Int’l community must eradicate all cases of genocidal conduct: President

 April 23, 2016 - 12:34 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The year 2015 was an important milestone for us to grasp anew the 100-year long struggle of the Armenian nation for its right to exist, President Serzh Sargsyan said as he opened the 2nd Global Forum against the Crime of Genocide.

“The Armenian Genocide Centennial was marked not by mourning but messages of gratitude and revival that we sent out to the world, as well as determination to make Armenia one of the pioneering forces to lead the struggle against that crime. Our vision is clear as crystal: it is necessary to instill consciousness of the absolute inadmissability of genocide in order to prevent such catastrophes unfolding,” Sargsyan said.

“The current logic of the global development unambiguously registers that we are all interdependent, and that interdependence transforms a failure of one into a failure of all, and that is also true for a success or suffering. Today it is difficult to imagine a security challenge that threatens only one nation. Therefore, none of us can consider oneself ensured against the horrors that our ancestors went through in the 20th century, that our contemporaries are surviving in the 21st century unless we decide that we should state “never again” regardless of the price that every one of us should pay. That same logic also reminds us that a genocide committed at any corner of the world should be viewed as a failure for the international community as a whole, and the prevention of it is the duty of every single one of us individually and of the humankind collectively. Hence, it is natural that those, who underwent and survived genocide and their generations shall be continuously looking at the international community and pressing for justice.

“Today, unfortunately, the humankind still lacks humanness. It is demonstrated by the wave of denial by the genocide perpetrators and their successors. It was rightly noted by the Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel that to deny would be akin to killing victims a second time. In some instances denial is expressed through violation of the right to remembrance and awareness. Denial imposes constant feeling of fear unto the survivors and their successors since those who deny or justify what had happened do not directly exclude the possibility of recurrence of that very same crime should there be appropriate conditions for that.

Meanwhile, I believe that the international legal documents related to the crime of genocide do not pay due attention to the international legal regulation of the issues related to the genocide survivors. The same is also true for the international legal regime related to the refugees. It is critical to understand how to define a special legal status for survivors of genocide and other crimes against humanity through the improvement of the existing legal mechanisms or introduction of new legal norms; otherwise, perhaps, it would be impossible to comprehensively approach this issue.

Any reasonable adjudication of a crime also requires recognition of the rights of the victims concerning their losses and suffering. Certainly, it is also true for the survivors of genocide and other crimes against humanity. Necessary mechanisms should be installed, which will allow both recognizing that right and implementing it.

As recent crises in the Middle East have demonstrated, nowadays the issue of genocide prevention remains urgent and topical. Lately, the world has been watching with repulsion how the terrorists of the Islamic State have been torturing, beheading and mutilating innocent people, including women, children, and elderly people. The world is shocked with the barbarities that are carried out by a gang of thugs, who can hardly be called to justice and can be fought against barely with missiles.

Nevertheless, if the thugs that carry out atrocities are fought with missiles, a question comes up: what kind of responsibility should a state, a subject of international law, bear for condoning and carrying out similar crimes?

We as the international community must swiftly and resolutely eradicate all such instances of genocidal conduct wherever they should occur, as it was done some days ago by the leadership and public of Sweden with regard to the hate speech directed against Armenians by the Turkish nationalist Barbaros Leylani. This requires our concerted effort, perhaps even subordination of geopolitical interests, ability to voice strict and targeted condemnation. Unless we are able to nip such conduct in the bud, we will have to deal with the elimination of their various and unpredictable consequences; we will continue to face various crimes nourished by hatred – crimes, among which are the terrorist activities that gain new range and scale on our continent.

On the Armenian Genocide Centennial, the Armenian nation sent out a message of gratitude to the entire world. The 100 Lives initiative and the Aurora Prize were launched on behalf of the survivors and as a token of appreciation to those who in the direst times came to the Armenian people’s rescue. I congratulate and express my admiration to the nominees of the Prize. All your stories are very touching; at the same time, those are inspiring and encouraging. I thank the founders of this project – Vartan Gregorian, Noubar Afeyan, and Ruben Vardanian, organizers of the award ceremony, as well as all those who have contributed to the implementation of this momentous initiative,” the President said in his speech.