Friday, August 11 2023 13:34

ArmInfo. Is Nagorno-Karabakh the New Darfur? Dr Michael Rubin, asks a rhetorical question in his  article published on the website of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI is an independent non-state research institute of the United States of a conservative persuasion.

Thus, according to the source,he notes that speaking at the United  Nations last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke out about  famine, quoting President Biden's declaration, "If parents cannot  feed their children, nothing else matters." It was unfortunate, but  symptomatic of his cynicism, that Blinken ignored the famine underway  in Nagorno-Karabakh caused exclusively by Azerbaijan's illegal  blockade.

"Not everyone ignores the crisis. On August 7, 2023, Luis Moreno  Ocampo, the former prosecutor for the International Criminal Court,  issued an opinion labeling the deliberate starvation of  Nagorno-Karabakh's 120,000 Christians to be an act of genocide.

Rather than stand on principle, Biden and Blinken fund Azerbaijan as  it perpetrates ethnic cleansing. Such funding is illegal. Azerbaijan  neither meets the terms of a waiver on Section 907 of the Freedom  Support Act to allow American aid due to President Ilham Aliyev's  open calls for a military solution, nor does the Humanitarian Aid  Corridors Act allow the United States to provide assistance to any  country that interferes with the delivery of American assistance to  any other territory or entity. Azerbaijan's illegal blockade of the  Lachin corridor does just that. Unlike with Section 907, there is no  waiver.

Aliyev argues Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijani territory, and that its  residents must subordinate to his rule, one of the world's most  authoritarian dictatorships. For too long, the State Department has  deferred to Aliyev's claim of sovereignty. US recognition of  Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno- Karabakh upon Azerbaijan's  renewed independence was never cut-and-dry; rather, recognition of  sovereignty over the region depended upon Azerbaijan's agreement to  peaceful resolution of the dispute and balancing principles of  territorial integrity and self-determination. Even if Blinken bullies  Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan into renouncing Armenian  claims over the region, Pashinyan has neither the right nor the  ability to forfeit residents' legal rights to self-determination.

Aliyev believes that he is absolute sovereign over the territory;  this exposes his sense of impunity. If Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenians  are Azerbaijani citizens as he insists, then his deliberate  starvation of the community suggests parallels at play between Aliyev  and Omar al-Bashir, the former dictator of Sudan, who targeted for  genocide the inhabitants of Darfur. That they were Sudanese citizens  did not mean open season for slaughter. Sudan, like Azerbaijan, is  not party to the Rome Statute, and thus does not place itself under  the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction. Still, the UN  Security Council passed a resolution to extend ICC jurisdiction over  Sudan for crimes in Darfur enabling Bashir's indictment.

It is unlikely the UN Security Council treat Azerbaijan the same way.  While the United States, France, and Russia might hold Aliyev to  account, China is a wildcard and the United Kingdom would veto due to  BP's multibillion dollar partnership with Aliyev. Even if London  stood on principle, Azerbaijan would buy the votes of non-permanent  Security Council members to hamper any resolution.  There is another  path to an Aliyev indictment, however, as Azerbaijan has ratified the  Convention Against Genocide.

For too long, the State Department has believed balance the key to  successful diplomacy. This is wrong, as Aliyev only stakes out more  extreme positions figuring Blinken will simply meet him in the  middle. The latest example are arguments Azerbaijan voiced yesterday  that Armenia is to blame for starvation in Artsakh. This is akin to a  judge privileging a child who murders his parents because he is an  orphan.

It is time instead for USAID to send trucks flying the American flag  to the Lachin corridor under the observation of US diplomats  stationed in both Armenia and Azerbaijan. If Azerbaijan impedes  diplomats' movement, it is time to send its ambassador home. If it  refuses to allow the flow of relief supplies or, worse, threatens to  kill Western observers as Azerbaijan's ambassador in Brussels  recently did, then it is time for sanctions. There is no shortage of  options. Biden can put an end to the Section 907 waiver, enforce of  the Humanitarian Assistance Corridors Act, designate under the  Magnitsky Act, and even support Aliyev's indictment under the  Genocide Convention.  Africans are right to argue that near exclusive  indictment of Africans by international courts and tribunals is  unseemly if not racist. Bashir is still a fugitive, but Liberia's  Charles Taylor could use a roommate. Aliyev could be just that man,"  he concludes.