Wednesday, November 29 2023 11:35

ArmInfo. Below is a  statement by Armenia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations  Mher Margaryan at the Side Event to the 75th Anniversary of the  Genocide Convention, entitled "The Role of Religious Communites in  Upholding and Implementing the Genocide". 

"High Representative Moratinos,

"Special Adviser Nderitu,

"Thank you for organising this commemorative event in the run-up to  the 75th Anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and  Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

"Within the United Nations, Armenia has been consistently campaigning  to reinforce the implementation of the Convention and to advance the  prevention agenda.

"The International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of  Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, which was established  upon Armenia's initiative, has evolved into a platform of dialogue  and cooperation to foster prevention of atrocity crimes.

"The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the  Responsibility to Protect has a key role to play in advancing  international efforts and prevention mechanisms through effective  monitoring of grave human rights violations and assessing the risks  of potential atrocities.

"While the conceptual debates and deliberations are important and we  appreciate the organisation of this side event OSAPG and Alliance of  Civilizations - it is imperative to reflect and address the  situations when violations are committed by perpetrators that are  members of the United Nations.

"Just recently, on 19 September, large-scale offensive against  Nagorno-Karabakh took lives of hundreds of people, including  children, and resulted in mass forced displacement of the entire  population. It was preceded by humanitarian crisis that the people of  Nagorno-Karabakh had been undergoing since the blockade of the Lachin  Corridor in December 2022, an action that has been identified by the  first Prosecutor of International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo  as "the archetype of genocide through the imposition of conditions of  life designed to bring about a group's destruction".

"The premeditated and well-planned aggression against a population  under blockade, which drove the entire population into forced  displacement, is an explicit case of an ethnic cleansing, perpetrated  under the UN's watch. The entire ethnic Armenian population were  driven out of their ancestral land, leaving behind their homes, their  schools, their churches, their places of worship, the graveyards of  their loved ones, thousands of monuments and artefacts of the vast  Armenian cultural and religious heritage.

"We appreciate that on 22 September 2023 the Special Advisor of the  UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide issued a statement  stressing that "Military action can only contribute to escalate what  is already a tense situation and to put the civilian population in  the area at risk of violence, including risk of genocide and related  atrocity crimes".

"High Representative Moratinos,

"Special Adviser Nderitu, distinguished colleagues,

"The international community can no longer look the other way when  faced with the clearly detectable signs of genocide, when grave and  systematic human rights violations are routinely perpetrated. The  United Nations, its respective bodies and structures have yet to meet  their obligations vis-a-vis the people of Nagorno-Karabakh."