In just a week’s time, Nagorno-Karabakh has gone from a wounded but still proud and vibrant land of over 100,000 residents, to one bloodied, broken, and almost completely devoid of its people. On social media, most can only watch in helpless horror the scenes of its population making the arduous journey to Armenia along a hopelessly clogged roadway, a massive explosion which killed or grievously wounding hundreds of those trying to flee, the ever-rising counter of the number of refugees crossing into Armenia, leaders such as Ruben Vardanyan being led in handcuffs by Azerbaijani police, and clips of bewildered people now without homes or possessions and completely unsure what to do next.
To say this past week has been a disaster is an understatement. In this round-up, we gather into one place some of the best analysis from the corners of social media covering the many aspects of what has happened and where it is going.
Prior to the September 19 attack, the media was only just starting to pay attention to Azerbaijan’s latest violence against the people of Karabakh. However, even now, they more often speak to Azerbaijani officials and third party academics rather than the people who have been living through it. This is a reflection from someone about her experiences living through the blockade.
Rhetoric that we have seen by not just Azerbaijani officials but internationals as well has been to refer to the mass exodus of Armenians as “voluntarily” leaving. One academic even referred to it as “self-repatriation” to Armenia. Azerbaijan naturally is trying to avoid being labeled as conducting an operation of ethnic cleansing, even though their actions fit the textbook definition of it and much more, while international organizations have likely used it to avoid making a judgment on the situation which would anger Azerbaijan. This was all predicted in a tweet by journalist Amberin Zaman on the day of the attack.
The attacks took place while world leaders were again distracted, taking part in the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly. However, France immediately called for an emergency meeting which took place on September 21. This live-tweeting of the two-hour long meeting by human rights lawyer Gabe Armas-Cardona gives a great summary of the proceedings. Perhaps the biggest surprise was Germany’s statement, which was extremely forceful in condemning Azerbaijan, a clear change in tone by Foreign Minister Anna Baerbock’s approach to foreign policy for a country long known for close ties to Turkey and Azerbaijan.
As many are asking how did we get to this point, with Azerbaijan supported and emboldened so long that they would be able go to the extent of a wholesale ethnic cleansing, there are numerous factors, but one of them is the vast amounts of money it has spent on high-power lobbyists such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. achieving silence from current EU officials thanks to last year’s gas deal worked out with Ursula von der Leyen, receiving cover by legally and illegally purchasing from powerful friends, and spending millions more on Turkish and Israeli weapons, has been the potent combination which has spelled doom for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.
As the frenzied panic to escape Stepanakert before Azerbaijani troops reached it, the situation on the ground was described as catastrophic. This was prior to the gas explosion which would kill and wound hundreds, while the entire region was lacking medicine or first aid due to ten months of blockade, leading to scenes that were positively apocalyptic.
Former OSCE Minsk Group Chairman Carey Cavanaugh refers to the vital need for the international community to be allowed into Nagorno-Karabakh, something which Azerbaijan has forbidden up until now under its right to “territorial integrity”. He cites the Key West negotiations which foresaw an international observer mission along with various humanitarian organizations to be allowed to operate there. Azerbaijan announced on September 29 that a brief UN assessment mission would be permitted to enter the region “in the coming days”, at which point the last of the Armenians to be observed will be gone.
Aliyev has spent the past weeks cracking down on yet more critics of his war policies, but that hasn’t stopped a few brave Azerbaijanis to continue speaking out.
In a tweet which went viral, the Azerbaijani perspective for opposing war based on his family’s history as having been ethnically cleansed during the first war. As one Armenian said of it: “this thread reduced me to tears and is exactly the kind of bottom-up grassroots community-led conciliatory dialogue that #Armenians and #Azerbaijanis have so desperately needed.” The author noted his surprise that, despite being about his family’s pain caused by Armenians, his thread has been widely embraced by them, while the feedback from Azerbaijanis has been disappointingly hostile.
Mass despair in Stepanakert as the ability to leave accelerated.
The 2020 and 2022 attacks on Armenians by Azerbaijani soldiers resulted in a horrific number of war crimes, mostly revealed by bragging soldiers posting videos to social media. This time around, Azerbaijan restricted internet in the area, so not much got out from either Azerbaijanis or the fleeing Armenian civilians. Despite that, videos are starting to appear of people being tortured (though the video cuts out before it really starts, presumably on purpose), of Azerbaijanis giddily ransacking homes, and one of shooting into what was hopefully an empty civilian home.
The biggest fear is that things aren’t over. The 2020 war signaled to autocrats everywhere that “might makes right”, and many people see Russia’s later invasion of Ukraine as a direct result. Now we wait to see if democracies will even allow an entire people to be eradicated out of fear or deference to a more powerful force, and so far the signals being sent aren’t looking good.
And when we say things aren’t over, we mean Syunik.
Another Amberin tweet so maybe remove, ringing alarm bell on Syunik with Nakh visit. After the fact it’s hard to say what came of it, it both seemed to cool down the alarm or continue it based on how you interpret what was said…
As our social media round-up is an English-language one, we miss out on a whole other world that is the Russian-language discourse both in the region and abroad. This thread gives an overview about what various Russian Telegram channels/influencers are saying about the situation. There was an expectation that as a result of the fall of Karabakh there would be a popular movement of fury to take down Prime Minister Pashinyan, but so far that has not materialized.
There were a few tweeters from inside Nagorno-Karabakh, sharing what life was like under the blockade. Now they share their sadness in leaving it for their own safety, which despite Azerbaijani government assurances that they would live just fine under its rule, is not a place they expect they will ever be able to safely see again.
One of the big reasons for this is the policy of ethnic hatred the Azerbaijani government under Ilham Aliyev has fostered for decades. As one academic close to the government gleefully commented about a video of soldiers cutting down a sign in a village (one of no special significance, it appeared to be for a business), “no more Armenian words in Karabakh”. The video is now missing from the tweet above because she removed it after a great deal of criticism. In response to this cultural erasure, excuses were generally made from the Azerbaijani side that as Azerbaijani is the official language in the country, no signs are allowed to be in Armenian (even though there are many signs in Russian and English, even official road signs), so it would seem any Armenian who wants to continue living there will have to do so without benefit of the only language many of them know.
For years, the equal principles of territorial integrity and self-determination have been at odds in conflicts such as Nagorno-Karabakh. For years, world powers tried to enforce territorial integrity even though they knew Aliyev rule was abusive against its own people, let alone ethnic Armenians. They decided “the normal regime of territorial integrity superseded that of the human beings living there.” A precedent has been set internationally, and already Serbia looking to follow it by conducting military actions against Kosovo, and in the future perhaps China will against Taiwan as well.
An astoundingly frank statement from the Chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, he laments how Armenians’ warnings about Azerbaijan were not taken seriously for so many years. The Safarov case should have been a warning to Europe, and all the beheadings, murders, mutilations, and war crimes that followed. Nobody paid attention or took it seriously, for these reasons:
And the same sentiment from the Armenian perspective…
The conditions in Stepanakert have been unfathomable. A terrifying post-explosion video issued by a nurse with a desperate call for assistance. The situation was chaotic with hundreds of wounded but no medications or ability to treat them.
An assessment by a Research Fellow at the Baku Research Institute on the situation of Armenians who might remain in Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. He writes that “life under the entrenched, corrupt dictatorship can be anything but attractive for the people who lived in a relatively free society during the last thirty years” and notes that not even young Azerbaijanis see a future in Azerbaijan, so why would Armenians?
Caucasus scholar Laurence Broers has been tweeting on events and their consequences.
An interview with a woman who has now been expelled from her home four different times- she says nobody ever wants to return. This seems to be the overwhelming sentiment amongst the refugees, despite Azerbaijan’s sudden talk of peaceful coexistence.
