The year 2023 marked perhaps the worst year for Armenians since the Genocide of more than a century ago. Azerbaijanis backed by Turkish Special Forces and utilizing Israeli drones attacked Nagorno-Karabakh and successfully drove out its indigenous Armenian Christian population. For Azerbaijani dictator Ilham Aliyev, the eradication of Christianity and expulsion of ethnic Armenians fulfilled a lifelong ambition.
Alas, the US State Department “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2023,” released on April 22, 2024, downplays this reality. While President Joe Biden sees himself as a human rights president and prides himself on having the moral clarity to recognize the Armenian Genocide, the report’s whitewashing not only of Azerbaijan’s crimes but also its diplomats’ own previous reporting suggests something is rotten in the State Department, if not the White House itself.
Superficially, the report does criticize Azerbaijan, but its omissions and elisions are the equivalent of referring to serial killer Ted Bundy only a man who perpetrated violence against women.
The reality is that when Azerbaijan blockaded the Lachin corridor, it not only violated the terms of the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement, but it also violated US law. The Humanitarian Aid Corridors Act prohibits any interference any country receiving American assistance with the provision or dispatch of US assistance to another country, region, or territory.
This is not clear from the State Department’s report. Consider its description of the Lachin Corridor blockade: “Azerbaijan impeded access to the Lachin Corridor. This left the road inaccessible to most civilian and commercial traffic and inhibited access for deliveries of humanitarian supplies from Armenia. The Azerbaijan government stated it was prepared to supply goods to Nagorno-Karabakh via alternative routes; however, ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh refused to accept products transported from Azerbaijan.”
This narrative ignores not only the fake environmental protestors subsequently identified as known Azerbaijani security officers but also omits Azerbaijan’s cut-off of gas, electricity and other utilities. The State Department report also legitimizes the Azerbaijani offer to lift the blockade and amplifies Azerbaijani propaganda that the indigenous Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh shares blame for refusal to accept alternative supply routes. In reality, however, the Azerbaijani offer was never sincere; rather, it was equivalent to seeing good faith in German offers during World War II to feed the Warsaw ghetto.
