Guest Post: Armen Martirosian: Where are NATO and the EU as war crimes against Armenians unfold?

Another anguished voice from the Armenian diaspora calling on the world to stand with Armenia against the aggression of its neighbors, and their efforts to take by force what they cannot take by law. Read, pay attention, donate.

One consequence of this war in Artsakh is that I’m no longer the same person I was before it all started. I’m not sure who I’ll be when the dust from this has settled but I know my views on the world will be irrevocably altered. First, my distrust of the West when it speaks of democratic values has grown immensely. I know for a fact it’s all empty posturing and useless rhetoric. All the resources spent on counter terrorism and yet, Turkey flaunts its terror operations by hiring jihadists and mercenaries to destabilize numerous regions, in particular the bloodthirsty Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan. Where’s NATO and the EU as this happens? All talk about human rights and people’s right for self determination take a back seat when an oil rich despot like Aliyev offers to share his resources and uses those ill begotten petro-dollars to purchase illegal munitions from Israeli defense contractors. Where are the calls for war crimes by the global community?

The only time we make a significant impact on the news is when our defensive response to attacks results in collateral damage that then gets the false equivalency treatment. As though both democratic Armenia and democratic Artsakh are the same as autocratic Azerbaijan. Their press freedom is one of the worst in the world, they beat and torture journalists, opposition candidates, they jail dissidents and threaten anyone that stands in the way of their agenda. They can bring terrorists and illegal munitions, deploy them and never get criticized for it because their oil is sacred.

So this is what it’s come to? Betraying our democratic values (which we fought hard to achieve, even going as far as peaceful revolution), freedom and the right to exist, for some petroleum?

We see you NATO, EU, US, Israel, Russia and we’ll never cease reminding you of your hypocrisy.

I know many individuals are supportive of our plight (and we do appreciate it) but that’s not enough when their governments hypocritically allow this to continue. You’ve sanctioned others for far less.Aliyev has made his intentions clear, nothing short of Genocide and ethnic cleansing, Erdoğan has supported him and we now have proof of NATO weapons, Syrian terrorists, illegal Israeli cluster munitions, etc. What more do we need to do? What else is expected of us?

We will not go quietly into this bad night. We will fight, we will resist, if necessary, we’ll go scorched earth to achieve this. This is what I mean when I say I’ll never be the same. Before all this, I was a humanist, I looked up to the potential of Armenia in achieving the democratic values present in Western Europe but that man is dead from rage. I’ve come to accept the only thing that will save us from annihilation is brute force. How many thousands of our soldiers must sacrifice their lives before this happens? I’m at a tipping point and I never thought the dark side would overtake me and yet, here we are. Just consider pre September 27th 2020 Armen another victim of this war against annihilation. #SanctionTurkey #SanctionAzerbaijan #StopAliyev #StopErdogan #AzerbaijanIsATerroristState #TurkeySponsorsTerrorism #ResistanceOfArtsakh #ArtsakhStrong