- December 20, 2023
Breaking
Founding International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo published a follow-up report on genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh. In the report, Ocampo asserts that state parties’ obligation to prevent genocide requires the continued assessment of “President Aliyev’s genocidal intention to attack Armenia, ensure reparations for those who have lost their lives and property in Nagorno-Karabakh, guarantee the rights of the ethnic group to return to their ancestral land safely, and to release the Armenian prisoners.”
Read the full report: Click Here.
In August of 2023, Ocampo issued an expert opinion to raise
the alarm regarding ongoing genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno- Karabakh, also known as Artsakh. He asserted that the blockade of the Lachin Corridor by Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to food, medical supplies, and other essentials constituted genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”
On September 6, 2023, Ocampo testified before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission reiterating his conclusion that there is a reasonable basis to believe that Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor constitutes genocide under Article II c) of the Convention. In his House testimony, Ocampo said: “There is no mass killing, but this type of genocide does not require actual destruction. The crime is committed when the conditions planned for physical destruction are created.”
Azerbaijan’s September 19 military assault on Nagorno-Karabakh came less than two weeks after his House testimony and less than one week after Acting Assistant Secretary of State Yuri Kim told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the “United States will not countenance any action or effort—short-term or long-term—to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“Ocampo was right in August, September and now in December. Aliyev may act with impunity in his own dictatorship but there must accountability for crimes committed against Armenians,” said Global ARM President Timothy Jemal. “We are pleased Secretary Blinken is supporting efforts to gather evidence regarding the events that took place in the past year in Nagorno-Karabakh starting with the blockade that ended with the forced deportation of 120,000 Armenians. Lasting peace in the South Caucasus can only occur when there is accountability for Azerbaijan’s actions and Armenians can return to live on their indigenous lands freely and without fear of force, intimidation and discrimination.”
Center for Truth & Justice Publishes Report Detailing Azerbaijani Crimes in Nagorno-Karabakh
The Center for Truth & Justice (CFTJ) published a report, “What happened to all the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh?”, detailing a disturbing pattern of human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, disregard for international law and genocide on the part of Azerbaijan towards the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Read the full report: Click Here.
Using testimonial evidence, CFTJ describes Azerbaijan’s relentless efforts to starve, terrorize, kidnap and murder Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s state- sponsored campaign to ethnically cleanse and force deportations of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is consistent with its decades-long practice to erase any evidence of an Armenian presence.
On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked military assault forcing over 100,000 indigenous Armenians no alternative but to be forcibly deported from their ancestral lands, and millennia-old monasteries and cemeteries. The CFTJ report describes Azerbaijan’s military onslaught, which included the targeting of civilians, followed a suffocating, illegal 9-month blockade preventing food, fuel, medicine and electricity to the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. The report notes that for the first time in history, Nagorno-Karabakh stands devoid of its indigenous Armenian population.