The 24th of April means for us, Armenians, the memory of an ignominious time that is reflected in two very clear and concrete things, the genocide suffered by our elders perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish regime, and the occupation of our historical lands, in blood and fire, by the same genocidal country.

By Dr. Guillermo A. Karamanian

The two are inextricably linked.

The survivors of the barbarism, in forced exile, without family and land, had to flee in an unknown direction.

More than 100 years have passed since both events. The crime continues to go unpunished, with the perpetrators of the crime in impudent denial, and the land continues to be occupied by the genocidaires in the face of the impassivity and complicity of the entire civilised world, which pursues only its own pragmatic interests, without any of its objectives being to seek the justice that the Armenian people demand and need.

The Armenian people demand and need in order to live in peace.

Sadly, our dead are dead and nothing we can do post-mortem can remedy this irreparable loss. But the lands are still there, waiting for us to recover them.

The original, millenarian and indigenous people of Western Armenia, represented today at the state level by the authorities of the Republic of Western Armenia, demand justice before the world, but not just any kind of justice, but one that is comprehensive, full and effective, one that can be far-reaching enough to turn this tremendous page of our history.

The only action that meets these requirements is to DEMAND TO TURKEY AND AZERBAIDJIAN THE IMMEDIATE RETURN OF OUR ANCESTRAL LANDS, as stipulated by the International Public Law in force.

We have already learned that in order to achieve this justice, we have to take care of it ourselves, because in this materialistic world, we Armenians have always been alone.

Not only the demand to the genocidaires, which is an elementary and primary conduct that any well-born Armenian should manifest by the mere fact of being Armenian, but the concretion of this demand, that is, to achieve the effective restitution of Our Lands to our people, who are the natural and legal owners of them, as provided for by international public law in 1920 by the will of some twenty countries such as England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the United States of America, Japan, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Brazil and Argentina.

Armenians all over the world, who feel that we are part of one Armenian people, from 1991 onwards, as if by a paradox of fate, have been divided into two states: the Armenian state that the world recognised in 1920 from Artsakh to the borders determined by US President Woodrow Wilson in an international arbitration ruling, and the state of 1991, which that year separated from the 1920 state of Armenia to become an independent country of 29,000 square kilometres.

None of us Armenians living in exile communities in every corner of the globe were asked anything about it, nor was anything of what was happening explained to us. The events took place without us realising it and many Armenians are still unaware of this reality that I am describing.

Our message to the Armenian people on this holy day is simple and clear: All Armenians reading these lines are the original people of Western Armenia.

The present Republic of Armenia is not your state, your state is the Armenia of 1920, which in the year 2022 has a successor state, the Republic of Western Armenia.

Whether we like it or not, this is the reality and the reality imposes itself as it is and not as we would like it to be.

As the Consul of this Republic, I invite you to take an active part in the task of recovering Our Lands, the lands of our ancestors, the lands where our millennial history was written and which are part of our DNA.

Together we will recover Van, Erzerum, Diarbekir, Trebizonda, Bitlis, Sivas, Harput, Kars, Ardahan, Nakhichevan, Djavak and the whole of Artsakh, exercising our right enshrined in international public law and in force in 2022.

These lands have been ours for eight thousand years, and for only one hundred years they have been usurped by the enemy who is fully aware of the plunder and knows that they do not belong to them because we are their rightful owners.

I invite Armenians and Armenian women and men who are claiming in all parts of the world to use their intelligence and intuition so that they can understand that the only road leading to the recovery of Our Lands is the Republic of Western Armenia.

There is no other way. Neither short nor long. Only the Republic of Western Armenia connects us to Mount Ararat and to all of Our Lands.

This April 24 will be a starting point for the recovery of Armenian dignity and Our Lands.

The Armenian people who are one and who today find themselves with two states recognised in international public law will find the path of leadership unity so that together, the two Armenian states, We will regain Our Lands in victory.

Western Armenia is all of us.

Armenia lives. Long live Armenia!

Dr. Guillermo A. Karamanian, Consul of the Republic of Western Armenia in the Republic of Argentina