DETERMINED TO STATE “NEVER AGAIN” LET’S PREVENT THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE: SERZH SARGSYAN
11:28, 22 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
Address by H.E. Serzh Sargsyan, President of the Republic of Armenia,
at the International Social and Political Global Forum against the
Crime of Genocide
Distinguished guests, Dear participants of the global forum,
I welcome you at the International Social and Political Global Forum
against the Crime of Genocide. Thank you for accepting our invitation,
and your most important contribution. The impressive and venerable
list of this forum’s participants gives us hope that the forum will
become an important platform to comprehensively discuss, and further
improve the mechanisms for the prevention of genocide that is the
crime of all crimes. I strongly believe that the remarks delivered,
and the views expressed here will trigger a broad international
reaction that in its turn may produce an invaluable impact on the
raising of global awareness on this key issue.
The international organizations’ agendas, diplomatic efforts exerted
by the small and large states alike, international media’s headlines
have recently been specifically addressing one of the tremendous
challenges humanity faces. I speak of the Middle East, the modern
civilization’s cradle, where the surging extremism and intolerance
resulted in violence and, at some places, even in genocidal acts
against a number minorities. This is yet another warning to the
international community alerting that the threat of the crimes of
genocide, and other crimes against humanity, has not been eliminated,
and requires consolidated and consistent efforts by the international
organizations, states and civil society.
Dear participants,
This forum is one of the central events to mark the Armenian Genocide
Centennial. As you are aware, commemoration events are being held in
different countries of the world, supported by the four fundamental
pillars. Those are remembrance, gratitude, prevention, and revival.
These are also the messages that the Republic of Armenia, and Armenian
Diaspora communities that emerged because of the Genocide in different
countries wish to deliver to the international community and coming
generations upon the Centennial. These four notions are also deeply
symbolic for the commemoration of all other crimes of genocide
committed throughout the human history.
One of the topics to be discussed during the forum refers to the role
of the memory and truth in overcoming the consequences of genocide.
That is, truly, the most accurate way to pin it down since, as far as
the crimes of genocide are concerned, the remembrance and contemporary
reality are unavoidably interlaced. Genocide is a crime of such a vast
scale, with such a severe damage inflicted that even many decades
later its impact is felt by the descendants of both the victims and
perpetrators, as well as by the entire international community.
For us, Armenians, remembrance is a moral obligation and, at the same
time, inalienable individual and collective right. It is our moral
duty and right to commemorate the one and a half milion of victims,
inhumane sufferings endured by the hundreds of thousands, loss of the
material and spiritual heritage accumulated by our people throughout
millenia, extermination of the substantial part of the early 20th
century Armenian intelligentsia, who mainly resided in Constantinople,
that led to the mass slaughter. It is because of this cohesion of the
right and duty that we have adopted the motto “I remember and demand”
for the commemoration events.
It is impossible to disagree with the Holocaust survivor and Nobel
Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who notes that “to forget the dead would be
akin to killing them a second time.” Remembrance, meanwhile, is the
best remedy for the descendants of those who perpetrated genocide to
face their own history, and the best oportunity to restore the justice.
The crimes of genocide – Medz Yeghern, Shoah, those commited in
Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and elsewhere, shall be commemorated by
both the successors of the victims and perpetrators. The path to
reconciliation is not paved by denial, but rather by the consciousness
of memory.
Dear participants,
Perpetration of genocide is both an aftermath of the inner developments
in a given state or society, and failure of the entire system
of international relations. It has been demonstrated on numerous
occasions that impunity is a prerequisite to the recurrence of the
crime of genocide. The Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust were
committed in the course of, respectively, the World War One and Two.
The international community proved unable to prevent them and other
crimes of genocide. Remembrance is the only possible way to reveal
nowadays the enormous losses that the global civilization has suffered
as in the aftermath of the crimes of genocide. It is impossible to
describe by words the scope and level of the distortion of human
values that resulted in the initiation of such a heinous crime.
In our recollections of the crimes of genocide a specific significance
has been reserved the notion of gratitude in order to acknowledge the
human virtue that saved thousands of living souls. There have been
numerous narratives, such as the activities of Irena Sendler and Raoul
Wallenberg during the Holocaust, Paul Rusesabagina during the Rwandan
Genocide, Van Chhuon during the Cambodian Genocide; they all ensured
the physical security of the people they rescued, and inspired hope
at the times of overwhelming domination of cruelty and hatred.
The Armenian people has not forgotten and is grateful to those Kurds
and Turks, who covertly saved lives of their Armenian neighbors. We
are indebted to the Arab people, who gave shelter to those, who
had narrowly escaped the Turkish yataghan, as well as the Russians,
Americans and Europeans, who took care of the Armenian orphans or
partook in the humanitarian efforts.
Equally, our gratitude is well-earned by the public figures,
clergymen, missionaries, diplomats, and those nations that demonstrated
righteousness and civic courage since their actions had been guided
by the noble ideas of humanism.
Dear participants,
Alongside with our consistent efforts toward the recognition,
condemnation of the Genocide and elimination of its consequences, the
prevention of the crimes of genocide is yet another key mission on our
foreign policy agenda. Needless to say, these efforts are interrelated
since the recognition and condemnation of the past crimes of genocide
play invaluable role in the prevention of the crimes against humanity.
For that reason we attach utmost importance to the genocide prevention,
and emphasize once again our firm resolution and political will in
combating crimes incompatible with the human civilization.
Armenia’s active engagement with the international community’s efforts
toward the prevention of the crime of genocide has been time and
again demonstrated through the relevant UN resolutions adopted by
consensus throughout years upon our initiative. The most recent one
was adopted in March of this year by the United Nation’s Human Rights
Council. The resolution, inter alia, condemned the international public
denial of crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity since public
denials created a risk of further violations and undermined efforts
to prevent genocide.
Denial, in conjunction with the creation of genocidal environment and
extermination itself, is a vertex of that very triangle. The denial
of genocide is fraught with inciting a new xenophobic wave, and is
often accompanied by intolerance and justification of the already
commited crimes of genocide. However, under strong international
pressure denial aqcuires a seemingly softer yet eqaually dangerous
nature overshadowed or dissolved in the history revision campaigns.
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
It is unambiguous that considerable contribution has been made so
far by the international law experts and historians toward the
legal definition of the term “genocide,” and development of the
punishment mechanisms for this crime. Likewise unambiguous has been
the contribution of the social and political circles, journalists, and
parliamentarians, who without any hesitation very often took the lead
in that respect. The aforesaid is absolutely applicable also to the
case of the Armenian Genocide. In 1915-16 the world press was replete
with horrendous articles describing the Armenian massacres. The New
York Times covered the issue extensively publishing some 145 articles
in 1915 alone with headlines like “Appeal to the Ottoman Empire to
Stop Massacres.” The newspaper characterized the crime perpetrated
against the Armenian people as “systematic,” “authorized,” and
“organized by the government.”
On May 24, 1915 the Allied Powers, Great Britain, France, and Russia
jointly issued a statement, describing the crime perpetrated against
the Armenian people as a “crime against humanity and civilization”,
which was the first time ever that definition was aired on such a
high level.
Subsequently, these notions were introduced into the fundamental
language to define that crime – the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court, and other most important documents of
the international law.
The recurrence of the crimes against humanity and genocide has also
been caused by the lack of adequate adequacy, consistency, unity and
determination of the international community for the recognition,
and condemnation of the committed crimes of genocide, as well as for
the elimination of the genocidal environment and denial. Parliaments
and their members, as cornerstones of the democratic values, have a
significant role to play in that regard.
I deem it important that in the framework of this conference a special
discussion will be held on the invaluable role of the legislators.
Their messages, decisions and statements are significant both for
the restoration of justice, and for the emancipation of the given
societies, especially the coming generations from the clutches of
the consequences of the evil of genocide.
I welcome and value the two documents adopted by the National Assembly
of the Republic of Armenia this year – the Statement Condemning the
Genocide of the Greeks and Assyrians Perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkey,
and the amendments introduced in the Law on Holidays and Memorial
Days. In accordance to the latter December 9 is designated as the day
for condemnation and prevention of the crimes of genocide, which is
highly symbolic, as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Crime of Genocide had been adopted on the very that day.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In this context revival is the last one amongst the most important
messages of ours. A hundred years ago the Armenian people survived
through the darkest and brutal page of their history. The calamity
that befell upon our ancestors was indeed unprecedented by its scale.
Today, a hundred years thenceforth, the Armenian people commemorates
its martyrs, and presents itself to the world with the independent
state, emancipated Artsakh, and viable Diaspora that strives to
preserve the Armenian identity and to develop Armenia proper. Now
our overarching objective is to contribute anew to the development
of universal civilization.
All those achievements have been based upon the revival of the Armenian
people. Perhaps, it has been the demonstration of the most salient
feature of our people – upholding the faith toward the universal
human values, in spite of all the complications and calamities,
and the ability to find the strength within to build and create
anew. Yet in 1918 the Armenian statehood, lost centuries ago, had
been restored. Later on, during the Soviet times the Armenian people
created numerous spiritual and tangible values thus partaking in
the enrichment of the world scientific and cultural repository. The
revival of the Armenian people culminated in the 1991 national
awakening with the accession of the newly independent Republic of
Armenia to the international family of sovereign states.
The Armenian nation revived not only in the homeland, but also in
Diaspora. The sons and daughters of Armenia, who had found refuge
in many countries of the world because of the Armenian Genocide,
successfully integrated in the societies that adopted them, and
meanwhile preserved their Armenian identity, their sense of deep bond
with the Armenian homeland.
Therefore, on the Armenian Genocide Centennial we declare confidently
in broad daylight that the perpetrators of the Genocide failed to
achieve what they planned. Moreover, our response to the attempt to
annihilate the Armenian nation is the state building, our ongoing
revival that is now no longer reversible.
Dear participants,
In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that today’s Forum, along
with the discussions to be held, shall send the following powerful
and pragmatic message to the international community: the crimes of
genocide have not in the least ceased to be a threat to the humanity,
and the overcoming of their consequences, and prevention shall become
a top priority. The lessons of the past simply oblige us to do so. The
civilized humanity shall joint its efforts to eradicate eventually
the evil of genocide, and its underlying circumstances.
It is a well-known truth that everything is interconnected in
the universe. It is also true for the civilization since humanity
establishes itself as a harmonious and complete continuum within the
patchwork of its diverse races, nations, cultures, and religions.
Genocide is a crime that is intended to tear a branch off from the
tree of the global civilization. The loss of any branch may be fatal
to the rest that tree.
Hence, being determined to state “Never again” let’s make our modest
contribution towards the universal objective that unites us all –
a more adequate accomplishment of the international community’s
mission to prevent the crime of genocide.
Once again, I thank you for being with us in Yerevan these days,
and wish you a fruitful work.
Thank you.
From: A. Papazian