By Johnny Melikyan
Standing before the silent graves at the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial in Bosnia leaves an indelible truth on the human conscience: war, with all its tragedy, has boundaries governed by international law. But the deliberate execution of disarmed captives, the systematic erasure of an indigenous population, and the silent acquiescence of onlookers cross directly into the realm of absolute crimes against humanity.
Today, as a grim convergence of anniversaries passes – six years since the 2020 44-Day War that claimed up to 4,000 lives, four years since Azerbaijan’s September 2022 aggression that cost over 190 Armenian lives while occupying nearly 200 square kilometers of sovereign Armenian territory, and three years since the complete ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023 that forcibly displaced over 115,000 indigenous residents – international engagement faces a critical test. Insulating formal peace negotiations from human rights, heritage preservation, and legal accountability risks establishing a fragile, unsustainable equilibrium rather than a lasting settlement.
Events in Nagorno-Karabakh reflect the mechanics of structural erasure – the physical displacement of a community followed by the imposition of the conqueror’s identity upon a depopulated territory. In Nagorno-Karabakh, that second phase is fully underway. Whole historic residential quarters in Stepanakert are being systematically bulldozed, centuries-old Armenian villages leveled, cemeteries desecrated, and historical sites subjected to state-sponsored revisionism. Reports of the demolition, alteration, and historical revisionism of monuments, churches, and civilian neighborhoods closely align with Lemkin’s framework on cultural destruction: the physical removal of a population is followed by the systematic erasure of its historical footprint.
This cultural destruction is exacerbated when international engagement remains selective. Recent diplomatic visits to Nagorno-Karabakh – where international representatives were hosted at sites positioned near damaged Armenian cultural monuments while bypassing destroyed historical structures in the immediate vicinity – highlight the danger of uncritical engagement. Furthermore, allowing state-sponsored revisionist Armenophobic narratives, such as the pseudo-historical “Albanization” of well-known Armenian ancient monasteries like Gandzasar and Dadivank, undermines fundamental principles of cultural preservation. International diplomacy must avoid transactional compromises, where short-term economic interests obscure long-term human rights commitments.
This physical and cultural erasure rests upon an unpunished foundation of grave human rights violations. The extrajudicial execution of unarmed Armenian prisoners of war on the Ishkhanasar heights in September 2022 – authenticated by Human Rights Watch, Bellingcat, and major international media – constitutes a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Today, systemic hostility continues to impact detainees. As documented by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other international institutions, Armenian hostages face documented religious persecution, including physical abuse targeting faith-based symbols and explicit bans on receiving religious texts.
