June 5, 2007

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Text of the Chile Senate Resolution
Recognizing the Armenian Genocide
(translated from Spanish)

Adopted June 5, 2007

Honorable Senate

Considering:

1. that 24th of April, 1915, in Constantinople, then the capital of the Turkish Empire, after the unjust arrest and later the disappearance of the entire leading class of the Armenian community, marks the beginning of a policy of systematic extermination of the Armenian population on the part of the imperial authorities;

2. that the brutal genocide, enacted between 1915 and 1923, resulted in the deaths of over 1.5 million Armenian citizens that lived in the lands of their ancestors for thousands of years;

3. that this reproachable action constituted the first ethnic cleansing of the 20th century and more than that or even any judgment or interpretation of it, signifies a flagrant violation of the human rights of that nation;

4. that in spite of the intent to erase the collective memory of mankind and of the loss of sensibility of the great powers to end those acts, the Armenians and their several organizations around the world have found that part of the international community may recognize the genocide in which they were doomed to be victims;

5. that such a recognition was granted in 1985 by the Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the UN that clarified the Armenian case as a genocide;

6. that nations such as Uruguay, Argentina, Greece, Bulgaria, Belgium, Russia, Italy, Lebanon, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland, Venezuela, Lithuania, Canada and France have made their own resolutions like those also of the European Parliament;

7. that our nation has yet to be made to regret to permanently invoke the supremacy of Human Rights in international relations above whatever agreement or compromise regardless of how important it may be;

8. that consequently it constitutes an ethical and moral imperative that Chile makes a resolution along the lines of that from 1985 which recognizes that the Ottoman Empire committed a brutal genocide in Armenia against a defenseless people that now cry out for moral reparations from part of the international community and especially Turkey.

By virtue of these outlined issues, the Honorable Senate of the Republic decides
1. To support the Armenian nation in condemning the genocide of its people and,
2. To call on the government of Chile to adheres to the 1985 United Nations decision.