Rafaela Prifti/
February 1 – Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights hosted a webinar “to discuss prospects of PREVENTING A SECOND ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”. As a result of the virtual closure in December 2022 of the Lachin corridor, a road that links Armenia and the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the humanitarian situation is rapidly deteriorating into a crisis. David L. Phillips, the Institute’s Director of the Program on Peacebuilding and Human Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, moderated the event online. Phillips, who served as foreign affairs expert and senior adviser to the US Department of State in several prior US administrations, is a respected scholar and a well known personality for the Albanian community here as well as Albanians abroad.
What are the implications of a blockade? (Is it ringing any bells yet?)
The 50 day blockade of the Lachin corridor raises a number of issues ranging from humanitarian and security to the international confidence in the peace process. It has been under reported by the media yet the issue has received the attention of UN Security Council, UNICEF and the US Department of State. Speaking as a guest at the webinar, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, called again upon Biden administration to engage beyond its support for dialogue. In the past, Senator Van Hollen has demanded the US to cease its security assistance to Azerbajan as cross border clashes continue. He has cosponsored resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that “it is the policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance.” He is also an outspoken critic of the Azerbaijani authorities subjecting the Armenian population to ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan’s closure of the corridor is seen as a bid to depopulate the territory from Armenians who live there while the genocidal intent is expressed publicly by the government officials and the head of the state, Ilham Aliyev. Ruben Vardanyan, State Minister of Artsakh, gave a brief overview of the region’s history before presenting the dire conditions in the region. Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), is a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. “The current clash,” he said, “is not an ethnic conflict, but rather a battle between the autocratic rule of Azerbaijan and the democratic state of Armenia.”
Long Overdue, Armenian Genocide Formally Recognized by US in 2021
Van Z. Krikorian, Co-Chair of the Armenian Assembly of America, Adjunct Professor at Pace University School of Law, debunked Azerbaijani accusations with regard to the military presence in the region or the environmental protection claims and so on. He praised the ongoing work of the Biden administration towards the prevention of future genocides “as we call for democracy in Artsakh”. More than a 100 years ago, the first phase of the Armenian genocide began on April 24, 1915 with the Ottoman government killing more than one million Armenians, roughly 70 percent of the total Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire. The wide-scale extermination and subsequent lack of accountability inspired Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to conceptualize the concept of genocide—a word he coined in 1944—and campaign for its criminalization. (The Auschwitz Institute) The US formally declared that the systemic mass killing and deportation of Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was “genocide”. At the commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in April 2021, President Biden recognized that the events that began in 1915 were a deliberate effort to wipe out Armenians.
The Politics of Conflicts
Although Armenia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence (February 17, 2008), Armenia immediately welcomed the decision by the ICJ in 2010, saying it may help international recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh. The world court ruled that Kosovo Independence is in line with international law. States with minority problems have thus far adamantly opposed recognizing the new entity to prevent a potentially devastating spillover effect in their countries, arguing that the controversial ruling might boost secessionist movements all over the world (The Economist, July 2010).
Why it matters?
At many points during the webinar there were notable resemblances and similarities with the history of the Cham population, the massacre and expulsion of Muslim ethnic Albanian inhabitants from Greek territory from 1912-1945, also the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Albanians including the systemic violence, killings and mass deportations with the aim of exterminating the Albanian population in the region.
Cham Expulsion, Kosovo Ethnic Cleansing, No Accountability for State Crimes
The unresolved issues underscore the lack of accountability. Neither Greece, nor Serbia are held accountable for the actions perpetrated by the state or with the complicity of the state agencies. The forced movement of the entire Albanian Muslim population from Greece has left a lingering sense of injustice amongst Albanians in general. (Miranda Vickers) The blockade of Lachin, since December 2022, is eerily similar to the Serbs’ tactics in Kosovo. What’s more, all these cases serve as a reminder that accountability is a battle that must be fought every day, not with one protest or one parade but by constantly rallying together as a community, speaking out and pressing the issues in front of the state politicians, government officials and elected representatives in the US, Albania and Kosovo.
Note: The name Kosovo is the most frequently used form in English for Kosova.