CHILE’S SENATE CALLS GOVERNMENT FOR RECOGNIZING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Noyan Tapan
Jun 07 2007

SANTIAGO, JUNE 7, NOYAN TAPAN. On June 5 Chile’s Senate passed a
unanimous resolution, calling the goverment for supporting the Armenian
people and condemning the genocide committed against them. Recardo
Nunyes Munyos, Senate member from the Socialist Party, is the author
of the draft resolution. This was reported to Noyan Tapan by RA Press
and Information Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The document particularly says that on April 24, 1915 in
Kostandnupolis, the capital of the Turkish Empire of those days, all
the leaders of the Armenian community were detained without a court
procedure and disappeared without a trace, and this initiated the
policy of natural annihilation towards that people by the empire
authorities. As a result of the severely committed genocide in
1915-1923, more than 1.5 mln Armenian subjects of the Empire, who lived
in the lands of their ancestors for thousands of years, were killed.

It is mentioned in the document that this terrible deed was the first
"ethnic cleansing" of the 20th century, that recorded the fact of human
rights violation of this people much earlier than such kind of deeds
got legal formulation. In contrary to the efforts of razing it from
the collective memory of humanity and the absence of big countries’
sensitive approach towards what had happened, the Armenians and
Armenian organizations, victims of that terrible deed, spread all
over the world, are honored with the recognition of the genocide
by the world community. In 1985 it was also recognized by the UN
Discrimination Prevention and Minorities Protection Sub-Commission,
which qualified what had happened to the Armenians as a genocide. The
fact of the genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Argentina, Greece,
Bulgaria, Russia, Italy, Lebanon, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland,
Venezuela, Lithuania, Canada and France, as well as by European
Parliament, World Church Council (WCC) and the Permanent Peoples’
Court.

"Our country has not recognized the genocide yet, in contrary
to its permanent assurance, according to which in international
relations the principle of human rights is superior with respect to
any agreement or obligation, thus, it’s Chile’s ethnic and moral duty
to take corresponding steps, that follow from the 1985 UN resolution,
according to which a severe genoside was committed in the Armenia
under the rule of the Ottoman Empire against a defenceless people,
which demands moral compensation from the world community and the
Turkish country, in particular," the document says.

Taking into account the above-mentioned, Chile’s Senate has made a
decision to support the Armenian people, condemning the genocide,
and address Chile’s goverment with the suggestion of joining the 1985
UN resolution.