Author: Christine Harutyunian

ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian advocating for Armenia and Artsakh on Capitol Hill

As the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots political organization, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) works on the ground on Capitol Hill to influence and guide US policy, serving Armenian Americans as a liaison with their elected officials, and advancing issues of concern to the American Armenian community. The ANCA’s current efforts and actions are dedicated to stopping all US military aid to Azerbaijan and to sending emergency humanitarian assistance to Artsakh in the face of the ongoing blockade by Azerbaijan. In conjunction with these pressing issues, the ANCA also focuses its attention on education, and in particular, Armenian Genocide education. By now, our readers have received the 2023 Special Issue Magazine dedicated to genocide education. In preparation for the magazine, the Armenian Weekly conducted an interview with ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian to learn more about the ANCA’s objectives in genocide education and how they correspond to current events in Armenia and Artsakh.

Armenian Weekly (A.W.): Tell us about the Armenian Genocide Education Act and its status.

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian (A.H.): The ANCA welcomed the reintroduction of the Armenian Genocide Education Act on April 24 by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and her three colleagues, Representatives Gus Bilirakis, Ted Lieu and David Valadao. They were joined by more than 40 original cosponsors, a strong showing of bipartisan support. [Note: Since the interview was conducted, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez and Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced the bipartisan companion to the House’s Armenian Genocide Education Act.] 

In the last session of Congress, this measure was introduced by former Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a longstanding ally in Congress, who was joined by Congressman Gus Bilirakis in introducing H.R.7555. This measure secured strong bipartisan support, garnering 76 cosponsors and considerable interest and support among diverse Congressional constituencies and also academic, scholarly and human rights circles. It was referred to the Committee on House Administration, since it called on the Library of Congress (an arm of Congress) to promote Armenian Genocide education, but this panel did not have time to act on the measure before the end of the 117th Congress. 

The Armenian Genocide Education Act builds upon the President’s (2021) recognition of the Armenian Genocide and the historic passage (2019) of H.Res.296 and S.Res.150 – resolutions that established US recognition of the Armenian Genocide and rejected any official US association with the denial of this crime. This measure aims to appropriate $10 million over five years for the Library of Congress to help educate Americans about the Armenian Genocide. It specifically cites Ottoman Turkey’s systematic and deliberate state-sponsored mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure and exile of millions of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites and other Christians between 1915 and 1923.

A.W.: How does Armenian Genocide education fit into the ANCA’s legislative priorities?

A.H.: The ANCA has a forward-looking policy agenda, focused on the long-term viability of the Armenian nation. Armenian Genocide education represents a vital component of this work, aligned with our aims of a secure Armenian homeland and a safer world. Increasing awareness of the Armenian Genocide shines a spotlight on the current threats – by the same state perpetrators of the 1915 Genocide – to the very existence of Armenia and Artsakh. More broadly, this type of education makes the world safer by challenging Turkey’s precedent of genocide committed, consolidated and denied with impunity.

A.W.: Given that the ANCA’s advocacy efforts are focused on the existential threat facing the republics of Artsakh and Armenia today, how can genocide education inform those efforts?

A.H.: Genocide education places the current existential threats to our homeland in historical context. Azerbaijan’s aggression – fully backed by Turkey – did not start in the 1980s, but rather has its roots in the genocidal campaigns by Sultan Abdul Hamid, the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to rid Armenian lands of Armenians as part of their twisted pan-Turkish dream of ethnically-cleansing their way to Central Asia. Today, a century after the Armenian Genocide, we hear Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev repeating genocidal threats, and worse yet, acting on their stated intentions to finish the work of 1915. Erdogan and others have called Armenians the “remnants of the sword,” meaning the few they failed to kill, while Aliyev loudly proclaims Yerevan and the rest of Armenia as Azerbaijani land.

A.W.: The ANCA continues to work diligently to zero out US military aid to Azerbaijan and to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its war crimes in the 2020 Artsakh War and to the present day. How do you think genocide education today can help in these specific efforts?

A.H.: It is our hope and expectation that US policymakers – forced to make decisions on US military aid to Azerbaijan out in the open, under the bright light of public scrutiny – will be informed by the long history of Turkey and Azerbaijan working together today to eradicate the presence of Armenians upon their indigenous homeland. That they will not misrepresent this ethnic-cleansing as a “conflict” between two antagonists, but rather a unilateral attack by vastly larger militaries against a blockaded, landlocked genocide survivor state. We are working toward the day that Turkey and Azerbaijan’s genocidal drive to eradicate Armenians will be challenged by American leaders as a moral imperative, not as a geopolitical chess game to be managed. A future State Department whose diplomats all learned about the Armenian Genocide in school would be far more willing and able to prevent a second Armenian Genocide, and more broadly, to help end the global cycle of genocide.

A.W.: According to The Genocide Education Project, currently, 14 US states that require genocide and Holocaust education include the Armenian Genocide as a primary example. What efforts are being made by the ANCA and its local affiliates to promote this requirement in other states, and what states, if any, are a specific focus?

A.H.: Our challenge is to expand the list of states that require Armenian Genocide education and then – just as importantly – to ensure that these states actually implement these programs in each and every school district. We are working with our local chapters to make this happen. We aim to build on the remarkable work that has been done in the civic arena, by Armenian National Committees in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia, to include Armenian Genocide education in public school lesson plans. The Genocide Education Project, in the academic space, is doing groundbreaking work in training teachers and providing educational materials in school districts across the country.

A.W.: Any final comments about the importance of Armenian Genocide education, specifically as it pertains to the work of the ANCA?

A.H.: As William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” That’s doubly true for Armenians. By virtue of our history, our geography, our neighbors and the threats we face, we must confront the past, addressing its gravest injustices, as part of our broader movement forward as a nation.

What’s at stake here is not just historical memory, which is so very vital, but also prospects for a just resolution of the Armenian Genocide and the prevention of future genocides against any peoples, anywhere on our planet. There is no better way to end the cycle of genocide than by teaching about genocide, and there is surely no better place to start than in our schools.

Our efforts in this regard are all the more necessary given the lack of sufficient Armenian Genocide education in school textbooks and lesson plans and all the more urgent in light of the Turkish government’s increasingly aggressive global campaign of Armenian Genocide denial, including active and ongoing efforts to roll back US recognition of this crime.

WATERTOWN, Mass. – The Armenian National Committee of America Eastern Region (ANCA-ER) is pleased to announce that its 17th annual ANCA Eastern Region Gala will take place on Saturday, October 7, 2023, at the Royal Sonesta Boston Hotel located at 40 Edwin Land Boulevard, Cambridge, MA.

Hosted by the ANC of Eastern Massachusetts, the evening will feature a cocktail reception, seated dinner, silent auction and an awards program. The region will present the ANCA Eastern Region Freedom Award and ANCA Eastern Region Vahan Cardashian Award to individuals whose work advances the Armenian Cause.

“Mark your calendars for the 17th annual ANCA Eastern Region Gala in Boston this fall. Our gala committee is in the early planning phases and will be announcing more information in the coming weeks. We hope that our activists and supporters throughout the eastern region will attend and support our annual fundraising event and join us to mark the contributions we have all made to Hai Tahd this year with our focus on Artsakh advocacy,” said Steve Mesrobian, ANCA-ER board member.

Azerbaijan sets up checkpoint on Lachin Corridor (Photo: NKR InfoCenter)

Humanitarian aid shipments to Artsakh have been disrupted by Azerbaijan’s installation of a checkpoint along the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor. 

Artsakh authorities announced that humanitarian assistance delivered by Russian peacekeepers from Armenia to Artsakh could not be transported for three days following the creation of the checkpoint. On April 25, Artsakh authorities said that food shipments had been “somewhat restored.” 

The transfer of 28 patients from Artsakh to medical institutions in Armenia was also barred by the establishment of the checkpoint. The patients include a pregnant woman whose expectant baby will require cardiac surgery and a nine-year-old with leukemia. 

On April 23, Azerbaijan set up a checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor, the sole route connecting Armenia and Artsakh, and closed the Hakari bridge at the entrance to the corridor near Armenia’s border. Russian peacekeeping forces stationed near the bridge did not intervene.  

Azerbaijani protesters posing as environmental activists have closed the Berdzor Corridor since December 12, 2022, barring the movement of civilians or essential goods. Only vehicles belonging to the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh or the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been able to travel along the corridor. The ICRC has transported patients from Artsakh to Armenia for medical assistance since the start of the blockade. Yet the establishment of a checkpoint has tightened the blockade on Artsakh. 

“It is obvious that by setting up a checkpoint, Azerbaijan is trying to give new impetus to its policy of ethnic cleansing of Artsakh in an environment of complete impunity and permissiveness,” the Artsakh Foreign Ministry said. “Not only does the leadership of Azerbaijan not hide its genocidal actions, but also announces them in advance without any condemnation or opposition from the international community.”

The installation of a military checkpoint violates the trilateral ceasefire agreement signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia ending the 2020 Artsakh War. Under the terms of the agreement, Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor to ensure the connection between Armenia and Artsakh. The agreement states that “Azerbaijan guarantees traffic safety along the Lachin Corridor of citizens, vehicles and goods in both directions.” 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan defended the move in a statement, calling it a “legitimate national security decision.” It accused Armenia of using the Berdzor Corridor to transport military weaponry and personnel to Artsakh. 

Azerbaijani authorities have long accused Armenia, as well as the Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in Artsakh, of using the Berdzor Corridor to deliver military equipment. They have not provided any evidence for this claim. Azerbaijani leadership has cited this accusation to justify previous escalations and military advances in Artsakh in the past months. 

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry denied that its government had violated the ceasefire agreement. It said that installing a border checkpoint “does not create changes in the traffic regime on the road.” It also denied that the Berdzor Corridor has been under blockade since December, stating that there are “appropriate conditions for transparent, safe and orderly passage” for the Armenians of Artsakh. 

Artsakh authorities have directly called on Russia to prevent the creation of a checkpoint along the Berdzor Corridor. The corridor falls under the control of Russian peacekeepers, who were in close proximity to the Hakari bridge at the time of its closure by Azerbaijani forces. 

The Artsakh Foreign Ministry said that it expects an “unequivocal and adequate response and effective measures” from the wider international community and “first of all, the Russian Federation.” 

Advisor to the Artsakh State Minister Artak Beglaryan was even more direct, stating that Azerbaijan had been able to install a checkpoint because of the failure of the Russian peacekeeping forces to prevent the blockade. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia further called on Russia to “finally fulfill the obligation” under the ceasefire and end the blockade of the Berdzor Corridor. Armenia’s Foreign Ministry also called on the United Nations to “take effective steps toward the unconditional implementation of the decision of the ICJ [International Court of Justice].” 

On February 22, the ICJ ruled that Azerbaijan must guarantee free movement along the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor. 

Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not mention the checkpoint in a statement it released this week expressing “great concern over the situation in Artsakh.” The statement repeatedly appealed to “both sides,” calling on both Armenia and Azerbaijan to abide by the ceasefire agreement. It called unacceptable any steps toward “the unapproved modification of the mode of operation of the Lachin Corridor or attempts to use it for purposes not meeting the peaceful agenda.” 

The United States and France released sharper statements, criticizing Azerbaijan’s establishment of a checkpoint on the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor. They both called for free movement of people and commerce along the route. 

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe announced this week that its rapporteur on “addressing the humanitarian consequences of the blockade of the Lachin Corridor,” Paul Gavan, will visit Armenia, Azerbaijan and Artsakh to document the situation along the corridor.

“Azerbaijan alleges systematic and large-scale misuse of the Lachin road for illicit purposes, contrary to the Trilateral Statement of 10 November 2020, which it claims constitute security threats. Without accessing the area, it is not possible to verify these claims,” Gavan said. “On the other hand, the suffering of the inhabitants in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the resulting serious humanitarian crisis, has already been well-documented.”