’s bullet, was the embodiment of both Turkishness and
Armenianness. Hrant Dink had two missions in his life – to break all
taboos within his own society, Turkish society, and to forge a dialog
between Turks and Armenians to reach understanding and reconciliation.

Indeed, that’s exactly what we want today. There needs to be an open
society within Turkey so that their people can, without the fear of
persecution, freely debate the past, and there has to be an open border
between us so that our two peoples can interact and engage. Only in this
way can we transcend our differences and reconcile.

Now, Mr. President, a word about our own commitment to human rights and
democracy. In this, our 16th year of independence, our people will be
going to the polls to elect a parliament whose powers the people chose to
enhance, to invest them with broad authorities for social and economic
advances. The task of our next government is clear: to stay the course
and more aggressively promote human rights, alleviate poverty and build
effective governing institutions, to enable our society to embrace
democracy individually and collectively.

But the cruelties inherent in the process of massive economic readjustment
that we have been undergoing have led to a sense of powerlessness on the
part of ordinary citizens. As a consequence, they are cynical about the
value of expressing their voice. This means we must work harder to
strengthen democratic institutions and processes, including elections,
because they are not just ends. They are also means to creating the
necessary political and economic environment which lead to distributed
growth and dignified development.

Finally Mr. President, this Council and each of us, its members, have a
responsibility to promote the human rights we hold so dear in the world,
in our regions and in our own societies. There is nothing new in this
formula. Our challenge is to commit to it and make it work.

Thank you.