There is no peace for the Armenians in the Caucasus. The self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh is on the verge of a serious humanitarian crisis: since December 12, Azerbaijan has closed the Lachin corridor, the only access route, the road on which all supplies of essential goods passed, 400 tons of goods per day. Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, has also cut off gas and drinking water supplies. For the 120,000 inhabitants of Artsakh – as Nagorno Karabakh was renamed in 2017 – getting through the winter will be difficult, perhaps unlikely: food is starting to run out; hospitals are running out of medicine; schools and public offices closed, without heating. It is also impossible to escape because the civilians – almost half of them are elderly and children – are literally stuck, trapped. What is taking place is only the latest act of the conflict that has been dragging on for over thirty years between Azerbaijan and Armenia for the domination of a land with deep and indisputable Armenian and Christian roots. The culmination in 2020 with the 44 Days War in which the Azeris with the support of Turkey – Ankara supplied drones and jihadist mercenaries conscripted in Syria – overwhelmed the defenses of Artsakh. There were over seven thousand dead and one hundred thousand displaced, victims who lengthened the dramatic accounts of the conflict to almost forty thousand dead and more than a million refugees. The ceasefire agreement signed on 9 November 2020 by Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan provided, in addition to new painful territorial concessions to Baku, also the deployment of a Russian contingent to protect what remained of Artsakh, reduced to less than a third of its extent. For over twenty days Azerbaijan, disregarding that pact, has held the peaceful Armenian enclave hostage in order to complete its occupation, according to many observers.
RISK OF ETHNIC CLEANING. “They are violating all international laws that protect civilians in war zones” denounce the Human Rights Defenders of Armenia and Artsakh. According to the information gathered by the Omdusmen, “the roadblocks in Lachin are staged by fake environmentalists belonging to organizations financed by the Azerbaijan government or directly attributable to foundations of premier Aliyev’s family”. They protest against the pollution of some mines. But in reality the dossier documents the presence among the demonstrators of “many members of the Azeri special security services and sympathizers of the Gray Wolves, a terrorist formation of the Turkish far right”. What is happening would not be an isolated fact, but would be part of a real “strategy to cause the flight of the Armenian population and the depopulation of the country”. The report lists “attacks on civilian infrastructure; the systematic interruption of gas pipelines and aqueducts; raids on peaceful villages to bring agriculture and the economy to their knees; propaganda and disinformation campaigns to terrorize the population”. Finally, the dramatic alarm: “An authentic ethnic cleansing is underway.”
THE AMBIGUITIES OF RUSSIA. Not even the Russian interposition force has so far managed to break the isolation of the Armenian enclave. “He didn’t even try, he let it go,” says Karen Ohanjanyan, local coordinator of the Helsinki 92 Committee, a non-governmental organization for human rights. «Moscow has turned away, also ignoring the military alliance that binds us to some countries of the former Soviet Union (the CSTO, ed): why Putin did not intervene when Azerbaijan repeatedly attacked Armenia in recent months ?” accuses Ohanjanyan from Stepanakert, capital of the de facto Republic. The new Artsakh premier Ruben Vardanyan, a well-known Russian philanthropist and oligarch (with Armenian citizenship) whose entrances into the Kremlin entourage are equally well known, hopes to gain more attention. “Azerbaijan is not interested in offering any protection to our people,” he declared bluntly recently. The response received by the Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov was laconic: «I am worried about the blockage of the only road that connects the separatist Artsakh to Armenia. And I hope the talks between the two sides continue». The link between Moscow and Yerevan is certainly opaque because Russia – for years in Armenia with a large military garrison – has also always been one of Azerbaijan’s main arms suppliers. And until March 2023 it will also supply Baku with one billion cubic meters of gas, a resource in which Azerbaijan is rich as its main source of wealth. But which it now needs to meet the increased supplies promised to Europe, despite the sanctions imposed on Moscow for having invaded Ukraine.
THE APPEAL TO THE WORLD. Armenia’s hands are tied after the defeat in 2020. And its premier Nikol Pashinyan knows he is at an impasse, tightened primarily by the cumbersome Russian ally (in turn pinned down by the heavy losses on Ukrainian soil) which continues to prevent him from taking any initiative; threatened by Erdogan’s Turkey which claims it wants to complete the Armenian genocide started a century ago by the Ottoman Empire, a massacre of one and a half million dead; attacked on the ground by Azerbaijan, seemingly untouchable for its fat deals with gas-strapped Europe; intimidated by the frequent popular protests due to the dramatic military setbacks and the complete diplomatic stalemate. The foreign ministers of Armenia and Artsakh a week ago clearly warned the international community: “The absence of an adequate reaction to the Azeri aggression could cause new tragic developments”. The UN Security Council discussed it on 20 December. And the next day, after the death of a man left without treatment due to the ongoing blockade in Lachin, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Azerbaijan to allow the evacuation of the most seriously ill. An appeal that in recent days has allowed the International Red Cross to rescue a newborn and deliver a convoy of humanitarian aid. But on Christmas Day it was the whole of Artsakh that appealed to the world: nearly eighty thousand people peacefully marched in Stepanakert demanding the lifting of the siege that is inexorably suffocating the country day after day. “We are our mountains!” they shouted, chanting the name of the monument that is the symbol of the entire community which powerfully guards the entrance to the capital. Rugged mountains, steeped in history, memory and pain: the Caucasus of Armenians who once again beg for help.
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