Speech - Enrique Castillo Barrantes - Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ANNUAL COMMEMORATION

IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

Chancellery of Costa Rica

Friday, January 24, 2014

Good morning all. Mr. Alfio Piva Mesen, First Vice President of the Republic; honorable Mrs. Yoriko Yasukawa, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations Program in Costa Rica; Mr. William Soto, pacifist and project manager of “Traces to Remember”; Dr. Salomón Fachler, survivor; honorable representatives of the international organisms, ladies and gentlemen, ambassadors and heads of mission accredited to the Government of Costa Rica, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. .

To the people of Israel and the Jewish community I greet you with sincere affection and cordiality, particularly in this Commemorative Act protected by the United Nations, in its Resolution 60/7, January 27, as the International Day in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust. 

Humanity took into account the exhortations of the victims and the stories of the survivors; in fact, the conscience that gave rise to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948, was strengthened.  

At the end of the World War, the Nuremberg Military Court judged the leading Nazis of crimes against humanity; Precedent that called for reflection while inspiring and favoring the emerging International Criminal Court, at this time committed, among other subjects to investigate crimes against humanity as well as prevent and punish genocide, violations and abuses of conflagrations and other conflicts of military character. 

Mentioning the Holocaust, in his reflections, Pope John Paul II said: “We wish to remember (but we wish to remember, with finality) namely, to ensure that evil never prevails, as happened with millions of innocent victims of Nazism.” 

Just as well, the polish Pope, who suffered in his own flesh the atrocious experience of World War II, added: “How could man feel (the Pope wondered) a contempt so deep for man? Because he had reached the point of despising God. Only an ideology without God could plan and carry out the extermination of an entire people. Only a godless ideology could plan and carry out the extermination of an entire people.” That is as far as the quote for the Pope. 

No one who is settled in his spirit – as an inflexible principle – that human dignity is the right to exist, to be respected as a human being, can forget or ignore what happened through the mass murders during World War II, or to question the havoc of a revealing and absolute disregard against life, religious freedom, and conscience, and all other fundamental liberties. 

However, John Paul II teaches us the duty to remember but not with desire and thirst for revenge or as an incentive to irreversible hatred; for us democrats, remembering must also mean reconciliation and the promotion of peace and justice, and to commit ourselves to their cause. Only a world in peace and with universal justice can prevent the repetition of the mistakes and the terrible crimes of the Holocaust, among other cases of genocide.

Humanity always yearns for the culture of harmony, dialogue, and understanding among human beings, in order to overcome racial, political and cultural boundaries, and religious differences, to replace them with paths of solidarity; reason why our peace efforts must also turn to the Middle East, this time to the broken Syria and the immense violence that punishes innocent people there. 

Let us make reference to our Hispanic-American cultural fusion , in addition to what is contributed to our nationality by the mestizaje, since we are a rich combination of hispanicism and indigenism, of afro decent and at the same time, of an originally Spanish Sephardic Judaism, and later of the rest of Europe. 

Our first settlers, our ancestors, were largely converts of Spanish Sephardic Jewish regency, who sought freedom and prosperity in the New World, as well as Castilian Spaniards. It means that at the base of Costa Rican spiritual identity is our Judeo-Christian heritage. The subsequent arrival of the educated Jewish emigrants came to nourish and consolidate this Judeo-Christian tradition that we already had settled. 

Our first settlers, our ancestors, were largely converts of Spanish Sephardic Jewish regency, who sought freedom and prosperity in the New World, as well as Castilian Spaniards. It means that at the base of Costa Rican spiritual identity is our Judeo-Christian heritage. The subsequent arrival of the educated Jewish emigrants came to nourish and consolidate this Judeo-Christian tradition that we already had settled. 

Costa Rica has expressed its repudiation to the use of weapons of mass destruction in any circumstance, but especially when they are used against the civil population; and has called on the international community on many occasions to use the mechanisms we have accepted as valid within multilateralism, to ensure the safety of civilian populations.

Our country has expressed, in addition, that it is an imperative need that in cases where civilian population is being seriously affected, the United Nations Security Council must function efficiently and must be able to structure an adequate response, in accordance with the responsibility to protect and the duties assigned to it by the Charter of the United Nations. And in this point I must remember that Costa Rica has joined the proposal of France for the Security Council of the United Nations to adopt a code of conduct and to refrain from countries with a right to veto, to exercise that right when it come to the crimes of masses.

Finally, in this place of solemn remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust, I beg you to no longer wage wars or conflicts in the name of ideologies or blind beliefs that place at the foot of your arrogance and fanaticism, to a culture, a conception of life, an ethnic group, a native tribe or a religion. 

I implore that the different civilizations and religious traditions should be advocated to put their heritage and virtues at the service of all humanity, to build together our common home: planet Earth, integrated in love, peace, justice, and tolerance as sacred and supreme values of free societies. 

Thank you very much.