SPEECH BY AMBASSADOR OF ARMENIA IN THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS GAGIK GALACHYAN AT THE POLITICAL GATHERING IN PASYDY HALL NICOSIA – CYPRUS, AT THE 95TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMMEMORATION OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by Alexander-Michael Hadjilyra
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Saturday April 24 2010
Nicosia – 95 years ago, the days of April 1915 were carved with
bloody letters in the memory and the age-old history of the Armenian
people, writing its darkest and most tragic page. The Young Turks’
government of the Ottoman Empire set in motion the barbaric state
plan for the mass extermination of Armenians, which itself and its
equally bloodthirsty predecessors had adopted, a plan today known as
the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
In order to eliminate even the name and every trace of Armenians on
their historical homeland, they exterminated an entire people and
razed the once thriving towns and villages to the ground. They set on
fire rich centres, monasteries and temples, and important treasures
that the Armenian nation created with toil and with its soul on its
fatherland’s sacred soil.
Just a handful of people, those fortunate enough to survive, followed
the sad route of displacement, and in the next years they formed, in
dozens of countries, the Armenian Diaspora. An important part found
refuge in the hospitable arms of the sharing the same religion and
fortune Greek-Cypriots, for whose country, already from the 19th
century, an Armenian poet wrote "There is no other island like
our Cyprus". In this incomparable island, also tried by Turkish
hostility, live and work until today the few descendants of the
Genocide survivors, contributing to the prosperity of the country
located in this beautiful part of the world. We, Armenians, are
grateful to our Cypriot friends, for their centuries-old affinity
and support that today is formed with the effective co-operation of
the two friendly countries.
In fact, today we jointly pay tribute to the memory of innocent
victims of the Genocide, joining our voice with Armenians around the
world and the entire civilised humankind. As elsewhere, in Cyprus too,
commemoration ceremonies are yet another resounding statement that the
Genocide of the Armenian people, perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire,
is one of the greatest crimes against humanity.
At the same time, they remind us that the entire international
community has so far not recognised and condemned this crime, something
which would constitute a guarantee for the prevention and punishment
of the crime of genocide. About twenty countries of the world have
recognised and condemned the Armenian Genocide, but also hundreds
of legislative and executive bodies of cities, regions and states,
as well as numerous international organizations.
The Republic of Cyprus has already done it, 35 years ago, during these
April days, by a special resolution of the Parliament, with which it
not only recognised and condemned the crime perpetrated against the
Armenians, the extermination and deprivation of their homeland, but
also expressed its support for the full restoration of the rights of
the Armenian people. This is why Armenians remain thankful to their
loyal friend, the people of Cyprus.
We have no doubt that, certainly, the number of countries recognising
and condemning the Genocide will increase. We are convinced that,
sooner or later, Turkey will recognise it too, as the acknowledgement
of the ancestors’ trespass is necessary, to begin with, for the Turkish
people themselves and their country, which aspires to be incorporated
to the European civilisation.
The Armenian people, although they lost the greatest part of their
historical homeland and underwent a barbarous uprooting, continue to
live today and create in the young Republic of Armenia, the liberated
– after the war that was imposed upon it, with a victorious outcome –
Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), and the Armenian Diaspora. By regaining its
national sovereignty and by establishing the new, stable and powerful
state, the Republic of Armenia has become a full and respected member
of the international family of people, a reliable partner that plays
all the more an essential role in the international scene.
The Armenian people, who thanks to their unbending faith and their
power of will managed to survive the Genocide, did not have any other
option, after the terrible destruction fate had in store for them,
than to struggle, to strengthen their new state entity and to claim
their rights, by unifying parts separated by the storms of history.
Today, honouring the memory of the innocent victims, we urge
the present and future generations of all peoples of the advanced
world, to remember what happened, in order to avert and prevent the
possibility of it being repeated, in any corner of the world should
this danger emerge.