ARMENIAN FOREIGN MINISTER SPEAKS AT UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL

Yerkir
15.03.2007 13:38

YEREVAN (YERKIR) – Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian made a
speech on March 13 at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Below is the text of the speech.

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.