October 5, 2007

Raffi Hovannisian at the Council of Europe, Speaks on Armenia, Darfur

Strasbourg—Heritage Party leader and member of parliament, Raffi K. Hovannisian, attended the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as part of the Armenian National Assembly delegation. The conference was held at PACE headquarters in Strasbourg, France on October 1-5.

Hovannisian first took part in the session of the European People’s Party (EPP) Group. In rebuttal to the Azeri delegation’s anti-Armenian presentation, Hovannisian said “Instead of attempting to gain dividends by means of ‘squeezing in’ incomplete and unsubstantiated information with respect to the Mountainous Karabagh issue, the rapporteur of the Group is required to represent EPP values to the utmost.”

Later, he met with heads of state and diplomats from Europe, including the President of Montenegro Filip Vujanovic; Secretary General Christopher Grayson of the PACE Committee on Culture, Science, and Education; British MP Eddie O’Hara, PACE rapporteur on the cultural heritage in the South Caucasus; Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis; President of PACE René van der Linden; and President of the EPP Group Luc Van den Brande. The many topics discussed included cooperation in the challenges of democracy, the self-determination of nations, and the ruin of cultural landmarks. Hovannisian discussed with Chair Emanuel Zingeris of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Cultural Heritage the destruction of the crosstones located at the medieval Armenian cemetery of Jugha in Nakhijevan, and stressed the need to take drastic preventive measures.

Raffi Hovannisian then participated in the PACE plenary session and delivered a speech on the Darfur crisis. Hovannisian mentioned the “Dream for Darfur” Olympic torch-lighting ceremony which occurred last week at Yerevan at the memorial to the Armenian genocide and in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, survivors of the Holocaust, survivors from Darfur and survivors of the great genocide in the late-Ottoman empire.

“Whether we are discussing the destruction of the Armenian homeland and civilization at the beginning of the 20th century, the Holocaust, Cambodia or Rwanda, Darfur is one common European challenge,” Hovannisian stated. “The rights to life, liberty, identity, dignity and homeland are inalienable and, as Europeans, we must be the torch-bearers for their realization.” He also pointed to the need to draw a distinct connection between the past, the present and the future, and to secure a European future.

Through October 3rd and 4th, Hovannisian as part of the Armenian parliamentary delegation had a meeting with Thomas Hammerberg, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and gave an intervention before the Committee on Culture, Science, and Education. He called attention to the destruction of old Jugha by a member-state of the Council of Europe and the scandalous refusal of the Azerbaijani authorities to grant site access to an official PACE rapporteur.

Raffi Hovannisian left Strasbourg today for Reykjavik, Iceland in order to take part as a member of the Armenian delegation in NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly.