Absurdity
On Lachin road and "humanitarian disaster" in Khankendi

ANALYTICS  26 December 2022 - 15:15

What is absurdity? Stupidity, oddity, bosh. Something that defies common sense. Ad absurdum - "out of deaf".

Absurd and nonsense are not the same thing. This will surprise many, but there is a difference and a significant one. The nonsense is neither false nor true, it has no meaning. Absurdity is false by virtue of its inconsistency with reality.

The complex linguistic parallels were prompted by some statements on the situation around Lachin road. As an Azerbaijani, I am overwhelmed with emotions, but I will try to operate with facts. So, we hear separate voices about the need to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. About the suffering of the civilian population. On the inadmissibility of using civilians as a mechanism for resolving political differences. About the need to unblock the road as soon as possible.

So what should we avoid? Where are civilians suffering and who has been turned into a mechanism for resolving differences? A humanitarian disaster is the threat of extermination by epidemics, violence, starvation, or migration of non-combatants or combatants who have laid down their arms (combatants being the belligerent armed forces). If a humanitarian disaster occurs in areas of armed conflict, a humanitarian corridor is provided for the civilian population. It is intended for humanitarian aid to the crisis region and for the safe passage of refugees out of it. The theory is clear, although life is more complicated.

Haiti, Venezuela, Liberia, and Ukraine. The list goes on. Tens of thousands of dead, devastated, often completely destroyed towns and villages, ruined infrastructure, and hundreds of thousands of refugees. Children with swollen bellies from hunger. Old people froze. Mad crowds besieging aid trucks or running after food parachutes at the finish line like marathon runners. Gangs attacking humanitarian caravans to sell stolen food in local markets. Corpses along the roads. These are the sometimes brutal realities of our world.

Now, let someone explain which of the above elements, even in many mitigated forms, are present in the areas of compactly settled Armenians in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan, temporarily controlled by Russian peacekeepers? Children dying of hunger or cold? Do they risk being hit by a mine or running into a gang of rapists while walking to a distant well for water? Unless it's their own thugs, Armenians have plenty of that sort of stuff. Or is bread given out on ration cards in Khankendi?

Let us recall another humanitarian catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, displaced from their homes, trudging barefoot across snow-covered mountain passes, wrapped in belongings they have managed to carry. Ahead of them lies the restlessness of the unknown, in tent cities and railway carriages. But not everyone will make it there either. Some will freeze to death on the way. Some will fall into the hands of armed gangs, and their fate will remain unknown. And in one village, hundreds of women and children will be slaughtered in the very humanitarian corridor they were supposed to use to get out of the war zone. Where? Not in Iraq during the ISIS invasion. Not in Somalia. And not in Syria. It happened in Karabakh in the 1990s, when Armenian bandits rampaged, wreaking death and despair. Let us also remember the hundreds of thousands of mines planted by Armenian criminals in Azerbaijani territories occupied by them in the past. The destroyed economy. Mosques turned into sheds, and cemeteries desecrated.

Some have apparently forgotten. And we do not want to remember. But we remember. But while we have not forgotten anything, let alone forgiven, we have not become like the beleaguered bandits. We have not fought and are not fighting against civilians.

The Armenians living in Khankendi – apart from the scum whose hands are covered with the blood of peaceful Azerbaijanis, and those who want to blow up the region again for political purposes – are citizens of Azerbaijan. As our president has repeatedly stated, we are ready to live with them. Many of them are also tired of the tragedy brought by Armenian separatism. But how can trust be restored if the Armenian side tries to behave as if nothing much has changed?

The indignation of our public activists is not a product of yesterday's information. It has been accumulated in the hearts of Azerbaijanis for three decades. Only unconcealed plunder of natural resources of our country, and with colossal damage to the environment can cause such a reaction. And if before September 2020, the puppets in Khankendi did not allow Azerbaijanis to protest in Karabakh, today everything is different. And our activists are there because it is their civic duty, the duty before the homeland and before the memory of the brothers who gave their lives for the right of our people to rule their own destiny on their own land according to international law, and not according to myths and fairy tales.

Official Baku has shown inexhaustible patience for thirty years. Our country had hoped for a peaceful solution, but the rudeness and unwillingness of Armenians to compromise, coupled with provocations, made the cup of patience run over. The outcome of the 2020 war is well known. But some Armenians are fighting back. They have the right if they want to. But do not be surprised by the determination of the Azerbaijanis. Our country will not stop until the last stains of shame in the form of Araiks and Rubens are swept from our territory. And here, on a national level, we are showing restraint. We want to avoid more bloodshed. But for many of our citizens, some issues have to be solved immediately. One of those urgent matters is the utilization of natural wealth, which has been plundered by looters, who try to appear to the world as "Artsakh" with impunity. An active civil sector, capable of expressing its opinion even when it does not quite, and sometimes even completely, coincide with the official one - this is what our Western friends have always called for. Isn't this what hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in the form of grants, training, and study tours? The people standing on Lachin road today are a vivid testimony to the fruits of this work. They have come to show that they are not willing to put up with the caprices of Armenian leaders and their attempts to bide their time in the hope of something. They are tired of waiting!

But our activists are not there to bring suffering to civilians. That is why ambulances and food convoys are quietly passing through. That's why activists leave their phone numbers, pledging to help with specific humanitarian issues. HUMANITARIAN, do you hear, Western partners? The Armenian dashnaks saying "this is our road, we transfer what we want to" is a classic absurdity. There is no road for them on the territory of Azerbaijan. The feast of disobedience is over.

It is all clear with Armenian dashnaks. But when they are echoed by educated people, all we can do is shrug our shoulders. We will not even ask why they did not care about the misfortunes of the Azerbaijani refugees, where they were all these years while the Armenian separatists spit on UN Security Council resolutions and so on. I would just like to understand - what kind of humanitarian catastrophe are they talking about when the humanitarian needs of the civilian population are being met in full, without any preconditions?

The fundamental principles of humanitarian action are well known: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntariness, unity, and universality. Where is the permission to export natural resources of the country that were illegally obtained with damage to the environment by a gang of the defeated separatist regime? Where is the indulgence granted to a gang of armed men holding their own Armenians hostage in places where Russian peacekeepers are serving? Where is the right of shady businessmen of dubious reputation to try to torpedo the process of peacebuilding in the region that has been restless for more than thirty years? Where is the uncontrolled trafficking of goods, which certainly include arms and ammunition?

Calls for Azerbaijan to stop something are also absurd and come not only from the deaf but also from the blind, who are very selective in their humanitarian predilections and concerns. One is tempted to suggest starting a real blockade so that the "defendants" could see what the real obstruction of Azerbaijan to meet the humanitarian needs of the population of the territories temporarily controlled by the Russian Federation would look like. But we will not suggest it. This is not our method. And our state will never agree to this.

But with all this, we do not have time for absurdities and for listening to appeals to stop what we have not started, and to eliminate what is not even there in the first place. We need to rebuild what was destroyed by the Armenian separatists and build peace in the region. If someone sincerely wishes to help us and Armenians in this, we will only be glad. Everyone else, please don't bother with this futile effort.

Caliber.Az