Opinion – Haig Apovian: International community must act to prevent another Armenian genocide

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Since December 12th, more than 120,000 people living in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) have been under siege due to a blockade coordinated by the government of Azerbaijan, which isolates the region from the outside world, leaving the entire population, including the elderly, patients hospitalized and more than 30,000 children, without access to food, medicine, fuel and basic necessities in the middle of winter.

For three days, the gas supply, essential for heating, was also cut, but reestablished after reprimands by Western governments. The blockade aims to impose on the Armenian population, who have inhabited the region for thousands of years, the idea that continuity in their ancestral lands is no longer viable and is part of an orchestrated tactic of ethnic cleansing and elimination of the Armenian people.

Ironically, as the world celebrates the end of the year, Armenians, the first Christian people in the world, are facing the Christmas season fighting once again for their survival – just over a hundred years after the event that became known as the first genocide of the 20th century.

the armenian genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire and an example used when the term genocide was coined, is widely recognized by most Western nations and international bodies, but is vehemently denied to this day by Turkey and its satellite state, Azerbaijan.

The term, which describes a deliberate action to eliminate a nation or ethnic group, reflects current actions taken by the government of Baku.

Under the false pretext of being “eco-activists”, “protesters” block the only road that connects Artsakh to the Republic of Armenia and prevent the entry of basic survival supplies and the exit of citizens from the Republic of Artsakh, effectively condemning to death people in need of care. This situation has already occurred in recent days with patients admitted to ICUs in the capital of the region, Stepanakert.

Several of the alleged protesters were identified as people linked to extremist groups and special forces agents with ties to the Baku government, in stark contrast to the treatment meted out to real demonstrators, repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Azerbaijani government.

Azerbaijan, a petro-dictatorship that has one of the worst rates in the world for corruption and freedom of the press and a long history of aggression against opponents and minorities, has real environmental problems, especially on the Caspian coast, where the exploitation fields are located. of oil and gas.

But there, contrary to what happens in false demonstrations, there is no room for legitimate actions to protect nature and human rights. Contrary to the attention and coverage that the aggressions suffered by Ukraine are receiving, the more than 120,000 Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are abandoned to their fate, slowly suffocated by one of the most repressive and violent governments in the world, which in 2020 launched a war in the middle of the pandemic, killing more than 5,000 Armenians.

It is essential that governments and bodies throughout the civilized world speak out against the deliberate aggression suffered by the people of Artsakh, in order to avoid a repetition of history with a new genocide. In August 1939, before invading Poland, as a justification for the impunity of what would be committed, Hitler would have said: “Who today remembers the Armenians?”.

It’s time to recognize the independence of the Republic of Artsakh and speak out for the right of the Armenian people to live in peace on their land! Recognizing the fact in 2122 may be too late!

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