Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Holds Second Emergency Meeting on Artsakh

“Fifteen judges on the ICJ in The Hague reviewed the issue after listening to Armenia and Azerbaijan representatives and they concluded that blocking the Lachin Corridor was creating an imminent risk for the life of Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Ocampo. “The material element of genocide was obviously there.”

Ocampo emphasized that the “urgency is to prevent the harm” and stop genocide. He expressed the importance of the special hearing because the “first step is to remove the denial.”

“This [hearing] could be a turning point on denial,” said Ocampo, who recommended to the Commission that information is sent to the Executive Branch to indicate the urgency of the matter.

He opined that the U.S. shouldn’t be involved in negotiations when “Aliyev uses genocide as a method of the negotiation,” because then the U.S. can be “considered complicit.”

“Stop the denial, recognize the [genocidal intent], and protect the lives of the 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh,” he concluded.

David L. Phillips, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, and Director of Columbia University’s Program on Human Rights and Peace-building and the Atrocities Artsakh Project

In his testimony, Phillips outlined the Aliyev regime’s “genocidal intent to

erase the Armenian physical, religious and cultural presence in Artsakh and eventually the current Republic of Armenia.”

He highlighted Aliyev’s anti-Armenian rhetoric that has focused on education, public campaigns, censorship and “other methods aimed at dehumanizing Armenian Christians” has only intensified as the government has violated cease-fires and orchestrated attacks, including on Sev Lake [Black Lake] on September 13, 2022, wherein a video released in early October 2022, and verified by independent media, “showed extrajudicial killing of at least 7 Armenian military personnel who were captured as prisoners of war,” said Phillips. “This extrajudicial killing was conducted when the Armenian military personnel were already bound and disarmed, and in custody of Azerbaijan.”

Phillips stated that both Artsakh and Armenia are “functioning, established democracies” with permanent ties to the US and that the US should enforce the sanctions of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, the Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act, and the Global Magnitsky Act.”

He also warned that if the situation is not “dramatically reversed soon, the U.S. and its allies should give the Armenians the means to defend themselves in exercise of the duty to prevent genocide, lest history repeat itself.”

He noted that the ICC decision requires the enforcement of the opening of the Lachin Corridor, which was part of the November 2020 trilateral ceasefire agreement and called the Commission’s attention to perpetrators who have “evaded sanction or any consequence to their actions, which has only enabled further atrocities and genocidal acts to continue and ask that Congress exercise its power to stop this genocide.”

In his concluding thoughts, Phillips emphasized that the failure of the international community to “sanction individuals who committed crimes after the war in 2016 and 2020…allowed the Government of Azerbaijan to act with impunity and escape repercussions for its crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide.”

During a brief question and answer session, Ocampo said he did not know how much longer the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh can survive the blockade.

“This is a clear cut case where the responsible person is obviously, without a doubt, President Aliyev,” said Ocampo. “He was personally put on notice by Secretary Blinken, by the ICJ, by the UN Secretary General Guterres, and [other] global leaders he ignored while committing genocidal acts.”

In his testimony to the Commission Hearing, the Assembly’s Executive Director Bryan Ardouny stated that the Armenian people are yet again “confronted with the specter of genocide” and that the Armenian American community “sees this as a continuation of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.”

“After all, it was Turkey’s [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who fully supported Azerbaijan’s reckless war in the Fall of 2020 against Nagorno-Karabakh and who stated that ‘we do not allow terrorist leftovers of the sword in our country.’”

Despite its “signed commitment” of the 2020 ceasefire terms, Ardouny emphasized that “Azerbaijan seeks to starve the Armenian people and has not only denied the International Committee of the Red Cross, Armenia and France the ability to deliver humanitarian supplies along the Lachin Corridor to the people of Artsakh, but has also disrupted the electricity and gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh further exacerbating the crisis resulting in the death of a 40-year old individual due to starvation with many more suffering from malnutrition.”

In terms of recommendations to the Administration, Ardouny highlighted the importance of enforcing Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which Congress adopted in 1992 “in a principled stand against Azerbaijani aggression” and states that U.S. funds “may not be provided to the Government of Azerbaijan until the President determines and so reports to the Congress, that the Government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Ardouny emphasized that the Assembly’s position is clear in that it will “stand up for democracy and human rights and oppose genocide; end the blockade of Artsakh by imposing sanctions starting with the enforcement of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, along with the principles of the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act and application of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.”

In his testimony Ardouny referenced Secretary Antony Blinken, who noted President Biden’s quote at the United Nations Security Council discussion on Famine and Conflict-Induced Global Food Insecurity, which highlighted the importance of providing food for families and children: “In every country in the world…if parents cannot feed their children, nothing else matters.”

Ardouny continued: “We say, President Biden tear down this blockade. Having recognized the Armenian Genocide, it is incumbent that the Administration utilize all tools at its disposal to safeguard the Armenian people and not allow another genocide on its watch.”