They describe Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno Karabakh as ‘genocide’

The report was prepared by Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and former assistant prosecutor in the Juntas trial in 1985 and now a lecturer at Harvard and Yale.

The jurist acted at the request of the government of that region involved in a conflict with Azerbaijan, a country claiming total sovereignty over that territory.

According to the 28-page exposé, the Azerbaijani regime, which has already taken military part in that space, closed the so-called Lachin Corridor which is the only one through which it is possible to send food and medicine to the population, mostly Armenian.

The report argues that “in analyzing the Srebrenica case, the International Court of Justice ruled that the “deprivation of food, medical care, shelter or clothing” constitutes genocide within the meaning of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention. He refers to the massacre of some 8,000 ethnic Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995, during the Bosnian war.

The crisis of the corridor, which connects Armenia with the disputed enclave, began last December, when sporadic blockades began to be established, which were later aggravated with the installation of checkpoints along its route which filtered the passage of truck. December 12 was closed, interrupting since then the transport of 400 tons of basic necessities per day.

The intention would be the surrender of the population resisting the annexation to Azerbaijan. Between September and November 2020 there was a war with an all-out offensive by the Azerbaijani armed forces, which are much more powerful than the local ones.

Both South Caucasus countries belonged to the Soviet Union, one Shiite and the other Orthodox Christian. Dictator Joseph Stalin was the one who handed over Nagorno to Azerbaijan. As the Communist camp fell into crisis, the Armenians were involved in the First Nagorno War which ended in thousands of deaths and the reconquest of territory that had since remained loyal to Yerevan.

In the conflict three years ago, the Azerbaijani regime captured most of the territory, including the enclave’s second city, but did not advance all over the space due to pressure from Russia. which is Armenia’s economic and military ally.

However, due to the war in Ukraine, which reduces the Kremlin’s autonomy in that region, Azerbaijan has taken steps under the protection of its main patron, Turkey, which has strong geopolitical appetites on those borders. In this context the blockade of the Lachin took place with danger for its inhabitants.

With the time since that closure, the situation is extremely complex today, as the report indicates. Medical care is at a minimum, schools are practically non-functioning and there is a pressing shortage of food, including fruit, vegetables and milk.

Source: Clarin