Translation of an article by Antonia Arslan, originally featured in La Stampa.
Lies have short legs. But sometimes – as in the case of the letter from Prof. Daniel Pommier Vincelli in La Stampa on 22 December, published with the title “Azerbaijan reclaims its own legitimate borders. It’s the Russian interference that makes the situation worse” – they don’t have any legs at all.
We would like to draw attention to the article’s most blatant statements and omissions. In response to the claim that “the expulsion of the [Azerbaijani] civic population” from Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990’s was “technically the largest ethnic cleansing of the 20th century,” we would like to humbly remind Prof. Vincelli that there are numerous – and well known – genocides and instances of ethinic cleansing in the 20th century, that primarily targeted Armenians and Jews. There were also the Ukrainian Holodomor (recounted in the beautiful film Mr. Jones of 2019), Rwanda, Cambodia, the Balkans… As for the “ethnic cleansing” of Azerbaijan itself, we recall that it produced about 400,000 Armenian refugees. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, Armenians are “the most vulnerable group in Azerbaijan in the field of racism and radical discrimination” (2006).
To the statement that “Armenia … [wrested] from Azerbaijan not only the Karabakh region” and to the description of the first Nagorno-Karabakh war as “the Armenian invasion of Azerbaijani territories,” we would point out that autochthonous or indigenous populations are not commonly defined as “invaders.” “Invaders” come from outside. Armenians, on the other hand, come from within: they are indigenous to those lands. The official language of the autonomous region (oblast) of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had its own autonomous Soviet, was Aremnian.
Finally: Vincelli was right to cite th UN’s “right to self-defense as per Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.” He was wrong not to have mentioned that other fundamental right recognized by the UN: the right to self-determination of peoples (Resolution 1514 (XV), December 14, 1960).
And now we come to the omissions. What is more incredible about Vincelli’s letter is his desire to “sweep” the threat to the indigenous Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh (held at bay by the Soviet Union, while it lasted) “under the carpet.” As Sohrab Ahmari recalls in his masterful article on the events of Artsakh (last December 22), as long as the Soviet existed, the Armenians of Karabakh managed to coexist with non-Armenians. But with its weakening, they saw again the specter of 20th century pogroms. For them, fighting became a matter of survival.
Shameful then is Vincelli’s silence on the Azeri beheadings of the inhabitants of Artsakh, on the torture of Armenian civilians and prisoners of war, on the videos (which they spread on social media) of mutilated women, on the shameful Victory Park created by Aliyev in Baku at the end of the war; not to mention of the assassination in his sleep of Armenian officer Gurgen Markaryan, struck 16 times with an axe by Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov in Budapest, during the NATO exercises of January 2004. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Safarov was repatriated after a secret negotiation with the Hungarian government, and celebrated in his homeland as a national hero… All of these things are amply documented and reported by the newspapers.
And what about the “Akram Aylisli case”? The eighty-five-year-old writer, one of the best known and most celebrated Azeri authors, wrote a short novel, Stone Dreams (2013), also published in Italy by Guerini, with a preface by Gian Antonio Stella. A charming little story of brotherhood and peace set in Baku, in which an old Azeri actor ends up in hospital for defending an Armenian from a lynch mob, and in his delirium he recalls the peaceful coexistence in his native village. Aylisli has become an outcast: declared an apostate, expelled from the Azerbaijani Writers’ Union, deprived of his pension, prevented from leaving the country…
And finally, why do you speak of “a historical premise, that becomes an ethical-political value”? Do we really want to discuss ethics, Prof. Vincelli? Why don’t we start by telling the truth? As Kant reminds us, lies themselves are unethical: mendacium est falsiloquium in praeiudicium alterius.
But precisely in these days of December (with sinister irony one could say in “preparation” for Christmas), here is the latest episode of this ruthless underground war, clearly intended to displace the remaining 120,000 Armenian inhabitants of Karabakh: the blockade of the corridor of Lachin, the last road – which remained operational under the control of the Russian military – which connects this enclave inhabited for millennia by the Armenian people of the world.
It is a move that follows last July’s bombings, that targeted several border villages – and Jermuk, the famous spa resort in Armenia proper – and produced more dead and wounded. A perverse game of cat and mouse, the aim of which is to increase the anxiety and anguish of the these poor and stubborn mountaineers, who cling, like oysters, to the rock of their native land, where they returned after the war of autumn 2020, won by Azerbaijan with the support of Turkich drones and jihadist Syrian militia. In short, its aim is to make them miserable refugees, like those unfortunate survivors of the 1915-1922 genocide, who not by chance were called “the remains of the sword” in Turkey.
The current total blockade of the Lachin corridor, implemented by self-styled Azerbaijani “environmentalists” 18 days ago, is strangling the Armenians of Karabakh. All activity is stopping within their borders. In the harsh Caucasian winter, there is a shortage of oil. There is a lack of or shirtage of fruit, vegetables, sugar and many other things of daily use, which usually come from Armenia. The 612 students – whose ages range from 4 to 27 years old – of the Italian-Armenian educational complex (Antonia Arslan Hamalir), founded a few years ago by CINF, and Italian-American foundation, are forced to stay at home in the cold.
Thus did they spend Christmas, and thus will they spend New Year’s. And the Western world is silent, or looks the other way whistling.
Prof. Antonia Arslan (University of Padua)
Prof. Siobhan Nash-Marshall (Manhattanville College, New York)