Today, 120, 000 citizens of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) are on the verge of genocide

14 December, 2022 18:57

António Guterres

United Nations Secretary General

Alice Wairimu Nderitu

Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide

Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG)

Volker Türk

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)

Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Rosemary A. DiCarlo

Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs

Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA)

Christine Wiegand

Resident Coordinator a.i. for Armenia

We are the representatives of one of the co-founding nations of the United Nations Organization, being the descendants of the people who founded this authoritative organization in 1945 in order to protect future generations from the horrors of war and to reaffirm faith in their fundamental human rights. Today, we appeal to you to ensure the fundamental human rights that are included in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and other fundamental international documents.

Today, 120, 000 citizens of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) are on the verge of genocide. Azerbaijan, where totalitarianism prevails, where dynastic rules have been established for more than thirty years, where prisons are full of people fighting for their rights and freedoms, blocked the only lifeline of 120, 0000 people under the false guise of an environmental protest. People in Artsakh are currently deprived of their natural and inalienable right to freedom of movement and are unable to take care of their basic needs. Yesterday, on the 13th of December, official Baku also cut the natural gas supply from the Republic of Armenia to Artsakh and left people without heating in the cold winter conditions. Hospitals, schools, houses, residential buildings are out of heating, moreover, they are under a threat of new aggression.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The United Nations Organization has various tools to prevent ethnic cleansing, genocide, and ensure the realization of fundamental human rights: diplomatic, political, military tools, etc. We are convinced that the destiny of 120,000 people facing a humanitarian catastrophe more than deserves a resolution by the UN Security Council, an assessment by the UN Secretary-General, and taking of pertinent measures by the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to protect arising from its mandate.

The actions of official Baku against the people of Artsakh are a crime against humanity in the literal and legal sense of the word. Thus, according to Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court established in 1998, ‘’crime against humanity’’ means several actions including Deportation or forcible transfer of population. It is obvious that actions of official Baku are aimed at forcibly displacing the people of Artsakh; this is a practice repeatedly used by Azerbaijan in the years of Soviet Union existence in Nakhichevan, in Baku in 1988-92, in Kirovabad, other cities of Soviet Azerbaijan, as well as in many settlements of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Republic and Shahumyan region.

The actions of official Baku against the people of Artsakh are also an ethnic cleansing, as defined by the interim and summary reports of the UN Commission of Experts in the Former Yugoslavia: ‘’a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.''

According to Clause 3 of Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide means "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." The conditions that official Baku has created for the people of Artsakh today, subjecting them to a military and energy blockade and creating a humanitarian catastrophe, are obvious manifestations of Genocide.

Considering the above-mentioned, we call on the United Nations Organization to take all

measures within its mandate, including:

• To recognize the right of people of Artsakh to self-determination and a secure life.

• Condemn the use of force by Azerbaijan against the civilian population.

• Condemn the ongoing provocations aimed at creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

• Open a UN representative office in Artsakh.

• To undertake other activities provided by the document "Framework of Analysis of Atrocity

Crimes" of the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect and arising from its mandate, including Early warning, Raising awareness, Advancing responsibility to protect implementation.

Initiative group of the "Consolidation" movement