Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor Crisis [15(1), 15(1) ed.]

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The Azerbaijani Blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the ICJ Decision: Can the Destruction of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the NKR Armenian People Be Prevented? Alexander Alvarez Northern Arizona University

Adam Muller University of Manitoba

Jennifer E. Rich Rowan University

Henry Theriault Worcester State University

In the first issue of Genocide Studies International, founding editor Herb Hirsch presented a sharp critique of the field of Genocide Studies and urged scholars to take a more compassionate, active, and practical approach in our work. He wrote: …we might conclude that one thing should take prominence above all else— something reflected in the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm. … there is a minimal policy that should be adopted on the way to more important and inclusive ones: we should help those who are hungry and sick and try to stop the violence.1

This special issue, dedicated to the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor, takes up Hirsch’s plea by highlighting the gross violations of the human rights of Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic2 (NKR), casting a critical eye on the current responses (or lack thereof) from the international community and offering practical steps toward the worthy goal of doing no harm. The independent area of the NKR, home to 120,000 Armenians, is surrounded by the territory of Azerbaijan. There is only one route that connects the Armenian Republic with the NKR—that connects families and friends, that carries everything from basic supplies to lifesaving medications—the Lachin Corridor. For over six months (at the time of this writing), the government of Azerbaijan and its proxies have blockaded the Lachin Corridor, effectively strangling the Armenian community in the NKR. This has resulted in preventable deaths due to dramatic shortages of food, medicine, and energy, and denial of medical care. The situation unfolding in the NKR is outlined in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order issued in response to Armenia’s case against Azerbaijan for imposition of the blockade and other human rights violations.3 The ICJ order issued in February 2023 is a positive step forward, though a more careful reading suggests that it does not go far enough. It includes a legally binding requirement that Azerbaijan actively work to ensure free movement in both directions along the Lachin Corridor, refuting the false assertions made by the Azerbaijani government that there Alexander Alvarez, Adam Muller, Jennifer E. Rich, and Henry Theriault, “The Azerbaijani Blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the ICJ Decision: Can the Destruction of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the NKR Armenian People Be Prevented?,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 1–6. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0722

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Figure 1. A map of the area. Photo by kamilewski/Shutterstock.com.

is, already, freedom of movement throughout this vital passage. In this way, the order seemingly upholds the right of free movement out of—and back into—one’s country, implying that the NKR functions as an independent state vis-à-vis Azerbaijan. While it is likely that few international legal experts would see this as de facto recognition of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the application of law in this way seems to derive from the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh, given the facts presented to the ICJ, does in fact function as an independent state, particularly vis-à-vis Azerbaijan. However, while the ICJ decision might seem to be a significant victory for human rights, we contend that this view ought to be tempered by the fact that the blockade of the Lachin Corridor continues. Moreover, the ICJ’s order comprises provisional measures rather than a final decision—despite the abundance of evidence that supports a final determination in favor of Armenia. On the whole, the order gives the impression that the ICJ has intervened to support human rights while, practically speaking, it is a political dodge that allows the court to postpone or avoid decisive action. Of course, more important than an interpretation of the contents of the ICJ order is an analysis of its effectiveness. Despite the legally binding nature of the order, Azerbaijan has not only continued to maintain the blockade, but has increased its severity by setting up a military checkpoint and engaging in military aggression against Armenians in both the NKR and the Republic of Armenia. We see Azerbaijan’s flagrant disregard of the ICJ order as a direct effect of regional and global indifference. Even when members of the international community have spoken out © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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against the blockade, their words have not been accompanied by meaningful action. Furthermore, most—if not all—of the world’s governing bodies have maintained a relativist approach to the situation, ignoring the growing asymmetry of power and obscuring the reality that Azerbaijan is the unprovoked aggressor. Even when the situation has been seen as a conflict rather than as a one-sided human rights catastrophe, though, there has been no meaningful intervention. Ultimately, there is not a single international player helping NKR Armenians survive. The question, then, must be: Why is there such profound global indifference? Part of the answer is that contemporary Armenians, especially in the NKR, are plagued by denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the constant effort it takes to overcome this denial.4 Fundamentally, many non-Armenians seem to feel that they have already done enough. They have already argued on behalf of Armenia against genocide denial and are not interested in supporting Armenians against even more mass human rights violations and violence against them. This is partly because it is “easier” to recognize the unambiguousness of genocide, especially when it occurred a century ago, than it is to take a stand against the mass oppression and violence that is currently unfolding and, once again, trending toward genocide. Another part of the answer lies in the real effects of genocide on targeted groups. The 1915 genocide reduced the global Armenian population by half, and created conditions that complicated rebuilding the Armenian community: families were fractured, women of child-bearing age were abducted, education was cut short, and Armenians were forced or coerced to eschew their cultural identity. There is an argument to be made that had Armenia been supported in the wake of the genocide, it would now function as a regional power and, as such, experience relative safety from the malevolence of Azerbaijan.5 Instead, Armenia suffers from profound geopolitical weakness and an uncomfortable dependence on Russia for protection. And so, whether one sees the actions of Azerbaijan today as extensions of, or distinct from, the 1915 genocide, the contemporary impact of the genocidal past is perhaps the most significant factor rendering Armenians here and now vulnerable to the destruction of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and, quite possibly, Armenia itself. It is easy—comfortable, acceptable, even—for the world to overlook contemporary violence perpetrated against Armenians because of the violence perpetrated against them in the past. It is as if we collectively decided to accept the death and dispersion of Armenians; at the very least, we have normalized it. There is no mass outcry from the political superpowers, no pressure put on the government of Azerbaijan to cease the stranglehold they have on the NKR. The blockade of the Lachin Corridor barely, if at all, registers in the consciousness of the global populace. We cannot help but think that, had Armenians not been subjected to genocide in the past, the world community would find their current plight far more urgent. The articles within this special issue of Genocide Studies International are written by a diversity of scholars, journalists, and activists who approach the crisis of the Lachin Corridor blockade from unique perspectives. All of these contributions lean into the opportunity for the global community to do the right things for the right reasons. They adhere to the “minimal policy” that Herb Hirsch argued for a decade ago, namely the view that “we should help those who are hungry and sick and try to stop the violence.”

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Figure 2. Azerbaijan sets up a checkpoint on Lachin Corridor. Photo by the NKR InfoCenter (https://www.facebook.com/ArtsakhInformation). Courtesy of The Armenian Weekly.

Figure 3. A group of Azerbaijanis in civilian clothes shut down the StepanakertGoris highway on the morning of 12 December. Photo by the NKR InfoCenter (https://www.facebook.com/ArtsakhInformation). Courtesy of The Armenian Weekly.

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Figure 4. A little boy in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic reading by candlelight during rolling blackouts. Photo by Ani Balayan. Courtesy of The Armenian Weekly.

Figure 5. Mass rally organized in Stepanakert’s Renaissance Square, 9 May 2023. Photo by Siranush Sargsyan. Courtesy of The Armenian Weekly.

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Figure 6. Man standing in a sparsely supplied market in NKR. Courtesy of The Armenian Weekly. Notes 1. Herb Hirsch, “Preventing Genocide and Protecting Human Rights: A Failure of Policy,” Genocide Studies International 8,1 (Spring 2014): 1–22. 2. The Editors have chosen to use the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” to signify the historically Armenian homeland that was formerly an autonomous oblast of the Soviet Union and that declared independence in 1991 and has been democratically self-governing since. “Karabakh” alone is the usual Azerbaijani name for the area, while “Artsakh” is the traditional Armenian name for the historically Armenian area that includes the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.” 3. International Court of Justice, Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Armenia v. Azerbaijan), Order, 22 February 2023, General List 180, https://www.icjcij.org/public/files/case-related/180/180-20230222-ORD-01-00-EN.pdf, accessed 9 Jul 2023. 4. See: Henry Theriault, “The Ethics of Genocide Scholarship and New Trends in Rhetorical Manipulation in Genocide Studies,” Genocide Studies International 14,1 (Spring 2022): 65–90 at 75–76. 5. Henry C. Theriault, Alfred de Zayas, Jermaine O. McCalpin, and Ara Papian, Resolution with Justice: Reparations for the Armenian Genocide—The Report of the Armenian Genocide Reparations Study Group, March 2015, 87, www.armeniangenocidereparations.info (accessed 26 Mar 2023).

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Nagorno-Karabakh’s Right to Self-Determination Geoffrey Robertson Doughty Street Chambers Historically, Nagorno-Karabakh has always been occupied predominantly by Armenians. It was wrongly allocated to Azerbaijan by Lenin in 1921, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union its people voted for independence and recruited a local army of their own people to fight the civil war, 1991-4. During the siege of Stepanakert (a grave Azeri war crime), the road between that city and Goris (in Armenia) took on the status of a humanitarian corridor, secured by the justifiable capture of the town of Lachin. The author has interviewed some of the war commanders and victims and draws on their evidence, filed with the European Court of Human Rights but never before published, to explain how “the right of belligerent reprisal” arose to justify protecting the civilian population by taking and keeping the corridor. A legal precedent can be found in the “safe havens” established for Iraqi Kurds in Iraq. Nagorno-Karabakh has a strong argument for self-determination, following on from the precedents from East Timor and Kosovo. And it satisfies the tests for statehood laid down in the MonteVideo Convention. Given its vulnerability to Azeri attack by the prolonged illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor, it may be that nothing will succeed except secession. Key words: Nagorno-Karabakh, self-determination, Azerbaijan, autonomous region

Background to the 1992 War The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) was placed within the province of Azerbaijan by virtue of a Soviet decision made by Lenin in 1921. Some historians believe that this was at the request of Ataturk, who wanted to keep Armenia itself as weak as possible. In 1923 Stalin recognized that it was a separate area by making it an autonomous region (oblast) within the greater region of Azerbaijan, subject (as with Armenia) to Soviet federal dominance. It was given “wide regional autonomy,” with Shushi as its capital. At that time, NK comprised about 94% ethnic Armenians. By the 1980s, as a result of transmigration encouraged by the local Azeri government in Baku, that population reduced to 75%. By 1987 there were about 350,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan and 200,000 or so Azerbaijanis in Armenia. There were signs of ethnic tension in late 1987, but the first atrocity that provoked the war was undoubtedly the pogrom in Sumgait in February 1988, when “planned violence” resulted in acts of “horrific savagery” unleashed on the Armenians— murder, rape, and mutilation—whilst Azeri police turned a blind eye.1 The official death toll was 32 (far more were in fact murdered) and thousands had to take shelter because their homes were looted and burned. 14,000 Armenians were forced out of Sumgait, and then the exodus from Azerbaijan began. There was no investigation into the cause or the perpetrators of the pogrom, which had put Armenians throughout the region in fear, but they began to realize that those who mass murdered Armenians would have impunity in Azerbaijan. The people of NK at first agitated for union with Armenia, in order to provide security for themselves. In this they were supported by Armenia but opposed by Azerbaijan, and eventually by Russia (which offered instead still greater autonomy for NK) In July

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1988 the Regional Soviet in Stepanakert voted to secede from Azerbaijan and become an independent republic. The Kremlin responded by imposing direct control, and sending Soviet troops and tanks, as protests escalated. Meanwhile, racist hostility towards Armenians in greater Azerbaijan continued unhindered by that government. In “black January” 1990, “murderous anti-Armenian violence overwhelmed Baku”2 with days of rioting and vicious attacks in which at least 90 Armenians were killed. The Azerbaijani nationalist politician Heydar Aliyev stoked up the situation by claiming that Armenia had perpetrated genocide against the Azeris in the past. The Azerbaijani police force, the OMON, was made up almost entirely of Azeris, and in 1991 it co-operated with Soviet forces in “Operation Ring” to raid and loot Armenian houses. During the first phase of the operation, 5,000 Armenians were deported and between 20 and 30 killed.3 Operation Ring was a planned act of intimidation—“the beginning of the open armed phase of the Karabakh conflict.”4 Operation Ring continued throughout 1991. It was in this year that the people of NK formed a self-defense force, the NK Defence Army. It was comprised for the most part of men of NK, partisans or fedayin, prepared to fight to protect their ancestral lands, their homes and families from the racist violence towards which the Baku authorities were turning a blind eye. They initially had few weapons—sticks, hunting rifles, homemade pistols, and so on—then weapons bought from Russian soldiers. They were fighting for their homeland, and witnesses are impressed by their “vitality,” “esprit de corps,” and that they were “strongly superior in the moral-psychological sense.”5 Some Armenians came from the diaspora to join the NK force—one commander was from California, other volunteers came from Syria and Russia and Armenia—and perhaps the most important members were those who deserted or left the Soviet army to fight for freedom for NK. But there can be no doubt that this force was not controlled from or by Yerevan. Its object was both to defend the local community against the pogroms and persecutions, and to achieve NK independence, for which 99.89% of the population voted at a referendum on 10 December 1991, although the Azerbaijanis by and large refused to vote. NK independence was declared in that same month by the regional Soviet in Stepanakert. At this time, the Armenian government was concerned for the Karabakhians but was not significantly involved militarily or financially in their struggle (de Waal suggests there was Armenian involvement, but “it was also an act of self-assertion by the Karabakh Armenians whose agenda never fully coincided with that in Yerevan”6 ). NK leaders— Serzh Sargsyan and others—were NK born and bred, as were the fedayin hill fighters who formed the great majority in the ranks. They “borrowed” tanks from the departing Soviet battalions and their commanders’ coordinated with the political leaders of the NK government in Stepanakert. Evidence for this comes from the leader of the NK defense force, Arkadi Ter-Tadevosyan, a distinguished military commander who led operations from 8 to 18 May 1992 that saved the lives of the people of Stepanakert. Azeris claim that the Armenian army and air force conducted these operations, but the commander, in an interview with this author, convincingly refuted this claim and explained that 90% of his men were locals born in NK. He also gave a detailed account of the training of the villagers and of their plans to relieve the siege. The Siege of Stepanakert: A Crime against Humanity Knowing that Stepanakert, the capital of NK with over half its population, came under a deadly siege in January–May 1992, is crucial to understanding how and why Lachin © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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was taken in May 1992. It is situated below Shushi and was being held by the Azeri army, whose commanders decided to subject it to a massive bombardment in order to kill the citizens or starve them into surrender. Shells were intentionally aimed at civilian targets.7 The artillery used was a Soviet GRAD multiple rocket launcher, firing 40 rockets instantaneously and designed for open battlefield use—it was a war crime to use it to shell civilians in the densely populated capital, destroying schools and the city’s maternity hospital.8 Around 50,000 were forced to live in basements in unendurable conditions, coming very close to starvation. Some 2,000 civilians were killed in the siege, and key infrastructure—sewage networks, water pipes, gas, and electricity—was destroyed.9 The Azeri military also commanded the skies and launched air raids on the hapless town. This was a crime against humanity that remains unpunished. This is clear from statements made to this author, which he submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in 2014 after visits to NK. Doctors working at the hospital insisted that it was specifically targeted, while other civilian areas and homes were subjected to indiscriminate shelling and sniper fire. Historian Gayane Gevorgyan recalled her terror as a child at the killing all around her in Stepanakert and the hunger that was deliberately inflicted. Her father was one of the many locals who joined the freedom fighters, those who are commemorated in the local museums that exhibit the evidence of this war crime. Doctor Alexander Petrosyan described the horrors of trying to operate in the hospitals under bombardment, while Colonel Senor Hasratyan discussed the desperate need for humanitarian assistance. Jhanna Hakobyan provided a female perspective as she talked about the ravages and death that rained down on the city, and how vital the Lachin road was to their survival. Another doctor described the desperate operating conditions in Eduard Patvakanyan, and Olga Petrosyan gave a moving account of life in Stepanakert for children during the bombardment. The bombing and siege of Stepanakert from January to May 1992, was both a war crime and a crime against humanity committed by the Azerbaijani military and political leaders who knew very well that they were targeting civilians for death and starvation, and were deliberately destroying hospitals, schools, homes, and churches. The state of Azerbaijan was responsible for this international crime, committed from the air through targeted bombing, indiscriminate shelling from Shushi (on a mountaintop just 5 km away at a 600 meter elevation), and by fire from a battery targeting the evacuation of the wounded and the supply of food and medicine. It was well known to the Azeri High Command that some 50,000 civilians were sheltering in the city: they showed no mercy and no pity, although they knew that killing them indiscriminately was a war crime. Stepanakert was Guernica and Dresden writ small, but large enough, given the several thousand civilians who were killed, to attach liability for a crime against humanity, which is a category of crime that cannot be forgotten or forgiven as international law permits no time limits for prosecution and makes prosecution a duty of all states. In relation to the capture of Lachin, the key fact to understand is that it was an act of self-defense by the Karabakhis to put an end to a crime against humanity. I have collected the testimony of some of the survivors of this crime, and their accounts of civilian suffering from the shelling and bombing are compelling. There are also other sources that show that in a single day “… the city rattled to the thunderous explosions of 157 GRAD missiles,”10 and that within just one week the city was bombed with 1,000 shells (some of them reactive thereby liable to explode subsequently and kill civilians).11 Even Russian soldiers, tasked with trying to keep the peace, were killed and injured. In consequence, of © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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course, the people of this city had a right under international humanitarian law to defend themselves and to bring the commission of the crime to an end by capturing Shushi and Lachin, the places from which it was being committed, and by establishing a humanitarian corridor through the Lachin-Goris road, through which they could obtain food supplies and obviate the ever-present danger of starvation. Some 10 km of this road, including Lachin, was in Azerbaijani territory. The new government of the nation of Armenia, only a few months into its independence, was observing these events just a few miles from its border, with great and understandable concern. This was not only because the dead and starving were Armenian, but also because, irrespective of ethnicity, the bombing had created a humanitarian emergency. It is clear that at this point it hoped, forlornly but genuinely, that the emergency could be resolved by diplomatic rather than military means, so it opened talks for a cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan, brokered at its request by Iran. This was Armenia’s objective in May 1992, and it was given such high priority that the Prime Minister himself attended the cease-fire talks in Tehran which continued through 8–9 May. The Armenian army remained in barracks—on alert, of course, but in barracks. This is evidenced by a statement from General Muraz Sargsyan, formally a distinguished commander in the soviet army, who was commanding the Armenian army at Goris, the closest Armenian point to Lachin. He told me that he had orders not to cross the border and played no part at all in the Shushi-Lachin operation. Some individuals from Armenia and the Armenian diaspora travelled to NK to join the partisans, but they did so without incentives or encouragement from Armenia, which was committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Armenia had no control whatsoever over the government, defense force, or people of NK, as is proven by the fact that NK decided—as was their right as a matter of international law—to take self-defensive action and capture Shushi and Lachin, thereby undermining Armenia in its quest for a cease-fire agreement. The Taking of Lachin, 8–18 May 1992 Commander Ter-Tadevosyan, who led the NK self-defense force (with 90% of its men from Karabakh) on the Shushi-Lachin operation, explained that it was necessary to take both towns to stop the war crime and open a humanitarian corridor through Lachin. It was he who drew up the plan to take Shushi and Lachin in one operation. The gun batteries at Lachin were preventing any movement of wounded civilians down that road or any supply of food and medicines reaching them, and he had intelligence that the Azeries were encouraging the people of Stepanakert to leave for an Armenian village down the only open road left, at the end of which they would be massacred. He drew up a plan to save the city and the decision was made in total secrecy. Secrecy was necessary to prevent the plan from being leaked to the Azerbaijani command, so obviously it could not be communicated to the Armenian government or its officials. NK’s political leadership in Stepanakert approved the plan, and the military order for the first stage was signed on 4 May. The attack, which featured several of the Russian tanks that had been “liberated” from the Soviet army, began on 8 May and was a success. It has since gone down in NK history as an iconic victory by the NK people, celebrated on 9 May every year as “The Day of the NKR’s Defense Army,” with no thanks to Yerevan or the Armenian government. It was that NK force that continued on to other villages that had assisted with the bombardment, including villages in the Lachin region. There was an Azeri counter-attack © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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that was defeated on 11 May, but in general the progress to Lachin can be described as a yomp (see de Waal’s account which emphasizes the lack of any opposition in Lachin itself). The object in taking Lachin was both to silence the battery and gun emplacements that had closed the lifeline of the Lachin-Goris road, and open up a humanitarian corridor of about 10 kilometers to Armenia, so that food, medicines, and rebuilding supplies could be brought through. Given the war crime of starvation to which the people of Stepanakert had been subjected, this was obviously a humanitarian necessity. The capture of Lachin was essential to establishing a corridor and saving civilian lives. It was, therefore, a lawful exercise, especially as it involved no disproportionate taking of life. As de Waal suggests, the people simply abandoned their property and fled the district. There was no recorded loss of civilian life. Again, given the crime against humanity being committed in the bombing and starvation of Stepanakert, the taking of Lachin without bloodshed in order to establish a humanitarian corridor was justified under the laws of war. The man who took Lachin provided the best evidence of taking it. As he explained to this author, he encountered only light resistance because his victory at Shushi had been widely communicated on 9 May, and most people had 8 days to pack up their possessions and leave Lachin. He commented that there were signs of “scorched earth” policy—the retreating Azerbaijani soldiers had deliberately destroyed the hospital and some houses. He completely refuted Azeri reports as to the presence of the Armenian air force. Although lawful, NK’s actions dismayed the leaders of Armenia. President TerPetrosyan was in Tehran on 8–9 May to negotiate the ceasefire and was embarrassed at having to explain that Armenia could not and did not control what the NK government and defense forces were doing. Azeri defenders (notably the Chechen war-lord Shamil Basayev) agreed with NK defense leaders that Shushi and its surroundings were poorly defended and effectively abandoned.12 There was no “hidden agenda”: the NK forces acted to defend themselves, against the wishes of the Armenian government which was patiently negotiating a ceasefire with the Mutalibov government of Azerbaijan, which was overthrown a few days later as a direct result of its failure to defend Shushi and Lachin. This was exactly what the Armenian government wished to avoid: it had developed a reasonable relationship with Mutalibov and it was in Armenia’s interest that he should continue in power. The last thing the Armenians wanted was that he should be overthrown by unreasonable extreme nationalists, which is in fact what happened as a reaction to the capture of Shushi and Lachin. In consequence, of course, Azeri retaliation over the following two years was formidable, and cost tens of thousands of Armenian and NK lives. But the defenders of NK did what they knew they had to do, without reference to or advice from Armenia or the engagement of its army or air force. Properly analyzed, the facts demonstrate that Lachin was taken by a Karabakh force beyond Armenia’s control, in a lawful operation to end a war crime, namely to stop the bombing and shelling of civilians in Stepanakert, and open a humanitarian corridor to the outside world so as to prevent civilians from being starved and dying from lack of medicine. The taking and holding of Lachin could be justified both on humanitarian grounds and as necessary to stopping a crime against humanity. Humanitarian Intervention The prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter admits two exceptions: use of force by the Security Council in pursuance of its Chapter VII powers, and use of force in self-defense or collective self-defense by a State or States acting © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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under Article 51 of the UN Charter. In addition, there is an emerging right of humanitarian intervention epitomized by NATO’s Kosovo intervention and other interventions to save lives, such as in Grenada, Uganda (to get rid of Idi Amin), and Bangladesh, and most relevantly to this case the “safe havens” procedure used to protect Kurds in Iraq from Saddam Hussein. The right of humanitarian intervention to provide assistance to peoples in other jurisdictions, whose lives are threatened by the criminal actions of their own state, has long been recognized in international law. Grotius wrote that if “a ruler inflict[s] upon his subjects such treatment as no one is warranted in inflicting, the exercise of the right vested in human society is not precluded.”13 Similarly, Vattel recognized that “if tyranny becomes so unbearable as to cause the Nation to rise, any foreign power is entitled to help an oppressed people that has requested its assistance.”14 Just 13 months before Armenia’s actions in Nagorno-Karabakh in May 1992, the Security Council adopted Resolution 688 in response to Saddam Hussein’s brutal suppression of the Kurdish uprising in Iraq. In the first paragraph of that resolution, the Council condemned “the repression of the Iraqi civilian population in many parts of Iraq, including most recently in Kurdish populated areas, the consequences of which threaten international peace and security.” The same resolution called on Iraq to allow “immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq” and appealed to all member states to contribute to the relief effort. In compliance with this resolution, the US, UK, and a number of other countries deployed air and ground forces to northern Iraq as part of a policy of creating “safe havens” for the Kurdish refugees. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd justified this intervention stating “International law recognizes extreme humanitarian need … We are on strong legal as well as humanitarian ground in setting up this ‘no fly’ zone.”15 Additionally, in December 1992, the Security Council supported humanitarian intervention in response to the overthrow of President Siad Barre’s government in Somalia. The Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 794 that urged member states “to use all necessary means to establish as soon as possible a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia.”16 These developments in international law, occurring at the time of the military intervention in Nagorno-Karabakh, led Greenwood to observe, “the law on humanitarian intervention has changed both for the United Nations and for individual states. It is no longer tenable to assert that whenever a government massacres its own people or a state collapses into anarchy international law forbids military intervention altogether.”17 The emergency in Stepanakert was so grave, threatening the lives of some 50,000 civilians (some 2,000 of whom are reckoned to have been killed), that humanitarian action by another state would have been plainly justified. It would have been lawful for Armenia to intervene to create a “safe haven” for the civilians of Stepanakert, by taking and defending the lifeline through Lachin, even though evidence is clear that it instead chose to pursue ceasefire talks in Tehran. A fortiori it was lawful for the NK people and army, although not a recognized state, to take such action to save their own lives. The Right to Stop War Crimes Prior to the alleged violations in 1992, Azerbaijani forces were bombing Stepanakert, which resulted in a humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh with large numbers of persons being killed and in danger of starving to death. In response, NK forces, using © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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no more force than necessary, created a humanitarian corridor in Lachin so that civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh could be provided with a lifeline to Armenia in order to receive essential humanitarian assistance. Azerbaijan’s actions were serious breaches of international humanitarian law, and so far as the NK forces could tell, no amount of negotiation or diplomacy was going to rectify the situation. As such, in order to uphold its obligation under international law to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions, the NK leadership was entitled to take action to stop the shelling and starvation. The capture of Shushi and Lachin was a belligerent reprisal (which is lawful under international humanitarian law) in order to provide humanitarian relief. Even if Armenia was controlling the NK army, or taking action itself—which was denied and is contrary to all the evidence—it would nevertheless have been entitled so to act. Azerbaijan was attacking civilian objects in a way that clearly breaches the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law and amounted to a war crime. Article 51(5)(a) of Additional Protocol I provides that the following acts are indiscriminate and therefore contrary to international humanitarian law: “An attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects.”18 Similarly, Article 13(2) of Additional Protocol II provides that: “The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.”19 Further, Rule 53 of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s (ICRC) study on customary international law provides that “The use of starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare is prohibited. … State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.”20 The prohibition of starvation as a method of warfare is codified in Article 54(1) of Additional Protocol I and Article 14 of Additional Protocol II, each of which provide that “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.”21 In addition, the Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” is a war crime in international armed conflicts.22 According to the ICRC, three corollaries of Rule 53 have also attained the status of a norm of customary international law, namely:

r r r

Rule 54. Attacking, destroying, removing or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population are prohibited; Rule 55. The parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, which is impartial in character and conducted without any adverse distinction, subject to their right of control; and Rule 56. The parties to the conflict must ensure the freedom of movement of authorized humanitarian relief personnel essential to the exercise of their functions. Only in case of imperative military necessity may their movements be temporarily restricted.23

The same ICRC study identified that “the destruction or seizure of property of an adversary is prohibited, unless required by imperative military necessity.”24 Similarly, the Statute of the International Criminal Court provides that “destroying or seizing the en© Zoryan Institute, 2023

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emy’s property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war”25 constitutes a war crime in non-international armed conflicts.26 Finally, the ICRC report recognizes the following as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts: “Rule 144: States may not encourage violations of international humanitarian law by parties to an armed conflict. They must exert their influence, to the degree possible, to stop violations of international humanitarian law.”27 Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions provides that state parties undertake to “ensure respect for the present Convention.”28 The same is repeated in Additional Protocol I in relation to respect for the provisions of that Protocol.29 Additional Protocol I further provides that in the event of serious violations of the Protocol, state parties undertake to act, jointly or individually, in cooperation with the United Nations and in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.30 In the final declaration adopted by the International Conference for the Protection of War Victims in 1993, the participants urged all states to make every effort to “ensure the effectiveness of international humanitarian law and take resolute action, in accordance with that law, against States bearing responsibility for violations of international humanitarian law with a view to terminating such violations.”31 In the Nicaragua (Merits) case in 1986, the ICJ held that the duty to respect and ensure respect did not derive only from the Geneva Conventions, but “from the general principles of humanitarian law to which the Conventions merely give specific expression.”32 In its judgments in the Furunžija case in 1998 and the Kupreški´c case in 2000, the Trial Chamber of the ICTY established that the norms of international humanitarian law are norms erga omnes, and therefore all states have a legal interest in their observance and consequently a legal entitlement to demand their respect.33 International criminal law recognizes a right to use force, reasonable in the circumstances, to stop a war crime or mitigate its damage. In this respect it is similar to national law. Additionally, there is a well-recognized right to react to a war crime with sufficient force to stop it or to avert its damage. This is called, not very appropriately, the right of belligerent reprisal, and “consists of an action that would otherwise be unlawful but that in exceptional cases is considered lawful under international law when used as an enforcement measure in reaction to unlawful acts of an adversary.”34 The military manuals of Benin, Kenya, Netherlands, Togo, and United Kingdom all state that reprisals are a traditional method of enforcing international humanitarian law, albeit subject to conditions. Under Rule 145, the ICRC identifies the following conditions:

r r r r r

Reprisals may only be taken in reaction to a prior serious violation of international humanitarian law, and only for the purpose of inducing the adversary to comply with the law. Reprisals may only be carried out as a measure of last resort, when no other lawful measures are available to induce the adversary to respect the law. Reprisal action must be proportionate to the violation it aims to stop. The decision to resort to reprisals must be taken at the highest level of government. Reprisal action must cease as soon as the adversary complies with the law.35

These conditions were satisfied in May 1992. NK’s defense committee at Stepanakert was entitled to authorize its defense force to undertake the Shushi-Lachin operation © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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because the city was subjected to a war crime, which if allowed to continue would result in many more civilian deaths. There was no immediate prospect of any cessation and no other way imaginable, according to the defenders, to stop it. NK, which had declared independence, was acting it is own self-defense. If Armenia had intervened, it would have been acting lawfully to stop a crime against humanity, namely a systematic attack deliberately directed against a civilian population to exterminate them for political and racial reasons, in furtherance of a state policy. The first requirement for the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter is that there must be an “in the event of an ‘armed attack’ against a Member of the United Nations.”36 Armenia became a member state of the United Nations on 18 March 1992, a few months prior to the events in Lachin. Azerbaijan was effectively at war with Armenia at this time—a war was certainly imminent—and the Azeri forces were attacking an Armenian ally, giving rise to the right of collective self-defense. That would have entitled Armenia to act in anticipatory collective self-defense, responding to actual armed attacks that had occurred in NK, in anticipation of a greater threat to Armenia or its citizens. Article 51 of the UN Charter preserves a right that existed pre-charter, namely the right to anticipatory self-defense. The use of force in self-defense must be necessary and proportionate. Establishing a humanitarian corridor to protect tens of thousands of people from the danger of starvation is obviously proportionate. A precedent is the “safe haven” established in Iraq for Iraqi Kurds. Welcome to Nagorno-Karabakh NK is unlike any other part of the world, and it satisfies the criteria for an independent sovereign state better than some recognized states. Geographically, it is a country in the clouds, featuring a mountainous area standing out topographically from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran, and interlocking ranges of mountains bordered by the fast flowing Kur and Araks rivers. Highland or mountainous Karabakh has a special history. In the classical period, Greek and Roman sources say that it formed the Artsakh and Syunik provinces of Armenia. It was later taken by Persia, but the Armenians returned in strength and victorious under the leadership of Meliks (petty princes), and many of its 4,000 churches date from the tenth to the seventeenth century, testimony to an intense Armenian intellectual and religious life. It was granted autonomy under the Persian rule in return for Melik support in wars against the Ottomans, but was annexed by Russia in 1805. An accurate account of its demography in the nineteenth century comes from an exhaustive survey by Russia in 1823, which proves that Armenian families were in the great majority in Karabakh at this time.37 Subsequently, the Karabakhians developed separately from Armenia in cultural terms. As de Waal puts it, These (NK) Armenians were significantly different from the Armenians of Armenia. The Karabakh Armenians are highlanders, famous for their hospitality and heavy drinking. They have a highlander’s distrust of lowland Armenians … other Armenians find it hard to understand the thick Karabakh dialect strewn with Persian, Turkish and Russian words. [There is] a military tradition among the Karabakhs similar to that of Scots in the British Empire.38

Today, there are many cultural distinctions between the two peoples, of the kind that mark countries where people of the same ethnicity have developed in different ways. An examination of national holidays, for example, shows many differences in the events and © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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ideas that each country commemorates. They now have many different laws and distinct court systems. They make stereotyping jokes about each other (Karabakhi humor depicts Armenians as money grabbing, whilst Armenians joke about the mulish stubbornness of Karabakhians). Armenians drink coffee, whilst Karabakhians drink tea. Karabakhians have as their national drink, which they consume excessively, a highly alcoholic mulberry liquor which repels Armenians. Karabakh is world famous for its unique carpets, which are not made in Armenia, and its cultural monuments, evincing so many centuries of unique spiritual life, are the subject of many books in English and other languages. The modern day Karabakhians are custodians of a remarkable and unique cultural heritage, which is a source of national pride. The NK flag, whilst in Armenian colors has its unique carpet symbol superimposed (not dissimilar to the flags of so many former countries of the British Empire that have the union jack link). The NK coat of arms is very different to the Armenian one. It features a carpet motif and depicts the outstretched wings of an eagle soaring in the Karabakh Mountains along with a representation of a famous Stepanakert statue of parents and grandparents, signifying historical continuity. NK nationalism was an inevitable result of the repression from Baku in the period after 1921, when they were an autonomous community but had to suffer a system designed for a different culture (for example, Karabakh schools had Azeri textbooks which made no reference to the 1915 genocide). Many of the men during this period built careers in the Soviet Army where their fighting ability, particularly during WWII, was publicly appreciated by Moscow. When the pogroms began in 1988, the experience of being so hated for their race made them all too conscious of being different from neighbors that wanted to kill them. In the following years the successful defense of their homeland became a matter of great pride, assuaging the terrible grief at the loss of thousands in that same defense. This was an NK national pride that had nothing to do with the country of Armenia—a fact that can be appreciated by any visitor to the national museums in Stepanakert and Lachin, where there is a book of enormous size commemorating the war dead. The portraits and biographies of those who died in the war prove that over 90% of the NK’s self- defense force was made up of local men and boys. In the intensity of this struggle, especially during the 1992 siege of Stepanakert, they forged a nationality that is distinctively Karabakhi and entitles them, as a people under Article 1 of the ICCPR, to the right to self-determination. Armenia argues that although the NK does not fall within the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), responsibility for the protection of human rights norms or humanitarian law required by public international law is the responsibility of the emergent NK state/government. NK has always been different: it was given wide-ranging autonomy in 1923, has been an autonomous state since 1992, and its claims for statehood have grown stronger in the intervening years. Protests in favor of the independence of NK began in February 1988, and by the end of 1989 Azerbaijan had “ceased its direct rule … and returned control to local authorities.”39 The NK parliament conducted a referendum “in which an overwhelming majority of residents voted in favor of independence,” and on 6 January 1992, the NK “Republic parliament declared independence from Azerbaijan.”40 NK’s Right to Self-Determination Scholars recognize that territorial integrity and self-determination are legally ambiguous terms, but that the principle of territorial integrity merely safeguards the inviolability of international borders and does not prevent secession.41 Scholars also recognize that the © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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right of self-determination only applies in the post-colonial context because international law provides a right to secession for people subject to extreme persecution.42 According to this principle of international law, if groups are the victims of “serious breaches of fundamental human and civil rights” through the “abuse of sovereign power,” the afflicted group has the right to secede from the oppressive state.43 Scharf, for example, has stated that oppressed people have the right to external self-determination and remedial secession “when the group is collectively denied civil and political rights and subject to egregious abuses.”44 Sterio has written, “Simply look to the human rights record of the mother state, and if the record shows violations, then the minority group should be allowed to separate.”45 The Supreme Court of Canada, for example, recognized this right to external self-determination for oppressed peoples.46 In 1920, the Aaland Islands, a small island nation belonging to Finland, sought to be reunited with Sweden since they were ethnically Swedish. Two reports of jurists called upon by the League of Nations to determine the future of Finland’s Aaland Islands left open the possibility of a minority group having the right to secede in the event of “a manifest and continued abuse of sovereign power, to the detriment of a section of the population of a State.”47 According to the Commission of Rapporteurs, “separation of a minority from the State of which it forms a part … can only be considered as an altogether exceptional solution, as last resort when the State lacks either the will or the power to enact and apply just and effective guarantees.”48 The commission concluded that the Aalanders had a right to ethnic and cultural autonomy, and that if Finland disrespected this right, the Aalanders would be entitled to secede from Finland. In accordance with this principle, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations permits non-colonial people to separate from an existing state where the mother state has denied the right to democratic self-government.49 A similar clause appears in the 1993 Vienna Declaration of the World Conference on Human Rights, which was accepted by all UN member states.50 There have been many examples of the right to remedial secession being recognized in international law. First, there is the case of East Timor, which was forced to become Indonesia’s 26th province in 1976, resulting in condemnation from the international community. Indonesia’s rule over East Timor involved military force that led to many violations of human rights, resulting in the death of between 60,000 and 200,000 East Timorese. In 1999, the East Timorese people voted in a UN-organized referendum to secede from Indonesia. To support this movement, the UN Security Council established the International Force for East Timor, and in 2002 East Timor became a sovereign state. Similarly, following the break-up of Yugoslavia, the republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia were all entitled to secede because they were denied their right to democratic self-government and were subjected to ethnic violence by the central government in Belgrade. The EU and the US logistically, financially, economically, and politically supported their claim to self-determination and remedial secession. Finally, there is the case of Kosovo, which remained part of the independent Serbian state following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. From the late 1980s, Albanians living in the autonomous province of Kosovo were deprived of civil and political rights by the oppressive Serbian leadership. From 1999, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic brutally oppressed the Kosovo population in response to ethnic upheavals from the Kosovo Liberation Army. The international community responded with force, with © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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NATO countries launching a series of air strikes on the territory of Serbia. Under UN Resolution 1244, a UN provisional authority administered Kosovo from 1999 until February 2008 when Kosovo declared its independence with the support and backing of the US, UK, and France. NK is an independent state, which has undergone or is undergoing a process of selfdetermination. Armenia accepts that it has some influence in NK, and has from time to time given financial and other assistance to NK and its government, but insists that NK is an independent state not under the control of Armenia. The right to self-determination is recognized in the United Nations Charter,51 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,52 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.53 There can, of course, be a conflict between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, and international documents often emphasize the inviolability of the borders and the territorial integrity of sovereign states, subject of course to international human rights law. Yet, the ICJ has displayed some willingness to engage with self-determination as a right. In the 1995 case of East Timor, the Court held: In the Court’s view, Portugal’s assertion that the right of peoples to self-determination, as it evolved from the Charter and from United Nations practice, has an erga omnes character, is irreproachable. The principle of self-determination of peoples has been recognized by the United Nations Charter and in the jurisprudence of the Court; it is one of the essential principles of contemporary international law.54

Subsequently, in an advisory opinion concerning the legal consequences of Kosovo’s declaration of independence, the ICJ found that Kosovo had not violated international law by making a declaration of it independence (there is no norm preventing this), but noted that recognition is a political process and not something the court is capable of enforcing.55 The current situation under international law is that ethnic groups may have the right to secede if they are exposed to excessive discrimination and systematic violations of human rights. That was certainly the case in NK from the pogroms in Sumgait and Baku, Operation Ring, and the siege of Stepanakert. It remains the case, as is clear from the universal NGO and US State Department condemnations of Azerbaijan’s human rights record, from 2002 to the present day. The Montevideo Convention is “commonly accepted as reflecting, in general terms, the requirements of statehood at customary international law.”56 The four criteria for statehood are: (1) a permanent population; (2) a defined territory; (3) a government; and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states.57 NK meets the conditions relating to statehood, in terms of territory, control of government, and permanent population (about 170,000 more than many states), and it has eight missions in other countries and its government has numerous contracts with other states, state agencies, and corporations. Its situation can be compared to Kosovo, South Ossetia, and Southern Sudan, though it has a better claim to statehood than they do, or indeed many other states (e.g., Andorra, Lichtenstein, Luxemburg, the Vatican, San Marino, and so on), and a more developed independent democratic government than many, if not most, existing states. Geoffrey Robertson AO KC is the founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers, Europe’s largest human rights practice, and served as the first president of the UN’s War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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He is the author of An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?, and the latest edition of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (2024). He has acted for Armenia, with his associate Amal Clooney, in the European Court of Human Rights.

Notes 1. Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New York: NYUP 2003), 90. 2. de Waal, 90. 3. de Waal, 118. 4. de Waal, 120. 5. de Waal, 122. 6. de Waal, 161. 7. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, Bloodshed in the Caucasus: Escalation of the Armed Conflict in Nagorno Karabakh (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992), 31. 8. James Carney, “Carnage in Karabakh,” Time, 13 April 1992, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/ article/0,33009,975278,00.html. 9. Carney. 10. Carney, “Carnage in Karabakh.” 11. Wikipedia, s.v. “Battle of Shusha (1992),” last modified May 25, 2023, 03:35, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Battle_of_Shusha_(1992). 12. de Waal, Black Garden, 181. 13. Hugo Grotius, De Jure Belli ac Pacis [On the law of war and peace], Classics of International Law, no. 3, trans. Francis W. Kelsey (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution, 1913; London: Humphrey Milford, 1925), bk. III, ch. IV, 644, ¶ iv. 14. Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens, ou principes de la loi naturelle [The law of nations or principles of natural law], Classics of International Law, no. 4, trans. Charles G. Fenwick (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1916), bk. II, ch. IV, 298, ¶ 56. 15. Douglas Hurd, BBC Radio 4 interview, 19 August 1991. 16. UN Security Council, Security Council Resolution 794 (1992), 3 December 1992, S/RES/794 (1992). 17. Christopher Greenwood, “Is there a right of humanitarian intervention?,” The World Today 49,2 (1993): 34–40. 18. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflict (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, 1125 UNTS 3. 19. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflict (Protocol II), 8 June 1977, 1125 UNTS 609. 20. Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, eds., Customary International Humanitarian Law, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP & ICRC, 2005), 186. 21. Protocol I; Protocol II. 22. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, UN Doc. A/CONF.183/9 (17 July 1998), Article 8(2)(b)(xxv). 23. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary Law, 188, 189, 193, and 200. 24. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary Law, 175 (emphasis added). 25. International Criminal Court, Article 8(b)(xiii). 26. International Criminal Court, Article 8(2)(e)(xii). 27. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary Law, 509 (emphasis added). © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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28. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 12 August 1949, 75 UNTS 287. 29. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977, 1125 UNTS 3, Article 1(1). 30. ICRC, Protocol I, Article 89. 31. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Final declaration of the International Conference for the Protection of War Victims (1993), https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/57jms8.htm. 32. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. US), Merits, 1986 ICJ, ¶ 46 (June 27). 33. Prosecutor v. Furunžija, Case No. IT-95-17/1, Judgment, ¶ 47 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia Dec. 10, 1998); Prosecutor v. Kupreški´c, Case No. IT-95-16-T, ¶ 48 (Int’l Crim. Trib. for the Former Yugoslavia Jan. 14, 2000). 34. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary Law, 513. 35. Henckaerts and Doswald-Beck, Customary Law, 513–8. 36. United Nations, Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1945, 1 UNTS XVI. 37. See, George A. Bournoutian, The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabakh Province: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of Karabagh in the Early 19th Century, (California: Mazda Publishing, 2011), 3–21 and 427–449. 38. de Waal, Black Garden, 166. 39. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, Azerbaijan: Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994), 2. 40. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, Azerbaijan, 2. 41. Georges Abi-Saab, “Conclusion,” in Secession: International Law Perspectives, ed. Marcelo Kohen (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006), 473. 42. Lee Buchheit, Secession: The Legitimacy of Self-Determination (New Haven: Yale UP, 1978), 220–3. 43. Antonello Tancredi, “A Normative ‘Due Process’ in the Creation of States through Secession,” in Secession: International Law Perspectives, ed. Marcelo Kohen (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006), 176. 44. Michael P. Scharf, “Earned Sovereignty: Judicial Underpinnings,” Denver Journal of International Law & Policy 31,3 (2003): 381. 45. Milena Sterio, “On the Right to External Self-Determination: “Selfistans,” Secession and the Great Powers’ Rule,” Minnesota Journal of International Law 19,1 (2010): 139. 46. Reference re Secession of Quebec [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217. 47. “Report of the International Committee of Jurists Entrusted by the Council of the League of Nations with the Task of Giving an Advisory Opinion upon the Legal Aspects of the Aaland Islands Question,” Human Rights (University Casebook Series), ed. Louis Henkin et al., (Foundation Press, 1999), 462 48. Report Presented to the Council of the League of Nations by the Commission of Rapporteurs, LN Council Doc. B7 21/68/106 (1921), https://www.ilsa.org/Jessup/Jessup10/basicmats/aaland2.pdf. 49. UN General Assembly, Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, 24 October 1970, A/RES/2625(XXV): “Nothing in the foregoing paragraphs shall be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity of political unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as described above and thus possessed of a government representing the whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to race, creed or colour.” 50. Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, World Conference on Human Rights, 14–25 June 1993, ¶ 2, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.157/24 (1993), reprinted in 32 I.L.M. 1661 (1993). 51. The preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is: “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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and self-determination of peoples, and to strengthen universal peace.” UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, 217 A (III). 52. Article 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides: “The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government ….” UN General Assembly, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948, 217 A (III). 53. Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) provides: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” See, UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, A/RES/2200. 54. East Timor (Portugal v. Australia), Judgement, 1995 ICJ (June 30). 55. Accordance with International Law of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Respect of Kosovo (Request for Advisory Opinion), General List No. 141, International Court of Justice (ICJ), 22 July 2010. 56. David John Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law, 5th ed. (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1998), 102. 57. Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States, 165 UNTS 19, signed at Montevideo, 26 December 1933, entered into force 26 December 1934.

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Uncovering the Truth behind Azerbaijan’s “Ecological” Blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh: The Role of Government-Linked Volunteer Organizations in the Lachin Corridor Lindsey Snell Political Science, Munich, Germany This article presents an analysis of the ongoing blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, which, for almost five months, was under the guise of an ecological protest. It examines the role of volunteer organizations linked to the Azerbaijani government in coordinating the volunteer protestors blocking the Lachin Corridor, as well as the demographic makeup of these volunteers, the majority of whom are students from Azerbaijan’s public universities. The article delves into the origins and objectives of these organizations, as well as the benefits that Azerbaijani youth gain by joining them. The article also touches on the organizations’ next goal, which is to utilize the same student volunteers to influence media coverage of the “West Azerbaijan community,” an initiative introduced by the Azerbaijani government to justify its territorial claims on sovereign Armenian territory. The study contributes to the understanding of the political and social dynamics of the so-called ecological protest in Azerbaijan and its potential consequences for the broader conflict in the region. Key words: uncovering, truth, Azerbaijan, ecological, blockade, Nagorno-Karabakh, Lachin corridor

On 12 December 2022, Azerbaijani protesters entered the Lachin corridor, the sole road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. The protesters demanded access to what they claimed were illegal mines operated by Armenians. Russian peacekeepers, who have had a presence in the region since the end of the 2020 war, refused their request. In response, Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin corridor, effectively trapping more than 120,000 predominantly ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and creating shortages of food and crucial supplies in harsh winter conditions.1 The government of Azerbaijan claimed the Lachin corridor demonstration was an ecological protest started by independent activists and denied direct involvement.2 The meticulous organization of the demonstration and the involvement of volunteer organizations linked to the Azerbaijani government quickly cast doubt on these claims.3 The demands of the demonstration, especially as they related to the environment, were never made clear, but the goal was obvious. Azerbaijan sought to ethnically cleanse NagornoKarabakh by trapping and starving the local populace in an effort to encourage them to flee. The Early Days of the “Eco-Protest” Initially, the Lachin corridor demonstration appeared disorganized. Protestors of different ages, among them civil servants and workers from area construction sites, waved handwritten signs. A number of the participants photographed at the event were discovered to be current and former Azerbaijani soldiers.4 As thousands of Azerbaijani soldiers are

Lindsey Snell, “Uncovering the Truth behind Azerbaijan’s “Ecological” Blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh: The Role of Government-Linked Volunteer Organizations in the Lachin Corridor,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 69–76. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0014

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stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh, they were on hand to help fill out the demonstration in its nascent stage. Serkan Yılmaz, a Turkish HVAC technician temporarily living in Shushi while working at a hotel construction site, said in an interview that he and several of his Turkish colleagues joined the protest on the first day.5 “There weren’t many people there at first,” Yılmaz said. “We brought the Turkish flag with us, and the soldiers at the protest approached us and took the flag away from us. They told us not to wave the Turkish flag there, that it couldn’t be seen. Only the Azerbaijani flag was allowed.” Yılmaz said he and his Turkish colleagues were asked not to return to the site of the protest. “It wasn’t necessary for us to go, anyway, because many more people had arrived at that point. Then, there were buses full of people coming almost every day.” For the next four and a half months, a large number of participants, most of whom were students from Azerbaijan’s public universities, were brought in chartered buses from Baku to the Lachin corridor.6 They took selfies and celebrated while seemingly oblivious that their actions were exacerbating the suffering of the Armenians who were trapped in Nagorno-Karabakh.7 As those unable to leave Nagorno-Karabakh because of Azerbaijan’s blockade struggled to find adequate food, protesters posted videos of themselves enjoying hot meals and shopping at a fully-stocked supermarket in Shushi. As the trapped were forced to contend with Azerbaijan’s deliberate interruption of gas and electricity to their areas, the protesters posted stories showing themselves lounging in warm hotel rooms watching television.8 Photos and videos poured out of the protest site, featuring volunteers waving massprinted signs and chanting, “Save nature!,” “Stop ecocide!,” and “The greatest soldier is the Azerbaijani soldier!”9 They wore colorful jackets bearing the names of several Azerbaijani volunteer organizations, all of which were linked to the Azerbaijani government.10 Azerbaijan’s Volunteer Movement There are dozens of government-linked volunteer organizations in Azerbaijan, boasting sweeping mission statements about youth development and patriotism.11 Azerbaijani state-run media outlet Trend cites a joint project between Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Youth, Sports and Tourism and the United Nations Development Program and the United Nations Volunteers Program in 1998 as the beginning of Azerbaijan’s modern volunteer movement.12 On 20 August 2020, at the request of President Aliyev, dozens of Azerbaijan’s volunteer organizations united under the banner of the Union of Voluntary Organizations of Azerbaijan (Azərbaycan Könüllü Tə¸skilatları ˙Ittifaqı). A central board of directors was installed to oversee the new entity. The stated aim of the unification was to help stop the spread of COVID-19 through closer cooperation among volunteer organizations and government bodies.13 But few COVID-related initiatives appeared on the various organizations’ social media pages after the Union was established. Just over a month later, Azerbaijan launched a war on Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on 27 September 2020.14 A multitude of social media posts from Azerbaijan’s volunteer organizations documented their active involvement in supporting the war effort.15 In a letter published on the official website of the Azerbaijani presidency after the war ended in December 2020, ASAN Volunteers’ Chairperson Emiliya Bayramova lavished praise on President Aliyev, thanking him for his support for Azerbaijan’s volunteer © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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organizations. Notably, the letter makes several references to links between ASAN and the Azerbaijani military. “We have tried to contribute to increasing the patriotic spirit in young people, to engage them in military patriotism trainings, and to raise young people who will always volunteer for the Motherland,” Bayramova wrote. “Some of the ASAN volunteers voluntarily went to serve on the front line, while the other part continued to serve the Motherland on the rear line.”16 After the war, Azerbaijan’s volunteer organizations launched a number of militaryrelated initiatives, including dinners for families of Azerbaijani soldiers killed in the war.17 The Azerbaijani government opened Military Trophies Park in January 2021, a gruesome attraction featuring trenches, Armenian military equipment Azerbaijan captured in the 2020 war, and wax statues of Armenian soldiers portraying them as hideous and cowardly.18 Many of the volunteers from Azerbaijani government organizations who blocked the Lachin corridor list employment at Military Trophies Park, indicating that the park is at least partially staffed by these same volunteers.19 Unsurprisingly, when Azerbaijan launched its blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh in December 2022 under the guise of an ecological protest, Azerbaijan’s government-linked volunteer organizations were tasked with filling the Lachin corridor with volunteers.20 Azerbaijan’s weaponization of its volunteers serves a dual purpose in its campaign of ethnic cleansing against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. By predominantly recruiting young university students, the government capitalizes on their youthful innocence and fresh-faced image to present a façade of benevolence and legitimacy. These volunteers, unknowingly or not, become instruments in whitewashing Azerbaijan’s actions and masking the insidious nature of their practices. The government strategically deploys these impressionable individuals to perpetuate a false narrative, creating a stark contrast between the seemingly innocent volunteers and the harsh reality of the suffering endured by the trapped ethnic Armenian population. This manipulation of young volunteers both actively supports the ethnic cleansing efforts and contributes to the deliberate distortion of the true nature of Azerbaijan’s actions. Azerbaijan’s Volunteer Organizations at the Lachin Corridor Though technically united under one organization, volunteers at the Lachin corridor demonstration wore jackets in different bright colors bearing the logos of several distinct organizations.21 As the Azerbaijani government repeatedly denied orchestrating the demonstration, it likely sought to foster the appearance of a real protest comprised of non-government entities. Among the most visible organizations at the Lachin corridor demonstration were ASAN Volunteers, which has been registered with the Azerbaijani Ministry of Justice since 2013;22 Regional Development Public Union (Regional ˙Inki¸saf ˙Ictimai Birliyi, abbreviated as “R˙I˙IB”), established in 2016 under the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, a charitable organization founded by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife, Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva;23 Bir (One Volunteer), established in 2015 by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Science and Education;24 and Young Volunteers (Gənc Könüllülər), supported by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Youth and Sports.25 The demonstration at the Lachin corridor received regular coverage in Azerbaijani state-run media, and a handful of statements were repeated daily as the blockade continued: “Despite the freezing weather, participants of the protest remain steadfast on the Khankendi [Stepanakert]-Lachin road. The protest will continue until demands are © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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met.” Curiously, even as the demonstration stretched into months, the ecological demands of the protesters were never clearly articulated. Unrelated demands began to appear in Azerbaijani state-run media, including the establishment of an Azerbaijani checkpoint.26 In a video posted by R˙I˙IB on 9 March 2023, Vəfa A˘galarova, a volunteer team lead with the organization, spoke about her time at the protest. She repeated many of the statements published by Azerbaijani state-run media. “I’ve been here with my friends since December 13,” she said. “We will continue this protest peacefully until our demands are met.” A˘galarova also failed to specify the demands made by the protesters. “Foreign journalists visited us here,” A˘galarova continued in the video. “They had the wrong impression before they came, but they talked to us and saw that we were not blocking the road or creating a blockade.”27 Several groups of foreign journalists and social media influencers were brought to the Lachin corridor demonstration. These trips were funded and supervised by the Azerbaijani government. Spanish journalist David López Frías went on one such trip in February 2023. Azerbaijani state-run media outlets filmed him visiting the Lachin corridor demonstration and quoted him as saying, “Cars are passing freely. We just see that people are here protesting for nature.” In an interview, Frías said that he was misquoted.28 “I said that the road was clearly blocked,” Frías said. “And I even asked the Azerbaijanis if I could go to Stepanakert. They said no.” Once he returned home, Frías complained to the Azerbaijani ambassador in Spain. The ambassador said he’d been misquoted unintentionally. He promised to ensure the articles and videos featuring the misquote were removed, but several remain online.29 Frías said Azerbaijani government handlers overseeing the trip directed him and other journalists to speak only to pre-selected volunteers at the Lachin corridor. “They just repeated the same things,” he said. “There’s no blockade, and they’re protesting for the environment.” Frías said he was led to believe that the protesters were staying overnight at the Lachin corridor demonstration, but when his group arrived at their Shushi hotel, it was full of young protesters.

Social Media Sheds Light on Organization of the Lachin Corridor Demonstration Volunteers’ social media posts provided valuable glimpses into the meticulous organization behind the Lachin corridor demonstration. On 28 January, a student from Baku’s Engineering University shared an Instagram story displaying a portion of the eco-protest’s schedule. The story listed the names, universities, majors, and allocated time slots for volunteers at the Lachin corridor. Each student was assigned to a specific group and scheduled to participate in the protest for five-hour intervals.30 Another volunteer took to Instagram on 20 March, seeking volunteers for the period between 23–29 March. The post included contact information and a designated pickup location in Baku. The volunteer assured interested individuals that food and hotel accommodation would be provided, and noted that participating students would be excused from their studies during this period.31 According to Ramin Abdulayev, a former administrator at one of Baku’s public universities, it was a common practice for university students to be allowed to skip classes for government-supported activities. Abdulayev emphasized that this privilege went beyond mere absences, adding, “They wouldn’t just be allowed to miss class. Sometimes, they © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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would allow a student who failed a test to pass it. They aren’t just volunteering because they want to. There are benefits for them.”32 Abdulayev emphasized that ambitious students saw engagement in Azerbaijan’s volunteer organizations as a potential pathway to secure coveted government positions in the future. He remarked, “A student volunteer leading a team at the Lachin corridor today might secure an enviable position at the Ministry of Education or elsewhere within a few years. And the high-ranking volunteers in these organizations are also receiving quite a bit of money from the government unofficially.”33 On 23 April 2023, the Azerbaijani military established a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor, effectively militarizing Azerbaijan’s long-running blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.34 Five days later, the supposed eco-protest ended. ˙Ibrahim Səfərov, whose Facebook profile cites employment as a volunteer team leader at R˙I˙IB and at Military Trophies Park,19 delivered a speech to mark the occasion. “We would like to inform you that the demands of the eco-activists and young volunteers, as well as the repeated appeals made to us by state representatives, have partially been met, so we have decided to temporarily suspend our protest action,” he announced from a raised platform at the Lachin corridor.35 The volunteers cheered for the soldiers at the demonstration site as they prepared to leave. The Lachin corridor demonstration was far from being an organic ecological protest as claimed by the Azerbaijani government. It was a meticulously orchestrated campaign aimed at ethnically cleansing the region and creating suffering for the predominantly ethnic Armenian population. The involvement of government-linked volunteer organizations, the organized transportation of participants, and the media manipulation all point to a calculated effort to trap and starve the local populace. Despite the denial and obfuscation by the Azerbaijani government, the true nature of the demonstration has been exposed. The international community must acknowledge and condemn these actions, as they constitute a grave violation of human rights and an affront to peace and stability in the region. It is crucial to hold those responsible accountable, especially because Azerbaijan’s volunteer organizations have already progressed to their next task: supporting the Azerbaijani government in its territorial claims on Armenia. Azerbaijan’s Volunteers Set Their Sights on Syunik In July 2021, Azerbaijan reorganized its internal regions, announcing the existence of “Eastern Zangezur.”36 This indicated that Azerbaijan believed there was a “Western Zangezur,” which would be in the Armenian province of Syunik. In December 2022, the Azerbaijani government debuted the “Great Return” concept, an initiative that purports to encourage the return of Azerbaijanis who once lived in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.37 As the Azerbaijani government laid claim to Armenian territory through these initiatives, the Azerbaijani military repeatedly attacked and attempted incursions into Armenia near the border with Azerbaijan.38 On 18 April 2023, representatives from a number of Azerbaijan’s government-linked volunteer organizations convened for a seminar entitled “Conveying the Truths of West Azerbaijan to the World Community.” Topics included how to influence international media reporting of Azerbaijan’s “Great Return” initiatives.39 Among the attendees were some of the volunteers who spent time at the Lachin corridor protest.40 In a chilling nod to the likelihood of additional Azerbaijani aggressions against Armenia, on 11 May 2023, Azerbaijani government-linked volunteer organization ASAN posted photos of a military © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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training it held for members, noting that the exercise was meant to “develop physical and psychological readiness and to install patriotic feelings in young people.”41 Lindsey Snell is an American journalist covering conflict and crises in the Caucasus, Middle East, and North Africa.

Notes 1. Amnesty International, “Azerbaijan: Blockade of Lachin corridor putting thousands of lives in peril must be immediately lifted,” 9 February 2023, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/02/azerbaijanblockade-of-lachin-corridor-putting-thousands-of-lives-in-peril-must-be-immediately-lifted/. 2. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, “Ilham Aliyev was interviewed by local TV channels,” 10 January 2023, https://president.az/en/articles/view/58555. 3. Human Right Defender or Armenia and Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, “Updated Joint Ad Hoc Public Report: The Humanitarian Consequences Of Blocking The Only Road Connecting Artsakh With Armenia And The World, December 12-25,” 15 December 2022, https://ombuds.am/images/files/ c01555c03620fb8494eaef308fe9ca15.pdf. 4. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “No, Samir, that’s not why I ‘surprisingly concluded’ that these Azerbaijani ‘eco-activists’ who have helped block the Lachin corridor and trap 120k Armenians for 25+ days were soldiers,” Twitter, 5 January 2023, 9:11 a.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/ 1611002568297295872?s=20. Pictures shared by an Azerbaijani volunteer/soldier. 5. Interview conducted in February 2023. Name has been changed to protect identity. 6. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “Day 122 of the Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, trapping 120k,” Twitter, 12 April 2023, 1:41 p.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/16462068866040 54528?s=20. From the Instagram story of an Azerbaijani volunteer blocking the Lachin corridor. 7. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “It’s day 52 of the Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Twitter, 1 February 2023, 8:07 a.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/1620770873929273350?s=20. Selfies posted by Azerbaijani volunteers blocking the Lachin corridor. 8. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “Here’s the day of an AZ “eco-activist.” Enjoying hot food, electricity, heat, and a stocked supermarket—things the AZ blockade deprives 120k in Nagorno-Karabakh of,” Twitter, 18 February 2023, 11:56 a.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/1626988922315149312?s=20. From the Instagram stories of an Azerbaijani volunteer blocking the Lachin corridor. 9. Azerbaijan News, “Laçın-Xankəndi yolu: Aksiya i¸stirakçılarının sıraları geni¸slənir,” 10 March 2023, https:// www.azerbaijan-news.az/az/posts/detail/lacin-xankendi-yolu-aksiya-istirakcilarinin-siralari-genislenir-1 678453261. 10. Regional ˙Inki¸saf ˙Ictimai Birliyi, “R˙I˙IB haqqında,” https://riib.az/site/about/riib_haqqinda. 11. Regional ˙Inki¸saf ˙Ictimai Birliyi, “Vəzifələr” https://riib.az/site/about/vezifeler. 12. Trend News Agency, “Qaraba˘g və cəmiyyət üçün könüllülük; u˘gur düsturu—debat və müzakirələr,” 28 November 2020, https://az.trend.az/azerbaijan/karabakh/3341753.html. 13. Azerbaijan State News Agency, “Azərbaycan Könüllü Tə¸skilatları ˙Ittifaqı təsis edilib,” 20 August 2020, https://azertag.az/xeber/Azerbaycan_Konullu_Teskilatlari_Ittifaqi_tesis_edilib-1565725. 14. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, “Statement of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia on the occasion of the anniversary of the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh on September 27,” 27 September 2021, https://www.mfa.am/en/interviews-articles-and-comments/2021/ 09/27/September27_Artsakhwar/11103. 15. ASAN Könüllüləri/ASAN Volunteers, “Letters to the Soldiers Initiative,” Facebook, 4 November 2020, https://www.facebook.com/asanvolunteers/photos/a.3361341893920198/3361344310586623/. 16. Emiliya Bayramova to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, 23 December 2020, https:// president.az/az/articles/view/48673. 17. ASAN Könüllüləri/ASAN Volunteers, “Bərdə regional ‘ASAN xidmət’ mərkəzinin əməkda¸sları və könüllüləri tərəfindən 2020-ci il 27-28 oktyabr tarixlərində Bərdə terrorunda həlak olmu¸s mülki ¸səhid Cəfərov © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Amil Fazil o˘glu və ˙Isgəndərova Aysu Röv¸sən qızının ailələri ziyarət edilib,” Facebook, 28 October 2021, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4369856266402084&set=pcb.4369861259734918. 18. Ani Avetisyan, “Azerbaijan removes mannequins and helmets from military trophy park,” OC Media, 15 October 2020, https://oc-media.org/azerbaijan-removes-mannequins-and-helmets-frommilitary-trophy-park/. ˙ 19. Ibrahim Səfərov, “About,” Facebook, 8 June 2023, https://ghostarchive.org/archive/O6bZC. Archived record of the “About” page from the Facebook account of R˙I˙IB Team Leader, ˙Ibrahim Səfərov. 20. Photos posted by ASAN showing Azerbaijani volunteers blocking the Lachin corridor, holding massproduced signs can be found at ASAN Könüllüləri/ASAN Volunteers, “ASAN volunteers participated in ecological action in Karabakh,” Facebook, 17 December 2022, https://www.facebook.com/asanvolunteers/ posts/pfbid0EycWRpPg31ven8EV5t9xRFT46BydTNWRm2ATXXzN8QSJZudxAu5ZrVZ9HYW2kEBEl. 21. Trend News Agency, “Laçın-Xankəndi yolunda etirazlar 52 gündür davam edir (FOTO),” 1 February 2023, https://az.trend.az/azerbaijan/gundem/3703462.html. 22. ASAN’s official Facebook account can be found at https://www.facebook.com/asanvolunteers, but the organization’s website is inaccessible outside Azerbaijan. 23. The Regional ˙Inki¸saf ˙Ictimai Birliyi (R˙I˙IB) website can be found at https://riib.az/. 24. The website for Bir Könüllü can be found at https://konullu.edu.az/about-one.html. 25. The Young Volunteers (Gənc Könüllülər) website can be found at https://youthfoundation.az/about-us/. 26. Trend News Agency, “Qarlı havaya baxmayaraq, Laçın yolunda etiraz aksiyası 28 gündür davam edir (FOTO/VIDEO),” 8 January 2023, https://az.trend.az/azerbaijan/society/3692151.html. 27. Regional ˙Inki¸saf (R˙I˙IB), “‘Regional ˙Inki¸saf’ ˙Ictimai Birliyinin (R˙I˙IB) könüllüsü, Laçın-Xankəndi yolunda keçirilən ekoloji aksiyanın i¸stirakçısı olan Vəfa A˘galarova ARB24 telekanalının ‘Telebloq’ verili¸sində aksiya i¸stirakçısının bir günündən danı¸sıb,” Facebook, 9 March 2023, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v= 221144963656165. 28. Interview conducted with David López Frías in March 2023. 29. Azerbaijan News, “˙Ispaniyalı jurnalist: Avtomobillər aksiya ərazisindən maneəsiz keçirlər,” 27 February 2023, https://www.azerbaijan-news.az/az/posts/detail/ispaniyali-jurnalist-avtomobiller-aksiyaerazisinden-maneesiz-kecirler-1677503766. 30. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “From a list of AZ students involved in the “eco-protest” blocking the Lachin corridor, tracking participation so that they’ll get credit.” Twitter, 31 January 2023, 6:06 a.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/status/1620377904227192832?s=20. List from the Instagram story of an Azerbaijani volunteer blocking the Lachin corridor. 31. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “Day 100 of the Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the AZ gov needs more bodies to block the Lachin corridor,” Twitter, 20 March 2023, 6:05 p.m., https://twitter.com/ LindseySnell/status/1637938560840916994. From the Instagram story of an Azerbaijani volunteer blocking the Lachin corridor. 32. Interview conducted in April 2023. Name has been changed to protect identity. 33. ASAN shares that more than 3,200 of its members have received jobs through its placement center. See, ASAN Könüllüləri/ASAN Volunteers, “ASAN volunteers were provided with jobs within the framework of the ‘ASAN Cadre’ career center with ‘Azerikard’ LLC,” Facebook, 6 June 2023, https://www. facebook.com/asanvolunteers/posts/pfbid02wkmvMmncJSZ14wVSk8GPqjgPEfG9Sq3iyAwKZw43cZdiqY Sg6QgWdFzWmjdfUjTJl. 34. Economist Intelligence, “Azerbaijan sets up checkpoints on the Lachin corridor,” 27 April 2023, https:// www.eiu.com/n/azerbaijan-sets-up-checkpoints-on-the-lachin-corridor/. 35. ˙Ibrahim Səfərov, “Aksiyanın sonuncu günü 138-ci gün,” Facebook, 29 April 2023, https://ghostarchive.org/ archive/EtmTe. 36. Nasimi Aghyev (@NasimiAghyey), “Two new economic regions have been established in #Azerbaijan: East #Zangezur and #Qarabagh,” Twitter, 7 July 2021, 9:42 p.m., https://twitter.com/NasimiAghayev/ status/1412768866552459278?s=20. Information on “East Zangezur” posted by Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Germany.

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37. Gunay Hajiyeva, “President Aliyev: Azerbaijanis Should Peacefully Return to Western Azerbaijan,” Caspian News, 27 December 2022, https://caspiannews.com/news-detail/president-aliyev-azerbaijanisshould-peacefully-return-to-western-azerbaijan-2022-12-26-29/. 38. Asbarez, “Azerbaijani Forces Have Not Withdrawn from ‘Newly Occupied Territory’ in Syunik,” 3 April 2023, https://asbarez.com/azerbaijani-forces-have-not-withdrawn-from-newly-occupied-territoryin-syunik/. 39. Qərbi Azərbaycan ˙Icması (@qerbiazerbaycanicmasi), “Qərbi Azərbaycan ˙Icmasında,” Instagram photo, 18 April 2023, https://www.instagram.com/p/CrL8X5soHNw/?hl=en. Photos posted from event held by the “West Azerbaijan community” for Azerbaijani government volunteer organizations. 40. Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell), “Today, she’s at a meeting on how to convince the world that sovereign Armenian territory is Azerbaijan,” Twitter, 18 April 2023, 2:36 p.m., https://twitter.com/LindseySnell/ status/1648395155668451328?s=20. Photos show Sayarra Gul, who represented R˙I˙IB at the Lachin corridor demonstration and the “West Azerbaijan Community” event on 18 April 2023. 41. ASAN Könüllüləri/ASAN Volunteers, “Military simulation training within the framework of ‘Heydar Aliyev Year’” Facebook, 11 May 2023, https://www.facebook.com/asanvolunteers/posts/ pfbid02VFCwHeWjdHPKpUY2tvfRjHKu8MrQeTsH9KJNpWkVsi7QH31y87rx9cezV79vqAgtl.

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The Karabakh Flashpoint: Turkish Authoritarian Rule and the Recurrence of Genocide Ani Garabed Ohanian Clark University The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, currently a serious humanitarian crisis, is often categorized as a post-Soviet conflict. This article challenges that conceptualization and reframes the historiography of Nagorno-Karabakh by shedding light on Bolshevik-Kemalist collaboration in the South Caucasus. The true flashpoint of the conflict stems back to 1917, a period of imperial decline, which occurred during the ongoing process of the Armenian Genocide. The cooperation between Turkish and Azerbaijani actors between 1917 to 1921 demonstrates the intent to undermine the Armenian national pattern in the Karabakh region, as well as other regions including Zangezur, and Nakhichevan. Present-day grievances reflect similar Turkish and Azerbaijani intentions. The collapse of the Russian, and Ottoman Empires had severe consequences for the Armenians of the Karabakh region, as Bolsheviks and Kemalists supported genocidal policies towards them. From a historical perspective, Bolshevik-Kemalist cooperation in the South Caucasus provides a disturbing precursor to the region’s current authoritarian actors and their impact on enflamed ethno-territorial tensions and the region’s cycles of stability. Key words: Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Bolsheviks, Kemalists, genocide, authoritarianism

Truly understanding the past is critical when assessing present-day conflict, especially when legal claims for land and border demarcation are involved. It is unfortunate that observers view the Nagorno-Karabakh issue as a post-Soviet conflict, falsely denoting that prior tensions in the region were marginal in relation to the conflict’s history. Scholars have not dedicated enough attention to the true flashpoint of this conflict, which primarily stems back to 1917. To date, there is a lack of scholarly literature that concentrates on the origins of the conflict. Instead, most historians highlight the 1988 Sumgait events, the 1990 Baku massacres, and then what is commonly referred to as the First Karabakh War. My research will reframe the historiography by shedding light on Bolshevik-Kemalist collaboration in the South Caucasus, which had severe consequences for the Karabakh region and implicitly supported genocidal policies towards Armenian inhabitants of the region. From a historical perspective, Bolshevik-Kemalist machinations also demonstrate a harrowing parallel to the region’s present ethno-territorial tensions and instability. Henceforth, the significance of considering the 1917 to 1921 aggressions in the Karabakh region, not in isolation, but as part of a lengthy process of violence will allow us to draw new conclusions about the present. For example, the dissemination of nationalist ideas serves not primarily to commit genocide in and of itself, but to mobilize and strengthen perpetrators to checkmate geopolitical competition. This paper aims to highlight the role of authoritarian leaders who encouraged the violent trajectory between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Bolshevik ambivalence is generally reflected by the Russian Federation’s current role as arbiter of the conflict, while Turkish support from one authoritarian government to its Azerbaijani counterpart also evokes the strong Kemalist demand for

Ani Garabed Ohanian, “The Karabakh Flashpoint: Turkish Authoritarian Rule and the Recurrence of Genocide,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 60–68. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0721

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Azerbaijani dominance in the South Caucasus. This is especially palpable in Nakhichevan, where no Armenian population remains, and cultural genocide has successfully been executed. In that regard, the October 1921 Treaty of Kars, ratified by the Bolsheviks and Kemalists, sealed Nakhichevan’s fate. For this reason, it is necessary for us to understand this conflict’s origins and the geopolitical reality of that time. Historical Background The late Ottoman Empire saw the dismantling of constitutionalism by Sultan Abdulhamid II who systematically repressed dissent and free speech, and tried to curb European influence within the Empire by organizing mass violence against Armenians. Authoritarianism requires an order of rule in which the citizens of a given state have limited to no ability to express opposition or ideas that threaten the power structure. Such oppressive tactics lead to limited liberties and the exclusion of certain social narratives. In 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress party, known as Ittihad ve Terraki in Ottoman Turkish, overthrew the Sultan and vowed to revive constitutionalism. Yet, the Committee of Union and Progress’ nationalist fervor became even more pronounced in the aftermath of the Balkan wars, between 1912 to 1913. The Ottoman Empire faced a seriously staggered geopolitical situation with the loss of its Balkan territories. The harsh consequences sounded the alarm for the Empire’s dissolution and imminent crumble. From 1914 to 1918, the Ottoman Empire allied with Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to preserve territorial integrity, and then put into motion plans for the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Despite scholarly debate regarding the causes of the Armenian Genocide, there is consensus that geopolitical competition, the First World War, and the rise of new nation-states all played a role. Prior treaties and European interference influenced Ottoman policies and action to preserve the empire at all costs. Armenians who had been agitating for more rights were seen as direct threats to Ottoman territorial integrity. They were perceived as enemies of the state, as well as a supposed fifth column loyal to Russia. The Ottoman government, under the leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress and with the cooperation of the Special Organization, initiated the Armenian Genocide in 1915 through deliberate massacres, first against intellectuals and able-bodied males, and then through wholesale, systematic deportations, all under the pretext of maintaining domestic security. Closely examining the decision-making process, such plans were already drawn up in 1914, reinforcing the idea that the Ottoman Empire’s geopolitical situation and peripheral instability after the Balkan Wars heightened the Ottoman elite’s anxieties about a potential Armenian rebellion.1 In the face of the world war defeat, the Ottomans became subjugated to the European Allies, under the Mudros Armistice, signed 30 October 1918. This was the nail in the coffin for the Ottomans, with warrants for the arrest of the leading triumvirate, Talat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and Cemal Pasha, for the 1915 Armenian massacres, noted as a crime against humanity by the British and French. These key perpetrators, however, were safeguarded by Germany. Meanwhile, in the throes of the Ottoman Empire’s partition, an offshoot of the Committee of Union and Progress emerged through former Ittihad members as the Kemalists. To gain traction for the Kemalist movement and combat trepidation, it was necessary for the Kemalists to shift the balance of power. Collaboration with the Russians, old Ottoman foes, would evade Western involvement in the South Caucasus, and allow for the Kemalists to determine the fate of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Armenian Question. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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The South Caucasus also experienced significant changes with the Russian Revolution. In 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries managed to topple three centuries of Romanov rule, dramatically altering the geopolitical reality of the region. In the age of empire, the South Caucasus served as a connection point from the West to East. Baku, an oil megapolis no longer under Tsarist rule, was a critical attraction to foreign powers. European imperialists were keen to exploit the South Caucasus for resources and for greater spheres of influence. In December 1917, the French sent a Caucasus mission headquartered in Tiflis (the capital of Georgia). Just a few months later, in February 1918, the British arrived in Baku from Persia, then stationed in Tiflis. By May 1918, Georgia became Germany’s protectorate. Finally, in 1919, the Americans vouched for Armenian statehood, even proposing a potential mandate over Armenia, which never came to fruition. German influence extended in the Caucasus resulted in cooperation with their ally, the Turks. Germany wanted to employ Baku as a military operational base, from where they could challenge the British. The geopolitical interests of the major powers in the South Caucasus, notably the British and the French, were to maintain stability in the region as a bulwark against Bolshevik Russia. After the Russian Revolution led to the collapse of Imperial Russia and rise of nationalism through nationalist groups like the Musavatists (Modern Equality Party) in Azerbaijan, the Dashnaks (Armenian Revolutionary Federation) in Armenia, and the Mensheviks in Georgia. Amongst these actors in the South Caucasus, the common objective between the nascent Republics was to drive Russian troops out of the Caucasus. Under this pretext, Georgians and Azerbaijanis cooperated to combat Bolshevik penetration, leaving the Armenians a unitary force against Turkish military operations in the region. At the time, the Armenians faced a myriad of problems including an influx of the genocide’s refugees, post-war famine and disease, rudimentary governmental organization, as well as serious ethno-territorial warfare. While Georgian Prime Minister Tsereteli claimed that Georgia was left to face external threats alone, Armenians fought for survival against the Turks, who had organized “the bloodiest repression that a tyranny had ever organized against a people.”2 From the Armenian perspective, Georgian complicity with German affairs led to real abandonment. Rather than help stave off Turkish attacks, the Georgians remained complicit because Turkish aggression against Armenians benefitted plans for a “Greater Georgia,” notably by driving the Armenian population out of the provinces. Nagorno-Karabakh between Nascent Republics and Toppled Empires The regions of Nakhichevan, Zangezur, and Nagorno-Karabakh encountered serious ethno-territorial battles, borne out of the dissolution of both the Russian and Ottoman Empires. In May 1918, no longer under imperial rule or part of a federation, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan became independent republics. At that time, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous oblast. During the summer of 1918, the Armenians of Karabakh had established a provisional government, with Yeghishe Ishkanyan, a member of the Dashnak Party, as its leader. The Karabakh delegation’s main objective was not solely to incorporate Karabakh as part of Armenia, but to return to the self-governance system that was in place prior to independence. Historically, Karabakh was an Armenian-inhabited region; it was one of the provinces of historic Armenia known in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages as Artsakh. Despite the surrender of the Turkish troops after the conclusion of World War I, “many thousands of Turkish soldiers, officers, and military advisers, together with German officers, stayed to serve the pro-Turkish Musavatists government of Azerbaijan. They were © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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entrusted into the [Azerbaijani] army, which was commanded practically the same as before, by Turkish and German officers with Nuri Pasha as its commander.”3 Therefore, the authority figures that remained in the region refused to accept defeat and would, through open political activities and mobilization of public opinion, make extensive use of existing networks and work clandestinely to realize their objectives. By late 1917 and early 1918 it already became clear that the Musavatists, together with the Turks, developed chauvinist campaigns to drive the Russians out of the Caucasus, as well as to eliminate the Armenian population. The Musavatists were the dominant nationalist party in Azerbaijan governing the nascent republic, prior to its Sovietization in April 1920. According to Zareh Melik-Shahnazarov, a volunteer of the Karabakh army whose family lineage included imperial Russian lieutenants and generals, the Azerbaijanis “were eagerly waiting for the Turkish army to arrive in the Caucasus.”4 That is to say, Azerbaijani plans became an open secret to most Armenians in the region. Drawing upon memoirs and personal anecdotes of soldiers, I shed light on excluded narratives; those whose participation in ethno-territorial warfare are often neglected from larger historical accounts of war and genocide. Turkish Activities in the South Caucasus On 17 September 1918, Baku fell to the Turks, resulting in massacres against the local Armenian population there. Five days later, a 4,000-man detachment arrived in Azerbaijan, commanded by Nuri Pasha, the half-brother of genocidaire Enver Pasha. Their uncle, Khalil Bey, would also later work with Nuri Pasha, training Azerbaijani military units, preparing for pogroms against Armenians. Additionally, there was a TurkishGeorgian accord prior to the war, as well as the existence of a Georgian corps in the Turkish army. With German-made weapons, Turkish, German, and Austrian officers, as well as the “Turanian masses,” including Dagestanis, Chechens, Circassians, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz, the Turkish project, often viewed through a pan-Turk lens, was set in motion. In November 1918, the Ottomans officially lost the war. However, defeat neither halted military activities nor the objective to preserve the Ottoman Empire at all costs. The primary result was a shift in the balance of power, with the British and French exercising greater authority in the Near East. In January 1919, the British approved Khosrov-Bek Sultanov as Karabakh’s governorgeneral to mediate tensions, but instead the opposite occurred. Dashnak leaders protested the appointment through riots, which enflamed tensions. Azerbaijanis viewed the provocations as threats, and responded violently. Sultanov, whose origins are Kurdish, organized a Turkish-Kurdish cavalry whose objective was to attack Armenian villages. In June 1919, this cavalry was responsible for the murder of hundreds of Armenian inhabitants in Shushi, as well as surrounding villages, bringing the death toll to around 1,000. Not only do these pogroms demonstrate similar character to the genocidal policies implemented by the Committee of Union and Progress, but they also illustrate the same methods employed during the Hamidian massacres of 1894 to 1896, in which Kurdish cavalries exterminated Armenian civilians. Furthermore, Sultanov was a fervent pan-Islamist who shared aspects of pan-Turk ideologies. As he was already in contact with former Young Turk perpetrators prior to becoming governor-general, the intent to maintain genocidal policies is clear. The dire situation forced Karabakh Armenians to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over the Karabakh region on 22 August 1919, hoping that the issue would be resolved later at the Paris Peace Conference. Having dominance over Karabakh, however, would not satisfy © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Sultanov’s pan-Turk appetite, as he wanted to continue combat into the Zangezur region. Local Armenian forces managed to repel attacks from local Muslim bands in Zangezur, but the situation in Karabakh became more adverse. Prominent Turkish intellectuals employed similar methods as the Young Turk perpetrators, such as inciting attacks on holy days and promoting the idea of liberation for oppressed Turks; the Caucasus barrier between the two brotherly segments of Turkdom and Anatolia had to be eradicated.5 Former Young Turk members acted as intermediaries for the Bolsheviks in the South Caucasus, influencing Azerbaijani public opinion and convincing the Musavat government that the Bolsheviks posed no threat to Azerbaijani independence. The Turks were able to mobilize locals and concentrate them in densely populated Armenian areas in order to carry out violent attacks. In March 1920, a particularly deadly series of massacres took place in Shushi, this time with Turkish and Azerbaijani troops working together. Between 23 and 26 March, a high concentration of Azerbaijani troops, partially commanded by Turkish officers, attacked. Zareh MelikShahnazarov writes in his memoir: “Our soldiers were mainly young guys of 16 to 20, they knew next to nothing about the events in West Armenia in 1915–18. We had heard about the Big Massacre, but most of us did not imagine its scale or consequences.”6 Like the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the March 1920 massacres in Sushi would permanently alter the city’s ethnic composition. Shushi’s Armenian civilians experienced intense gunfire, arson, and rape, which parallel the experience of the Ottoman Armenians only several years prior. Melik-Shahnazarov’s memoirs also tell of deceptive Azerbaijanis who would pretend to save Armenians but deliver them to executioners, also previously documented in Armenian Genocide victim testimonials. With the high concentration of Musavatists in the Karabakh region, the Bolsheviks found the opportune moment to invade Baku. Facing no significant resistance, on 28 April 1920, the Red Army proclaimed Azerbaijan a Soviet Republic. Azerbaijan thus became the first independent republic in the South Caucasus to fall, but the Musavat party actively worked with the Bolsheviks to continue to realize their plans against the Armenians. The Moscow-supported Azerbaijani government issued ultimatums for the withdrawal of Armenians in Karabakh, inviting the Red Army to Shushi, spreading rumors about Armenian plans to recapture the city. On 12 May 1920, the Bolsheviks entered Karabakh and remained deployed there to prevent bloodshed. Bolshevik-Kemalist Collaboration The emerging Turkish nationalist group rooted in Anatolia, known as the Kemalists, succeeded the Committee of Union and Progress and upheld maintaining Ottoman territorial integrity. To be clear, there was an Ottoman government in Istanbul (Constantinople) that formally took over the Committee of Union and Progress’ role, but the Sultan was not popular and restrained by the Allied occupation of Istanbul after the war. The Kemalists were, in fact, the primary organization running the Ottoman Empire. Founding the Grand National Assembly in April 1920, Mustafa Kemal reinforced his leadership role and initiated military campaigns in the hopes of re-gaining Ottoman territories and borderlands. That same month, Mustafa Kemal wrote a letter to Vladimir Lenin to appeal for a partnership in the South Caucasus in order to blockade Western imperialists. In that letter, dated 26 April 1920, Mustafa Kemal mentions the willingness to conduct military operations against the Republic of Armenia, and then encourages the Bolsheviks to do the same against the Republic of Georgia, or use diplomacy to force a break between the British © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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and Georgia. The Kemalists saw in the Bolsheviks the opportunity to forge a partnership that would benefit them. Just as the Ottoman Empire aimed to eliminate European influence, the Kemalists fought to keep the Europeans from partitioning the Ottoman Empire’s territories. It was necessary to engage with the Bolsheviks to acquire funds and material to wage war, as well as guarantee maximal spheres of influence. After the Polish War in October 1920, Lenin became concerned about Asia, and oriented the Bolshevik movement eastward. Part of the Bolshevik strategy was to weaken the markets that Western imperialists depended on, eventually depriving them of raw materials critical for their survival. Through the Soviet Eastern Policy, the Bolsheviks lent solidarity to Islamic states who might participate in a joint effort to overthrow Western rulers and transform Muslim society. Wherever a ruler or a movement was fighting against Western imperialism, Soviet support could be expected. Cooperation between Bolsheviks and Kemalists was based upon having a common enemy that resulted in their provisional collaboration. While addressing the 8th Congress of the All-Russian Soviets in December 1920, Lenin even called the Kemalists “Turkish Octobrists.”7 However, Soviet Russia’s attitude toward Turkey remained ambiguous, and there were certainly ebbs and flows during their collaboration. The Bolsheviks faced no significant foreign adversaries in the South Caucasus, and from then on, with the support of the Turkish nationalists and Kemalists, determined the course of events with a Sovietization plan across the region.8 It became clear that nobody would assist the Armenians, despite their destitute social situation, incessantly facing organized mass violence and spontaneous attacks. In early September 1920, the Kemalists launched a major offensive against the Republic of Armenia. On 10 September, the Armenians sent a letter to Lenin, accusing Mustafa Kemal and his primary general in the South Caucasus, Kazim Karabekir, of pursuing policies like those of the Young Turks in 1915, aimed at the extermination of Armenians.9 The Armenians demanded that the Bolsheviks protect them, but, in fact, the Kemalist invasion and its victories in the region only facilitated the Bolshevik conquest of Armenia. Utterly exhausted and facing defeat, the Armenian Dashnak government had to come to terms with the lesser evil of Bolshevism, and officially became a Sovietized Socialist Republic on 2 December 1920.10 The Bolsheviks and Kemalists worked together to guarantee this result, as the Red Army had already invaded Armenia a few days prior, on 29 November 1920. Upon their surrender, one Armenian colonel’s response was: “There are Musavatist agents … among the Bolsheviks. … The Turks deceived our Russian brothers in 1913-14, and now they are deceiving the Soviet regime.”11 Indeed, the Kemalists consistently aimed to undermine Bolshevik authority to benefit Turkish aims. For example, the Kemalists demanded that the Nakhichevan oblast remain under Azerbaijan’s government, and could not be transferred to any third party, including Russia. The Kemalists negotiated this in Moscow in March 1921 and finalized the terms through the Treaty of Kars in October that year. At the time, the Armenian Question was still prevalent and posed a threat to Turkish aims, despite the Bolshevik conquest of Armenia the previous year. The Kemalists had doubts about the stronghold of Bolshevik power and did not want to risk sharing a border with the Armenian Republic. These historical details highlight the extent to which geopolitical aims and balance of power tactics influenced Bolshevik policies and Kemalist actions in the region, the repercussions of which reverberate to this very day.

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From Past to Present: Genocide is Geopolitical Geopolitical competition requires a set of political friends and foes to maintain a desired balance of power. For Turks, the dissemination of nationalist ideas based on ethnoreligious identity was important to mobilize people and create effective military structures to obtain favorable geopolitical outcomes. Internally, nationalism benefits authoritarian regimes to also maintain internal political power structures. As such, Turkish nationalism, or pan-Turkism, fostered strong collaboration with Muslim nation-states, like Azerbaijan, or even Afghanistan, where genocide perpetrator Cemal Pasha became involved after 1918, all to ultimately benefit geopolitical and peripheral standings. The Bolsheviks were suitable partners for the Turks, who offered solidarity to anti-imperialist national liberation movements, believing this would strengthen the role of Marxist internationalism by debilitating overseas British colonies, especially in Muslim territories. Russian foreign commissar Chicherin “believed that the demonstration of support for Mustafa Kemal paid dividends in relations with other anticolonial governments.”12 In the South Caucasus, nationalist ideas acted as a catalyst for mobilization and popular support of government and military operations. Today, Turkish denial of the Armenian Genocide lays the foundation for Turkey’s unequivocal support to Azerbaijan, not solely through moral, but also through military means. In July 2020, Turkish troops participated in military exercises with Azerbaijani troops on Azerbaijani soil, preparing for joint attacks during the 44-day war that year. The underlying nationalist link evokes historical memories from summer 1918, when the Ottomans trained Azerbaijani officers by establishing schools and internship programs within the Ottoman Ministry of War. That autumn, Nuri Pasha would lead the Ottoman Army of Islam to commit pogroms against Armenians, annihilating “an astounding proportion.”13 Violent memories from the past offer a distressing parallel to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict today. Through my research, I encountered archival materials that elicit current dialogues and actions. Correspondence in the form of letters, between 19 June and 9 July 1920, from Chicherin to Lenin and Ordzhonikidze, leader of the Caucasus Bureau, claim that disputed territories should be annexed neither by Armenia nor by Azerbaijan, but rather occupied by the Red Army.14 Today, the Russian Federation has deployed its peacekeeping troops in the region—but this does not prevent authoritariandirected violence against Armenian civilians. In fact, Russia is not focused on peace, but instead on maintaining its spheres of influence through neocolonialism. One only needs to take into consideration Russia’s policy towards other autonomous oblasts, such as Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Authoritarian Regimes and the Balance of Power While many contend that present Azerbaijani and Turkish cooperation in NagornoKarabakh is a result of shared ethnic and cultural facets, it is imperative to consider the weight of geopolitical demands and the maintenance of authoritarian power structures. Heightened Turkish nationalism, imitating pan-Turk ideas originating from the nineteenth century, acts as a defense mechanism to protect its geopolitical position. Erdo˘gan’s authoritarianism not only ensures Turkey’s medium-power global status, but also enables unwavering defense of the Turkish nation. Relations between the Republic of Armenia and its neighboring states remain highly charged and violent, especially as Turkey endorses Azerbaijani aggression. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the contemporary manifestation of the existential fight against the annihilation of the Armenian nation. Recent clashes © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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represent yet another stage in the genocidal process that originated in the late nineteenth century. Ongoing denial of the 1915 genocide reinforces the idea that there is impunity for those intent on destroying the Armenian nation, permitting the recurrence of genocide. Often defined as an intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, Azerbaijani aggression does not stop at the limits of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and includes the serious intent to destroy, terrorize, and undercut Armenian presence and heritage throughout the South Caucasus. The unprovoked military attacks on Armenia proper, at Syunik in January 2022, is indicative of the wholesale destruction of Armenians and dismantling of the Armenian nation-state. When analyzed chronologically, Karabakh’s vicissitudes are heavily impacted by the authoritarian regimes that determine its fate. Ilham Aliyev, only a few months after succeeding his father, and after the latter’s death, expressed that he would never tolerate Nagorno-Karabakh as an autonomous region, in addition to expressing his right to use force in absence of a satisfactory diplomatic resolution. The rhetoric of authoritarian leaders must be meticulously scrutinized to sound the alarm when violent plans are conveyed and put into motion through national and politicized propaganda. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict strongly conjures the 1915 genocide, as Armenian civilians, women and men, the youth, and the elderly, are all violently targeted and forcefully removed from their homes. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan’s deliberate blockade of the Lachin corridor denies Armenians in Karabakh the ability to access their homes. What remains even more peculiar is the international community’s lack of any humanitarian aid to the Armenians in Karabakh who are currently unable to access essential resources because of the blockade. Erdo˘gan and Aliyev’s authoritarianism, along with Putin’s complicity, results in the annihilation of innocent civilians, and the erosion of Armenian cultural heritage. The grim conclusion is that realpolitik and maintaining desired geopolitical influence carry greater significance than the protection of indigenous peoples and the fight against genocide. Ani Garabed Ohanian is a doctoral candidate at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University. Her dissertation focuses on Bolshevik-Kemalist relations and the Armenian Genocide. She earned Master’s degrees in History from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and Columbia University. Ohanian has been the recipient of fellowships such as the Kathyrn Davis Fellowship for Peace to study Russian at Middlebury College, and the New York Public Library Short-Term Research Fellowship. Her research interests include genocide, nationalism, and empire through a transnational scope focusing on Turkey, Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

Notes 1. Taner Akçam, When Was the Decision to Annihilate the Armenians Taken?, Journal of Genocide Research 21,4 (2019): 457–480, DOI: 10.1080/14623528.2019.1630893. 2. Mikaël Varandian, Le Conflit Arméno-Géorgien et la Guerre du Caucase (Paris, France: Imprimerie Flinikowski, 1919), 68. 3. Zareh Melik-Shahnazarov, Sketches of a Karabakh Soldier: memoirs of a participant in the events of 1918–1920 in Nagorno Karabakh (Moscow: Schwarz, 1996), 47. 4. Melik-Shahnazarov, Sketches of a Karabakh Soldier, 10–11. 5. Bülent Gökay, Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism, 1918–1923 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1997), 82. 6. Melik-Shahnazarov, Sketches of a Karabakh Soldier, 14–15. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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7. Mirsaid Sultan-Galiyev, “Who Am I?: Autobiographical Notes,” letter to members of the CC RCP (B), May 23, 1923, RSASPH, f. 82, r. 2, vol. 262: 63. 8. Gökay, Clash of Empires, 83. 9. From the Central Committee of the Armenian Social Democratic Party to Lenin, 10 September 1920; Moscow, TsPA; Fond: 5, Op.: 2, D.: 208. 10. Gökay, Clash of Empires, 1997, 86. 11. Melik-Shahnazarov, Sketches of a Karabakh Soldier, 102. 12. Samuel J. Hirst, “Transnational Anti-Imperialism and the National Forces: Soviet Diplomacy and Turkey, 1920–23,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33,2 (2013): 220. 13. Michael A. Reynolds, Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, 1908– 1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2014), 234. 14. E. Namazov, L’Histoire de la formation de la région du Nagorno-Qarabagh de la RSS d’Azerbaïdjan, 1918– 1925, Documents et matériaux (Montréal: Société “Simourgh” et Baku: Association Azerbaïdjan, 1990), 12–13.

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The Failure of the European Union to Address the Threat of Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh Karena Avedissian Royal Society of Arts The ceasefire that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War paused the fighting but also precipitated major challenges to human rights and humanitarian issues. Nagorno-Karabakh’s status remained unresolved, even as Azerbaijan gained control of large parts of the region. Since then, Azerbaijan’s impunity and ethnic animus against Armenians has created fears of ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan’s 2022-2023 blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh in particular which has deprived the Armenian population of food and medicine, directly contravenes its obligations under the ceasefire. The European Union is striving to negotiate a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan but has faced criticism for not substantively addressing these human rights and humanitarian issues. Despite having the political and legal tools, the EU’s lack of engagement on these concerns threatens regional stability and undermines its credibility as an ethical international actor. If a mass atrocity occurs while the EU actively seeks a settlement but fails to intervene, it would bear responsibility for the outcome. Key words: failure, European Union, threats, ethnic cleansing, Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh

The 2020 Karabakh War ended with a tripartite agreement signed by Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on 9 November 2020. Azerbaijan gained control of swathes of land surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian population living in those territories was forced to leave. Meanwhile, a Russian military contingent was deployed as a peacekeeping force to maintain the status quo. Russia and Turkey have since emerged as the main security actors in the region, while the status of Nagorno-Karabakh remains unresolved. The European Union has been criticized for its lack of engagement in the conflict and a failure to help work towards a peaceful resolution, which has been seen as abrogating responsibility in its own neighborhood. Although observers rationalize the EU’s lack of engagement as reflective of its limited capabilities, Brussels in fact has a wide range of political and legal instruments at its disposal to respond to armed conflicts, and has deployed these most recently in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.1 During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s, the EU provided only humanitarian aid as it did not have a bilateral framework of cooperation with Armenia nor with Azerbaijan, despite the conflict resulting in thousands of deaths and almost a million internally displaced persons and refugees on both sides.2 While meaningful bilateral relations were eventually established with Armenia and Azerbaijan through trade agreements in the wake of the war, which were gradually deepened, the EU still deferred to Russia as the traditional manager of conflicts in the region. The EU has not been prepared to address the Karabakh conflict, even though the territory falls within its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) framework, and the fact that it has played a role in destabilizing its Eastern neighborhood. The EU has had a limited role in the resolution of the conflict, maintaining a position of non-intervention and non-engagement, and creating a vacuum for actors it usually treats with caution—namely Moscow and Ankara. Moreover, the EU’s policy of non-engagement seriously undermines Karena Avedissian, “The Failure of the European Union to Address the Threat of Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 34–44. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0012

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regional stability given repeated warnings from observers of the imminent risk of ethnic cleansing of Karabakh Armenians by Azerbaijan. Concern over a potential humanitarian crisis in the territory has been expressed by several groups, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, but has been largely unanswered by international actors, including the EU. At stake is the EU’s credibility as an ethical international actor, as is the chance for the EU to help strengthen international responses to possible or actual mass atrocity situations like genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing. Asymmetry of Power The EU has largely treated both Armenia and Azerbaijan as relatively equal parties to conflict in terms of military and political power. This is despite the steady decline in relative strength of Armenia versus Azerbaijan since the 1994 ceasefire that ended the First Karabakh War (1988–1994) and the country entering a long period of stagnation.3 Since the end of the First Karabakh War, nationalisms gradually became more entrenched on both sides. In Armenia, this process took the shape of authoritarian political elites using national security concerns to justify their power. This weaponization of the conflict for domestic political ends was also used to prevent pluralist views from gaining traction in Armenian society, leading to an environment that marginalized voices calling for nuance or a more conciliatory approach with regards to Azerbaijan. For example, in the mid-2000s, around two-thirds of Armenians supported the return of occupied territories outside of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, but in 2018, that figure was less than 10%.3 In Azerbaijan, nationalism took the form of extreme anti-Armenian sentiment and was exhibited in state-sponsored xenophobic rhetoric against Armenians.4 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev uses Armenia as an external enemy in Azerbaijani political discourse and public consciousness to internally mobilize society and justify his rule. In this environment, civil liberties and political freedoms are heavily restricted, evidenced by crackdowns against dissenting views in the Republic. Baku’s political system is overtly autocratic, with centralized power, personalized leadership, and weak opposition.5 In the absence of economic relations with neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan began delivering its oil to European markets under a 1998 agreement that saw the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.6 At the time the second-longest pipeline in the world, the massive engineering project began pumping supplies in 2006 and has since attracted foreign investment through the implementation of Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs). These major oil contracts saw the country transition to an oil-based economy with fossil fuels in Azerbaijan currently accounting for around 40% of its GDP.7 Revenues from oil and gas have become crucial in maintaining Aliyev’s regime, which ensures patronage of clientelistic groups. These factors together have afforded Azerbaijan both the regime-longevity incentives and the power to challenge the regional status quo that ended with the outcome of the 2020 war. Although that war ended in Azerbaijan’s favor, with the country taking control of districts formerly occupied by Armenia and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself, opposition from Moscow and elsewhere meant it was not able to assert its control over the entirety of the territory—its ultimate goal. Russian peacekeepers were deployed in various areas in Nagorno-Karabakh, and crucially in the Lachin Corridor, the only remaining road in or out of the territory to Armenia. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Azerbaijan’s rhetoric and actions suggest that it is not interested in peace, and hostile policies specifically targeting ethnic Armenians have raised questions over Baku’s intentions for those living there.8 After the 2020 war, organizations such as the European Parliament condemned Baku’s policy of systematically erasing Armenian cultural heritage in the territories under its control.9 Additionally, Azerbaijan has repeatedly attacked Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as Armenia (2022–2023 border crisis). In March 2022, a gas pipeline operated by Azerbaijan and supplying Nagorno-Karabakh was damaged, remaining broken for a week and causing local inhabitants to suffer from freezing temperatures. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani army’s loudspeakers were calling on locals to leave the area in an apparent attempt to apply psychological pressure.9 Additionally, Aliyev’s constant talk of capitulation and territorial claims against Armenia proper do not suggest a willingness to build a common future of peace and reconciliation.10 Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Republic of Artsakh culminated in the installation of a military checkpoint on the road, in violation of the peace agreement Aliyev himself signed. These events have caused concern among numerous organizations, including genocide studies associations, who warn that Armenians face the risk of another genocide. According to the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Armenians are currently “one of the most endangered identities in the world.”11 In response to the blockade, a coalition of various human rights organizations issued a collective genocide warning stating that all 14 risk factors for atrocity crimes identified by the UN Secretary-General’s Office on Genocide Prevention can be found in the current situation. Given Azerbaijan’s hateful rhetoric and its aggressive policies towards Armenians, a potential takeover of the territory by Azerbaijan would mean the ethnic cleansing of Karabakh Armenians from their land.

The EU’s Role in Addressing Conflict and Ethnic Cleansing The European Union (and its precursor organizations) has emphasized its role as a community of values, for the benefit of all citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, language, or religion. This normative perspective has influenced its foreign policies. The EU has shown some commitment to addressing ethno-political conflicts in the world, including violent conflicts within its borders, such as those in Northern Ireland, Corsica, and the Basque Country, even as it experienced limited success. The EU has also shown growing interest in managing external conflicts, particularly those in post-communist Europe.12 These are seen as particularly important for the EU to mediate, as they could threaten its neighborhood and potentially become internal conflicts upon its enlargement. However, the EU and its member states have also seen “frozen conflicts,” such as the one in Nagorno-Karabakh, as an obstacle to cooperation rather than an opportunity for mediation.13 The EU has seemingly assigned Russia the leading role in managing conflicts in the post-Soviet space, engaging parties only through Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs), focusing on technical assistance and reforms, while overlooking political and security dimensions. It was not until 2003 that the EU developed a more detailed approach to these countries with the ENP, which emphasized the link between democracy and security in the region.13 Still, even with the EU’s focus on the ENP action plan, which was envisaged as a key tool for solving the conflict, the EU demonstrated little involvement in its resolution.14 The EU’s commitment to prevent ethnic cleansing in particular is primarily demonstrated in its adherence to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)15 principle, adopted by the © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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UN in 2005 to prevent and respond to atrocity crimes. However, the EU’s engagement with the principle, as with ethnonational conflict, has been mixed. The EU currently lacks institutional mechanisms that effectively incorporate mass atrocity prevention into its policymaking processes. Additionally, its responses reveal a lack of commitment to prioritizing mass atrocity prevention more broadly.16 The EU’s institutional commitment to preventing atrocity crimes like ethnic cleansing is also weak. For instance, the EU’s Strategic Compass, which assesses security challenges facing the EU and makes proposals to strengthen the EU’s security and defense capabilities,17 does not mention preventing atrocity crimes. In 2013, the European Parliament called for an interinstitutional “consensus on the responsibility to protect,” but the Council of the European Union, the European External Action Service (EEAS), and the European Commission have not responded. The EU’s 2016 Global Strategy only states that the EU “will promote the responsibility to protect” (R2P), without outlining specific actions to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing. Political disagreements among member nations and bureaucratic reluctance in Brussels have hindered the EU’s support for R2P, and its involvement in R2P in conflicts, such as those in the Central African Republic, Myanmar, and South Sudan,16 reveal that action was guided more by the interests of certain member states than by a cohesive EU strategy. Additionally, decisions on trade and use of force were not coordinated, resulting in fragmented efforts. Ultimately, political discord and lack of direction led to action that was too little, too late. At the same time the EU has a demonstrable ability and capacity to devise appropriate policy instruments for responses to mass atrocities, and build credibility and legitimacy in conflict prevention and human rights protection. Its strengths lie in prevention, a key element of R2P, rather than rapid response, which can be difficult for member states and institutions to agree on.16 Since the publication of the EU’s Global Strategy, member states have taken steps to boost the EU’s capacity to respond to crises, including with military means. However, the EU faces significant challenges, including internal contestation of core elements of the liberal world order such as human rights and the rule of law.18 As a result, the EU’s commitment to preventing mass atrocities and protecting human rights appears uncertain in practice, as the global strategy shifts the portrayal of the EU from a normative actor to one of “principled pragmatism.”19 The approach stems from a realistic assessment of the current strategic landscape, which poses significant challenges to the promotion of human rights and prevention of mass atrocities. Failure to do so, however, would not only jeopardize the credibility of the EU as an ethical actor given its commitment to ethical principles such as the R2P norm, but also the lives of individuals vulnerable to mass atrocities.20

The EU’s Record in Nagorno-Karabakh The EU was absent as a conflict manager during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the early 1990s. Following the fighting, trade agreements were struck between Brussels and the two former Soviet Republics, and their inclusion within the ENP was done with the goal of promoting conflict prevention and resolution in the South Caucasus region. Despite initial cooperation, Armenia ultimately rejected a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU due to pressure from Russia, which it was dependent on for security. In its © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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place, Armenia signed a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU that lacked a free trade component. Despite the fact that bilateral relations with the two countries advanced, the EU was still reticent to become embroiled in the conflict, largely due to its traditional deference to Russia in the region. The Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative was largely irrelevant for the conflicts in the neighborhood, and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict only disrupted further regional integration.21 Even after the April 2016 war between Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Defence Army, the EU’s policy towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict did not see significant shifts, despite the resulting hundreds of casualties on both sides. Despite some diplomatic engagement, the conflict was not seen as a priority case and the EU continued to wait for peace, hoping that Armenia’s democratic shift in 2018 might inject new vigor into stalled negotiations. In early 2020, increasingly concerned with the bellicose rhetoric arising in Azerbaijan, the European Parliament called for the EU to take a more active role in resolving the conflict. However, protests in Azerbaijan demanding a military solution, distraction caused by the global pandemic, the end of the American presidency, and Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan created conditions that made military escalation more likely. While the EU had previously reacted to security threats and conflicts involving Russia and ENP countries, the conflict between two ENP countries in the second Karabakh war presented a different challenge as it had limited leverage over both parties. The EU’s reluctance to play a role in ending the hostilities contradicted its constitutional obligations of upholding its values and international law in international relations and in the EU. Still, the 2020 War prompted more active engagement of the EU in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Reasons for the EU’s lack of involvement in the conflict and its inertia in getting the parties to cease hostilities have been discussed by Ghazaryan. They include reasons like the absence of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in EU foreign policy and member states’ differing interests in maintaining links with Russia, as well as cautiousness in openly condemning the war given Turkey’s political, military, and intelligence support of Azerbaijan. This is despite the EU’s significant role in shaping international responses to crises through diplomacy, policy decisions, and interventions. As Ghazaryan argues, it was not the lack of means for action, but rather a focus on strategic and geopolitical considerations, including its own energy security, instead of conflict resolution.22 While the EU’s reluctance, given its more short-term pragmatic and strategic reasons, is understandable, its apparent inability to assess the imminent danger of ethnic cleansing of Karabakh Armenians during and since the 2020 Karabakh War is less easily explained. Such an event would spell the largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the region since the Bosnian War. The fact that this could happen in the EU’s neighborhood, under its watch, would arguably undermine its credibility as an ethical actor in the world more seriously than any preceding event.

Examples of the EU’s Piecemeal Approach to Nagorno-Karabakh The EU’s response to the threat of ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh during and since the 2020 Karabakh War has been characterized by vague and weak rhetoric, including a lack of situational appraisals and failure to name the aggressor. Ad© Zoryan Institute, 2023

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ditionally, its 2022 gas deal with Azerbaijan effectively gives Azerbaijan political impunity to act as it pleases with regards to Armenians in the region. Vague and Weak Rhetoric In response to Azerbaijan launching the 2020 War in Nagorno-Karabakh, the High Representative of the EU’s Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borell called for the cessation of hostilities and a return to negotiations.23 However, no real assessment of the situation was made, nor was that official statement made by the EU political leadership until 1 October 2020,24 despite the fact that Azerbaijani missile and artillery attacks on Armenian civilians had been ongoing for four full days. The European Council also called for the immediate cessation of armed hostilities and re-engagement of Armenia and Azerbaijan in substantive negotiations without preconditions. However, as the EU’s priorities were focused on tensions in the Mediterranean, relations with China, and political issues in Belarus and Russia, there was no condemnation of Azerbaijan’s instigation of another military phase in the conflict, of Turkey’s involvement in supporting Azerbaijan, or of Azerbaijan using Syrian mercenaries.25,26 On 11 October 2020, in the midst of the 2020 War, the EU’s high representative made a statement welcoming a temporary ceasefire (which was broken almost immediately), and urging “the sides to strictly abide by this agreement” and for “the sides to ensure full respect of the agreement on the ground,”27 despite the volume of evidence that Azerbaijan had launched an attack on civilians. Borell made similarly vague remarks in the European Parliament on 7 October.28 The high representative depicted a situation of a powerless EU that lacked information and the ability to monitor the situation on the ground.29 But the EU did not conduct any diplomatic visits to the region and did not provide any appraisal of the events from a legal or international perspective. Moreover, all statements in that time were of a “bothsidist” nature that was devoid of any evaluation of the events.30 During the third tripartite meeting in Brussels in May 2022, President of the European Council Charles Michel ignored the existence of Nagorno-Karabakh as an entity— referring to it as Karabakh, the preferred term of Azerbaijan—citing only the importance of guaranteeing rights for the Armenian population.31 As Ghazaryan notes, while a statement calling for the security and rights of the Armenian population is superficially unobjectionable, there is an apprehension that this entails the abandonment of NagornoKarabakh’s self-determination and self-declared independence–at the root of the conflict and enmeshed in the population’s security and identity preservation.32 As Ghazaryan argues, meditations on the safety and rights of Armenians “ring hollow in light of [Azerbaijan’s] steadily deteriorating political record, entrenched Armenophobia and anti-Armenian hate speech on the highest political level.”33 The hate-speech is accompanied by a decades-long policy of erasing cultural and historical traces of Armenian existence in the region, which has only intensified during and after the 2020 War. Michel’s statement was controversial also because of Azerbaijani claims that the conflict had been resolved through military means, implying the redundancy of the OSCE Minsk Group Madrid Principles. A key component of the Madrid Principles envisaged a referendum to decide Nagorno-Karabakh’s final status, exhibiting actual ambiguity about the acceptance of Azerbaijan’s territorial claim by the international community.34 Following criticism, Michel later issued a clarification saying the root causes of the conflict must be addressed with the involvement of all stakeholders. The Special Representative for the South Caucasus reiterated this a few days later.35 © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Similarly, amidst Azerbaijan’s September 2022 attacks on and incursions into Armenia, High Commissioner Borell failed to attribute responsibility for the attacks, despite the clear evidence of what amounted to an invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijani forces. He tweeted, “Last night’s armed confrontations between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a dangerous escalation that needs to stop. We urge immediate cessation of hostilities and return to the negotiation table. [The] EU is in touch with both sides to contribute to de-escalation.”36 While Brussels eventually condemned the attacks and called for investigations into documented war crimes during the invasion, Azerbaijani soldiers have still not returned to their original positions and there is evidence they are carrying out engineering work in the areas they have occupied. Azerbaijan-EU Gas Deal In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and with the EU seeking new suppliers of energy, in July 2022, the European Commission signed a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan to double imports of Azerbaijani natural gas by 2027.37 The deal deepened European dependence on Azerbaijan. While the move was meant to wean the EU off of Russian energy in the wake of its campaign of aggression against Ukraine, the EU ignored that the critical infrastructure needed to extract and transport the gas to Europe is co-owned by Russian oil and gas company Lukoil, which is closely linked to Putin’s regime, and is among the companies on the US sanctions list.38 In effect, the gas move traded one gas supplier waging a war of aggression on its neighbor (Russia), with another (Azerbaijan). The EU’s increased dependency on Azerbaijan for energy encourages the bloc to close its eyes to Azerbaijani aggression against Armenians, undermines its credibility in the world, and allows Azerbaijan carte blanche to engage as it pleases in the region. On 12 September 2022, Azerbaijan announced it would increase natural gas exports to Europe by 30%.39 The next day, Azerbaijan launched its 2022 attacks on and incursions into Armenia, targeting civilian areas with artillery, mortar, and drones, displacing thousands, and killing hundreds in less than two days.40 Further demonstrating the gas deal’s emboldening of Aliyev’s regime, a week after its 2022 attacks on Armenia, Aliyev stated, “Armenia should think carefully today …. They should not count on anyone. I want to say again that no one and nothing can stop us.”41 Implications of the EU’s Lack of Strategy in Nagorno-Karabakh The impact of the vague statements and information coupled with increased dependency on Azerbaijan as a “reliable partner” for energy has effectively given license to any use of force by Baku to wrest control of Nagorno-Karabakh from its Armenian inhabitants. This has long-term implications for the conflict dynamics, increased regional polarization, and strategic considerations for human security for decades. No less important is the impact and consequences on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, especially in terms of humanitarian considerations and human rights. The EU’s vague statements also create an information space in which Armenians are seen as equally at fault when defending against Azerbaijani forces’ attacks on Armenian borders, settlements, and civilian infrastructure. Its “balanced” descriptions are not just untrue––as they regularly insinuate a false parity between aggressor and defender––they effectively offer the perpetrator cover to carry out more violence. Urging “both sides” to deescalate, in situations where Azerbaijan is the aggressor and Armenia has no power to end © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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hostilities, similarly enables Azerbaijan to further attack with impunity. Understanding the international community is not taking steps to restrain Azerbaijan’s aggression, Baku has been free to escalate its rhetoric and actions. The failure of the EU to restrain Azerbaijan’s aggression could be argued to have contributed to more individual instances of atrocities and human rights violations, which often accompany and facilitate a broader program of ethnic cleansing. Having been allowed to develop a dehumanizing and one-sided narrative unchallenged, Baku has laid the groundwork at home and abroad to justify almost any action against the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia. Many Azerbaijani soldiers who participated in the 2020 War had never encountered ethnic Armenians in person before, and were exposed only to state propaganda that portrayed them as bloodthirsty murderers. As a result, Armenian civilians who remained in their homes were killed. The violence that motivated Azerbaijani soldiers to commit atrocities is reinforced by official celebrations of convicted murderers and public displays of dehumanization. Azerbaijan’s military forces have been documented committing human rights abuses, including acts of violence against prisoners of war, mutilation of dead bodies, and filming of confessions for propaganda purposes. Additionally, the historic gas deal between the EU and Azerbaijan effectively meant any attempts by Brussels to restrain Baku came at a potential cost to its own energy security, handing the country leverage over the bloc’s economy. Prior to the gas deal, the EU had more leverage, and Azerbaijan was forced to court its officials and sell its narrative to maintain good relations with the West, evidenced in part by the resources it spends on lobbyists who go to great lengths to frame Azerbaijan as pro-West and Armenia as pro-Russian and pro-Iranian.42,43 The weak rhetoric and the loss of leverage with the gas bill allow Azerbaijan to deflect and pursue its aims, even through force. Every military escalation since the 2020 War has resulted in Azerbaijani forces gaining ground, and never the other way around. This resembles creeping annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, rather than attrition. In order to not provoke an escalation, Armenia did not react to incursions into Armenia where Azerbaijani forces took new positions. This is making Armenia a geopolitical hostage. The EU’s limited involvement in the conflict, especially inside Nagorno-Karabakh, has led to it being perceived as a reluctant partner, and has undermined its normative credentials. By not addressing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which would have entailed some restraining of Aliyev’s aggressive policies against Armenians, the ethnic cleansing of Armenians is now imminent. It has been argued that the EU was focused on long-term goals of regional stability through its economic and technical engagement in the region. However, its lack of engagement in the conflict has left it looking unaware of events in its neighborhood with a potentially catastrophic outcome. Conclusion In the event of ethnic cleansing, analysts have speculated that the EU could face significant pressure to sanction Azerbaijan.44 The condemnation that would result from such an event would likely spur international powers to levy some punitive measures on the country, putting the EU in a position as difficult as the one in which it found itself with Russian gas in the aftermath of the Ukraine invasion. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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An Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh and the ensuing ethnic cleansing of Armenians does not resolve the legal and political elements of the conflict, but would seriously challenge the EU’s credibility and long-term security, while also setting a worrying precedent for similar conflicts and violations of human rights in the future. That would destabilize the region, both because of the humanitarian consequences and by its implication that major powers like the EU are unwilling or unable to prevent them. Despite being an organization rooted in liberal values and a pillar of the international liberal order, the EU is struggling to develop a coherent plan for preventing mass atrocities, despite repeated warnings. Preventing and responding to mass atrocities can be politically challenging, often requiring a state to confront governments suspected of committing such crimes, impose sanctions against a trade partner, reverse economic cooperation, and, if necessary, threaten or use military action. The current geopolitical context, with growing illiberalism and nationalism, seems to add to the pessimistic position that prioritizing the protection of distant peoples—a mandate that is already selfless and abstract—is becoming harder to sell.45 However, the view that the EU’s potential in atrocity prevention is idealistic and unrelated to the Union’s core interests is far from accurate. As De Franco has already argued, atrocity prevention is a significant opportunity for the EU because it requires defining political strategies based on perceived needs and interests, with the end goal of protecting humans at home and abroad potentially being a self-interested choice.45 Investing resources in atrocity prevention goes beyond the normative field. It recognizes the relevance of atrocity prevention in policies designed to achieve key European strategic objectives like political stabilization and democratization in the European neighborhood.45,46 Karena Avedissian is a political scientist focusing on political communication, disinformation, and social movements in Eurasia. Her work on the interplay of state-citizen relations, societal vulnerabilities, and civil society has been published in academic publications and in international media outlets. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Notes 1. Narine Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: The Forty-Four-Day War and Its Aftermath,” European Foreign Affairs Review 28,1 (2023): 53–71, https://doi.org/10.54648/eerr2023004. 2. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 3. Laurence Broers, “Azerbaijan, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: what is next? An interview with Laurence Broers,” Politicon, 27 July 2018, https://politicon.co/en/interviews/79/azerbaijan-armenianagorno-karabakh-conflict-what-is-next-an-interview-with-laurence-broers (accessed 1 May 2023). 4. Anzhela Elibegova,“АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКИЕСМИКАКИНСТРУМЕНТРАСПРОСТРАНЕНИЯАРМЯ НОФОБИИ,” [Azerbaijani media as a tool for spreading Armenophobia] Artsakh State University’s Proceedings 1 (2015): 273–6. 5. Robert Denis, “Nations in Transit 2022 – Azerbaijan,” Freedom House 2022, https://freedomhouse.org/ country/azerbaijan/nations-transit/2022. 6. Denis, “Nations in Transit 2022.” 7. International Trade Administration, “Azerbaijan – Country Commercial Guide. Market Overview,” 30 July 2022, https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/azerbaijan-market-overview (accessed 1 May 2023). 8. Patrick Babajanian,“Calming the Caucasus: Neutralizing Azerbaijan’s Military “BATNA” to Restart the Peace Process in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh),” Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal 23,1 (2023): 34–59, https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1524&context=drlj. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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9. Marina Kaljurand, “Statement by the Chair of the Delegation for the relations with the South Caucasus, MEP Marina KALJURAND, on the worrying humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh,” European Parliament, 16 March 2022, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/245939/20220316_NagornoKarabakh_humanitarian%20situation_statement.pdf (accessed 1 May 2023). 10. Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz), “When Armenia signed the act of capitulation,” Twitter, 16 July 2022, 12:55 p.m., https://mobile.twitter.com/presidentaz/status/1548350584255700999. 11. Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, 2022 Annual Report, 2022, https://www.lemkininstitute.com/ annual-report-2022 (accessed 1 May 2023). 12. SaveKarabakh.org, “Genocide Warning: Nagorno Karabakh,” https://www.genocidewarning-nk.com (accessed 1 May 2023). 13. Licínia Simão, “The problematic role of EU democracy promotion in Armenia, Azerbaijan and NagornoKarabakh,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45,1/2 (2012): 193–200, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. postcomstud.2012.03.001 (accessed 28 Apr 2023). 14. Tevan Poghosyan, The Armenian ENP and Conflict Resolution in Nagorno Karabakh, ReliefWeb, 30 September 2009, https://reliefweb.int/report/armenia/armenian-enp-and-conflict-resolution-nagornokarabakh (accessed 1 May 2023). 15. “Responsibility to Protect,” United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, accessed 1 May 2023, https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml. 16. Karen E. Smith, “The EU and the Responsibility to Protect in an Illiberal Era Karen E. Smith,” (working paper no. 03, Dahrendorf Forum IV, 21 August 2018), https://www.dahrendorf-forum.eu/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/08/EU-and-RTP-in-an-illiberal-era.pdf (accessed 1 May 2023). 17. Chiara De Franco, Christoph Meyer, and Karen E. Smith, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proof the EU needs to get better at stopping mass atrocities,” The Conversation, 22 February 2023, https://theconversation.com/ russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-proof-the-eu-needs-to-get-better-at-stopping-mass-atrocities-199744 (accessed 1 May 2023). 18. Karen E. Smith, “The EU and the Responsibility to Protect in an Illiberal Era Karen E. Smith,” (working paper no. 03, Dahrendorf ForumIV, 21 August 2018), https://www.dahrendorf-forum.eu/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/08/EU-and-RTP-in-an-illiberal-era.pdf (accessed 1 May 2023). 19. Chiara De Franco, Christoph Meyer, and Karen E. Smith, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proof the EU needs to get better at stopping mass atrocities,” The Conversation, 22 February 2023, https://theconversation.com/ russias-invasion-of-ukraine-is-proof-the-eu-needs-to-get-better-at-stopping-mass-atrocities-199744 (accessed 1 May 2023). 20. De Franco, Meyer, and Smith, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 21. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 22. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 23. European Union External Action, “Nagorno Karabakh: Statement by the High Representative/VicePresident Josep Borrell,” EEAS, 27 September 2020, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/nagorno-karabakhstatement-high-representativevice-president-josep-borrell_en (accessed 1 May 2023). 24. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 25. John Irish and Michel Rose, “France accuses Turkey of sending Syrian jihadists to NagornoKarabakh,” Reuters, 30 September 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-armenia-azerbaijan-putinmacron/france-accuses-turkey-of-sending-syrian-jihadists-to-nagorno-karabakh-idUKKBN26L3S7 (accessed 1 May 2023). 26. Bel Trew and Rajaai Bourhan, “‘We don’t even know where Azerbaijan is’: The Syrian mercenaries driven by poverty to die in a distant war,” Independent, 9 October 2020, https://www.independent.co. uk/news/world/middle-east/armenia-azerbaijan-syria-war-fighting-mercenary-russia-b912446.html (accessed 1 May 2023). 27. European Council, “Nagorno-Karabakh: Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union,” press release, 11 October 2020, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/ 10/11/nagorno-karabakh-declaration-by-the-high-representative-on-behalf-of-the-european-union/ (accessed 28 Apr 2023). © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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28. Josep Borrell, “Nagorno Karabakh: Remarks by the High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell at the EP plenary debate on the resumption of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan | EEAS Website,” EEAS, 10 July 2020, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/node/86498_fr (accessed 28 Apr 2023). 29. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 30. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 31. Charles Michel, “Press statement by President Michel of the European Council following a trilateral meeting with President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia,” European Council, press release, 23 May 2022, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/05/ 23/press-statement-by-president-michel-of-the-european-council-following-a-trilateral-meeting-withpresident-aliyev-of-azerbaijan-and-prime-minister-pashinyan-of-armenia/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 32. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 33. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 34. Ghazaryan, “The EU and the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” 53–71. 35. Charles Michel, “Statement by the spokesperson of Charles Michel, President of the European Council, regarding Armenia and Azerbaijan - 31 May 2022,” European Council, press release, 31 May 2022, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/05/31/statement-by-the-spokespersonof-charles-michel-president-of-the-european-council-regarding-armenia-and-azerbaijan-31-may-2022/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 36. Josep Borrell (@JosepBorrellF), “Last night’s armed confrontations between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a dangerous escalation that needs to stop,” Twitter, 13 September 2022, 7:02 a.m., https://twitter.com/ JosepBorrellF/status/1569642683475304448?s=20. 37. Ursula Von der Leyen, “Statement by President von der Leyen with President Aliyev,” European Commission, 18 July 2022, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_22_4583 (accessed 1 May 2023). 38. Gligor Radeˇci´c, “The EU-Azerbaijan gas deal is a repeat mistake,” POLITICO, 17 August 2022, https://www. politico.eu/article/the-eu-azerbaijan-gas-deal-is-a-repeat-mistake/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 39. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Azerbaijan To Ramp Up Gas Exports To Europe By 30% | OilPrice.com,” oilprice.com, 12 September 2022, https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Azerbaijan-ToRamp-Up-Gas-Exports-To-Europe-By-30.html (accessed 1 May 2023). 40. Tatevik Hayrapetyan, “Listen to the Words of Dictators, Don’t Say We Didn’t Tell You,” EVN Report, 16 September 2022, https://evnreport.com/politics/listen-to-the-words-of-dictators-dont-say-we-didnt-tellyou/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 41. APA, “President Ilham Aliyev raised Azerbaijani flag in city of Lachin-UPDATED,” apa.az, 21 September 2022, https://apa.az/en/official-news/president-ilham-aliyev-raised-azerbaijani-flag-in-cityof-lachin-updated-385315 (accessed 1 May 2023). 42. Robert M. Cutler,“ Armenia Looks East, Azerbaijan Looks West: Unexpected Changes in the South Caucasus,” Geopolitical Monitor, 12 September 2022, https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/armenia-looks-eastazerbaijan-looks-west-unexpected-changes-in-the-south-caucasus/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 43. Taras Kuzio, “The Iranian-Armenian-Russian axis and the war in Ukraine,” New Eastern Europe, 28 November 2022, https://neweasterneurope.eu/2022/11/28/the-iranian-armenian-russian-axis-and-thewar-in-ukraine/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 44. Gabriel Gavin, “EU’s hopes of using Azerbaijan as a gas station at risk of exploding,” POLITICO, 10 April 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-showdown-former-soviet-union-oil-azerbaijan-armeniaconflict-south-caucasus/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 45. Chiara De Franco, “First Things First: Prioritize Mass Atrocity Prevention,” PeaceLab, 18 July 2019, https:// peacelab.blog/2019/07/first-things-first-prioritize-mass-atrocity-prevention (accessed 1 May 2023). 46. European Parliament, “JOINT MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh,” RC-B9-0146/2022, 9 March 2022, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/ RC-9-2022-0146_EN.html (accessed 1 May 2023).

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Genocide by Other Means: Heritage Destruction, National Narratives, and the Azeri Assault on the Indigenous Armenians of Karabakh Armen T. Marsoobian Southern Connecticut State University The propaganda efforts of the authoritarian Aliyev regime in Baku and the general Western ignorance of the history of the South Caucasus have contributed to the lack of meaningful response to the genocidal aggression that Azerbaijan has inflicted on the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh, known to many as Nagorno-Karabakh. The humanitarian crisis created by the Azeri blockade of the Lachin Corridor is only the most recent step in a process of cleansing the region of its Armenian population, a process that began in the early years of the twentieth century. The Ottoman Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915–1923 is not a distinct event of the past but a process whose ideology is central to the AzeriTurkish genocidal violence perpetrated against Armenians in the present. An integral component of the processes of genocide is cultural heritage destruction as noted by Raphael Lemkin. The erasure of most signs of the indigenous Armenian presence on its historic homeland was particularly pronounced in the decades following the Armenian Genocide and continues today. Cultural erasure went hand in hand with Turkish state genocide denial and the rewriting and mythologizing of its national narrative. Azerbaijan has been following a similar playbook since the collapse of the Soviet Union. These genocidal processes of denial, heritage destruction, and the rewriting of history are what I describe as “genocide by other means.” Key words: violence, genocide, heritage destruction, national narratives

As Solzhenitsyn said, violence and lies–these two things have always gone hand in hand. Violence does not exist and cannot exist by itself alone; it is unfailingly accompanied by lies. Violence has nothing to hide behind except lies. Akram Aylisli, “Instead of an Epilogue,” Farewell Aylis

The propaganda efforts of the authoritarian Aliyev regime in Baku and the general Western ignorance of the history of the South Caucasus have contributed to the lack of meaningful response to the genocidal aggression that Azerbaijan has inflicted on the indigenous Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, known to Armenians as Artsakh. The humanitarian crisis created by the Azeri blockade of the Lachin Corridor is only the most recent step in a genocidal process of cleansing the region of its Armenian population, a process that began in the early years of the twentieth century. The Ottoman Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915-1923 is not a distinct event of the past but a process whose ideology is central to the Azeri-Turkish genocidal violence perpetrated against Armenians in the present. The ground has long been prepared for what I label “the genocide by other means” against the Armenians of the South Caucasus. The existential threat they now face arises, in part, from the woeful lack of historical knowledge, especially in the West, about the

Armen T. Marsoobian, “Genocide by Other Means: Heritage Destruction, National Narratives, and the Azeri Assault on the Indigenous Armenians of Karabakh,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 21–33. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0009

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origins of the violence and long-standing and on-going cultural destruction perpetrated against Armenians in this region. One of the major historical misunderstandings of the Armenian Genocide is the belief that the genocide ended with the defeat of the Ottoman Turks in October 1918. Surveys of the historical literature find that for many years the genocide was dated as occurring over the period 1915 to 1918.1 Even today it is not unusual to see those dates referenced. I argue that this mischaracterization has had detrimental effects that carry forward to the present.2 Armenians and their allies may have contributed to this misunderstanding, because during the decades-long attempts to gain recognition of the genocide, they often highlighted the date “1915.” One only needs to think of the posters, placards, demonstrations, films, books, and editorials that use the date “1915” as shorthand for the genocide.3 Prominence has often been given to the early stages of the violence, which may be understandable given that the greatest number of deaths occurred between spring 1915 and fall 1916. The emphasis here has been upon killing, that is, biological destruction, not the destruction of the group, as I will argue. If one studies the history of the period, we know that the genocide actually began in the latter half of 1914. The genocidal violence is now acknowledged to have encompassed not just the Armenians, but all the Christian minorities, the Pontic and Aegean Greeks, and the Assyrians. The violence did not end with the Mudros Armistice in October 1918 but continued into the early 1920s. In the decades that followed, the genocide took other forms. While today the scholarly consensus among historians places the endpoint in 1923, I will controversially argue that the genocide continues to this very day. The date 1923 coincides with the establishment of the Turkish Republic and the Treaty of Lausanne which codified the Turkish nationalist territorial gains of historic Armenian lands. The catastrophic consequences of this treaty and its betrayal are further compounded by the fact that Part VIII of the treaty granted a general amnesty that was interpreted to extend to the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, some of whom had already been convicted in Ottoman military tribunals.4 One need only compare these events to the end of the Holocaust—I am referencing here the Nuremberg Trials and German reparations—to appreciate the injustice embedded into the peace that concluded the decades of violence in the former Ottoman lands and the Caucasus. The historiography of the Armenian Genocide has well established the temporal and spatial spread of genocide. While most of the violence and killing in the early years took place in Anatolia, the Armenian Plateau, and the Syrian desert, the violence steadily shifted further east into the Caucasus and the lands of the former Russian Empire. This violence escalated well after the ostensible armistice of 1918, despite its requirement for the withdrawal of Turkish forces to pre-war positions. The Turkish military constantly violated the Mudros armistice by infiltrating military agents and agitators into the Caucasus in order to instigate the Turkic Tatar (Azeri) peoples to take up the mantle of the genocide—a practice that we have now seen during and after the 2020 Second Karabakh War. There is a profound ignorance on the part of the West regarding the events in the South Caucasus in the years prior to the Bolshevik takeover of the region in December 1920. It is on the basis of this ignorance that think tanks and Western media outlets simplify the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression in Artsakh (Karabakh) and Armenia as just another impossible to resolve ethnic conflict rather than a continuation of the genocidal policy originally formulated by the nationalist ideologues of the Committee of Union and Progress (Young Turks) during the Armenian Genocide. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Some Historical Background The mass violence in the Caucasus and Nagorno-Karabakh began in the early twentieth century. The origins of the violence were neither ethnic nor religious per se but ethnicity and religion were used by the imperialist powers, both Russian and Ottoman, to suppress progressive and modernizing movements among Armenians whose desire for self-determination had grown in the prior decades. This is the same desire for self-determination that inspired the independence movement in Karabakh during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The earlier violence began with the 1905–1907 Armeno-Tatar Massacres and continued with the 1918 invasion by the Islamic Army of the Caucasus during the latter stages of the First World War. The Islamic Army, commanded by Nuri Pasha, was organized by his stepbrother, the Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha, one of the chief architects of the Armenian Genocide.5 With the “end” of the war, Turkish Nationalist agents armed and instigated the Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan in the summer of 1919.6 Their goal was to destabilize the newly proclaimed Republic of Armenia in order to establish a corridor between an emerging Turkish state and the Turkic-Azeri peoples of the Azerbaijan state. This goal continues today under Azerbaijan’s President Aliyev’s demands for a “Zangezur Corridor” to connect Azerbaijan with its geographically discontinuous region of Nakhichevan, thus ceding Armenian sovereignty over the Armenian province of Syunik.7 The history of the broken promises of the victorious Entente Powers and the Bolshevik partnership with the Nationalist forces of Mustafa Kemal, are too complex to summarize here, but the instability and violence in the region finds its origins therein. The first Republic of Armenia had been created by Armenians living in the Caucasus and Armenian refugees fleeing genocide committed against them by the Ottoman Turks. Artsakh, a traditional homeland of Armenians for at least two millennia, was part of this Caucasian region, known as the Elizavetpol Governorate under the Russian Empire.8 On 22 July 1918, months after the founding of the first Armenian Republic, the Armenians of Artsakh (Karabakh) declared their independence, eventually attempting to reunite with Armenia in 1920 but by then the tides had turned against independence of any of the nations of the Caucasus. As a consequence of these betrayals, first by the British and then the Soviets in 1920, the self-determination of the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh would take another seventy years to achieve. The result of these violent post-war events is a geographically precarious and resource deprived Armenian Republic, most of whose historic lands were placed outside its arbitrarily drawn borders, the chief of which are the Eastern provinces of Turkey, and the formerly Russian held regions of Kars, Nakhichevan, and Artsakh (Karabakh). With regard to Karabakh, most Western observers, then as now, are ignorant of its central importance to Armenian cultural identity. Unlike many of his pro-Azeri military and foreign service colleagues in the Caucasus at the time, Col. John C. Plowden, a member of the British mission in Yerevan, wrote the following in 1919 in response to the Turkish-Azerbaijani stranglehold on the ever more beleaguered fledgling Armenian Republic: “Karabagh means more to the Armenians than their religion even, being the cradle of their race, and their traditional last sanctuary when their country has been invaded. It is Armenian in every particular and the strongest part of Armenia.”9 But by 1920, both the Republic and Karabakh were absorbed into the Soviet Union as Turkish forces withdrew to the west, having failed to complete the genocidal annihilation of the Armenian presence in Western Asia. The Soviet government initially recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), but © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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then-Commissar of Nationalities Stalin soon put the region under the control of the Azerbaijan SSR. Stalin may have had multiple motives: First, in the face of Turkish pressure and a desire for cooperation, the placing of Nagorno-Karabakh into the Azerbaijan SSR became a way to bolster Soviet-Turkish relations. Such a redrawing of borders was also part of Stalin’s project of splitting apart ethnic populations and putting some ethnic groups under the control of other ethnic groups. By doing so, ethnic tensions would increase in such a manner that all parties would be forced to seek the favor of the central Soviet government for protection and advantage. As part of this policy and a concession to Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh was given special autonomous status within the Azerbaijan SSR that gave its Armenian population some protections. But that did not stop Azerbaijan SSR from various practices aimed at weakening and eliminating the Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh. It pursued discriminatory economic policies toward the region, which lagged far behind the rest of the Azerbaijan SSR in terms of per capita resources for development and industrialization. It moved ethnic Azeris into the area, while suppressing opportunities necessary for Armenians to remain. A similar approach was pursued against the Armenians of another traditional Armenian homeland, Nakhichevan. From a 1917 population of 54,000 Armenians, which should have risen steadily over the years, only 2,000 Armenians remained by 1989. What is more, one of the major Armenian cultural sites, the cemetery at Julfa, with its thousands of carved medieval stone cross artworks (khachkars in Armenian), was obliterated.10 Armenians had no illusions about what the breakup of the Soviet Union would mean for Nagorno-Karabakh: with no further protection from a central government with authority over Azerbaijan, the destruction of Armenians would be pursued with abandon. This was made clear by pogroms against Armenians living in the Azerbaijani cities of Sumgait and Baku. Armenians in the region had pushed for reunification with the Armenian SSR in 1988 and again 1989 through votes in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Council of People’s Deputies. The result was a violent attempt by Azeri militia, aided by Soviet forces, to break the self-determination movement in Nagorno-Karabakh.11 When Azerbaijan seceded from the Soviet Union, the autonomous region attempted to enforce its constitutional right to remain a part of the Soviet Union but to no avail. With the existential threat of annihilation, Artsakh Armenians voted for independence on 10 December 1991 in accordance with the Constitution of the USSR based on the “Law of Succession from the USSR.”12 With this vote came a further escalation of violence. The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh prevailed in a bloody war over the next several years that cost thousands of lives on both sides. In 1994 a ceasefire was agreed upon, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Peace Process commenced to settle the conflict.13 While the peace process had fits and starts with both sides responsible for a lack of resolution, the stage was set for the next phase of the genocide of the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh. Denialism: Genocide by Other Means Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has taken up the project of the genocide of the Armenians in the Caucasus that was left incomplete back in 1920. In many ways this project is more insidious and sophisticated than the century-long campaign of the Turkish government denial of the Ottoman era genocide of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. With financial resources fueled by petroleum and gas dollars garnered from an oil and gas industry—an industry originally founded by Armenians at the beginning of the twentieth © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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century—Azerbaijan has put great efforts into rewriting the history of the region. This has been made easier by the profound lack of knowledge in the West of the genocidal violence that swept into this region in 1918 and the years that followed. This divorcing of past from present facilitates the lazy journalism and media we saw evidenced in the coverage of the September 2020 war, as exemplified by such journalists as Carlotta Gall for the New York Times. The media bias of “both-sides-ism” that perpetuated a false equivalence between the acts of self-defense by Armenians and the violence of the Azeri-Turkish aggressors against civilians is a consequence of this fundamental historical ignorance. Genocide scholars often note a similar phenomenon where the perpetrator attempts to switch roles with the victim. We found echoes of this in Vladimir Putin’s statements at that start of the Ukraine invasion, when he claimed that Ukrainians were perpetrating a genocide against the Russian-speaking population of their republic.14 In this perverse logic, the Armenians of Artsakh have become the perpetrators. Unfortunately, even some human rights organizations have slipped down this slippery slope, evidenced by the factual errors found in the alerts initially posted during the 2020 Karabakh war by Genocide Watch. Azerbaijan has taken the genocidal project even further than Turkey’s century-long endeavors. Historical scholarship and the ever-widening dispersal of knowledge regarding the Armenian Genocide has limited this ignorance primarily within the Turkish state and its allies, this despite millions of dollars spent on a disinformation campaign of the Turkish foreign ministry. But even though this ignorance in Turkey has been diminishing, there is still a great distance to go. Slowly, beginning over 30 years ago, the Turkish academic and intellectual sphere has been penetrated with knowledge regarding the Armenian Genocide. Steady, publicly visible progress continued until the summer of 2016 when the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ignited progressively harsher crackdowns on all aspects of civil society including the press, academia, and now the arts. Yet in Azerbaijan this project of genocidal violence and denial has taken a new more insidious twist. Layered upon the characterization of the victim as perpetrator is the attempt to erase the history of the victim group. This form of genocide denial may not be unique but stands out from the more commonplace forms of denial. This is not a denial of the crime per se but a denial of the existence of the victim group itself. By denying the existence of the group, the nature of the violence perpetrated against individual victims changes. It is important to recall that genocide is a crime against groups. This is what distinguishes genocide from mass murder. If there is no group, there is no genocide, just individual victims. The physical acts of violence do not disappear, but they can be reattributed to a lesser set of wrongdoings, or, in some cases to no wrongdoings at all. This is central to the rhetoric of denialism that attacks the legitimacy of the victim group, reverses the identity of victim and perpetrator, and claims victimhood for the perpetrator. The victim groups are turned into foreigners, aliens, settler-colonists, a force from without assisted by traitors operating within. We saw this in the radical Hutu delegitimizing rhetoric that characterized their fellow Tutsi Rwandans as alien foreign oppressors. This rhetoric was endemic to the radical Committee of Union and Progress ideologues, the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, who labeled Ottoman Armenians as traitors whose allegiance was to their compatriots in the Russian Empire and not to the Ottoman state. Ideologues from that era, such as the war-criminal Ziya Gökalp, a confidant of Mustafa Kemal and considered by many as the founder of Turkish nationalism, promulgated a Pan-Turkism that has gained popularity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Erdogan and Aliyev have often espoused his philosophy of “one nation, two states.”15 Delegitimizing group identity by © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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erasing the history of the group facilitates this reversal. What has occurred in Azerbaijan for more than three decades is a prime example of what I am describing here: genocide by other means. I will illustrate this with a few examples but first, some elaboration of the conceptual apparatus I am employing. The connections to cultural destruction should now come into clearer focus. My unwillingness to separate out cultural genocide from genocide per se takes us back to Raphael Lemkin and the development of the concept of genocide. As has been well established, Lemkin’s work on developing the concept of genocide finds its conceptual origins in his reflections on the Armenian massacres. As early as 1933, well before the codification of genocide into international law, he emphasized the collective nature of this crime: These are attacks carried out against an individual as a member of a collectivity. The goal of the author [perpetrator] is not only to harm an individual, but, also to cause damage to the collectivity to which the later belongs. Offenses of this type bring harm not only to human rights, but also and most especially they undermine the fundamental basis of the social order.16

Such crimes against groups can take a further social dimension when culture is singled out for attack. Lemkin wrote: “An attack targeting a collectivity can also take the form of systematic and organized destruction of the art and cultural heritage in which the unique genius and achievement of a collectivity are revealed in fields of science, arts and literature.”17 Some would like to separate this cultural destruction from the intentional act of extermination, by labelling it cultural genocide or what is also sometimes referred to as heritage crimes.18 I—and I believe Lemkin—would strongly disagree. Remember, genocide is a group crime. Destroying the cultural heritage of the group and suppressing cultural production is the surest way to destroy the group. This is why I have no reservations in labeling the compulsory boarding school experience of indigenous children in North America a genocidal program. There is no need here to reiterate the century long well-documented evidence of the Turkish state’s destruction of Armenian cultural heritage across Anatolia and the Armenian Plateau. The facts are clear and not in dispute: prior to the genocide there were approximately 2,300 churches and 700 schools in Turkey, now there are 34 churches and 12 schools. Much work on heritage recovery has been undertaken by scholars and activists. The ability to engage in this work within Turkey has become much more difficult with the rise in authoritarianism under President Erdogan. As the destruction—whether intentional or natural—accelerates, this work has become more urgent. Yet this work of recovery now needs to expand beyond the borders of Turkey, because these crimes are fully evident in the Caucasus. The urgency is even greater within Artsakh. I would like to cite some obvious and some less obvious examples of how Azerbaijan has been laying the groundwork for the historical erasure of the indigenous Armenians of this region. In the more than two decades leading up to the 2020 44-Day Karabakh War, there had been an on-going and systematic campaign of erasure of Armenian cultural heritage in the regions under Azeri government control, primarily in Nakhichevan and the Armenian population centers of Azerbaijan. All of this is well documented and increasingly publicized. Despite such documentation, including video evidence of the Azeri military destruction of the medieval Armenian Julfa cemetery, there was next to no response by UNESCO and Western nations.19 As many scholars in the heritage preservation field know, © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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there is a current on-going threat of similar destruction in the newly captured territories from the 2020 war. The catastrophic consequences of the successful recent Azeri-Turkish aggression and prior acts of cultural destruction are carefully and objectively documented by two academically based organizations that have published detailed findings. Caucasus Heritage Watch, led by archaeologists at Cornell and Purdue Universities, has established a research program in heritage forensics that has uses satellite imagery and archival sources to objectively document the large-scale destruction that has taken place and that continues today.20 Additional important work is done by Monument Watch, an independent academically based web-based resource that publishes reports and updates of the on-going destruction and threats to cultural heritage in Artsakh.21 While the art world has made note of this cultural violence, the art journal Hyperallergic stands out for its extensive reporting on this matter, having published 42 articles since 2018 on Artsakh alone.22 Most recently, the International Court of Justice issued a ruling, what are called provisional measures, against Azerbaijan with regard to cultural heritage destruction. In the words of the court, Azerbaijan must “Take all necessary measures to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage, including but not limited to churches and other places of worship, monuments, landmarks, cemeteries, and artefacts.23 Unfortunately, with no monitoring mechanism and enforcement only possible through the ineffectual United Nations Security Council, the ruling does not promise any change in the behavior of the Azeri regime. Shifting now from the physical erasure of Armenian cultural heritage to the rewriting of the history of the Caucasus, I will further illustrate Azeri denialism, a denialism not of their crimes but of the very existence of Armenians in Artsakh and the South Caucasus. The first illustration comes out of what is known as the Baku School of Historiography, the main objective of which is to propagate a history to be employed at all levels of school curriculum that delegitimizes the Armenian presence in the South Caucasus, and Artsakh in particular, by portraying Armenians as late settler-colonists on ancestral Turkic lands.24 While holding no scholarly legitimacy outside of Azerbaijan, this pseudo-history is pumped out in thousands of publications not only to the Azeri public but the country’s neighbors and the West. Georgian-language books spreading this pseudo-history and hate speech are freely distributed to libraries in Georgia by the Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism.25 Books that contain passages such as: “Armenians are newcomers to Turkey and the Caucasus and have found perfectly habitable lands. They have taken advantage of the hospitality of Turkic peoples and have decided to settle here for good. Nevertheless, they have not been able to rid themselves of their gypsy ways and have become the political puppets of powerful states.”26 Beautifully illustrated books are produced in English and distributed widely in print and electronic versions. For example, Karabakh Over the Centuries, published in print and online by a government supported publishing house, erases all historical references to the Armenian presence in Karabakh.27 In a chapter titled, “Proud Albanians,” treasures of Armenian medieval religious architecture, such as the Gandazar monastery are captioned, “One of the pearls of Albanian architecture.” The only mention of Armenians is in a chapter, “Unsubdued Shusha: Not to Forget or Forgive,” that chronicles a one-sided narrative of Armenian “aggression” in the First Karabakh War. One can find this book on the shelves of public and university libraries such as Harvard in the United States. The ignorance in the West is thus being fed lies by the Azeri propaganda machine adding fuel to the narrative of false equivalence. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Figure 1. Saint Tovma (Thomas) Monastery Church dating from the 14th century, reconstructed between 1633 and 1636.

Typical of all authoritarian regimes, Azerbaijan engages in widespread censorship of speech in all its forms, not just political. Numerous writers have been arrested or exiled and their books banned and burned. The chief example of a previously highly honored artist’s fall from grace in the Aliyev regime is the “People’s Writer” Akram Aylisli. His crime was his 2013 novella Stone Dreams written from the perspective of two Azeri characters who try to save their Armenian neighbors during the 1988 Sumgait pogrom against Armenians. A semi-comatose central character is transported in his dreams to his and the author’s hometown of Agulis (Aylis), home to an ancient Armenian community and the historic monastery of Saint Thomas (Saint Tovma) (see Figures 1 and 2). The town’s Armenian population was massacred by Azeri militias aided by Turkish officers in 1919, well after the 1918 armistice.28 Aylisli’s benign treatment of fictional Armenian characters and his historically truthful characterization of events led to his books being banned and burned. The lies that always accompany genocidal violence could not tolerate this historical truth about the past, bearing out Solzhenitsyn’s claim in the words of Aylisli’s epigraph. Aylisli himself was sent into internal exile and his state pension revoked. Even a benign literary dream can be dangerous in today’s Azerbaijan. The second illustration of erasure is even more insidious and is taken right from the pages of George Orwell’s 1984. This involves the wholescale sanitizing of the Azerbaijani literary canon that existed from before the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 2001, the government started the process of adopting a Latin alphabet replacing the Cyrillic one imposed by Joseph Stalin. Researchers such as Ararat Sekeryan have discovered that this process accelerated in 2004 under Ilham Aliyev’s government. The government launched a © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Figure 2. The Mosque that replaced Saint Thomas Church on May 15, 2014. (Courtesy of Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum).

large campaign to transliterate Soviet-era Azerbaijani literature from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin script, and the opportunity enabled Azeri propagandists to expunge any favorable treatment of Armenians from the Azeri literary cannon. As Sekeryan remarks: “During this state-sponsored campaign, more than 2,000 works of fiction have been transliterated with a particular type of censorship: Armenian characters and any kind of ethnic reference to Armenia and Armenians were cleansed from the fictional world of Soviet Azerbaijan.”29 Armenians disappeared from the Azerbaijani imaginary. With a clean slate to work with, the government has an easier time indoctrinating young people with the racist stereotypes of Armenians necessary to facilitate their campaign of genocidal violence.30 Such stereotypes fuel the hatred that we saw manifested in the war crimes perpetrated during the war, crimes that were never punished and continue today. These negative stereotypes were fully on visual display in the years since the end of the 2020 war. Aliyev’s regime has perpetuated widespread Armenophobia among the Azerbaijani population, and hate speech from all levels of the government is rampant.31 Such stereotyping has culminated in the creation of the Military Trophy Park in Baku, where wax mannequins of Armenian soldiers were displayed at the park in a highly degrading and racist manner, and children are encouraged to play with these “trophies” of war32 . This may be their only experience with Armenians, the Armenians whose existence is denied in the literary and physical landscape of their country. Critics have rightly labeled this “Baku’s Genocide Park.” As the American journalist Lindsey Snell aptly remarked on Twitter, © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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“If a society’s children are indoctrinated from birth, the cycle of hatred will never end” (@LindseySnell, 20 April 2021). Erasing and distorting Armenian cultural heritage, I argue, fits the types of acts outlined in the Genocide Convention. In the words of the Convention, these are actions “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and are intended to destroy the group, the indigenous Armenians of the Caucasus. Cultural destruction is genocide, a genocide by other means.

Armen T. Marsoobian is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Connecticut State University and affiliated with the Institute of Human Rights, University of Connecticut. He serves as First Vice President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He has lectured and published extensively on topics in moral philosophy, genocide studies, the Armenian Genocide, human rights, aesthetics, and American philosophy.

Notes 1. The most egregious example of misdating the Armenian Genocide is that of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in its online Holocaust Encyclopedia. See United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia, s.v. “Armenian Genocide (1915–16),” https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-overview (accessed 1 May 2023). The Encyclopaedia Britannica in its section on the genocide follows the same truncated timeline as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, identifying it as a “Campaign of murder and expulsion conducted against the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government in 1915–16 during World War I (1914–18).” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Armenian Genocide summary,” https://www.britannica.com/summary/ArmenianGenocide (accessed 1 May 2023). Wikipedia uses the dates 1915–1917. The end date of 1918 is often cited because of the erroneous belief that with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire the violence ended. 2. One such detrimental consequence is that it allows political leaders to acknowledge and honor the victims of the Armenian Genocide while at the same time ignoring the link between the past atrocities and the current genocidal violence in the South Caucasus. United States President Joseph Biden issued his annual statement about the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2023, with language all in the past tense, completely ignoring the present-day violence whose origins can be traced to the same history. Pledging to recommit to “speaking out against hate, standing up for human rights, and preventing atrocities,” ring hollow when United States foreign policy in the region refuses to acknowledge the perpetrator state and continues to provide security assistance to Azerbaijan. See, “Statement from President Joe Biden on Armenian Remembrance Day,” White House, 24 April 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statementsreleases/2023/04/24/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-armenian-remembrance-day/ (accessed 30 Apr 2023). Even though the word “genocide” is used in the text of the statement, the statement’s title incorrectly calls the day, “Armenian Remembrance Day,” instead of “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day,” as if we are simply honoring an ethnic group. 3. Feature films and books have highlighted the date. See, 1915, written and directed by Garin Hovannisian and Alec Mouhibian, featuring Simon Abkarian, Angela Sarafyan, Nikolai Kinski, and Debra Christofferson (Bloodvine Media, 2015); and, Hasan Cemal. 1915: The Armenian Genocide (Istanbul & London: Hrant Dink Foundation and the Gomidas Institute, 2015). Hasan Cemal is the grandson of one of the architects of the genocide, Cemal Pasha. 4. Part VIII: Declaration of Amnesty, Protocol to the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923), https://www.mfa. gov.tr/viii_-declaration-of-amnesty.en.mfa (accessed 30 Apr 2023). For the most thorough account of the Turkish Military Tribunals at the end of the war see, Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akçam, Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011). 5. Nuri (Killigili) Pasha was a notorious theorist of Pan-Turkism who collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. He organized the Turkestan Legion (SS East Turkestan Regiment) of the Wehrmacht that fought on the Western Front. He was an arms manufacturer during this period and worked extensively with the Germans. See David Motadel, Islam and Nazi Germany’s War (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2014). © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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6. The most authoritative works on these events are Richard G. Hovannisian’s three-volume history: The Republic of Armenia: The First Year, 1918–1919. Vol. 1. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1971); The Republic of Armenia: From Versailles to London, 1919–1920. Vol. 2. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1982); The Republic of Armenia: From London to Sèvres, February–August 1920. Vol. 3. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1996). See also the essays in Bedross Der Matossian’s edited volume, The First Republic of Armenia (1918–1920): On its Centenary: Politics, Gender, and Diplomacy (Fresno: Press at Fresno State U, 2020). 7. Many experts argue that the current Lachin blockade of Karabakh by Azeri agents is an attempt to pressure Armenia into agreeing to the Zangezur Corridor. See the report of the International Crisis Group, “Averting a New War between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Report No. 266, Europe & Central Asia, 30 January 2023, https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/caucasus/nagorno-karabakh-conflict/266averting-new-war-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan (accessed 1 May 2023). 8. Artsakh (Karabakh) is central to Armenian cultural identity. This is reflected in the fact that in the early fifth century Mesrop Mashtots created the distinctive Armenian alphabet and founded one of the first schools in Armenia at the Amaras Monastery in Artsakh, sparking a flourishing culture and national identity. St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint and evangelizer of Armenia, founded the Amaras Monastery at the start of the fourth century. This complex is currently in danger because access is restricted by Azerbaijan’s control in the region. Amaras and other religious monuments in Artsakh are not recognized by the Azeri regime as Armenian, referring to them as Christian temples or Caucasian Albanian temples. See the following description on an Azeri website: “Cloister Amaras,” https://kataloq.gomap.az/en/all-poi/culture/ monastery/8e06df04d56611e0ad4900226424597d (accessed 29 Apr 2023). The universally debunked theory of the Caucasian Albanians is central to the regime’s rewriting of the region’s history and is part and parcel of its campaign of ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh. 9. Quoted from Artie H. Arslanian, “Britain and the Question of Mountainous Karabakh” Middle Eastern Studies 16 (January 1980): 92–104. Original source: G.H.Q., General Staff, Army of the Black Sea, Constantinople, ‘Intelligence’ no. 2737 ‘I,’ ‘Weekly Report no. 36; for the week ending 2nd October 1919,’ Appendix D, ‘An appreciation of the situation in ARMENIA at the time of the departure of the British Mission from ERIVAN, 28th August, 1919, by Lieut.-Colonel J. C. PLOWDEN,’ F.O. 371/4159, 145863/521/19. 10. Amos Chapple, “When the World Looked Away: The Destruction of Julfa Cemetery,” Radio Free Europe, 10 December 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/armenia-azerbaijan-julfa-cemetery-destruction-unesco-culturalheritage/30986581.html (accessed 27 Apr 2023). 11. The notorious operation of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1991 was code named Operation Ring (Russian: Операция «Кольцо», romanized: Operatsia Kol’tso). This violence was extensively documented by human rights groups, including Memorial, and activists such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 12. Ведомости Съезда народных депутатов СССР и Верховного Совета СССР [Law on Secession from the USSR. Law on Procedure for Resolving Questions Connected with a Union Republic’s Secession from the USSR], 15, ст. 252 (1990), https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1991-2/shevarnadze-resigns/shevarnadze-resignstexts/law-on-secession-from-the-ussr/ (accessed 1 May 2023). This law is ambiguous in its details but the overall intent was to allow ethnic groups to seek autonomy. 13. Known as the Madrid Principles of the OSCE Minsk Group, the principles call for the self-determination of the peoples of the region, including the Armenians of Karabakh. These principles were first articulated in November 2007 and reaffirmed in a slightly modified form on July 10, 2009. See: “OSCE Minsk Group, Madrid Document, November 2007,” Nagorno Karabakh: Documents, Resolutions, and Agreements, https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/0b80bb/pdf/ (accessed 1 May 2023); and Minsk Group, “Statement by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Countries,” OSCE, 10 July 2009, https://www.osce.org/mg/51152 (accessed 1 May 2023). 14. Putin has used the presence of right-wing fascists elements within Ukraine to bolster his charge that a “genocide” of Russians in the Donbas was taking place. While these elements are present and have been covered by Western journalists, their role has been exaggerated by Putin’s disinformation campaign that has been created for domestic consumption. See, Sudarsan Reghavan, Loveday Morris, Claire Parker, and David L. Stern, “Right-wing Azov Battalion Emerges as a Controversial Defender of Ukraine,” Washington Post, April 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/06/ukraine-military-rightwing-militias/ (accessed 1 May 2023). 15. There are numerous statements by both Erdogan and Aliyev regarding this concept. See for instance the following from the Office of the President of Azerbaijan: “Joint press statements of Presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkey,” 15 September 2010, https://president.az/en/articles/view/736/print (accessed 1 May 2023). © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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16. Raphael Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations,” Prevent Genocide International (1933) http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/ madrid1933-english.htm (accessed 27 Apr 2023). 17. Lemkin, “Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger.” 18. Advocates for distinguishing cultural destruction from genocide were, for the most part, successful when the Genocide Convention was adopted by the United Nations in 1948. 19. Simon Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman, “A Regime Conceals Its Erasure of Indigenous Armenian Culture,” Hyperallergic, 18 February 2019, https://hyperallergic.com/482353/a-regime-conceals-its-erasure-ofindigenous-armenian-culture/. Also, Simon Maghakyan, “Is the Destruction of Armenian Heritage Not Important Enough for the Getty?” Hyperallergic, 28 February 2023, https://hyperallergic.com/804374/ is-the-destruction-of-armenian-heritage-not-important-enough-for-the-getty/. See also the extensive report by the Research on Armenian Architecture (RAA), “Julfa: The Annihilation of the Armenian Cemetery by Nakhijevan’s Azerbaijani Authorities,” https://raa-am.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/ Julfa-The-Annihilation-of-the-Armenian-Cemetery-by-Nakhijevans-Azerbaijani-Authorities (accessed 28 Apr 2023). 20. Caucasus Heritage Watch, Heritage Monitoring and Forensic Research, https://caucasusheritage.cornell. edu/ (accessed 29 Apr 2023). 21. Monument Watch, Monitoring the Cultural Heritage of Artsakh, https://monumentwatch.org/en/ (accessed 29 Apr 2023). 22. See the special issue of the art journal: Hyperallergic, “Special Issue on Artsakh” (2021) and it’s article on the Nakhchivan destruction: Avedis Hadjian, “US Researchers Confirm 98% of Cultural Armenian Heritage Sites in Nakhichevan Destroyed by Azerbaijan,” 16 September 2022, https://hyperallergic.com/761723/ cultural-armenian-heritage-sites-in-nakhichevan-destroyed-by-azerbaijan/ (accessed 30 Apr 2023). 23. International Court of Justice, “Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Armenia v. Azerbaijan),” Order, 23 February 2023, https://www.icj-cij.org/public/ files/case-related/180/180-20230222-ORD-01-00-EN.pdf (accessed 30 Apr 2023). 24. Rouben Galichian, The Invention of History: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Showcasing of Imagination (London: Printinfo Art Books/Yerevan & Gomidas Institute, 2009). https://roubengalichian.com/book/ the-invention-of-history-armenian-azerbaijan-and-the-showcasing-of-imagination-2/ (accessed 28 Apr 2023). 25. Rahim Shaliyev, “Libraries full of hate: from Azerbaijan to Georgia,” OC Media, 30 May 2019, https://ocmedia.org/features/libraries-full-of-hate-from-azerbaijan-to-georgia/ (accessed 29 Apr 2023). 26. Shaliyev, “Libraries full of hate.” 27. Musa Märcabl¯ı, ed., Karabakh Over the Centuries, Heritage Series (Baku: IRS Publishing House, 2016), https://irs-az.com/en/books/karabakh-over-centuries/336 (accessed 1 May 2023). The publisher’s website has a host of books written in a similar manner that erase the indigenous Armenians from the region. 28. Richard G. Hovannisian, “The Doom of Akulis,” in The Republic of Armenia, Vol. II: From Versailles to London, 1919–1920. (Berkeley: U of California P, 1982), 207–38. 29. Ararat Sekeryan, “The Disposables: Literary Ethnic Cleansing of Armenians in Azerbaijani Literature” (unpublished master’s thesis, Columbia University, 2019). 30. “‘Врагу - ненависть, ненависть, ненависть.’ Чем ‘культ победы’ оборачивается для азербайджанских школьников [“‘To the Enemy - Hate, Hate, Hate.’ What the ‘Cult of Victory’ is Turning into for Azerbaijani School Children],” BBC Русская служба [Russian service of BBC], 26 December 2022, https://www.bbc. com/russian/features-64077433 (accessed 1 May 2023). Interesting to note that this extensively researched and documented report only appeared on the Russian language BBC news site, not anywhere else in its programming. The BBC, like the New York Times, has provided poor coverage of the conflict, often falling into the language of “both-side-ism.” 31. See the recent report on Armenophobia and hate speech released by the Center for Truth and Justice, “Looming Genocide: Hate Speech and The Aliyev Regime. Stoking Hatred, Violence and Ethnic Cleansing in Violation of ICJ’s Provisional Orders of December 7, 2021 (as of April 2023),” 1 May 2023, https://www.cftjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Aliyev-and-Hate-Speech.pdf.

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32. The mannequins and trophy helmets of fallen Armenian soldiers were subsequently removed from the park for “repair.” See, Ani Avetisyan, “Azerbaijan removes mannequins and helmets from military trophy park,” OC Media, 15 October 2021, https://oc-media.org/azerbaijan-removes-mannequins-and-helmetsfrom-military-trophy-park/ (accessed 11 Jun 2023).

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Impunity, Lack of Humanitarian Intervention, and International Apathy: The Blockade of the Lachin Corridor in Historical Perspective Bedross Der Matossian University of Nebraska-Lincoln This article will analyze the existential threat facing by the Armenians of the beleaguered Republic of Artsakh in the context of three phases of mass violence inflicted on Armenians in the modern period: the Hamidian Massacres of 1894–1896, the Adana Massacres of 1909, and the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923). Despite the teleological differences of these phases, there seems to be three key common denominators connecting all of them together: impunity, lack of humanitarian intervention, and international apathy. After dwelling on the history of impunity, the absence of humanitarian intervention, and international apathy, this article will concentrate on the disastrous repercussions of the closing of the Lachin Corridor and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the fragile Republic of Artsakh. This article will argue that the three important factors that led to disastrous repercussions for the Armenians in the past are present today, thereby raising the red flag for potential ethnic cleansing. Key words: impunity, Artsakh, humanitarian intervention, ethnic cleansing, Armenian Genocide, apathy, Lachin Corridor

Beginning on 12 December 2022, Azerbaijani citizens calling themselves “ecoactivists” blocked the only lifeline connecting the beleaguered and unrecognized Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) to the Republic of Armenia, the only entity that was keeping the republic alive. Besides the massive unfolding humanitarian disaster, Armenians of Artsakh today are facing an existential threat. Whether the situation is going to evolve into a potential ethnic cleansing or genocide by attrition is unknown, but the volatile situation shows a constant possibility of the resumption of hostilities. While the UN Secretary General, France, Canada, Greece, and the Netherlands have condemned the blockade, no actual steps have been taken to alleviate the suffering of the 120,000 Armenians who have literally been taken hostage by Ilham Aliyev’s regime.1 This is not the first time that Armenians of the region have faced a major existential threat. History is rife with such examples, as Armenians have suffered episodic phases of violence leading to massacres, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, the words “Armenians” and “massacres” have become synonymous in the lexicon of international relations. As recognized today, any reference to the Armenian past resonates with a long history of massacres and genocide. Most people around the globe associate Armenians with the second genocide of the early twentieth century, following that of the Herero and the Nama between 1904 and 1907 in South-West Africa. Yet the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923) was the first genocide of the twentieth century of its kind when one considers the fact that, for the first time in modern history, a state initiated a campaign of exterminating its own citizens.2 The Armenian Genocide was orchestrated by the inner-clique of the Committee Union

Bedross Der Matossian, “Impunity, Lack of Humanitarian Intervention, and International Apathy: The Blockade of the Lachin Corridor in Historical Perspective,” Genocide Studies International 15, 1 (Spring 2021): 7–20. © Zoryan Institute, 2023. doi: 10.3138/GSI-2023-0008

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and Progress (CUP), the authoritarian ruling Young Turk party that came to power by force after the coup of 1913, and led to the annihilation of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. More than one million Armenians were uprooted from their ancestral homeland and killed in their provinces, along the deportation routes, or in the Syrian desert of Deir al-Zor. The result was catastrophic in terms of its human toll and the destruction of churches, homes, schools, and libraries. In sum, it was the obliteration of a civilization that had existed in the region for three millennia. The ways and methods by which the genocide was carried out depended on the local exigencies of each province. While many local state and non-state actors, military, and paramilitary groups fervently participated in the act, there were also some cases in which governors and individuals refused to carry out the orders of deportation and/or killings.3 The violence inflicted on Armenians during WWI was not the only one in the course of modern history. Prior to the war, there were at least two major waves of violence inflicted on the Armenians: the Hamidian Massacres (1894–1896) and the Adana Massacres of 1909.4 The aim of this article is not to write the history of the three phases of violence in detail but to discuss key denominators that have led to disastrous consequences for the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. This is a fact that one should consider when discussing the current blockade of the Republic of Artsakh. The ambivalence of the international community to the suffering of Armenians is not a phenomenon pertaining solely to the past. Today, the Armenians of Artsakh are found in a similar situation to those of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. With the closing of the Lachin Corridor by so-called echo activists, and with the corridor being the only lifeline connecting the Armenians of Artsakh to the Republic of Armenia, these Armenians are facing an existential threat. I have argued elsewhere that I do not adhere to the continuum approach to the violence inflicted upon the Armenians of the Empire.5 By this I mean that neither the Hamidian Massacres (1894–96) nor the Adana Massacres of 1909 were dress rehearsals for the Armenian Genocide. Rather, I contended that each phase of violence was separate. Despite the teleological differences of these phases, however, there seem to be three key common denominators connecting all of them together: impunity, lack of humanitarian intervention, and international apathy. After dwelling on the history of the absence of humanitarian intervention, impunity, and international apathy, this article will concentrate on the disastrous repercussions of the closing of the Lachin Corridor and the ensuing humanitarian crisis in the fragile Republic of Artsakh. This article will argue that the three important factors that led to disastrous repercussions for the Armenians in the past are present today, thereby raising the red flag for potential ethnic cleansing. Before proceeding to discuss the historical background, I deem it necessary to define the three key denominators that connect all the phases of violence inflicted upon the Armenians. Impunity, Lack of Humanitarian Intervention, and International Apathy Generally speaking, impunity refers to an offender who causes harm to another person and escapes justice.6 When we apply this situation to intergroup conflict, the perpetrator in this case commits crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide(s) against another group and escapes punishment. In such cases, the perpetrator capitalizes on their international status and power advantage and is therefore able to achieve impunity and escape justice through a series of tactics that include but are not limited to denial, intimidation, cunning diplomatic maneuvers, and the manipulation of bystanders and/or taking advantage of the inaction of other entities. Thus, the bystander’s inaction plays an important role in the pro© Zoryan Institute, 2023

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cess of achieving impunity. Impunity does not only absolve the perpetrator group from any responsibility and accountability for their crimes, but emboldens them to commit future acts of violence against the targeted group. In this atmosphere of a lack of accountability, the cycle of violence continues without any rupture. The idea of humanitarian intervention to end massacres emerged in the early nineteenth century to protect the lives of a restricted people within a group. This was prior to the creation of the legal definition of intervention.7 Historians Davide Rodogno, Michelle Tusan, Keith Watenpuagh, and Charlie Lederman have shed light on humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention, or the lack thereof, in the nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ottoman Empire.8 Rodogno defines humanitarian intervention as: a coercive diplomatic and/or armed (re)action against massacre undertaken by a state or a group of states inside the territory of a target state. Its main motivation is to end massacre, atrocity, and extermination or to prevent the repetition of such events. It is an ex post facto event whose objective is to protect civilian populations mistreated and unprotected by the target-state government, agents, or authorities.9

However, humanitarian intervention by European powers to save the lives of their “Christian brothers” was selective. While in some cases, such as Greece, Lebanon, and Crete, Europeans intervened to stop massacres, in the case of Armenians no such efforts have been undertaken. In his extensive research on the topic, Rodogno argues that if such an intervention “threatened to destabilize the international system … the European powers would not intervene to end massacre.” Thus, in the nineteenth century “before undertaking an intervention, European powers had to reach a collective agreement guaranteeing that none of them would unilaterally benefit from the intervention.”10 The complex geopolitical position of the Armenians within the turbulent international system in which humanitarianism was a matter of political calculations hampered any potential intervention by the great powers. Armenians were, and are, found between a rock and a hard place, between Russia and the West. Thus, adopting the Armenian cause was supposedly a “risky” maneuver for Western powers. Consequentially, they limited themselves to using and abusing the Armenian Question for their own internal and external political interests and as part of their overarching imperialist ambitions. During the three phases of violence, the international community demonstrated its apathy for what was happening to the Armenians. This is not to undermine some of the humanitarian efforts that have been undertaken by Western non-state actors. However, their intervention was ex post facto. The international community was aware of the Hamidian Massacres, the Adana Massacres, and the Armenian Genocide, yet no serious effort was taken by their governments to stop them from occurring. Even when the news of the atrocities was being reported on a daily basis on major global news outlets, Western governments did not take any substantial steps. While there was a massive outpouring of empathy towards Armenians by the international press during these three phases of existential threat, the attitude of Western governments was that of apathy. Similarly, in the current existential crisis faced by the Armenians of Artsakh, apathy is the only stance taken by international governments, the press, and the public sphere. The attitude of Western powers towards the despotic regime of Azerbaijan is mostly favorable due to Azerbaijan’s geostrategic position in the region and its much-needed energy resources at a time when Russia is under an oil embargo and the war on Ukraine is ongoing. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Three Phases of Violence The origins of the hostility towards Armenians in the second half of the nineteenth century cannot be attributed to a single cause. A combination of different factors led to the brutal violence which was unleashed on the Armenians of Anatolia. The waves of massacres that Armenian communities suffered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are the result of a host of factors that include but are not limited to agrarian changes in the region, an influx of Muslim refugees escaping persecution from the Caucasus and Crimea, demographic engineering by the state, double taxation, depredation by Kurdish tribes, the rise of nationalism, revolutionary activities by some Armenians, and economic envy towards the success of Armenians. Even with the internationalization of the Armenian Question after the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the condition of Armenians in the eastern provinces kept deteriorating. When diplomatic efforts by the Armenian clerical and lay elite failed to alleviate the suffering of the Armenians of the eastern provinces, some resorted to revolutionary activities in the provinces as the only way to protect their Armenian brothers and bring international attention to their plight. While some aimed at mobilizing non-Armenians and Muslims with the goal of toppling the despotic regime of Sultan Abdulhamid II, others hoped that through means of mass demonstration they could bring European attention to the suffering of the Armenians and trigger a humanitarian intervention. Armenians were aware that humanitarian interventions in the case of Greece, Lebanon, and Crete were successful in halting the further shedding of blood, and they were hoping that such a scenario would unfold in the eastern provinces. However, things did not turn out as they had expected. The Hamidian regime’s response to mass demonstrations in the capital, as well as revolutionary activities in the provinces, resulted in major waves of massacres targeting the innocent Armenians of the provinces. Known as the Hamidian Massacres (1894–96), this phase of violence resulted in the murders of somewhere between 200,000–300,000 Armenians.11 While the massacres were unfolding, no humanitarian intervention took place. European powers confined themselves to condemning the massacres and pressuring the Sultan for reforms. Furthermore, they proposed a new program of reforms, which came to be known as the May Memorandum.12 It called for the disarmament of the Hamidiye regiments and their attachment to the regular army units.13 While negotiations continued, the Sublime Porte tried to sabotage the program, though, eventually, it accepted a less comprehensive version of the May Reform. However, even with its acceptance, the program remained mere ink on paper. On the contrary, the situation in the eastern provinces deteriorated further as violent events broke out. A wave of massacres began from Trabzon and moved all the way through Erzincan, Bitlis, Baiburt, Erzerum, Diyarbekir, Sasun, Malatya, Arabkir, Merzivon, Harput, Kayseri, Marash, and Aintab, leading to the death of thousands of Armenians. It is important to note that these massacres targeted the regions where the reform program was supposedly going to be implemented. The international community was aware of these massacres, as they were extensively reported in the American and the British press.14 Despite their extensive knowledge, no serious measures were taken by the European powers. Rivalries between the European powers also hampered any serious commitment to finding a solution to the Armenian Question. This was also the phase in which the foundations of impunity were installed, as none of the major perpetrators of the Hamidian Massacres were brought to justice. No military tribunal or anything close to that transpired. Furthermore, no humanitarian intervention © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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by any European power took place to stop the massacres. What did occur were diplomatic maneuvers to force the Sultan to agree on a reform package. With the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Armenians, as well as other persecuted groups, had high hopes for the new regime and its architects, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).15 The Revolution, with its slogan of Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity, ushered in a new beginning in the history of the Empire. However, the high hopes soon faded, as a result of the incongruities of the new political reality and the contradictions of political paths for the different ethno-religious groups. Tensions in the capital between the opposing political forces culminated in a counter-revolution that took place on 13 April 1909. In conjunction with this event, two waves of massacres (April 14–17 and May 25–27) shook the province of Adana in the southeastern section of the Empire, taking the lives of more than 20,000 Armenians. The massacres were not confined only to the city of Adana but spread to the other districts of the province, pouring into the region of Aleppo. Similar to the Hamidian Massacres, the Adana Massacres of 1909 also demonstrate the limitations of humanitarianism and humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Armenians of the Empire in the late Ottoman period. After the first phase of massacres (April 14–16), Western warships docked near the port of Mersin as a show of deterrence. However, no troops disembarked to Adana to stop the massacres out of fear that such a move might lead to catastrophic results. Thus, Ottoman fear that these warships would deploy their forces to Adana—culminating in the so-called Armenian uprising and the recreation of the Kingdom of Cilicia—did not materialize. The non-intervention by Western powers led to catastrophic results, paving the way for a second wave of massacres that shook the city of Adana (April 25–27). Humanitarian intervention in this case was much desired to prevent the occurrence of a second wave of massacres, but despite the lack of humanitarian intervention by Western powers one sees an extensive network of local, regional, and international humanitarian efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Armenians of Adana.16 While military tribunals were established in Adana to try the culprits of the massacres, the real perpetrators escaped justice. In this case, impunity went hand in hand with nominal justice. Despite the fact that the real perpetrators evaded justice, more than 30 Muslims (some of whom were innocent) and six Armenians (some of whom were innocent) received capital punishment.17 The third and the largest phase of violence was the Armenian Genocide that took place under the guise of World War I. The genocide, perpetrated by the inner clique of the CUP during the war, led to the extermination of the Armenians of the eastern provinces.18 Unlike the massacres of Adana in 1909 discussed above, which were locally organized and implemented by various interest groups, the genocide was centrally planned by the state and its acolytes using multiple mechanisms. The bureaucratic apparatus and the cooperation of local elites, along with that of paramilitary organizations, proved to be crucial in coordinating and executing the genocide throughout the eastern provinces. During the genocide, the CUP was motivated by a grandiose, detrimental ideology of solving once and for all the Armenian Question. The Young Turks were imperial nationalists; their aim was to preserve the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire by any measures. According to one historian, the Young Turks were “prepared to take the most desperate and drastic measures to homogenize their state while promoting some peoples over others and annihilating still others.”19 The reluctance of Armenians to take part in the war on the side of the Ottomans, the movement of a few hundred Armenians to the Russian side, and the formation of several © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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Armenian battalions, “confirmed in the imagination of already suspicious Young Turks that Armenians as a whole were potential internal enemies of the state.”20 Similar to the other phases of violence, no humanitarian intervention transpired here either, though the international community was well aware of the horrendous massacres taking place against the Armenians, and cognizant that this was not anything comparable to the Hamidian or the Adana massacres. On 24 May 1915, the Allied powers of Britain, France, and Russia jointly issued a statement condemning the Ottoman government for its actions by saying “crimes against humanity and civilization for which all the members of the Turkish Government will be held responsible together with its agents implicated in the massacres.”21 The United States and the Allied powers were closely following the situation on the ground, and their diplomats, as well as their missionaries, were eyewitnesses to the unfolding of the genocide. They reported extensively to their respective governments about the atrocities committed against the Armenians with the hope that they would take decisive action to stop the mass murder. For example, despite the difficulties of wartime communication and despite government censorship of even diplomatic dispatches, American consuls, vice-consuls, and missionaries, as well as individual Armenians, sent detailed accounts of the atrocities to Henry Morgenthau, the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1913–1916). Many of these reports were circulated to governmental and non-governmental entities in the United States, including President Wilson, Secretaries of State William Bryan and Robert Lansing, and Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions Rev. James L. Barton. Philanthropic organizations printed these reports in an appeal to the masses for support in fighting the genocide.22 On 16 July 1915, Morgenthau cabled Secretary of State David Lansing, referring to the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenians as “a campaign of race extermination.”23 The official reply came two months later: “However much we may deplore the suffering of the Armenians we cannot take any active step to come to their assistance at the present time.”24 Even German consuls serving in the eastern provinces, defying their government’s position, protested the genocide that was unfolding in their respective provinces by sending extensive confidential reports to the German embassy.25 However, the German embassy in Istanbul demonstrated reservations about what was transpiring in the eastern provinces and remained silent. Thus, despite all the evidence coming out of the Ottoman Empire by the consuls of the Allies, the Americans, the missionaries, as well as the German consuls, no humanitarian intervention took place. The Allied powers arrived in the region ex post facto. The Armenians of Anatolia were already uprooted. While hundreds of thousands were killed, around 100,000 became refugees under the mercy of Western humanitarian organizations such as the Near East Relief (NER). A recent study demonstrates that Armenians were not passive agents in this process, as they too played a dominant role in alleviating the suffering of their co-religionists.26 These vestiges, decapitated from their ancestral homelands, formed the basis of the modern Armenian diaspora under the harshest of conditions. When the Allied powers occupied Constantinople, Armenians had high hopes that the architects of the genocide would not escape justice as their predecessors did. Hence, after the armistice of Mudros of 1918, the defeated Ottoman government of Istanbul, under pressure from the Allies, especially the British, established courts-martial to try members of the CUP, government officials, and military leaders, as well as other functionaries, for committing crimes against the Armenians and undermining the constitution by leading © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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the Ottoman Empire into the War. The courts-martial, which began in 1919 and ended in 1922, demonstrated undeniably the role that the CUP played in the organization and implementation of the Armenian Genocide.27 The importance of these military tribunals does not only lie in their verdicts and key indictment, but rather in the process that culminated in these decisions. This process involved the gathering and classification of mass documentary evidence about the centrally organized plan to annihilate the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. During these tribunals, new documents surfaced which were authenticated in the pre-trial investigation by officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Interior. The authentication of these documents was carried out by affixing to the bottom of the documents the phrase “it conforms with the original” (aslına muafikdir). Additional tribunals took place in Yozgat, Bayburt, Erzincan, and the provinces of Harput and Trabzon. Since there were no international laws in place under which they could be tried, the men who orchestrated the massacres escaped prosecution and fled to Germany, Italy, and Central Asia, and the courts-martial were forced to cease during the resurgence of the Turkish National Movement under Mustafa Kemal. Those who remained serving their sentences were ultimately pardoned under the newly established Kemalist government on 31 March 1923. Even though the main architects escaped justice by fleeing to different countries such as Germany, some of them ended up being assassinated. The Nemesis group, a clandestine cell of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), carried out seven killings, including the assassination of Talaat Pasha, the main architect of the Armenian Genocide, by Soghomon Tehlirian in Berlin in March 1921. The Nagorno-Karabagh Conflict The roots of today’s violence in the region of the Southern Caucasus go back to the last years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 1988, a national movement for self-determination began in Artsakh, expressing the clear will of its Armenian majority to separate from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and unite with the Armenian SSR. Their demands were met by a state-orchestrated series of pogroms that took place in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku. Consequentially, more than 400,000 Armenians who lived in Azerbaijan fled to Armenia and elsewhere, and more than 175,000 Azeris living in Armenia fled to Azerbaijan. In addition, Communist led-Azerbaijan, backed by the Soviet army, forced more than 150,000 Armenians to leave Artsakh. In February 1988, the regional government of Artsakh held a referendum with a sweeping majority voting to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia. However, Azerbaijan’s reluctance to grant the Armenians of Artsakh the right of self-determination resulted in a bloody conflict that became known as the First Karabagh War (1988–94) and led to the death of more than 30,000 people on both sides. On 12 May 1994, with Russian intervention, both parties signed a cease-fire agreement thereby putting an end to this war. The period between 1994 and the breakout of the Second Karabagh War on 27 September 2020, witnessed efforts by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group to resolve the conflict in a peaceful manner. Multiple phases of negotiations took place between both sides, but failed to produce any permanent resolution to the conflict. While Armenia was adamant that the leadership of Artsakh should have a say in its final status, the Azerbaijani state demanded the immediate removal of Armenians from the seven districts and the return of Karabagh to Azerbaijani control. They also stressed the fact that the independent status of Karabagh was nonnegotiable. © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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On 27 September 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Azerbaijan, aided by Turkey and jihadist militants from northern Syria, attacked the Republic of Artsakh. The war lasted for 44 days, leading to the death of thousands of soldiers on both sides and a number of civilians.28 More than a hundred Armenians soldiers and 21 civilians are missing, and more than 30 POWs remain in captivity.29 More than 80% of the Armenians of Artsakh fled to the neighboring Republic of Armenia. Yet, Azerbaijan’s invasion was met with deafening silence from the international community. On 9 November 2020, the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia signed a trilateral ceasefire agreement ending all hostilities in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from 10 November 2020, onward. Additionally, Russia deployed 2,000 peacekeeper troops for a minimum of five years along the line of contact and the Lachin Corridor linking Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The peacekeeping forces stationed near the capital, Stepanakert, established observation posts along the contact line in Artsakh and along the Lachin Corridor. It must be noted that several previously Armenian-controlled regions were handed over to Azerbaijan. It is no secret that the Armenian side lost the war due to the military superiority of the Azerbaijani army, which was backed by Turkey and equipped with the latest military technology, notably the Bayraktar and Harop UAVs (drones) supplied by Turkey and Israel respectively. In addition to the large human loss and casualties, the war also delivered a major blow to the cultural heritage of Artsakh and to its infrastructure.30 According to a detailed January 2021 report by the Artsakh Human Rights Defender’s office, 161 churches and monasteries have come under Azerbaijani control.31 There is no doubt that a cultural genocide is taking place in Artsakh where the vandalism or destruction of Armenian monuments has become the norm. While in the previous historical phases of violence two of the three key denominators were present, in the case of the Artsakh War of 2020 and its aftermath all three denominators are present: a lack of humanitarian intervention, impunity, and the apathy of the international community. While it is out of the question that any humanitarian intervention will take place in the region of Artsakh due to its complicated geostrategic location, international legal constraints, and the Russian factor, the two other denominators appear boldly. From the beginning, the international media has been biased and demonstrated apathy toward the plight of the Armenians of Artsakh, unlike the case of Kosovo for example whose self-determination and unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008 was supported by a significant segment of the international community.32 The press was tainted with bothsidism and did not even condemn the Azerbaijani aggression. The reluctance of the international community to force Azerbaijan to halt its hostilities against the Armenians of Artsakh and that of the Republic of Armenia has resulted in a climate of impunity for the Azerbaijani aggressors. As mentioned in this article, impunity emboldens perpetrators to commit additional acts of violence and aggression by absolving them of responsibility and accountability. The blockade of the Lachin Corridor is the result of the presence of these three denominators. The Blockade of the Lachin Corridor: Between Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide by Attrition On 12 December 2022, so called eco-activists launched a blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The blockade resulted in grave consequences for the beleaguered Armenian population © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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of Artsakh. The transfer of medicine, food, and fuel has been blocked, thus trapping the population of the Artskah in misery.33 Currently, the humanitarian crisis in Artsakh is critical, as scarcity of electricity and fuel is widespread.34 Only vehicles belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeepers have been allowed to pass through the corridor. According to Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia: The Azerbaijani authorities have internationally recognized sovereignty over these territories and exercise control over the territory from which the blockade is being carried out. It is Azerbaijan’s obligation to undertake to ensure that the population in Nagorno-Karabakh is not denied access to food and other essential goods and medications. For its part, the Russian peacekeeping mission is mandated to ensure the safety of the Lachin corridor. However, both parties are manifestly failing to fulfil their obligations.35

Numerous states and international organizations have condemned the blockade, arguing that it is a violation of the trilateral ceasefire agreement of 9 November 2020, which stipulated that Azerbaijan would guarantee the security of movement along the Lachin corridor in both directions. For example, on 19 January 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned the blockade and described it as a humanitarian crisis, calling upon Azerbaijan “to protect the rights of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and refrain from its inflammatory rhetoric that calls for discrimination against Armenians and urges Armenians to leave Nagorno-Karabakh.” Furthermore, the resolution condemned the inaction of Russian peacekeepers and considered that their “replacement with OSCE international peacekeepers, under a UN mandate, should be negotiated urgently.” Furthermore, the resolution called for “international organisations to be granted unimpeded access to Nagorno-Karabakh to assess the situation and provide the necessary humanitarian assistance.”36 However, these condemnations and proposals fell on deaf ears. On 21 March 2023, which marked the 100th day of the blockade of Artsakh, the office of the Ombudsman of Artsakh published an extensive report presenting the severe human rights violations due to the blockade.37 These human rights violations include:

r r r r r r

The movement of people passing through the Stepanakert-Goris highway (along the Lachin [C]orridor) has decreased by about 178 times (1,376 entries and departures instead of 245,000); Almost 43 times less car traffic was recorded on the road compared to what should have been in case of no blockade (2,154 car entries and departures, performed only by the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers, instead of 92,000); Approximately 11 times less vital cargo was imported compared to what should have been in case of no blockade (3,707 tons instead of 40,000 tons); A total of about 3,900 people, including 570 children, were unable to return to their homes due to the blockade; Due to the suspension of the pre-planned operations, about 900 citizens lost the opportunity to solve their health problems via operations; Azerbaijan has completely or partially interrupted the gas supply from Armenia to Artsakh for a total of 34 days;

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The electricity supply from Armenia to Artsakh has been completely cut for 71 days now, which led to the introduction of 6-hour rolling blackouts followed by numerous accidents; According to preliminary estimates, about 9,800 people have actually lost their jobs and sources of income (including cases of job retention), which is more than 50% of the total number of private sector employees; The disruption of the gas and electricity supplies has led to unplanned deforestation—about 6,200 more trees were cut, which, in its turn, will create additional and long-term problems in terms of ensuring a healthy environment; The country’s economy suffered loss in the amount of about USD 190 million, which led to the failure to meet the projected annual GDP figure of about 21% (USD 903 million); The construction of 32.6 km road, tens of kilometers of water pipeline, irrigation systems for thousands of hectares of land, 3,717 apartments, more than 40 social and industrial infrastructural facilities has been stopped; A number of violations of rights are more pronounced in [the] case of vulnerable groups, in particular 30,000 children, 9,000 people with disabilities, 20,000 older people, 60,000 women (women and girls) and 15,000 displaced persons.38

The detailed repercussions outlined by the Ombudsman of Artsakh demonstrate a grim picture of the situation on the ground and reveals the gravity of the humanitarian crisis. The International Criminal Justice Ruling: A Glimpse of Hope or Ink on Paper? Realizing that Azerbaijan’s regime was reluctant to lift the blockade, coupled with the futile efforts of the international community, Armenia filed a lawsuit with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29 December 2022 against Azerbaijan, asking the court to force Azerbaijan to remove the blockade of the Lachin Corridor and ensure the uninterrupted and free movement of people, vehicles, and cargo through the area. On 22 February 2023, the court reached a legally binding ruling after a 13–2 vote, thereby satisfying the request from Armenia and ordering Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin corridor in both directions.”39 Until the writing of this article, Azerbaijan is still in defiance of the ICJ ruling as the Lachin Corridor remains closed and the humanitarian crisis in Artsakh keeps deteriorating. On the 100th day of the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, Artur Tovmasyan, the speaker of Artsakh Parliament, said: “Democratic values are on one side of the scale, oil and gas are on the other. If, in fact, democratic values were more important to the big players, the road would have been unblocked long ago.”40 Indeed, Tovmasyan’s statement is a testimony as to why the international community is reluctant to take any concrete steps towards pressuring Azerbaijan to remove the blockade of the Lachin Corridor. Given the current international system, the energy crisis due to the Russian war on Ukraine, and the geostrategic position of Azerbaijan, ambivalence seems to be the best strategy for Western powers. Oil and gas are more important than any human rights violations. This brings us to the historical cycle of violence in which Armenians were, and are, found. The lack of humanitarian intervention, in conjunction with impunity and international apathy, resonates again as 120,000 Armenians are taken hostage. The Western powers supporting the claims of the despotic regime of Azerbaijan © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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for the sake of oil is reminiscent of Western powers scapegoating Armenians for their imperial ambitions in the course of history. Even though the ICJ ruling is legally binding, any judgments by the ICJ cannot be enforced on a country without the approval of the state. However, if Azerbaijan does not comply with the ICJ ruling, it might encourage other countries to apply sanctions. Nonetheless, given the fact that Ukraine preoccupies the attention and resources of Western powers, the ICJ ruling will remain on the back burner. Azerbaijan’s impunity and defiance does not render hope for any immediate resolution to the crisis.

Conclusion In a televised speech on 18 April 2023, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said: “Armenians living in Karabakh should either accept Azerbaijani citizenship or find another place to live. There is complete freedom in that, all democratic fundamentals have been offered. This issue should be resolved on the basis of human rights.”41 In this convoluted statement, Aliyev, on the one hand, implies that ethnic cleansing would be the only way to solve the Karabagh Question, knowing that Armenians of Artsakh will never agree to live under a despotic regime that promotes Armenophobia and anti-Armenianism. On the other hand, he implies that Armenian rights would be guaranteed as citizens of Azerbaijan. This oxymoronic statement portrays the pathological underpinnings of Aliyev’s ideology. While the first part of his statement gives the Armenians of Artsakh an ultimatum, the second part promises that they will live in peace and enjoy all rights as citizens of the state. Today, Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan as “Not Free” in its annual Freedom in the World report, with a score of 9 out of 100 (Armenia’s score is 55).42 Human rights violations in the country are rife with persecution of political opponents and journalists, arbitrary arrests, torture, indefinite detentions, forced disappearances, and gender-based violence.43 There is serious doubt that the Armenians of Artsakh will live in peace and prosperity under Aliyev’s rule. As time passes, the anti-Armenian rhetoric propagated by Aliyev’s regime is going to increase, and words might be followed by deeds. In the absence of humanitarian intervention, and with the presence of impunity and international apathy, anti-Armenian violence against both the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh will take new heights. The Russian peacekeepers seem to be inept at doing their jobs. They remind us of the Belgian peacekeepers in Rwanda before the Rwandan Genocide perpetrated by the Hutus, and the Dutch peacekeepers in Srebrenica before the Srebrenica Genocide where 8,000 Muslim men were massacred by units of the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of Ratko Mladi´c.44 After more than two years of the Second Nagorno-Karabagh War, many of the 14 common and specific risk factors for atrocity crimes identified by the UN Secretary-General’s Office on Genocide are present. These include the following: situations of armed conflict or other forms of instability, a record of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, motives or incentives, the capacity to commit atrocity crimes, an absence of mitigating factors, enabling circumstances or preparatory action, intergroup tensions or patterns of discrimination against protected groups, signs of an intent to destroy in whole or in part a protected group, signs of a plan or policy to attack any civilian population, and serious threats to those protected under international humanitarian law and to humanitarian or peacekeeping operations.45 Without serious steps taken by the United Nations and its Security Council, without sanctions being put on Azerbaijan, and without the threat of © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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using force, the situation will only lead to two possible scenarios: at minimum, ethnic cleansing and, at maximum, genocide by attrition. Bedross Der Matossian is a professor of modern Middle East history and the Hymen Rosenberg Professor in Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century and Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire.

Notes 1. On the UN Secretary General’s Statement see, “Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the SecretaryGeneral–on the Lachin Corridor [Armenia/Azerbaijan]”, December 14, 2022, https://www.un.org/sg/en/ content/sg/statement/2022-12-14/statement-attributable-the-spokesperson-for-the-secretary-general%E2%80%93-the-lachin-corridor-armeniaazerbaijan%C2%A0 (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 2. See Raymond H. Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011). 3. See George N. Shirinian, “Turks Who Saved Armenians: Righteous Muslims during the Armenian Genocide,” Genocide Studies International 9,2 (2015): 208–27. 4. Bedross Der Matossian, “The Ottoman Massacres of Armenians, 1894–1896 and 1909,” in Cambridge World History of Genocide, Vol. II, eds. Ned Backhawk, Ben Kiernan, Benjamin Madley, and Rebe Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2023), 609–33. Der Matossian, The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Twentieth Century (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2022). 5. Der Matossian, The Horrors of Adana, 9–10. 6. Vahakn N. Dadrian, “Impunity,” in Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, vol. 2, ed. Dinah Shelton (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 489–91. 7. For the origins of humanitarian intervention see, Garry Johnathan Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008). 8. Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815–914 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012); Michelle Elizabeth Tusan, The British Empire and the Armenian Genocide: Humanitarianism and the Politics of Empire from Gladstone to Churchill (London: I. B. Tauris, 2016); Keith David Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland, CA: U of California P, 2016); Charlie Laderman, Sharing the Burden: The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global Order (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2019). 9. Rodogno, Against Massacre, 2. 10. Rodogno, 255. 11. Der Matossian, “The Ottoman Massacres of Armenians,” 609–24. 12. Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Affaires arméniennes: projets de réformes dans l’empire ottoman 1839–97, Documents Diplomatiques (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1897), 43–56; and see also Great Britain, Foreign Office, Blue Book: Turkey. 1896, No. 1 (Correspondence Respecting the Introduction of Reforms in the Armenian Provinces of Asiatic Turkey) (London: Harrison and Sons, 1896), 74–80. 13. Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Affaires arméniennes; 54. On the Hamidiye Regiments see Janet Klein, The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford UP, 2011). 14. Arman J. Kirakossian, The Armenian Massacres 1894–6: U.S. Media Testimony (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004); Kirakossian, The Armenian Massacres 1894–1896: British Media Testimony (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2004). 15. See Bedross Der Matossian, Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the End of the Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2022). 16. Der Matossian, The Horrors of Adana, 153–82. 17. Der Matossian, 183–206. 18. See Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide; U˘gur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–50 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012); Ronald Grigor Suny, “They Can Live in the Desert © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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but Nowhere Else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2015); Ümit Kurt, The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2021). 19. Suny, “They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else”, 358. 20. Suny, 222. 21. Cited in Egon Schwelb, “Crimes Against Humanity,” British Year Book of International Law 23 (1946): 178– 226, at 181. 22. For a detailed account of American humanitarian efforts during the Armenian Genocide, see James L. Barton, Story of the Near East Relief (1915–30): An Interpretation (New York: Macmillan, 1930). 23. Source: NA/RG59/867.4016/76, Henry Morgenthau to Secretary of State, July 16, 1915, in Sarafian, United States Official Records on the Armenian Genocide 1915–7, 55. 24. Henry Morgenthau III, Mostly Morgenthaus: A Family History, (Massachusetts: Ticknor and Fields, 1991), 170. 25. Wolfgang Gust, ed., The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–6 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014). 26. Khatchig Mouradian, The Resistance Network: The Armenian Genocide and Humanitarianism in Ottoman Syria, 1915–8 (East Lansing: Michigan State UP, 2021). 27. For a comprehensive study of the trials see, Vahakn N. Dadrian and Taner Akçam, Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011). 28. “Armenian PM says Almost 3,800 Soldiers Killed in War with Azerbaijan,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 24 August 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-deaths-karabakh-war/31425644.html (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 29. “187 Armenian Soldiers, 21 Civilians Missing since 2020 War; Mirzoyan Says 38 Remain POWs,” Asbarez, 21 March 2022, https://asbarez.com/187-armenian-soldiers-21-civilians-missing-since-2020-war-mirzoyansays-38-remain-pows (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 30. “Azerbaijan: Attack on Church Possible War Crime: Investigate and Hold Those Responsible to Account,” Human Rights Watch, 16 December 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/16/azerbaijan-attackchurch-possible-war-crime (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 31. “Azerbaijan: Attack on Church Possible War Crime: Investigate and Hold Those Responsible to Account,” Human Rights Watch, 16 December 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/16/azerbaijan-attackchurch-possible-war-crime (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 32. On 17 February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. 33. Sébastien Gray (January 9, 2023). “Artsakh Blockade Nearing 1 Month, Shortages Widespread,” Atlas News. Retrieved January 10, 2023. 34. Ani Avetisyan, “Nagorno-Karabakh reports gas cut for second time since start of blockade,” OC Media. Retrieved date? 35. “Azerbaijan: Blockade of Lachin corridor putting thousands of lives in peril must be immediately lifted,” Amnesty International, 9 February 2023. (Accessed 9 February 2023). 36. European Parliament, “Joint Motion for a Resolution on the Humanitarian Consequences of the Blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh- RC-B9-0075/2023,” 18 January 2023, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/ document/RC-9-2023-0075_EN.html (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 37. “A New Report of the Human Rights Defender on Violations of Individual and Collective Human Rights as a Result of the 100-day Blockade of Artsakh by Azerbaijan,” 21 March 2023, https://artsakhombuds.am/en/ document/1004 (accessed 17 Apr 2023). 38. “A New Report of the Human Rights Defender.” 39. “UN Court Orders Azerbaijan To Unblock Lachin Corridor Amid Armenian Accusations Of ’Ethnic Cleansing,” Radio Liberty, 22 February 2023, https://www.rferl.org/a/azarbaijan-un-court-unblock-lachincorridor-karabakh-armenia/32283560.html (accessed 15 Apr 2023). 40. “The 100th day of the Lachin corridor blockade,” JAM News, 21 March 2023, https://jam-news.net/100thday-of-the-lachin-corridor-blockade/ (accessed 15 Apr 2023). © Zoryan Institute, 2023

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41. “Armenians living in Karabakh should either accept Azerbaijani citizenship or find another place to live–President Ilham Aliyev,” Azerbaycan 24, 18 April 2023, https://www.azerbaycan24.com/en/ armenians-living-in-karabakh-should-either-accept-azerbaijani-citizenship-or-find-another-place-tolive-president-ilham-aliyev/ (accessed 15 Apr 2023). 42. “Freedom in the World: Azerbaijan” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/country/azerbaijan/ freedom-world/2022 (accessed 15 Apr 2023). 43. “World Report: Azerbaijan Events of 2021,” Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/ country-chapters/azerbaijan (accessed 15 Apr 2023). 44. Chris McGreal, “What’s the Point of Peacekeepers when they don’t Keep the Peace?” The Guardian, 15 September 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/17/un-united-nations-peacekeepersrwanda-bosnia (accessed 15 Apr 2023). 45. United Nations, Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes: A Tool for Prevention (New York: United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and Responsibility to Protect, 2014).

© Zoryan Institute, 2023

Genocide Studies International 15, no. 1

doi:10.3138/GSI-2023-0008