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The identical September week {that a} mass grave was found in Izium, Ukraine, Azerbaijan launched brutal assaults on the sovereign territory of Armenia, killing a whole lot. The primary occasion was on the entrance web page of The New York Occasions, in The Washington Publish, and on CNN, and denounced by world leaders and worldwide organizations. The latter was a one-day story that was swiftly buried.
I used to be not shocked. Bored with the world’s mayhem, we choose and select which outrages truly trigger us outrage. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is seen as a rogue energy — whereas the kleptocratic dictatorship of Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev flies beneath the radar. It’s comprehensible in a approach, because the corruption is evident however the underlying points are advanced. So let me attempt to simplify.
Because it helps any story to function a cartoonishly evil antagonist, I’m glad to report all of it started with Joseph Stalin.
On July 4, 1921, the Caucasus bureau of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Celebration voted to combine the mountainous Karabagh area — at the moment, a lot of Azerbaijan and jap Armenia, 95 % of whose inhabitants was ethnically Armenian — into Armenia. The logical thought was to create ethnically cohesive republics within the Soviet Union.
However the Soviet chief had extra intelligent plans: He wished the republics to not make sense, to cut back their probabilities of ever succeeding as viable international locations. So the following day, he intervened to combine Karabagh into Soviet Azerbaijan, as a part of an autonomous province.
It was a blow to the Armenians, coming just some years after large energy machinations additionally ceded the historic Armenian cities of Kars and Ardahan to Turkey and Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan. In 1915, round 1.5 million Armenians have been slaughtered by the Turks, giving start to the time period “genocide.”
On the breakup of the Soviet Union within the Nineteen Nineties, the Armenians of the Nagorno-Karabakh province overwhelmingly voted to hitch Armenia. Azerbaijan reacted with pogroms of Armenians in Azerbaijan and navy assaults on Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenians prevailed militarily and established a robust mannequin of autonomy and democracy freed from Azerbaijan’s dictatorship.
Then got here 2020, when Azerbaijan, with the assistance of Turkey, attacked once more. A brutal 44-day conflict took the lives of 1000’s, with Azerbaijan occupying the disputed territory and displacing tens of 1000’s of Armenians. Not glad, Aliyev is now attempting to take over territory in sovereign Armenia itself.
Traditionally, Russia has been the safety guarantor of Armenia. However Russia, distracted by the folly of its imperial ambitions in Ukraine, has deserted Armenia and additional cozied as much as Turkey and Azerbaijan. Given the Western disinterest, Armenians really feel deserted to their destiny.
Lined up in opposition to them is a very odious iteration of Azerbaijan: It’s a nation with extraordinarily low freedom and even decrease human-rights rankings that’s run as a non-public enterprise of the Aliyevs. Ilham, an autocrat of the Dr. Evil selection, inherited his fiefdom from his KGB dad, Heydar, made his spouse vp, and runs the energy-wealthy nation like a money machine to purchase silence all over the world.
His ally, Turkish President Recep Teyyip Erdogan, is a thuggish Islamist autocrat ruling over a pretend-democracy that oppresses its Kurdish minority, invades Syria, and rattles its saber at Cyprus, Greece, and Armenia.
Putin — properly, you all find out about Putin.
It most likely gained’t shock you that this tyrannical triumvirate is engaged on a fossil-fuel-energy play centered round … Azerbaijan. Basically, they should run oil and pure gasoline from Azerbaijan, in addition to Iran, to Turkey and onward, to no matter European nation will conform to have it — which requires a hall by means of Armenia. They’d prefer to possess and management such a hall, which fits a protracted approach to clarify this final invasion. Furthermore, Russia’s Lukoil owns roughly 25 % of Azerbaijan’s Caspian oil reserves — so Putin will nonetheless be within the recreation, even when Europe refuses to purchase from Moscow straight.
U.S. displeasure with the pipeline is one cause why some U.S. politicians are attempting to develop into extra concerned in establishing a long-term cease-fire. It additionally explains why Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to Yerevan, the capitol of Armenia, in September and publicly referred to as out Azerbaijani aggression.
However Europe, obsessive about its power safety, has been way more inclined to appease Aliyev. Certainly, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Fee, not too long ago inked a gasoline deal, calling Aliyev “dependable” — which is claimed to have emboldened him to assault Armenia a couple of weeks later.
Are Europeans effective with watching Azerbaijan ethnically cleanse Nagorno-Karabagh and Armenia for a mere improve of 1 % of their power wants from dictator Aliyev of Azerbaijan? I don’t assume so. Perhaps most are unaware.
They need to ask the Lemkin Institute, Human Rights Watch, and different watchdog organizations, who’ve not too long ago raised pink flags on Azerbaijan’s genocidal acts towards Armenians. Azerbaijan is a rustic the place youngsters are raised from a younger age to hate Armenians, which can clarify the a number of current movies of extra-judicial killings of POWs by Azeri troopers, coupled with unspeakable mutilations of Armenian troopers and civilians.
Azerbaijan has develop into a world pariah for a lot of vacationers who’ve visited Nagorno-Karabagh, together with Anthony Bourdain, whom I had the privilege of taking to Armenia in 2017 for CNN’s Components Unknown. Tony had nothing however disdain for the likes of Aliyev, Erdogan, and Putin. I had warned him of being blacklisted; his response was one thing alongside the traces of “I don’t give a fuck.”
It seems neither do most others — however within the reverse approach.
I used to be not too long ago advised that as a consequence of protection of the conflict in Ukraine and the protests in Iran, media firms don’t have bandwidth for different worldwide human-rights tragedies. However unique empathy for the victims of our accepted worldwide enemies is hypocritical.
Whereas all this is happening, worldwide soccer video games are performed in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, Method 1 races are scheduled there for subsequent spring, and theaters and music venues are booked with worldwide acts.
We must always take our instance from a couple of courageous Ukrainians, like pop star Max Barskih, who canceled his gig, declaring that “any nation that enables aggression in opposition to one other nation shouldn’t be a spot for my concert events.” Or Ukrainian singer Tina Karol, who adopted swimsuit by canceling her personal present in Baku and posting “Armenian Lives Matter” on Instagram. I’m grateful for such acts of solidarity.
It’s time to cancel and sanction Azerbaijan, including it to the checklist of nations committing gross human-rights violations and conflict crimes in our lifetime. By no means once more — proper?
Serj Tankian is an Armenian American singer, musician, songwriter, and activist.
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