Thursday, June 6 2024 12:13

ArmInfo.The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention has issues a statement on the Genocidal State  of Azerbaijan Hosting COP29. 

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention opposes the decision by  the United Nations to name Azerbaijan as host of COP29, the annual UN  climate change summit, given Azerbaijan's genocidal strategies in  Nagorno-Karabakh, the genocidal Armenophobic ideology of its leader,  President Ilham Aliyev, and the extensive corruption and human rights  abuses at home. By granting Azerbaijan the honor of hosting this  important event, the UN is endorsing genocidal speech, genocidal  policies, and dictatorship, which benefits neither the climate nor  the people of the world. The choice of Azerbaijan as COP host  legitimizes, rationalizes, and normalizes genocide in world politics.  Furthermore, it threatens the credibility of the principles  established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate  Change. In the interests of genocide prevention, human rights, and  the legitimacy of the United Nations as a body representing the  people of the world, the United Nations must rescind Azerbaijan's  recognition as host of COP29 and either find another host country or  hold this year's meeting in Bonn, Germany, COP's default meeting  place.

Azerbaijan was chosen to host COP29 through an established UN  mechanism in December 2023, less than three months after it had  overseen the genocide through "ethnic cleansing" of Armenians from  the region of Nagorno-Karabakh ("Artsakh" to Armenians) and following  a ten-month-long genocidal blockade of the territory. The exodus from  Artsakh - which ended an almost 4,000-year-old continuous presence by  one of the oldest Christian communities in the world - was one of the  most effective genocides of recent times. To celebrate Azerbaijan's  "victory" against the Armenians of Artsakh, President Aliyev even lit  a bonfire in the Artsakh capital of Stepanakert for what he called a  "final cleaning" on the occasion of Nowruz. President Aliyev viewed  the choice of Azerbaijan as COP29 host to be an endorsement of his  genocidal policies towards Armenians (among other things). Upon  hearing the news, he stated: "We consider it as a sign of respect  from the international community to Azerbaijan and what we are  doing."

It cannot be forgotten that during the 2020 war between Azerbaijan  and Artsakh, Azerbaijani soldiers were guilty of engaging in extreme  and horrific atrocities against disarmed Armenian soldiers as well as  Armenian civilians, including elderly and disabled people. These  documented atrocities include beheadings, mutilations of Armenians  while still alive, torture, and ritual humiliations of Armenians  solely because of their identity, as evidenced by the use of flags  and songs. When Azerbaijan started an aggressive war against Armenia  in 2022, it engaged in similar atrocities, including the use of  sexualized violence against Armenian women and the massacre of  disarmed Armenian soldiers. There has been no accountability for  these crimes. They are reminiscent of the genocidal atrocities  committed against Armenians by Turkish and Azeri troops, gendarmes,  soldiers, and civilians from 1915-1923 and help explain why it was so  easy for Azerbaijan to terrorize the Armenians of Artsakh into flight  with its invasion of the territory on September 19, 2023.

Apart from blockading the estimated 120,000 Armenians of  Nagorno-Karabakh for ten months, invading the territory, and forcing  the flight of almost the totality of that population, Azerbaijan also  has been methodically destroying Armenian cultural heritage in  Artsakh. If nothing is done about this, Artsakh will become like  Nakhchivan, the Azerbaijani exclave that at one time had a  significant Armenian population but now has none, where Azerbaijan  has already destroyed an estimated 98 percent of Armenian cultural  heritage, including churches, cemeteries, and monasteries.

Beyond these crimes, Azerbaijan continues to illegally detain  Armenian POWs, civilians, and democratically-elected members of the  Artsakh government, including Ruben Vardanyan, the noted  international humanitarian who co-founded the Aurora Humanitarian  Initiative. There is strong evidence of the repeated use of torture  against Armenian hostages.

Azerbaijan routinely flouts international law by ignoring treaties  and judgements by international courts.  The 2022 war against  Armenia, the ten-month blockade of Artsakh, and the invasion of  Artsakh on September 19, were all violations of the Tripartite  Ceasefire Statement agreed to by Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia in  November 2020, which ended the 2020 war. Moreover, Azerbaijan has  ignored and violated provisional measures ordered by the  International Court of Justice on 7 December 2021, 22 February 2023,  6 July 2023, and 17 November 2023.

It also bears mentioning that Azerbaijan has a dismal human rights  record at home that is only getting worse. From 2023 to 2024,  Azerbaijan's Freedom Record declined by 2 points, from 9 to 7 (out of  100), making it one of the most authoritarian governments in the  world. Furthermore, actions of Azerbaijan and the Aliyev regime in  regard to land use and preserving the natural climate stand in direct  opposition to the core principles at the heart of the COP29  conference. Not only is Azerbaijan a petrostate that relies on fossil  fuel exports, but also the state energy and natural resource  industries in Azerbaijan are riddled with corruption, placing the  country in direct opposition to one of COP29's stated goals, which is  the completion of the first enhanced transparency framework.

Azeri officials have claimed they want "to make COP29 a COP of  peace". The Lemkin Institute finds such assertions to be absurd,  embarrassing, and deeply cynical, given what we all know about the  Aliyev regime.  If Azerbaijan truly wants to demonstrate its  commitment to peacebuilding, it should start by facilitating the  immediate and unconditional release of its political prisoners. If  this small step cannot be taken, their true intentions are clear. At  a time when the world population has lost faith in international  institutions, the United Nations needs to get its head out of the  sand and end its diplomatic sponsorship of the genocidal state of  Azerbaijan, starting with COP29.