President attends Genocide Museum groundbreaking ceremony in Argentine

July 9, 2014 - 15:56 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - On July 8, the second day of his official visit to the Argentine, President Serzh Sargsyan, accompanied by the Buenos Aires Government Chief of Staff Horacio Larreta, local officials and the Armenian community of Argentina, attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Genocide Museum.

After the ceremony, President Sargsyan delivered a speech.

The Armenian leader said, “I consider it a great honor to be present here today, at the heart of Buenos Aires, and lay the first brick on the foundation of the Armenian Genocide museum together with you.

This museum is being built in order to fill up the ranks of the numerous monuments dedicated to the Armenian Genocide which extend from East to West and from North to South as a testimony that we’ll remember the tragedy and will never stop demanding justice.

We’re thankful to Argentina who gave a helping hand to our people in hard times, saved not only hundreds of thousands of Armenians, but also restored our people’s broken belief in humanity.”

“Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. However, it is a well-known fact that the statutory limitation can’t be applied to the crimes against humanity. The 100th anniversary of Mets Yeghern is not an endpoint; it is just a unique destination. The centenary will sum up a historical period and will herald a new phase of a struggle for restoration and fight against denialism.

The history of the ages-old friendship between out two countries stores pages without which our bilateral cooperation would be unimaginable. This day will be written in gold letters in the register of the Armenian-Argentine history, leaving its indelible imprint on condemning and preventing the gravest crime against humanity – the genocide.”

Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, on May 6, 2014 the government of the city of Buenos Aires decided to allocate a free area for construction of an Armenian Genocide Museum in capital’s Palermo district. On June 10, with participation of the Armenian embassy in Argentina and under the patronage of Hay center and the Armenian diocese of Argentina, the official ceremony of handing the legal documents of the area allocated by the city authorities of Buenos Aires for the purpose of building an Armenian Genocide museum took place.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.