Yearly on April 24 we mark the 1915 Armenian genocide, through which as much as 1.5 million Armenians perished by the hands of the Ottomans. However this 12 months, we also needs to mirror on the current day, for Armenians are once more going through a brand new set of atrocities because the world watches on with indifference.
Over the previous 12 months, ethnic Armenians have endured decapitations, sexual mutilation, cultural destruction, dehumanizing statements by authorities, and a relentless risk of assaults—all coming from Azerbaijan, with direct navy and financial assist from Turkey, the successor nation of the Ottoman Empire.
The scenario has descended right into a humanitarian disaster as Azerbaijan has thwarted the motion of households, meals, and medical provides alongside Armenia’s border, a transfer condemned by the Worldwide Court docket of Justice and, simply yesterday, the U.S. State Division.
This risk to at present’s Armenians resurfaced in September 2020, when Azerbaijan launched an assault on Nagorno-Karabakh—a disputed territory inhabited principally by ethnic Armenians however internationally acknowledged as a part of Azerbaijan, primarily based on territorial strains drawn by the Soviet Union, which as soon as managed the realm. The assault marked the start of the 44-day struggle, which noticed over 6,500 killed and tens of 1000’s displaced. When a ceasefire was signed in December of that 12 months, Azerbaijan ended up taking on most of Nagorno-Karabakh.
To the world, the struggle ended, however on the bottom, the brutality towards Armenians has continued.
However what involved me most on my latest fact-finding journey to Armenia, my third within the final 12 months, is that the rights abuses I had beforehand witnessed in Nagorno-Karabakh—together with indiscriminate killings, torture, and arbitrary detention—are actually being carried out by Azerbaijan in sovereign Armenian territory with impunity.
In March, my workforce and I documented the latest bombing of buildings, houses, a cemetery, and vacationer sights in Armenia. We walked by college hallways adorned with youngsters’s drawings of their burning houses and posters educating children to establish cluster bombs and different unexploded ordnances. Maybe most unsettling have been the movies we have been proven by a lady who fled her village of Azerbaijani troopers beheading and mutilating the our bodies of her neighbors.
And as we met with torture victims and displaced households, we remained vigilant—since Azerbaijani troopers, who had arrange posts in Armenian territory close by, had been taking pictures at individuals of their vary of imaginative and prescient.
Azerbaijan’s preparation, persecution, dehumanization, and denial—every thought of a “stage” of genocide—has prompted Genocide Watch to challenge a genocide warning about Armenians beneath assault by Azerbaijan. Others within the international neighborhood, together with america, have additionally expressed alarm. Following the shelling of Armenian villages in September final 12 months, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Adam Schiff condemned Azerbaijan’s assaults, and Senate Overseas Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez known as for instant cessation of financial help to Azerbaijan.
The outrage was fleeting, nevertheless, and Azerbaijan has but to have been held to account.
LOS ANGELES, CA – APRIL 24: Individuals be part of within the Resist Genocide Denial Now protest outdoors the Turkish consulate on April 24, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
David McNew—Getty Photographs
Two years in the past at present, U.S. President Joe Biden made historical past when he formally acknowledged the Armenian genocide, promising to “stay vigilant towards the corrosive affect of hate in all its kinds” and to “recommit ourselves to talking out and stopping atrocities that depart lasting scars on the world.”
For his statements to be greater than mere phrases, the U.S. authorities should take motion to discourage and deter Azerbaijan’s assaults towards ethnic Armenians and any additional incursion into sovereign Armenian territory. Those that have carried out egregious abuses towards Armenians should be held to account.
One theme was pervasive in almost each interview we performed throughout our fact-finding journey: Armenians and residents of Nagorno-Karabakh insisted that the abuses we witnessed have been half of a bigger marketing campaign to eradicate Armenians within the area. Whereas some could dismiss these claims as alarmist, statements by main Azerbaijani officers recommend in any other case.
Over the previous decade, Azerbaijani officers have invoked language used within the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, referring to Armenians as a “most cancers tumor” and a “illness” to be “handled.” Extra just lately, the nation’s authoritarian chief Ilham Aliyev has threatened to “drive [Armenians] away like canines” and “deal with” Armenians as a result of they’re “sick” with “a virus [that] has permeated them.” The Baku authorities even issued a 2020 commemorative stamp depicting an individual in a hazmat swimsuit “cleaning” Nagorno-Karabakh.
Equally regarding are Azerbaijan’s statements on conquering Armenia: Since Aliyev took energy, officers have declared, “Our purpose is the entire elimination of Armenians,” and claimed Armenians “haven’t any proper to dwell on this area.” Aliyev has asserted that “Yerevan is our historic land and we, Azerbaijanis, should return to those Azerbaijani lands…That is our political and strategic purpose.” Final week he acknowledged: “Sooner or later [Armenians] could get up to see the Azerbaijan Flag above their heads.”
When tyrants and bullies converse, it’s smart to heed what they are saying. Phrases could not kill—however they typically lead on to actions that do.
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