1 - Azeri Soldiers Wearing Armenian Uniforms
May Be Shot by Their Own Troops
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Armenia’s Fight Against Azerbaijan, COVID-19 Intensifies
3 - Azerbaijan Violates U.S.-Mediated Ceasefire Agreement
4- Bound by duty and love, LA Armenians join battle lines in homeland
5- Angelenos Are Working in Armenia on Humanitarian Relief for Artsakh
6- Arin Sarkissian Awarded 2020 Edward Hosharian Foundation
$5,000 Music Scholarship
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1 - Azeri Soldiers Wearing Armenian Uniforms
May Be Shot by Their Own Troops
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
The U.S. Department of State announced on Oct.25, 2020 with great
fanfare the third attempted ceasefire in the Artsakh war in as many
weeks. The first two ceasefires were violated by Azerbaijan and Turkey
within minutes of going into effect. The new ceasefire announcement
was made after the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan flew to
Washington, D.C. and separately met with Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo on Oct. 23, 2020.
This latest “humanitarian ceasefire” went into effect on Monday, Oct.
26, at 8 a.m., local time. Unfortunately, the third ceasefire was also
violated within minutes by Azerbaijan and Turkey. This indicates that
Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Jihadist mercenaries from Syria have no
intention to stop the war until they cleanse Artsakh of its Armenian
population which is exactly what President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly
announced. Armenia and Artsakh, with a population of a little over
three million, are fighting against the combined forces of Azerbaijan
and Turkey with a total population of over 90 million. This is a
battle of David versus Goliath. It also means that the powerful
Azerbaijani military, armed to its teeth with billions of dollars of
modern weaponry from Israel and Russia, is unable to fight its battles
without relying on the Turkish military and Islamist mercenaries. Even
with their combined forces, Azerbaijan and Turkey have been unable to
overrun Artsakh after a month-long battle!
In recent weeks, Pres. Trump has mentioned Armenians three times in
his speeches during campaign rallies in Nevada, Ohio and New
Hampshire. He made complimentary statements about Armenians, but words
are meaningless unless they are followed up with action. All Trump has
to do is pick up the phone and call his buddy Erdogan and tell him to
stop supporting Azerbaijan and withdraw the terrorists it recruited
and transferred to Azerbaijan. Instead, Trump has done what is in his
personal interest which primarily includes getting reelected on Nov. 3
by appealing to Armenian-American voters.
Besides military action, there are other fronts in which Armenians and
Azeris are battling each other. In the United States, several
resolutions have been submitted to the House of Representatives and
the Senate to recognize the independence of Artsakh and ban the sale
of weapons to Azerbaijan and Turkey. Similar steps have been taken by
Armenian communities in Canada, France and Australia, among others.
There have also been mass protests by Armenian communities in cities
throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia, the Middle East and Europe.
Armenian-Americans and elected officials pressured various lobbying
firms hired by Azerbaijan and Turkey to stop their propaganda efforts.
Last week, Mercury Public Affairs announced that it terminated its
lobbying contract with Turkey. Mercury has represented Turkey since
2013. In February of this year, Mercury signed a contract for $1
million to represent the Turkish Embassy. The Los Angeles City Council
had urged Mercury to end its contract with Turkey or it will no longer
do any business with the firm. A similar announcement was made by the
Los Angeles Community College District.
DLA Piper, another major lobbying firm, informed the U.S. Justice
Department that it no longer represents Azerbaijan Railways. The
Livingston Group also ended its lobbying for Azerbaijan on Oct. 13.
The BGR lobbying firm withdrew from representing Azerbaijan’s state
oil company SOCAR, according to AHVAL News.
Armenia on the other hand has never hired lobbying or public relations
firms. The rare example was the Armenian government signing a lobbying
contract with the law firm of Alston & Bird (associated with former
Senator Bob Dole) for $10,000 from Sept. 15 to Oct. 14, 2020. It is
not known whether that contract was extended. While hiring lobbying or
public relations firms is always helpful, the Armenian community is
not as dependent on them since they are politically active and rely on
their own organizations in Washington, such as the Armenian Assembly
of America and the Armenian National Committee of America. On the
other hand, Azerbaijan and Turkey are obligated to spend millions of
dollars for lobbying to try and misrepresent their dirty laundry as
clean.
Another aspect of the misinformation war is the one waged in the pages
of newspapers and social media in various countries. The Azeri
government pays a fortune each year to hired pens to besmirch Armenia
and glorify the dictatorship of Azerbaijan. The other front is the
social media. Whenever, a prominent American or European announces its
public stand in favor of Armenia, a horde of Azeris and their paid
agents hound those individuals and pressure them to retract their
statements.
There have been several reports in recent days that Azeri troops are
wearing the uniforms of Armenian soldiers apparently to create
confusion in the battlefield. In one such battle, it was discovered
that 40 Azeri soldiers’ bodies were found in Armenian uniform. In my
opinion, this practice, rather than confusing Armenians, will result
in Azeris shooting their own soldiers by mistaking them for Armenians.
The Armenian government should file a complaint with the International
Criminal Court (ICC) about the barbaric behavior of Azeri soldiers. In
one video, two Armenian prisoners of war are shot dead by Azeri
soldiers. In another, the head of a dead Armenian soldier is cut off
by Azeri soldiers. In a third gruesome video, Azeri soldiers are seen
skinning an Armenian soldier while he is still alive. These are clear
cases of war crimes. Azerbaijan should be condemned by the ICC and
bear responsibility for these inhuman actions. In addition, Azerbaijan
uses cluster bombs which are prohibited by international humanitarian
law. Moreover, Azerbaijan has fired on a daily basis thousands of
missiles on civilians throughout Artsakh cities and villages.
Azerbaijan has also destroyed hundreds of Armenian houses, schools and
churches. These are blatant war crimes. Azerbaijan should pay a heavy
price for its barbaric behavior.
On the positive side, 10 million Armenians worldwide have been united
as never before. Every Armenian realizes that this is an existential
struggle. Turkey and Azerbaijan intend to commit a second genocide
against Armenians. So far, Armenians have raised the unprecedented sum
of $150 million and millions more in humanitarian aid. The only thing
missing is for an Armenian billionaire to make a billion dollar
donation to support the survival of Armenia and Artsakh. After all, it
costs Armenia $30 million a day to meet its security needs.
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2- Armenia’s Fight Against Azerbaijan, COVID-19 Intensifies
By Lillian Avedian
(The Armenian Weekly)—Armenia continues to fight for life and freedom
in Artsakh amid the coronavirus pandemic, which is reaching staggering
heights in the embattled region. According to the Ministry of Health,
there were 26,452 active coronavirus cases in Armenia as of Monday,
October 26. The Ministry has recorded 78,810 coronavirus cases and
1,196 deaths; 51,162 have recovered.
Amid diplomatic efforts, the battle rages at the frontline, on October
25 Artsakh military officials released the names of 11 more fallen
soldiers, bringing the total number of Armenian casualties to 974.
During an evening press briefing on October 22, Lusine Paronyan,
doctor-epidemiologist of the National Center for Disease Control and
Prevention of the Armenian Ministry of Health, warned that the
healthcare system may soon collapse due to the combined needs of
wounded soldiers and infected patients. “Our healthcare workers are
indispensable to our soldiers and to the battlefront,” Paronyan
asserted. “We need to do everything possible to stop this
unprecedented rise and lessen the cases.” Armenian health officials
say 2,036 new cases of COVID-19 were registered on October 21 alone.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has commented on the developing
crisis, stating that the dramatic escalation in COVID-19 transmission
precipitated by the war burdens the healthcare systems already
stretched thin by the pandemic and undermines the human right to
access vital health services. “Continued cycles of violence and
subsequent population displacement will exacerbate the precariousness
of the health situation,” the statement by the WHO Regional Director
for Europe read. “WHO calls for no time lost nor efforts unspent in
protecting lives and livelihoods from a public health threat
unprecedented in our lifetimes.”
As Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministers prepared for a meeting
on Friday, October 23 with United States Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his hope that the
U.S. act in coordination with Russia and help reach a settlement of
the conflict. During a discussion on October 22 at the Valdai Club, he
noted that the conflict did not begin as a territorial dispute, but
rather as an interethnic confrontation, with crimes against humanity
committed against Armenians. “Sadly, this is a fact, when first in
Sumgait and then in Nagorno-Karabakh brutal crimes were committed
against the Armenian people,” he said. “We must certainly never forget
what happened in the fate of the Armenian people during World War I,
the tragedy of the Armenian people.” Nonetheless, he upheld that
Armenia and Azerbaijan are considered equal partners to Russia, and
that a resolution must involve a compromise.
As Russia continues to take diplomatic steps toward a peaceful
settlement, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the
participation of third parties in mediation can only take place with
the consent of the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan. While Russia
has offered to send peacekeepers to Artsakh several times since it
brokered a failed ceasefire agreement on October 10, Armenia and
Azerbaijan disagree on the presence of a peacekeeping force. Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the entry of Russian peacekeepers
is acceptable to Armenia, since Russia has healthy relations with both
parties to the conflict. In contrast, President Ilham Aliyev declared
on Wednesday, October 22 that while Azerbaijan accepts the
introduction of peacekeepers “in principle,” it cannot take place if
Azerbaijan’s preconditions are not accepted “when the time will come.”
According to Ministry of Defense (MoD) representative Artsrun
Hovhannisyan, the Azerbaijani military launched offensives along the
entire Line of Contact (LoC) throughout the day on Thursday, October
22. Some of these attacks proceeded in the direction of civilian
settlements as Azeri diversionary groups penetrated towns and roads,
including near the villages of Shekher and Jivani in the Martuni
region. In the southern direction of the LoC, the Artsakh Defense Army
halted or pushed back various incursion attempts. The Artsakh Defense
Army also shot down another Turkish-manufactured Bayraktar TB2
unmanned combat aerial vehicle today.
In his update, Hovhannisyan responded to President Aliyev’s claim that
Azerbaijan has secured total control of the state border with Iran and
asserted that intense fighting continues along the entirety of this
border. “If in some sections [Azeri] forces can see the Arax River,
that does not indicate total control,” he remarked.
Hovhannisyan also advised viewers not to be distressed by photos taken
by members of the Azeri armed forces in towns along the LoC for the
purpose of inciting alarm. It is common practice for small Azerbaijani
diversionary groups to infiltrate settlements, he said, to create an
atmosphere of panic and quickly flee without returning, as evidenced
by Hadrut and Fizuli.
Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan, for his part, appeared in a
rather uplifting video message from the frontlines. “Our faith is
strong,” he said. “I believe that we will win, and I want you all to
believe that too,” he continued in his call to all Armenians to pray
for a victorious conclusion and the safety and security of Armenia’s
Armed Forces.
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3 - Azerbaijan Violates U.S.-Mediated Ceasefire Agreement
An agreement for a ceasefire in Artsakh, announced in Washington
Sunday, October 25, went into effect at 8 a.m. local time on Monday,
October 26 but was quickly violated by Azerbaijan, when its forces
began shelling Artsakh’s northern areas at 8:45 a.m.
Armenia’s Defense Ministry reported another attack on the Artsakh’s
southeastern front at 9:10 a.m. Azerbaijan deployed Smerch multiple
rocket launchers firing at the Zardarashen village in the Martuni
region at 1:50 p.m. Another Smerch attack on the Artsakh’s Askeran
district killed a civilian and injured two others. The Artsakh Human
Rights Defender’s office reported that during an attack on the village
of Avetaranots in the Askeran region, civilian, Gevorg Hambardzumyan,
was killed, while two other civilians, Henrikh Adamyan and Andrey
Hambardzumyan, were injured.
On October 25, the State Department in a statement announced that
Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and
Jeyhum Bayramov, had agreed to the ceasefire. The latest agreement—the
third—was reached after two days of intensive negotiations in
Washington where the two foreign ministers met with Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo and President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor
Robert O’Brien.
Trump also took to social media to congratulate Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, hailing his
administration’s effort to negotiating the ceasefire agreement.
As early as Sunday morning, Armenia had agreed to a ceasefire, while
Azerbaijan had not, according to O’Brien, who told the CBS Sunday
morning program Face the Nation, that the U.S. was working hard to
convince Baku to agree to the proposed ceasefire.
The Azerbaijani misinformation campaign was in full gear on Sunday,
when before the 8 a.m. the government, through social media posts,
said that Artsakh forces were violating the ceasefire. That post was
soon removed and was followed by another, this time after 8 a.m.,
claiming that Artsakh forces were attacking the southern border. Soon
after, Azerbaijani forces began attacking the northern front, once
again breaking the ceasefire. Armenia’s Defense Ministry said the
Azerbaijani claims against Artsakh were aimed to provoke. The defense
ministry called for the immediate introduction of clear parameters for
maintaining the ceasefire and the starting the process of exchanging
bodies, detainees and other captives, mediated by the International
Committee of the Red Cross.
The violation of a third ceasefire agreement was described as “the
Aliyev regime’s overt brazen attitude toward the entire civilized
humanity” by Artsakh presidential spokesperson Vahram Poghosyan, who
said that Artsakh had no alternative but to protect the country.
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4- Bound by duty and love, LA Armenians join battle lines in homeland
By Lila Seidman
David Koroghlyan and his two boys were visiting family in Armenia when
fighting broke out on Sept. 27 with neighboring Azerbaijan over a tiny
separatist region on the border of the ex-Soviet republics. Within
days, Koroghlyan put his 10- and 11-year-old sons on a plane back home
to Los Angeles. He was staying behind to join the fight.
Now training 12 hours a day with a volunteer group of soldiers,
Koroghlyan could be called to the front lines any day.
“I’m not sure if they know that they might not see their dad again,”
said his wife Susan.
Koroghlyan is one of a number of Armenian Americans living in Los
Angeles who have uprooted their lives — leaving loved ones and careers
behind — to help their home country as it fights a reignited war for
its claim to the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is
internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Armenians refer to
it as Artsakh.
The region has long been at the center of efforts to commemorate the
Armenian genocide, and many believe the stakes are now very high for
the future of their homeland. The fighting in the contested region
touches many Armenian Americans on a personal level.
Hostilities are now at their fiercest since an uneasy truce in 1994
ended a war over the region that claimed about 30,000 lives in the
late 1980s and the early 1990s. Since that cease-fire,
Nagorno-Karabakh has been self-ruled by ethnic Armenians, who make up
the majority of the population of about 150,000. Many local Armenians
see echoes of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the current war.
Turkey, whose ancestors Armenians blame for the genocide, has strong
ethnic ties with Azerbaijan and has announced its support for its ally
in the revived war.
Susan, the wife of David Koroghlyan, was born and raised in Glendale —
home to the largest Armenian community in Southern California. She
said she would make the same trip her husband did if she didn’t have
her small boys to worry about. She said she isn’t sleeping much. Every
30 minutes, she checks online for updates about the fighting. Now,
with her husband overseas, she is about to say goodbye to her brother,
George Avakian, too.
Avakian, a real estate agent living in Monrovia, is frantically
gathering supplies to bring over to Armenia to help soldiers and
civilians alike. He plans to leave in a few days.
Avakian, 34, said his family has been in the U.S. since the late
1960s. They were one of the first Armenian families in Glendale and
watched the city transform, he said. But no matter how many miles they
put between their homeland and themselves, the conflict with
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has never seemed far away. “Everybody
my age, and after, grew up with this. This has been looming over our
heads,” Avakian said. “So, here it is, a resolution. Here’s a chance.”
There is anxiety and worry. Avakian is leaving a fiancee. He’s in the
middle of closing house sales and a mountain of paperwork that he
needs to wrap up and hand off. But there’s also relief, Avakian said.
“Have you ever had a moment where you figured out exactly what you
were supposed to do?” he said. “That’s it.”
This article appeared in Los Angeles Times on October 9, 2020.
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5- Angelenos Are Working in Armenia on Humanitarian Relief for Artsakh
By Liz Ohanesian
Three weeks into his trip to Armenia, Suren Magakian woke up to
messages from Los Angeles asking if he was OK. The enclave known to
Armenians as Artsakh and to the international community as
Nagorno-Karabakh had been attacked, an event that threatened to
reignite the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan that had come to a
ceasefire in 1994.
“To be honest, it freaked me out from the beginning,” Magakian says on
a video call. But, his fear quickly turned to motivation. A day after
the September 27 attack, he turned to his friends back home, asking if
they could send money that he could use to purchase humanitarian
supplies for those in need. Magakian thought he might receive $1,000.
He reached that goal in an hour and, in the subsequent weeks, far
surpassed it as the conflict has escalated, the death toll climbed,
and tens of thousands of people were displaced. With the donations,
Magakian and a team of friends have secured much-needed items like
generators and food and have traveled hours to deliver them.
Two days after the attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, Harout Papyan left for
a previously planned trip to Armenia. Given the current situation, he
and his fiancée decided that they would fundraise amongst family and
friends. People sent contributions to Papyan’s fiancée, who
transferred the money to him. With help from his relatives in Armenia
and their friends, Papayan purchased hygiene products, non-perishable
food, and other items to deliver to displaced families.
In Yerevan, Papyan would check Instagram and see posts from protests
in Los Angeles. “I did want to be a part of it, but I was happy that I
was back home, back in Yerevan, doing what I was doing,” he says. Now
back in Los Angeles, he continues to work remotely with the team in
Armenia.
Since the onset of the current conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh,
diasporan Armenians have mobilized through fundraisers, social media
campaigns, and protests. For some Angelenos, though, the best ways to
help have involved physically being in Armenia.
“As the war began happening, it became really hard for me to not be
here, or to be so far away,” says Natalie Kamajian on a video call
from Yerevan. When she arrived in Armenia in early October, she
brought items like warm clothing and gear for journalists that had
been collected by people in the diaspora. “We came with about seven
suitcases in addition to our own things,” she says.
Kamajian has been thinking about the DIY relief efforts that have come
as a response to the war. The Armenian diaspora, she says, has been
“really practicing mutual aid, really practicing real, grassroots
organizing without state control or any sort of upper organization.”
And that kind of action is important given the growing humanitarian
crisis.
“The humanitarian needs are pretty much all-encompassing,” says
Ambassador Armen Baibourtian, Consul General of Armenia in Los
Angeles. “Everything is needed in this circumstance because
villages—towns and villages—are ruined.” Armenia itself doesn’t have
official numbers on how many people from Nagorno-Karabakh have
relocated to the country, he says. Previously, it’s been reported that
about half of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population has been displaced. The
needs are great but, Baibourtian says, the priority right now is on
medical assistance in a time when war is compounded by the global
COVID-19 pandemic.
For medical professionals, relief efforts have included procuring
medical supplies, taking part in telehealth projects and, in some
cases, traveling to Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. “There is already a
long list of volunteers that is growing day by day,” says Dr. Shant
Shekherdimian, an associate professor of surgery at UCLA who is
involved with Armenian American Medical Society and other groups
working on healthcare assistance.
“As health care providers, this is instinctual for us to rise any such
challenge, whether there is a humanitarian crisis in our home country
or anywhere else,” he says. “That’s just what we do all day, every
day.”
Some are also preparing for the long-term effects of the war. HALO
Trust, the global land mine clearance organization, has done
significant work in Nagorno-Karabakh for years following the 1990s
wars. Amasia Zargarian, who grew up in Glendale, spent two years
working in the region before moving to the nonprofit’s Washington D.C.
office.
“What we are seeing now, of course, is a new kind of threat,” he says
by phone from Yerevan. “We’re seeing lots of contamination from
explosive items inside of cities and other major population centers of
Karabakh. We’re seeing cluster munitions and rockets and artillery
shells and different kinds of explosive items that are actually in the
cities, in residential areas.”
Right now, they’re educating people about this threat, but,
ultimately, there will be a need to clear neighborhoods of weapons
that have yet to explode. Zargarian says that they’re seeing an uptick
in interest in their work not just from diasporan Armenians, but from
the general international community. Should people maintain this
interest, that can benefit the relief work that’s to come as well. “As
soon as it is safe to do so, there’s going to be a lot of work to do
and I think a lot of people are going to be able to put their skills
to use when the time comes, I’m not just talking about our work,” says
Zargarian.
Magakian says that he doesn’t know when he’ll be returning to Los Angeles.
“Even when the war is done, our work is still not going to be done,”
he says. That’s part of the message he wants to share with people in
his hometown: “This energy needs to stay up, even after the war,
because there’s a lot of damage done.”
Before that can happen, there’s a more pressing need. “All of us are
very ready, very eager, very willing to contribute to these efforts
and will do so for as long as necessary, but the main thing that all
of us want is for this to stop, for there to not be a need for anyone
to be in this situation,” says Shekherdimian of the diasporan medical
community’s sentiments. “I think that the first thing that all of us
would ask for is for everybody from the highest of diplomatic
officials to all of us as ordinary citizens to do our part to try to
put an end to this.”
This article appeared in Los Angeles Magazine on October 21, 2020.
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6- Arin Sarkissian Awarded 2020 Edward Hosharian Foundation
$5,000 Music Scholarship
The Edward Hosharian Foundation is proud to announce that its 2020
Music Scholarship in the amount of $5,000 has been awarded to
classical Flute Performance student Arin Sarkissian.
Born in Toronto, Canada, to Armen and Alenoosh Sarkissian of La
Crescenta, California, Arin is a fourth-year student at Rice
University’s Shepherd School of Music in Houston, Texas. This highly
specialized program prepares students for a career in the orchestral
world of classical music.
Adding to his numerous awards and honors, last year Arin was the 1st
Prize Winner of the nationally recognized Mika Hasler Competition for
instrumentalists under 23 years of age.
Over the past few years Arin participated in solo and orchestral
performances and summer programs—touring in faraway destinations such
as Canada, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Columbia
and Ecuador—with the Shepherd School Symphony, Colburn Youth
Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of USA and National Youth
Orchestra of Canada.
Arin is described as an “extraordinary talent and a young artist of
exceptional depth.” With his “brilliant technique, vibrant and
colorful sound, wide dynamic range and sparkling articulation,” he is
surely destined for a major music performance career.
The Edward Hosharian Foundation congratulates Arin on his many
achievements and wishes him the utmost success in his musical studies
and career.
The Foundation was established in honor of composer/conductor Edward
Hosharian’s memory to preserve, promote and enhance Armenian classical
and ethnic music by awarding scholarships to assist deserving
college-level music students of Armenian descent in pursuit of their
educational goals.
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