Expert: The circus surrounding the “Albanization” of Armenian culture in the presence of foreign ambassadors in occupied Artsakh is genocide

ArmInfo.  The actions carried out by Azerbaijani Presidential Assistant Hikmet Hajiyev [in the broad sense—and by the Azerbaijani state] regarding Armenian heritage in occupied Artsakh fully correspond to the definition given by Raphael Lemkin, the author of the term “genocide.” Genocide scholar Suren Manukyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

In this context, he quoted excerpts from the definition describing crimes against humanity.

He recalled that “genocide... represents a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at destroying the essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the purpose of annihilating the groups themselves. Genocide consists of two phases: the first is the destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group, and the second is the imposition of the national pattern of the conqueror. This imposition, in turn, may be applied either to the subjugated population, which is allowed to remain, or only to the territory—after the population has been expelled and the territory colonized by the conqueror’s own citizens.” (Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Carnegie Endowment, 1944), ch. IX, p. 79).”

“This circus of the ‘Albanization’ of Armenian culture in the presence of foreign ambassadors, as well as Azerbaijan’s policy of erasing and appropriating the Armenian heritage of Artsakh, is precisely that ‘destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group and imposition of the national pattern of the conqueror,’” Manukyan wrote, commenting on the visit of foreign diplomats accredited in Azerbaijan to occupied Artsakh and the bacchanalia staged by Hajiyev on camera at Armenian spiritual sanctuaries.