Azerbaijan’s Destruction of Armenian Heritage in Artsakh Continues Unabated

  Rhea Nayyar

Experts’ fears regarding Azerbaijan’s accelerated destruction of Armenian cultural heritage sites across Artsakh (also known by the Russian name Nagorno-Karabakh) have been realized in the last seven months since the autocratic regime forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from their homeland. As Azerbaijani law prevents free and independent press access to the region, archaeologists and anthropologists are relying on satellite imagery to monitor attacks on hundreds of important sites pertaining to Armenian culture and spirituality.

An Open Letter to Members of the International Association of Genocide Scholars

Regarding Recent "Genocide Watch" Pronouncements on the Situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh

Henry Theriault

Dear IAGS Members,

I do not write what follows in my capacity as president of International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), but as a member of IAGS and a scholar of genocide, including its denial and the complexities of long-term post-genocide perpetrator-victim asymmetrical domination relations. I am also half Armenian; at the same time, for years I have been clear that any human rights violations by Armenians against Azeris should be investigated and go through an appropriate legal process, with appropriate punishments for all who committed them. I am unaware of any parallel call for Azeri accountability by any scholar (or other person) of Azeri descent, but hope there has been or will be at least one.

Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: its meaning to Armenians

Avedis Hadjian

With hundreds dead on both sides, the war between Armenian and Azeri forces in Karabakh — in Armenian, Artsakh — a mountainous enclave in the Southern Caucasus, is now anything but ‘frozen’, as it has long been described. A tenuous ceasefire had held since 1994, when the population of this historically Armenian region secured its de facto independence, in close cooperation with the Republic of Armenia. Peace has mostly prevailed since then, except for a four-day war in 2016 and a major flare-up last July.

The immediate cause of the fighting that broke out on 27 September is Azerbaijan’s attempt to reclaim territory that was within its borders during the Soviet period. After the Caucasian Bureau of the Bolshevik Party initially recognised Karabakh’s right to autonomy and promising it to Armenia following the republic’s sovietisation in 1920, Joseph Stalin, then commissar of nationalities of the Soviet Union, intervened, and the Soviets gave Karabakh to Azerbaijan in 1921. Armenians argue that this decision flies in the face of its history of continuous autonomy under Armenian princes since at least the eighth century and, more importantly, its population being more than 90% Armenian. In 1923, the Soviet government proclaimed the enclave an autonomous region within the Socialist Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan.

Armenia in the trap of “national unity”

Anna Zhamakochyan

 

2016 was a year of tumultuous change and continuous challenges. It was a year of crisis for liberal capitalist democracies in the west, which witnessed the rise of right-wing nationalist political parties and movements. The Brexit referendum and Trump’s electoral victory in the US are only the most conspicuous examples of how populist politicians capitalise on people’s sense of economic insecurity, frustration and the desire to change the status quo. In former Soviet states, where the rise of nationalism was simultaneously a trigger and an outcome of the Soviet collapse, ultra-nationalist discourses and right-wing populism without real politics are all too familiar phenomena.

Of course, localised political events are immediate factors too. In Armenia, the rise of the country’s nationalist discourse of “national unity” was strongly linked with the country’s “united and nationwide” movement for Nagorno-Karabakh during the 1980s and 1990s. This discourse prevents more direct criticism and the discussion of alternatives in favour of the national security status quo. And just as peace talks stutter on, so does the conflict periodically resurge, fuelling this discourse further. 

“Diplomacia del caviar” en México

Rodrigo Gómez García

Hace un año la Diputada Magdalena del Socorro Núñez Monreal (PT) organizó una jornada en la Cámara de Diputados dedicada al análisis de la Desaparición forzada y el Genocidio. En dicha jornada participó el Embajador azerí Ilgar Mukhtarov exponiendo el caso de Jodyalí –ocurrido el 26 de febrero de 1992-, presentando su visión histórica sobre este acontecimiento patrocinada por el gobierno del Presidente Aliyev, el hijo del dictador de Azerbaiyán Heydar Aliyev, famoso en México por la polémica de su estatua en Paseo de la Reforma.

Argentinean Armenian Community Thanks San Lorenzo's President for Rejecting Azerbaijani Sponsorship

Matias Lammens, president of the Buenos Aires football club San Lorenzo de Almagro, was recognized by the Armenian community on October 31 for rejecting Azerbaijan sponsorship of his club.

"I am very pleased that San Lorenzo could be a pioneer in saying no to a budget offering, in saying that not everything can be bought, that not everything can be sold,” Lammens told Armenian community representatives and leaders of other football clubs.