Armenians

Death of the Armenian dream in Nagorno-Karabakh was predictable but not inevitable

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, October 3, 2023

In recent days, more than 100,000 people have taken to the streets again.

Key Points: 
  • In recent days, more than 100,000 people have taken to the streets again.
  • They have been decisively defeated by the Azerbaijanis in a short and brutal military operation in the enclave.
  • As a longtime analyst of the history and politics of the South Caucasus, I see the chain of recent events in Nagorno-Karabakh as depressingly predictable.

A legacy of Lenin

    • The 1988 demonstrations were met by violent pogroms by Azerbaijanis against Armenian minorities in Sumgait and Baku.
    • The legal principle of territorial integrity took precedence over the ethical principle of national self-determination.

An unsolved diplomatic problem

    • And for all their efforts, outside powers – Russia, France and the United States most importantly – failed to find a lasting diplomatic solution.
    • Moscow was Armenia’s principal protector in a hostile neighborhood with two unfriendly states, Azerbaijan and Turkey, on its borders.
    • Only Iran, treated as a pariah by much of the international community, provided some additional support, sporadically, to Armenia.

What might have been

    • Alternatives and contingencies always exist in history and, if heeded by statespeople, can result in different outcomes.
    • Yet the triumphant Armenian victors of the 1990s had few immediate incentives to compromise.
    • Each side considered the contested enclave a piece of their ancient homeland, an indivisible good, and compromise proved impossible.
    • Azerbaijan is a state three times the size of Armenia with a population larger by more than 7 million people.

Democracy versus autocracy

    • For example, he boldly, publicly declared that “Artsakh” was part of Armenia, which infuriated Azerbaijan.
    • This ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh – first through hunger, then by force of arms – completed the Azerbaijani victory.
    • The defeated government of Artsakh declared it would officially dissolve the republic by the end of 2023.

Learning from defeat and victory

    • They are forced to face hard facts.
    • At the same time, victory can lead to prideful triumphalism that in its own way can distort what lies ahead.
    • Voices have also been raised in Baku calling for a “Greater Azerbaijan” that would incorporate what they call “Western Azerbaijan” – that is, the current Republic of Armenia.

A chance for democratic renewal?

    • The immediate tasks facing Armenia are enormous, beginning with the housing and feeding of 100,000 refugees.
    • But this might also be a moment of opportunity.

Nagorno-Karabakh: the world should have seen this crisis coming -- and it's not over yet

Retrieved on: 
Friday, September 29, 2023

The New York Times recently wrote about what’s now happening in Nagorno-Karabakh that “almost no one saw it coming”.

Key Points: 
  • The New York Times recently wrote about what’s now happening in Nagorno-Karabakh that “almost no one saw it coming”.
  • Armenians, as well as those who have followed the conflict, have warned for a long time that this was coming.
  • The EU could only appeal for restraint and was relieved when the fighting stopped after two days.

Global inaction

    • During the summer, the situation worsened for the 120,000 residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, with acute shortages of food, petrol and medicine.
    • But no measures of force whatsoever were put behind this demand and there were no sanctions, or even threats of sanctions.
    • You can bring down a humanitarian crisis on more than a 100,000 people, even to the brink of genocide, without suffering anything but verbal condemnations.

This is ethnic cleansing

    • The last straw was the 24-hour bombardment on September 19 that has finally driven the ethnic Armenian population from their homes.
    • I therefore believe it is correct to call this ethnic cleansing.
    • Five days before the Azerbaijani attack on the enclave a representative of the US government said that the USA would not tolerate the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh.
    • Now it has happened and Washington seems to tolerate it, if the lack of sanctions on Azerbaijan are any indication.

It is not over

    • The first target will be the southern part of Armenia, the province of Syunik, which Azerbaijan calls Zangezur.
    • Should the regime in Baku get away with this with impunity, it will be inspired to continue its aggression against Armenians.
    • The lesson of the tragedy now unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh is that verbal condemnations and appeals do not stop the aggression of authoritarian states.

AGBU Urges World Leaders and Media to Expose Azerbaijan's False Pretexts for Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 20, 2023

This false equivalent strategy has helped enable Azerbaijan to violate the very laws and conventions that the UN established to prevent ethnic cleansing and genocide in the first place. In effect, Azerbaijan's brazen military actions and forced evacuations are sending a cynical message to the world community--during UN General Assembly week no less.  It is telling the world that it can operate outside of the international world order simply because nobody is willing to check the veracity of its claims or put this aggression into perspective as part of a genocidal pattern of behavior recently denounced by human rights agencies and experts including US, French and other government officials.

Key Points: 
  • This act of so-called benevolence flies in the face of reality, yet the world media reports it without the appropriate context.
  • This false equivalent strategy has helped enable Azerbaijan to violate the very laws and conventions that the UN established to prevent ethnic cleansing and genocide in the first place.
  • "The world owes that to the Armenians who have suffered immensely from false equivalencies and largely inadequate reporting long enough.
  • Since 1906, AGBU has remained true to one overarching goal: to create a foundation for the prosperity of all Armenians.

“120,000 Reasons” Campaign Launches to Stop Azerbaijan’s Genocide of 120,000 Armenians in Artsakh

Retrieved on: 
Monday, September 11, 2023

On Capitol Hill, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress convened a pivotal hearing to address the genocide perpetrated by Azerbaijan against the ethnic Armenians in Artsakh.

Key Points: 
  • On Capitol Hill, the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress convened a pivotal hearing to address the genocide perpetrated by Azerbaijan against the ethnic Armenians in Artsakh.
  • Featuring Luis Moreno Ocampo explaining the conditions of genocide according the Genocide Convention.
  • On Friday, September 1st, hundreds marched in Washington in solidarity with the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Artsakh suffering from the Azeri blockade.
  • This man-made humanitarian crisis in Artsakh is part of a larger campaign to eradicate the Armenian people,” Bryan Ardouny, Executive Director of the Armenian Assembly of America.

Center for Truth and Justice Welcomes Ocampo Report Citing Genocide in Nagorno Karabakh

Retrieved on: 
Friday, August 11, 2023

"It is now the responsibility of state parties, especially the US, to take measures to stop Genocide 2023."

Key Points: 
  • "It is now the responsibility of state parties, especially the US, to take measures to stop Genocide 2023."
  • "At this point, it takes political will by the US and state parties to stop Genocide 2023, and stop starvation by blockade."
  • "You will find no crematoria in Artsakh, nor machetes, but genocide by starvation is no less devastating for being silent," Ocampo said.
  • During his time at the ICC, in 2008, Ocampo obtained arrest warrants against Sudan's then-President Omar al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur.

Former ICC Chief Prosecutor Warns of Armenian Genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 9, 2023

He warns that the 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the blockaded enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, cut off from food and other supplies by Azerbaijan, are victims of genocide by starvation.

Key Points: 
  • He warns that the 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the blockaded enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, cut off from food and other supplies by Azerbaijan, are victims of genocide by starvation.
  • He noted that Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention determined that "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction" constituted genocide.
  • The blockade is therefore not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a genocide against an ethnic group: the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region known by Armenians as Artsakh.
  • "You will find no crematoria in Nagorno-Karabakh, nor machetes, but genocide by starvation is no less devastating for being silent," Ocampo said.

Genocide resisters, long overlooked by history, step into the spotlight

Retrieved on: 
Monday, April 24, 2023

Modern scholars estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Turkish government, and around 800,000 to 1.2 million were deported during World War I.

Key Points: 
  • Modern scholars estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Turkish government, and around 800,000 to 1.2 million were deported during World War I.
  • Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place this month every year, as do commemorations for genocides in Cambodia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
  • But recent research has taken a broader view, recognizing that mass violence takes place because of many complex factors.

1909 before 1915

    • The 1915 Armenian Genocide was not the first attack on Armenians in what is now Turkey.
    • And in 1909 – again, in April – there was a separate such episode.
    • In two waves of violence at the end of April 1909, more than 20,000 Armenians and other Christians were killed by Turks connected with the government.

Survivors on their own terms

    • “The Horrors of Adana” by Bedross Der Matossian is the first in-depth work on the Adana Massacres.
    • Aharon Shirajian to support the survivors of death marches and deportations.
    • Shirajian himself cared for a number of orphaned genocide survivors in Syria.
    • The survivors and their descendants have good reason to celebrate that spirit of resilience in the face of immense suffering.

INTENSE LIVE-ACTION WAR DOCUMENTARY RELEASED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AGBU FORESHADOWS CURRENT HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Retrieved on: 
Friday, January 20, 2023

For each of the ensuing 44 days of the brutal military aggression, she summarizes her experience in a personal online diary.

Key Points: 
  • For each of the ensuing 44 days of the brutal military aggression, she summarizes her experience in a personal online diary.
  • Each entry is another opportunity to deconstruct Azerbaijan’s rogue tactics to not only defeat Armenians militarily but also terrorize and destroy innocent civilians.
  • Invisible Republic was released on virtual cinema on January 19 and accompanied by a global education and outreach partnership with the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and the arts foundation Creative Armenia.
  • The current humanitarian crisis is a result of apathy by world leaders, the press, NGOs, and many people around the world.

AGBU highlights resilience and recovery of women two years after the start of the 2020 Artsakh War

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, September 27, 2022

According to the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh, Twenty thousand out of the 40,000 internally displaced persons are women, eight thousand are children.

Key Points: 
  • According to the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh, Twenty thousand out of the 40,000 internally displaced persons are women, eight thousand are children.
  • Six hundred women were widowed after the war, 12 out of 80 killed civilians were women.
  • A number of studies, including UN reports, prove that women and children are most affected by armed conflicts.
  • The only program aimed at women empowerment in Artsakh has been implemented by AGBU Armenia for the past three years.

ANCA-WR Marks Anniversary of Azerbaijan's Invasion of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)

Retrieved on: 
Friday, September 24, 2021

Hundreds of prisoners of war and civilian captives remain in Azerbaijan's illegal detention to this day, where they continue to face severe abuse and torture .

Key Points: 
  • Hundreds of prisoners of war and civilian captives remain in Azerbaijan's illegal detention to this day, where they continue to face severe abuse and torture .
  • Azerbaijan has also continued its policy of belligerency towards Armenia through its continued state-sponsored propagation of anti-Armenian racism (Armenophobia).
  • Despite widespread reports of Azerbaijan's violations of international humanitarian law, the response of the international community to the brazen act of aggression has been nothing short of negligent.
  • Azerbaijan's conduct since the end of the war has not inspired confidence that a peaceful resolution to this crisis is on the horizon.