Bay Area Armenians Hold Virtual Town Hall on Artsakh Blockade Crisis

Akopyan further discussed the positive influence of more attention being paid to Artsakh in the international media, mentioning journalist Lara Setrakian’s article in the outlet Foreign Policy. He mentioned that international observers following Armenia and Artsakh are “between a rock and a hard place,” needing to rely on Russia and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO), which is not really doing much to help, while Russia has become the primary villain in international media due to its invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, some writers have been trying to project the idea that next to Ukraine, Armenia is on the front lines of the struggle between democracy and autocracy.

In contrast to Poghosyan, Akopyan was much more skeptical of the Russian role in the conflict. “I am not sure of the value of the Russian promises,” regarding their promises to stay in Artsakh, he said, adding that the situation changed with the war in Ukraine. He concluded that the solution is to make Armenia and Artsakh strong using more alliances and increased military capacity.

During the question-and-answer section, he also voiced that making the argument to the UN and the international community would involve making comparisons to the Berlin Airlift of 1948, the US military support for the unrecognized nation of Somaliland, and other similar situations in recent or past history where an unrecognized or blockaded area was given humanitarian aid despite political issues. Hamparian took another pragmatic approach, one that was more cynical of the true role of the international community and the sway held by concepts of democracy and human rights.

“In any crisis, you have to mitigate any harm, survive the crisis, and look for opportunities,” he stated. Some of the opportunities that exist are the “internationalization” of the Artsakh crisis, the spotlight on Azerbaijani intentions, and the humanitarian issue. While these can be used, Hamparian was much more critical of the motives of state actors and took an approach that takes realpolitik into account.

Hamparian referred to different streams of thought in Armenian politics over the years. One school of thought is that a “land for peace” deal can create a stable equilibrium and bring much-desired peace to the Armenian people. In other words, by making territorial concessions to Azerbaijan or Turkey, some Armenians have tried to use that as a way to gain peace for Armenia as a whole. Hamparian argued that there is no such “transactional path to peace” that such an argument envisions, but that Artsakh and Armenia are in an “existential” environment, not a “transactional” one. The Turks and Azerbaijanis desire to either eliminate the Armenians — or at least to marginalize them — until they are insignificant. Hamparian noted that in the US, while there are those who are concerned with the humanitarian crisis, “nobody in DC is losing any sleep over this,” he stated.

The basic approach that most US government officials are taking is that the conflict is the fault of “both sides.” US officials know who the aggressor is but refuse to say it, he added. They would rather the issue resolve itself without US involvement, and if at the end of the day, the Armenian people have to leave Karabakh, so be it, he added.

Hamparian proved his point by noting that there has been no end to the military aid to Azerbaijan and no effort to deliver humanitarian aid to Artsakh; there has been no investigation into Azerbaijan’s war crimes, use of mercenaries, or illegal munitions and landmines. The tools of US power such as sanctions, travel bans, freezing of bank accounts, and so on, are only picked up by the administration when doing so is useful to the US government. The administration has not done so in this case, so clearly, saving Artsakh is not useful to the US government.

Hamparian continued that the Armenian-American community is “swimming upstream,” but there are some options. Armenian-Americans who are US citizens should be rising up and complaining to the elected officials that are beholden to them that something needs to be done. The US government should be asked to send a signal to Azerbaijan that this is not acceptable; we have such a law on the books, which is Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act banning military aid to Azerbaijan. The executive branch continues to waive this law and send aid anyway.

Hamparian stated that we don’t need to convince Congress to create new sanctions, we just need them to enforce the already existing Section 907. Hamparian also mentioned foreign aid, stating that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has presided over giving out $11 billion in aid to all kinds of countries around the world, even US adversary Venezuela, yet nothing has gone to Artsakh. It seems that either Turkey or Azerbaijan is vetoing such aid or the diplomats are holding it back of their own accord, he said.

Hamparian stated that although we should be making the geopolitical argument in behalf of Armenia, the civilizational argument that Armenia is part of Western Civilization, promotes democracy, western values, freedom, tolerance, and has a Christian basis, along with a Diaspora that is highly tied into the Western world, he concluded that geopolitical arguments or moral suasion will ultimately not determine the outcome, but rather the status of Armenian-Americans as voters and stakeholders in the American democracy. Khaloyan echoed Hamparian’s remarks, issuing an impassioned call to the Armenian-American community to act in accordance with Hamparian’s suggestions and reach out to elected officials as well as local news media.

Citing heartbreaking stories such as of a man who almost dropped an egg on the street in Artsakh and stated that he would rather have cracked the screen of his phone than lose the egg, she highlighted the danger of starvation faced by the natives of Artsakh. Stating that the Armenian Assembly as well as the ANCA serve as a sounding board from the Armenian community to the US Congress, she called on all community members to raise their voices and raise awareness. She suggested writing letters to the editor or articles to local newspapers; calling one’s Senators or Member of Congress, and especially stressing to elected officials to enforce Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which bans direct aid to the Azerbaijani government.

Khaloyan added that participation of the community is needed right away. Community members should be making calls and sending letters, and becoming more and more active in the fight, as well as reaching out to family and friends in other states to do the same. In response to the discussion on community involvement, Hamparian added that the Armenian advocacy community has allies in faith-based groups, including Christian groups as well as Jewish ones, though some pro-Israel groups are not as fond of speaking out against Azerbaijan. He also mentioned that the ethnic advocacy groups of the Greek, Kurdish and increasingly the Hindu (ethnic/religious) communities have been allies to the cause. On the flipside, Hamparian expressed extreme disappointment with the behavior of traditional human rights advocacy groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which have not stood up for the Armenians.

In the end, Hamparian echoed his earlier remark that the US government’s policy is apparently not to provide aid, and that nobody at the higher levels of power in Washington DC takes “human rights” seriously. For this reason, the Armenian people must learn to speak out and realize that they have more power than they think they do as citizens of the US and just as much right to ask the US government to help Artsakh as almost any other group of citizens in the US have to advocate for their issues. His suggestion was to be bold and to leave behind the “keep your head down” attitude that Armenians have become used to throughout their history of living under authoritarian empires.