February 6, 2025 • 38 mins
James is joined by Nevdon Jamgochian to discuss the use of COP 29 to greenwash Azerbaijan’s attempts at the removal of Armenian people from their ancestral lands in Artsakh and the the history of the conflict.
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VOMA
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Sources:
Books:
The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide by Peter Balakian
The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geo-politics of Nagorno-Ka
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Calls media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here today.
It's me James and I'm joined by Nevdon jam Gochian.
We're here to talk about Azerbaijan, Armenia and the increasingly
genocidal rhetoric from Azerbaijan. But I want to start off nevdone.
We're talking about COP twenty twenty four. I guess can
(00:25):
you explain I think people will be sort of somewhat
familiar with these series of climate conferences, but this one
was held in Azerbaijan, Right, and can you explain a
little bit about you've specialized in like these greenwashing, sports washing,
various other sort of forms of laundering legitimacy. Right, I'd
love for you to start off there and explain how
(00:47):
this particular conference was used as a means of laundering
legitimacy for what is it like a genocidal project.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
COP twenty nine, which was just concluded in Azerbaijan, is
the deadly series and vital conversation about climate in the
United Nations, which we absolutely need to have. But from
the beginning it was a clown show. And the way Azerbaijan,
(01:15):
a Petra dictatorship was able to proture this for themselves
was at COP twenty eight, which was held in Dubai,
another questionable location for a climate conference, where they had
a pavilion, as reported by Political EU, where they had
a giant advertisement that said Carabach is the first place
(01:38):
to achieve net zero emissions in Azerbaijan, and that was
one part of them getting the bid for COP twenty nine.
And the way Zerbaijan was able to achieve net zero
emissions in this particular location was they committed a genocide
against all the people. If there's no people, there's no
(02:01):
climate emissions. And that's probably not even true that it's
a net zero emissions because they've engaged in so much
of the eradication of any trace of Armenians in this
place that Armenians been living in for at least two thousand,
five hundred years. Destruction of buildings, of course is one
(02:21):
of the huge source of pollution, and they've they've raised
something like four cemeteries, thousands of the monuments, four churches
have amolished, entire neighborhoods have been raised historical neighborhood So
it's probably not even that zero, but that was their
advertising claim. To get the bid. The top twenty nine
(02:43):
was originally supposed to be in Europe, but Russia was
vetoing every European bid, and Armenia, who Azerbaijan is currently
occupying two hundred and fifteen kilometers of Armenian territory, was
blocking Azerbaijan till Azerbaijan offered to give up thirty two
Armenian hostages. So we've got a clean side, and then
(03:07):
we've got a gangster hobstage situation, which they did. They
gave up thirty two members of the Armenian military, and
they made Armenia give up two other Bajigans that were
reheld by Armenia because they had gone into Armenia and
killed a local security guard trying to steal his car.
They probably were lost and they killed this guy and
(03:29):
they were trying to escape, but then just one of
them had been sent to life imprisonment. But that's what
Armenia gave up in exchange.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
To allow this climate conference to happen.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So let's stand back from this climate conference right like
in this I think it's a really interesting place to start.
The site of our genocide is a net zero area
and it's a very bleak vision of the sort of
greenwashing future. Let's expand a little bit of the history
of the conflict between these two countries and also prepp
more broadly. I think people will probably be familiar with
(04:03):
the Armenian genocide if they've listened to this show, but
of Armenian people as a subject of discrimination and hatred
for centuries.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Right, well, you know, I mean, Armenians are one of
the ancient people of that area, Greeks, Jews, Persians, They're
one of the people that have kind of stuck it
out for a long time in that neighborhood. The Turkic
people are more recent visitors to the neighborhood. And there's
nothing wrong with migration of people, but there's something about
(04:35):
populations that have been there for a long time that
really strikes a nerve. If we want to be very
mild about it, with the Turkic people, Turkey and Azerbaijan
in the sense that they've been engaged in a policy
of destroying any remnants of Armenians, including physical people, for
least in eighteen eighties. They've been making them second class
(04:58):
citizens since they came in in the Ottoman Empire. There's
this myth of the a multicultural society, which is interesting
Azerbaijan is also trying to promote. But it really was
a second class situation where the minorities in the Ottoman
Empire had a lot of extra taxes and duties and
(05:19):
persecution than other people in the area.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, so let's talk about this this area then, specifically
this area which would be called depending on who you asked,
art Zach or Nagna Krabac, Right, I think probably it did.
I don't know if I haven't looked on Wikipedia, but
like what would the more commonly used terms for people
wanting to look it up right in American English?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
But let's explain why there.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is a conflict in this area and then what has
happened since I guess we can go from like the
fall of the Soviet Union would be a place to start.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Or I mean we talked about earlier. That's the tough
thing about talking to rannions, like where I would start
with the sixth century and the fall of the king
in Maratu. Okay, But I guess we don't have that
much time. So basically, and I do have to put
this in there because there's this big Azerbaijani narrative that
Armenians are effective people, they're effective presence, and I'll deal
(06:14):
with that in a little bit. Yeah, but you know,
it's just been recorded by Greek. I mean, I don't
know why I should have to prove our existence, but
we do.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So anyway, if record to history that it's where the
Armedian alphabet was unvented. These people have been indigenous to
the region for thousands of years. They've got a deep
connection with the land fill. The Soviet unions fast forward
there it had been under the territory of the Azerbaijani SSR,
as in a autonomous oblast as they called it. It
(06:44):
had been given to the Azerbaijani SSR because of Stalin,
who was the Commissioner of Minorities. Colin has this big
project to divide the people, the minorities in the Soviet
Union to fight each other, which is ramped up in
nineteen sixties when the Soviets start in ing fake history
to pit people against each other, which is wild, but
(07:05):
Soviet Union is crumbling. The people of Artsak, which is
the Armeni indigenous name Nagaro Karaba, is generally acceptable as well.
That's that would be the colonial name or the name
that the Azeris called the region. They are fed up
with not being able to learn their language because of Azerbaijan.
They're fed up with not being able to have any
(07:27):
of the rights as Soviet citizens because the father of
the current dictator of Azerbaijan was ruining Azerbaijan since nineteen
sixty nine, and his policy was to try to get
as many Armenians to move out of the region as possible.
So they're fed up with this and they're like, okay, enough,
they legally seceed from the Soviet Union. It's allowed in
(07:48):
the constitution, which of course infuriates that Azerbaijani SSR. You know.
So there's a bunch of conflicts. There's the pogroms that
happen against Armenians and cities of Baku and Ungate, and
at which point they seceed fully from the Soviet Union,
one of the first areas to do so. In nineteen
(08:09):
ninety one. They actually left the Soviet Union before Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan with the Soviet Union's troops in Bay there's this
bloody mess it's called Operation Ring where they're killing Armenians
in the area. There's a war that erupts when everybody seceedes.
Armenians in Artsak get the upper hand due to they
(08:31):
really cared about it and also probably because of racism
within the Soviet Union where they trained Armenians a little
bit better than they did Azeris. It's a humiliating defeat
for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijean is pushed back. Armenian sees about nine
percent of Azerbaijani territory beyond Artsak, and that was a
stasis until twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah really yeah, sort of thirty years of right, but
it was always disputed right. This area was as we
don't continue to lay claim to the ad Tuk region.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
For some reason, it was never recognized by the UN
as being a real country, similar to some other places.
Why that is is confusing to me, because they did
leave earlier than anybody else. It is an ethnic minority
that chose to leave the area, but it was they
weren't considered legitimate by the UN. By Azerbaijan, and secondarily,
(09:28):
we have this brutal dictatorship that's held together by ethnic hatred. Really,
I cannot overstate how terrible the Alif regime is in Azerbaijan.
But you know, Urmeni forces committed at least one war
crime that I'm aware of during that time in the
(09:48):
place go Kolzoli where they killed one hundred and eighty
to six hundred Azari civilians. And they've used this event
and I think one other, to really hold their country
together in this pit of broath of it think hatred.
So not until twenty twenty does that really call last
do they become strong as a petro state to take
(10:10):
back large portions of the country.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, talking of taking back, I'm gonna have to take
back thirty seconds of everyone's time for an advertising break here,
So let's do that and we'll come right back.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
All right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
One thing I think that it might be illustrative to
hear is that, like in the first Adzakh War, Turkish
I guess it regulars or mercenaries or and what you
want to call them, people associated with the gray Wolves
fought on the side of Azubijan. Right and keen history
understanders wonder that there is some history of anti Armenian
sentiment among the gray Wolves and then indeed in Turkey
(10:55):
as a country.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So preps.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
This is a good point to talk about the international
involvement here, because I think it's very misleading to do this.
As we're seeing in Syria right now, people want to
divide the world into blocks, right with like sort of
this sort of Cold War narrative that we have of
Russian interests in US interests, And I think this is
an excellent example of why that is not necessarily a
(11:20):
great way to perceive the world. So, can you explain
the international involvement in artsak and in this ongoing conflict
which we'll get to it beginning again in twenty twenty,
I think in a second.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
In addition to Turkish forces being used in that twenty
twenty war, which I guess we'll have to get into
a little bit. Yeah, there, Syrian mercenaries were used as well.
They were acuted, they were put on the front lines.
It's kind of candid fodder. They're given something like one
hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded a civilian, a two
hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded in Armenian soldier there.
(11:52):
But of course Israel is the primary supplier of Azeri
weapons in weaponry on so far to test some of
their drones on manned Armenian outposts early on before the
war started. It's fair to say that Azerbaijan could not
have been so successful without the aid of their ally, Israel.
(12:13):
Israel has been deeply involved in Azerbijan for a long time.
They use Azerbaijan as a listening post against Iran. Israel
stages raids from Azerbaijan on Iran and has to do
with the ethnic minority in Iran. There's a lot of
Azari's down there. Israel get something like forty percent of
its oil from Azerbaijan. Right after the Palestinian genocide started,
(12:37):
Israel awarded two contracts to the state oil company SOCAR
in Azerbaijan. It's right adjacent to the Palestinian gas field
and the Lebanon oil field to SOCAR to explore. It
cannot be overstated how complicit these two groups are with
each other. They really really need each other in the region.
(13:01):
In the United States also liked Azerbaijan as well. They
see it as a friendly Muslim country bulark against Iran
as well.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, I think they also have some Turkish drones. Is
that right the Bajakar y, Yes, absolutely, So let's talk
about that twenty twenty war, because that was a war
that relied heavily on these drones, right, some major means
of destroying Armenian armor and pushing that offensive. So what
happened in twenty twenty along this disputed border, Well, you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Know, it's called mountainous Karaba. It's an area that's great
defensively if you're fighting in a pre drone world. Yeah,
but you know, as you've discovered your Kurdish friends, the
drones are amazingly destructive against people hiding in caves, which
is what the Armenian response had been. Armenians had been
(13:53):
a bit lazy. They've been relying on Russian tanks and weaponry,
Whereazerbaijan's is buying from Israel, buying from all, you know, many, many,
just different sources, which reflects the wealth of Azerbaijan, of course.
So in twenty twenty, there's some indication that Alif, the
dictator of Azebaijan, had been planning US for a while.
(14:15):
He had this playbook called Operation Aszeri Smile twenty twenty.
The troops move in, they encounter more resistance than they thought,
and they get most of the Armenian held territory of
Nigardo Karaba back. They're stopped at the last minute, probably
(14:35):
by Russian intervention. At this time. The Armenia was a
member of the Russian Alliance at that time, which they're
leaving just because it's the Russia has failed to live
up to its treaty obligations anyway, and it left a
kind of a skeletal state of Artak left, which was
only supplied by this one road called the Latchin Corridor,
(14:57):
that was only one road from Armenia to supply the
one hundred and twenty some thousand Armenians who lived in
Artzok left, which brings us to twenty twenty four, twenty three.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Twenty three or yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So yeah, you have this situation where we now have
this massive area that's I guess occupied a lot of people.
People began leaving at that time right through that latching Corridor,
like people didn't feel like they could safely remain there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I mean, the indigenous people of art Sooc have this
profound relationship with the land and the people. I am
an icon painter, and I was talking to my priest
and he was comparing the people there to the elves
and the lord of the ring. You know, they whistle
to the birds. You know, they've just been living with
the land for a long time. So there was a drade,
(15:50):
but it's not as big as you would have fought,
just because there's this intense millennia old connection with the
places of Artsock. So what Azerbaijohn did, and this is
I think unprecedented, is they had a fake ecological protest.
Oh wow, that stopped the Lachin Corridor from supplying food
(16:14):
and medicine to the people of Artsac. So they starved
those people, They denied the medicine, people had miscarriages as
areas were firing at farmers in the field that were
trying to collect food. And that went on for nine months.
And what stopped what's oether by John claimed it was
(16:34):
a group of ecological protesters who were stopping trucks of
food coming into Artsack for any any reason, which you
know is enough of the smoke screen for the Western
world to really throw up its hands.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, fascinating. So they literally have a blockade of these protesters.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
These protesters are blocked it. There'sn't The Russian troops that
were the peace coopers refused to disperse these protesters. They
were these old appraching kind of looking people wearing fur coats.
They were identified on social media as actually being members
of the Zari military, and they had these printed signs
that said things like protect nature, stop pollutionsic wildly generic things. Ostensibly,
(17:17):
they are against the gold mining operations in Artsk, which
is nuts because a protest is not allowed. And Azerbaijan
and THEI there had been an actual protest against a
real gold mine that was owned by the daughters of
the dictator and they were brutally shut down, you know before,
So anybody who was paying any kind of attention to
(17:38):
this knew that it was fictive. But I think the
EU in particular needing enough of the smoke screen not
to support these people. EU. Of course it's getting its
gas through Azerbaijan, Yeah, because they've said they don't want
it from Russia. But Russia's just feeding its gas to Azerbaijan,
and then Azerbaijean is selling it's Azerbaijani gas to the EU.
So they were just trying to do that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, if we've just created a pass through and like
someone who can live off that rentier income, so let's
go to twenty twenty three. Okay, what do we see
happening in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
So the eco protesters they kind of run their course
and then there's a lightning operation art sucks attacked positions overrun.
There's this massive exodus of people, people who have to
leave their houses immediately. The road is blocked. People are
(18:31):
dying on this road on the way out, fighting each other,
you know, just to leave their houses. In twenty twenty,
Azerbaijan has said, sure, you know, our Meetians can come back.
We're just taking back a territory. You live here, you
can do that. But when Armenians did, there's this one
case of a sixty nine year old farmer who went
back to get his possessions. Every troops cut off his
(18:54):
head Jesus. They put it on a dead pig, and
they put all those images on social media. They raped
and tortured anybody that they could find left behind, and
they turned it into memes on telegrams, stickers that were
you know, something like down like twenty thousand times in
the five days that were being monitored for this. So
(19:15):
there was absolutely no question that people could stay behind. Yeah. Zero, Yeah,
So there's no Armenians left, and so there's literally been
daily ritual that's been going on for a thousand, seven
hundred years that doesn't go on anymore, and there's a
tragedy in that.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's been lost.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Like yeah, it's hard to quantify the like you know
the meaning of that loss. I think, especially for folks
who aren't familiar with people and their culture and like
that connection to these things. Talking of quantifying things, I
need to look at the amount of time we got
here and pivot again to advertisements.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
And we're back. So what we see.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
In odds, especially in twenty twenty three, is a project
of ethnic cleansing, right, genocidal violence, whatever however you wish
to phrase it. I mean, ethnic cleansing is not a
term that has really like a definition in natural law.
Genocide does often very much like in this incidence, I'm
using them to mean one and the same thing, the
removal of people, either through killing them or forcing them
(20:32):
to leave or starving them.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
The International Association Genocide Scholars the Lumpkin Institute. Luis Moreno
Campo is a founding prosecutor of the ICC. You on
Your RESTR. Mendez a special advisor to the second General
on genocide prevention. They all call it genocide, so we
can call it that, Yeah, we can call it really safe. Yeah,
there have.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Been many genocide of products in history. Like what is
as Abajan's goal with this? Is it the remove full
of Armenian people with the areas such as a repeople
can occupy it? Is it access to the resources that
are there? Is it settling a historical school?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
If you look at a map, there's this idea of
pan Turanism. Is that something that's you're familiar with?
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, can you explain that to listen to a not.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Pan Turanism is this Turkish idea of an ancient Turkish
state that stretches from the Bosphorus all the way over
to Mongolia and there's one little country in the way
that is blocking this empire that should exist according to
(21:41):
the pan Tyrannism. And this is an old idea, it's
a nineteenth century idea. It's blumping in with every Nazi
and race junk scientist idea that you have. But that's
the idea. And the secondary thing is, you know, again,
Aliaf is raving his people, he's in prison. Every journalist
is any scientists, it's it's really on a level with
(22:03):
truth Mingistan or what was happening in Syria or North Korea.
And he needs ethnic hate to keep his country together.
He's made an ethnic hate theme park. It's not called that,
but that's what it is against Armenians. And so yeah,
so really I see it as a consolidation of power.
(22:23):
He needs an enemy, he needs to move forward, which
is why he's threatening to invade Armenia proper. Next.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, And like I think one of the things that
happened with the with the conflict in art Zak, I'm
just I'm thinking about this, this Panturkic stuff because I
see it every single day and their applies to my
post on social media. Right. In my case, it's a
reference to my time in Kurdistan and in Rishaba. Disinformation
played a massive role in the in the twenty twenty
(22:52):
three contract, in the twenty twenty conflict too, right, And
I think people who are hearing about this for the
first time are a massive risk for finding that some
of that differentormation.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They hear about this driving to work today on our
podcast and they go to google it. There's a lot
of crap out there, right, So, like, can we address
that the role that it's played and continues to play.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
The load of crap, or the pan Turanism or both.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, the pan Turanism generates a lot of crap, right,
Like I'm convinced that some of the accounts in my
replies are not real human beings.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Oh yeah, that's been a well established phenomenon. The number
of bots that as of by genre to a lesser
except Turkey, because I think Turkey's more secure in its
genocidal aspect, whereas and it's really really going for it,
you know. So not only the bots in the replies
(23:45):
which has come up, no matter what you put in keyword,
there's going to be lots of mentions on your social media,
not to mention there's a pretty vicious campaign out there
to docks. Anybody who talks about this is that's happened
to me before and it's not pretty. But also there's
this thing called mirror propaganda. I don't know if you've
(24:06):
heard of that. But the Assaris will take something that
Armenians say like oh, our Armenians should go be able
to have a right to return, so they throub this
huge cloud of They'll take actual documents that have been
produced by I don't know, freedom House, right, yeah, and
then they'll copy the entire doc document and format things
(24:26):
the right of Azaris to return to Western Azerbaijan, which
is their new concept, and Western Ivverdjan is the country
of Armenia. So they have these maps where they renamed
all the towns of Armenia with Assari names. They claim
Armenians only came to the region in eighteen twenty eight
with the Russians, that they are fake people. Another tragedy
(24:47):
of Artsak is they're taking these monasteries and places, not
only destroying them but chiseling off ancient inscriptions to prove
that Armenians didn't exist there. They've already done this in
this other place called Natchivan, which is they call it
the largest cultural genocide of the twenty first century, where
they destroyed thousands of medieval monuments and stones with bull
(25:07):
josers and sledgehammers. So they're just wiping them out, any
record of our medium anything in their claiming Armenia it
is really should be called Western Azerbaijan. And anytime Armenians
talk about arts that going back, they're like, well, we
they've made cookbooks, they've got a television show How Western
as the Baisan, and it's just it's what you're laughing,
(25:28):
and I laugh too, but it's it's so ugly, so scary,
but it's funny too.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, what if these things are intil it's your grandma
or have you been beheaded? Like yes, it does seem
it does seem obscene, and it's so obscene that it's funny. Right,
But like this is a concerted state project, right that,
like it's easy to get caught up in. And it's
easy to get caught in this disinformation machine, not just
(25:54):
from like like like a bot in your replies, but
from news like you say, news outlets or a doctored
reports or things that look very convincing.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Search results that go to the top. I mean, you know,
on this course started with the writing and genocide which
ors Turkey and Azebaijan and Pakistan for some reason, say
it was fake. If you search for that, the top
results are gonna be our means are lying they committed
to genocide with us, And then they'll throw these numbers
like oh yeah, Armenian's killed three million Turks, Like what
are you talking about? These? It's just like like words
(26:26):
have meaning, you.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Know, but increasingly less and less, less and less.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know, there's that great Hannah Art line about constant
lying is not aimed at making people believe a lie,
but ensuring that no one believes anything anymore, and that's
what they want. We're an obscure part of the world.
This will say a bunch of shit and people throw
up their hands and walk away.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Yeah, oh it's too complicated, and so they.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Too complicated, right, yeah, Or you know, they'll say, oh,
it's ancient hatreds, and like that's bullshit. It's not ancient hatreds.
It's a very modern thing. These are real people who
have real understand all issues, you know, like in Gaza,
it's like it's very clear, Yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
The different areas that it has received a lot more
coverage and long body attention.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
So where does this leave us now?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Right, as ab Giant has just hosted this conference, and
like it's important to recognize that this conference is it's
a project of kind of global liberalism, right to the
cop conference, and like it conveys legitimacy, and in this case,
it's a means of kind of laundering legitimacy. Right for
this Carabuck project in their case right through through the
(27:38):
lens of protecting the planet.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Where do they go from there?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Well, So what makes the dictatorship as a down a
little bit different from these other dictatorships I mentioned is
I think they care about what people think a little bit.
They bring in f one racing, the Eurovision. They really
do these projects because they want to be seen as
a legitimate state, whereas I think those others like North Korea,
(28:06):
they don't do that, like, no one's gonna like us
no matter what we do. They want to play on
the international stage. So that's one aspect. Another aspect, it
legitimizes themselves to their internal critics. People as their Bajana
smart they know what's going on, but they say, oh,
the world is coming to us. The world accepts us.
(28:28):
They must, you know, accept the brutal dictatorship that's cracking
down anybody's gay, lesbian, anything, you know. Orture is a
feature of this regime. So it legitimizes themselves internally, and
what they fear I guess is people were getting angry
that they invade Armenia. So it's just I think it's
(28:49):
that chene. Now we could argue whether that was effective
because COP twenty nine was an absolute train wreck for them.
But I'm not sure that matters to them right, matters
for the environment.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, I think probably these COP conferences are not going
to be the way we solve our our issues with
climate change. But that's another conversation going forward, Like what
is the status of odds? What can those people, those
people who were able to leave, Like what does the
future hold for them? Are they sort of refugees in media?
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Now? There are refugees in are Armenia. Amenia is a
poor state, doesn't have the oil reserves. The Azerbaijan just
announced that they're increased their military budget by twenty percent. Jesus,
it was already incredibly high. Last time I got statistics,
the flights from of Dah, which is the Israeli military
(29:44):
insulation for flying equipment to Azerbaijan, has ramped up. It's
higher than it was in twenty twenty before their invasion.
It's not a part for twenty twenty three. So that's
a pretty clear sign that they're getting all their equipment
from Israel. They stopped before copp and so I haven't
been able to get data on that since then. Azerbaijan
(30:06):
just issued a declaration that parents cannot visit their children
in the military, and that's a bad, bad sign. So
the question is not if it's win, it is winter.
I mean, he has a lot of mountains. Those are
pretty good defend. People are figured out. Sure, you've talked
(30:26):
to your friends of our Java. They figured out drones
a little bit, how to deal with them better. I
mean he has reached out to France, who's been helping
them a little bit. Azerbaijan says, there's some conditions for
peace that are insane, you know, like change your constitution
is one. Get rid of all EU observers is another.
(30:48):
Don't get any new weapons, and then give us the
what's called this Zeger Corridor, which is like this road
that goes to their exclave Nacheban to the to the
west there, and it's just like you can't stay. No
country is going to do that. Oh and they've got
another claim, which is they say allow the UNESCO to
visit Armenia to check out erased Azerbaijani sites, which is
(31:10):
just a mirror propacanda insanity because unesca's already in our
media and Armenia asked that of UNESCO for Azerbaijan.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But yeah, of course they just copy that right and say, well,
why do you do it?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, right, which you know is not a real thing,
but anyway, so those are a conditions piece. So it
seems probable that Azerbaijan will invade, possibly in spring because
the snow will melt it away. Possibly now, because Alia
seems like he's very angry that the world kind of
paid attention to Cop twenty nine is figuring out that
(31:45):
he's a dick, and he's ramped up in arrest in
his own country. He does arrest an entire television station
of people that were you can't it's it's one of
the least press free countries on Earth. But I guess
people are doing something before or that, and they'll either
take the southern half of Armenia or they'll take all
(32:08):
of it, because they say Yerevan, the capital of Armenians,
is historically part of Azerbaijan. So that's the state where
we're at there, And I really think any other perspectives
are wishful thinking, and I'm Sartaly so grim about that,
but it's I think it's a very real possibility that
(32:28):
there's Armenian genocide that it's killed literally, you know, caluntable
millions of Armenians since the eighteen nineties and ramped up
through nineteen fifteen through nineteen twenty three, and then Society
a little bit is ongoing and their project will be
completed in the next year.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, that's pretty bleak.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
How can people they want to be in solid director
if they want to support I think this is something
that doesn't get reported on right in the US, even
though they just want to learn more. How can they
do that? Where can they go?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
There's a good side has learned for art SoC that's
a good site. There's a bunch of Armenian web sites
that people can go to. May I post some some
links on the show notes? Would that be? That'd be good?
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah, well absolutely Betters in the show notes.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yeah, yeah, I would be very happy to do that
if people want to donate things. But it's similar to
to Gaza or other places, like what what does awareness do?
I guess it could slow things down. Yeah, but really
we just need state actors to respond to this. Our
(33:37):
meetings get very cynically used in France and in the
United States by right wing politicians who claim that they're
protecting Christians, but I don't think that's something that will
actually happen.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, I mean people did the same thing for a
sad right that he protected Christians in Syria while he yeah,
murdered to gas his own people.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
That's a best of cynical thing and a worst justicy.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I mean, what have you seen that's effective in terms
of world action or these things with Kurds or other people?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I mean, look when we talk about how the Kurds
have defended themselves from get a state project to eliminate them,
right in some areas, they haven't been able to write,
and when they have it's through their own armed initiative
for the most part, right, they were very fortunate to
have the support of the United States. But that was
only ever in the battle against Isis. It wasn't when
(34:29):
genocidal violence, right, this genocidal project in a free and
where we're seeing it right now, in power of fact,
the US didn't stand beside them there, and it's not
in its nature too. And I think this is a
really difficult situation that we find ourselves in all around
the world right now. Right, we've seen this in Africa too, right,
(34:50):
it's not really in the nature of the United States,
not in this century, to intervene simply for human rights reasons,
simply because because genocide is wrong.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
We had a person that Sam had the power, who
wrote a book on how genocide is wrong and we
should intervene. And then what happens when she's in power
with Obama and Biden.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
We draw red lines and then less sad walk over them,
like it happens all over the world. And I think, yeah,
we're probably in a post hedge and monic era, but
that doesn't mean that people deserve to die because we're
in a post hedgemonic era.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Look, if I look at the other genocide, which I've
spent more time with than most genocides, the weird thing
to say, it's the genocide in Meammar of the Rahine
of people. They are still facing genocidal violence now, even
from anti hunter groups. But I also see Muslim people
(35:45):
in the current National Liberation Army. I see them fighting
with the k and d F And the way that
those people liberated themselves was like from the bottom up,
and I think that, like I find some home, and
what's happening in Kurdistan and what's happening in me, amma,
And I don't see very much from the community of states,
(36:05):
so much of the thing that even fucking exists. I
don't really believe that states have a conscience. And yes,
I don't think it's in their nature to care about people,
because people are inherently valuable. But I do think people do,
and I do think it is in the nature of
people to care. So I guess we have to continue
to hope.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
And there has been some positive statements by your Java
regarding our Medians, and there's a lot of solidarity there,
which it was great. You know, Kurt's helped commit the
first Armenian genocide and they've apologized, and so I'm seeing
a little glimmers of hope in terms of the solidarity
of people who see what's right and wrong who aren't
state actors. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, one of the things people, there's another thing that
will be deployed very often. The Kurds are responsible for
the Armenian genocide. Court if people were part of the
Armenian genocide, and they will acknowledge that, and they've tried
to make amends for it.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yes, exactly right, and that's all.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, like we're here now, we're not is no to
our history, but we have to acknowledge it so that
we can move from it.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Is there anything else that we've failed to address? You
want to get in quickly before we I mean, yes,
thousands of years of stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
But you know, visit or Armenia. It's still called one
of the safest places on earth. Is it's been rated
safer than Japan. It's a beautiful place. It's a struggling democracy,
but it's the only democracy in the area. Try to
pay attention to the news, you know, is Hackeys. It
(37:32):
seems right, your senator, you know, like I just feel
wrong saying that, But what else can we do? Right?
If you're in Britain, the UK is an incredibly agregious
supporter of Azerbaijan through British petroleum. Really, you people probably
can have the biggest effect because the UK is the
(37:55):
biggest enabler of those dirt bags. And thank you for
the I really appreciate it. And I don't feel like
I've done justice to three thousand, five hundred years of history,
but thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, I think it's great. Is there any way people
can follow you online if they'd like to.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Oh, absolutely not. I'm tired of getting docs.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Excellent, Yes, pretty fit.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
You know. That's why I pin icons. This is because
it's it's anonymous, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
Yeah, very offline.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, but thank you so much, great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Calls media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hi everyone, and welcome to it could happen here today.
It's me James and I'm joined by Nevdon jam Gochian.
We're here to talk about Azerbaijan, Armenia and the increasingly
genocidal rhetoric from Azerbaijan. But I want to start off nevdone.
We're talking about COP twenty twenty four. I guess can
(00:25):
you explain I think people will be sort of somewhat
familiar with these series of climate conferences, but this one
was held in Azerbaijan, Right, and can you explain a
little bit about you've specialized in like these greenwashing, sports washing,
various other sort of forms of laundering legitimacy. Right, I'd
love for you to start off there and explain how
(00:47):
this particular conference was used as a means of laundering
legitimacy for what is it like a genocidal project.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
COP twenty nine, which was just concluded in Azerbaijan, is
the deadly series and vital conversation about climate in the
United Nations, which we absolutely need to have. But from
the beginning it was a clown show. And the way Azerbaijan,
(01:15):
a Petra dictatorship was able to proture this for themselves
was at COP twenty eight, which was held in Dubai,
another questionable location for a climate conference, where they had
a pavilion, as reported by Political EU, where they had
a giant advertisement that said Carabach is the first place
(01:38):
to achieve net zero emissions in Azerbaijan, and that was
one part of them getting the bid for COP twenty nine.
And the way Zerbaijan was able to achieve net zero
emissions in this particular location was they committed a genocide
against all the people. If there's no people, there's no
(02:01):
climate emissions. And that's probably not even true that it's
a net zero emissions because they've engaged in so much
of the eradication of any trace of Armenians in this
place that Armenians been living in for at least two thousand,
five hundred years. Destruction of buildings, of course is one
(02:21):
of the huge source of pollution, and they've they've raised
something like four cemeteries, thousands of the monuments, four churches
have amolished, entire neighborhoods have been raised historical neighborhood So
it's probably not even that zero, but that was their
advertising claim. To get the bid. The top twenty nine
(02:43):
was originally supposed to be in Europe, but Russia was
vetoing every European bid, and Armenia, who Azerbaijan is currently
occupying two hundred and fifteen kilometers of Armenian territory, was
blocking Azerbaijan till Azerbaijan offered to give up thirty two
Armenian hostages. So we've got a clean side, and then
(03:07):
we've got a gangster hobstage situation, which they did. They
gave up thirty two members of the Armenian military, and
they made Armenia give up two other Bajigans that were
reheld by Armenia because they had gone into Armenia and
killed a local security guard trying to steal his car.
They probably were lost and they killed this guy and
(03:29):
they were trying to escape, but then just one of
them had been sent to life imprisonment. But that's what
Armenia gave up in exchange.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
To allow this climate conference to happen.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
So let's stand back from this climate conference right like
in this I think it's a really interesting place to start.
The site of our genocide is a net zero area
and it's a very bleak vision of the sort of
greenwashing future. Let's expand a little bit of the history
of the conflict between these two countries and also prepp
more broadly. I think people will probably be familiar with
(04:03):
the Armenian genocide if they've listened to this show, but
of Armenian people as a subject of discrimination and hatred
for centuries.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Right, well, you know, I mean, Armenians are one of
the ancient people of that area, Greeks, Jews, Persians, They're
one of the people that have kind of stuck it
out for a long time in that neighborhood. The Turkic
people are more recent visitors to the neighborhood. And there's
nothing wrong with migration of people, but there's something about
(04:35):
populations that have been there for a long time that
really strikes a nerve. If we want to be very
mild about it, with the Turkic people, Turkey and Azerbaijan
in the sense that they've been engaged in a policy
of destroying any remnants of Armenians, including physical people, for
least in eighteen eighties. They've been making them second class
(04:58):
citizens since they came in in the Ottoman Empire. There's
this myth of the a multicultural society, which is interesting
Azerbaijan is also trying to promote. But it really was
a second class situation where the minorities in the Ottoman
Empire had a lot of extra taxes and duties and
(05:19):
persecution than other people in the area.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, so let's talk about this this area then, specifically
this area which would be called depending on who you asked,
art Zach or Nagna Krabac, Right, I think probably it did.
I don't know if I haven't looked on Wikipedia, but
like what would the more commonly used terms for people
wanting to look it up right in American English?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
But let's explain why there.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Is a conflict in this area and then what has
happened since I guess we can go from like the
fall of the Soviet Union would be a place to start.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Or I mean we talked about earlier. That's the tough
thing about talking to rannions, like where I would start
with the sixth century and the fall of the king
in Maratu. Okay, But I guess we don't have that
much time. So basically, and I do have to put
this in there because there's this big Azerbaijani narrative that
Armenians are effective people, they're effective presence, and I'll deal
(06:14):
with that in a little bit. Yeah, but you know,
it's just been recorded by Greek. I mean, I don't
know why I should have to prove our existence, but
we do.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
So anyway, if record to history that it's where the
Armedian alphabet was unvented. These people have been indigenous to
the region for thousands of years. They've got a deep
connection with the land fill. The Soviet unions fast forward
there it had been under the territory of the Azerbaijani SSR,
as in a autonomous oblast as they called it. It
(06:44):
had been given to the Azerbaijani SSR because of Stalin,
who was the Commissioner of Minorities. Colin has this big
project to divide the people, the minorities in the Soviet
Union to fight each other, which is ramped up in
nineteen sixties when the Soviets start in ing fake history
to pit people against each other, which is wild, but
(07:05):
Soviet Union is crumbling. The people of Artsak, which is
the Armeni indigenous name Nagaro Karaba, is generally acceptable as well.
That's that would be the colonial name or the name
that the Azeris called the region. They are fed up
with not being able to learn their language because of Azerbaijan.
They're fed up with not being able to have any
(07:27):
of the rights as Soviet citizens because the father of
the current dictator of Azerbaijan was ruining Azerbaijan since nineteen
sixty nine, and his policy was to try to get
as many Armenians to move out of the region as possible.
So they're fed up with this and they're like, okay, enough,
they legally seceed from the Soviet Union. It's allowed in
(07:48):
the constitution, which of course infuriates that Azerbaijani SSR. You know.
So there's a bunch of conflicts. There's the pogroms that
happen against Armenians and cities of Baku and Ungate, and
at which point they seceed fully from the Soviet Union,
one of the first areas to do so. In nineteen
(08:09):
ninety one. They actually left the Soviet Union before Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan with the Soviet Union's troops in Bay there's this
bloody mess it's called Operation Ring where they're killing Armenians
in the area. There's a war that erupts when everybody seceedes.
Armenians in Artsak get the upper hand due to they
(08:31):
really cared about it and also probably because of racism
within the Soviet Union where they trained Armenians a little
bit better than they did Azeris. It's a humiliating defeat
for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijean is pushed back. Armenian sees about nine
percent of Azerbaijani territory beyond Artsak, and that was a
stasis until twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah really yeah, sort of thirty years of right, but
it was always disputed right. This area was as we
don't continue to lay claim to the ad Tuk region.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
For some reason, it was never recognized by the UN
as being a real country, similar to some other places.
Why that is is confusing to me, because they did
leave earlier than anybody else. It is an ethnic minority
that chose to leave the area, but it was they
weren't considered legitimate by the UN. By Azerbaijan, and secondarily,
(09:28):
we have this brutal dictatorship that's held together by ethnic hatred. Really,
I cannot overstate how terrible the Alif regime is in Azerbaijan.
But you know, Urmeni forces committed at least one war
crime that I'm aware of during that time in the
(09:48):
place go Kolzoli where they killed one hundred and eighty
to six hundred Azari civilians. And they've used this event
and I think one other, to really hold their country
together in this pit of broath of it think hatred.
So not until twenty twenty does that really call last
do they become strong as a petro state to take
(10:10):
back large portions of the country.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, talking of taking back, I'm gonna have to take
back thirty seconds of everyone's time for an advertising break here,
So let's do that and we'll come right back.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
All right, we're back.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
One thing I think that it might be illustrative to
hear is that, like in the first Adzakh War, Turkish
I guess it regulars or mercenaries or and what you
want to call them, people associated with the gray Wolves
fought on the side of Azubijan. Right and keen history
understanders wonder that there is some history of anti Armenian
sentiment among the gray Wolves and then indeed in Turkey
(10:55):
as a country.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
So preps.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
This is a good point to talk about the international
involvement here, because I think it's very misleading to do this.
As we're seeing in Syria right now, people want to
divide the world into blocks, right with like sort of
this sort of Cold War narrative that we have of
Russian interests in US interests, And I think this is
an excellent example of why that is not necessarily a
(11:20):
great way to perceive the world. So, can you explain
the international involvement in artsak and in this ongoing conflict
which we'll get to it beginning again in twenty twenty,
I think in a second.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
In addition to Turkish forces being used in that twenty
twenty war, which I guess we'll have to get into
a little bit. Yeah, there, Syrian mercenaries were used as well.
They were acuted, they were put on the front lines.
It's kind of candid fodder. They're given something like one
hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded a civilian, a two
hundred dollars bonus that they beheaded in Armenian soldier there.
(11:52):
But of course Israel is the primary supplier of Azeri
weapons in weaponry on so far to test some of
their drones on manned Armenian outposts early on before the
war started. It's fair to say that Azerbaijan could not
have been so successful without the aid of their ally, Israel.
(12:13):
Israel has been deeply involved in Azerbijan for a long time.
They use Azerbaijan as a listening post against Iran. Israel
stages raids from Azerbaijan on Iran and has to do
with the ethnic minority in Iran. There's a lot of
Azari's down there. Israel get something like forty percent of
its oil from Azerbaijan. Right after the Palestinian genocide started,
(12:37):
Israel awarded two contracts to the state oil company SOCAR
in Azerbaijan. It's right adjacent to the Palestinian gas field
and the Lebanon oil field to SOCAR to explore. It
cannot be overstated how complicit these two groups are with
each other. They really really need each other in the region.
(13:01):
In the United States also liked Azerbaijan as well. They
see it as a friendly Muslim country bulark against Iran
as well.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, I think they also have some Turkish drones. Is
that right the Bajakar y, Yes, absolutely, So let's talk
about that twenty twenty war, because that was a war
that relied heavily on these drones, right, some major means
of destroying Armenian armor and pushing that offensive. So what
happened in twenty twenty along this disputed border, Well, you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Know, it's called mountainous Karaba. It's an area that's great
defensively if you're fighting in a pre drone world. Yeah,
but you know, as you've discovered your Kurdish friends, the
drones are amazingly destructive against people hiding in caves, which
is what the Armenian response had been. Armenians had been
(13:53):
a bit lazy. They've been relying on Russian tanks and weaponry,
Whereazerbaijan's is buying from Israel, buying from all, you know, many, many,
just different sources, which reflects the wealth of Azerbaijan, of course.
So in twenty twenty, there's some indication that Alif, the
dictator of Azebaijan, had been planning US for a while.
(14:15):
He had this playbook called Operation Aszeri Smile twenty twenty.
The troops move in, they encounter more resistance than they thought,
and they get most of the Armenian held territory of
Nigardo Karaba back. They're stopped at the last minute, probably
(14:35):
by Russian intervention. At this time. The Armenia was a
member of the Russian Alliance at that time, which they're
leaving just because it's the Russia has failed to live
up to its treaty obligations anyway, and it left a
kind of a skeletal state of Artak left, which was
only supplied by this one road called the Latchin Corridor,
(14:57):
that was only one road from Armenia to supply the
one hundred and twenty some thousand Armenians who lived in
Artzok left, which brings us to twenty twenty four, twenty three.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Twenty three or yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
So yeah, you have this situation where we now have
this massive area that's I guess occupied a lot of people.
People began leaving at that time right through that latching Corridor,
like people didn't feel like they could safely remain there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I mean, the indigenous people of art Sooc have this
profound relationship with the land and the people. I am
an icon painter, and I was talking to my priest
and he was comparing the people there to the elves
and the lord of the ring. You know, they whistle
to the birds. You know, they've just been living with
the land for a long time. So there was a drade,
(15:50):
but it's not as big as you would have fought,
just because there's this intense millennia old connection with the
places of Artsock. So what Azerbaijohn did, and this is
I think unprecedented, is they had a fake ecological protest.
Oh wow, that stopped the Lachin Corridor from supplying food
(16:14):
and medicine to the people of Artsac. So they starved
those people, They denied the medicine, people had miscarriages as
areas were firing at farmers in the field that were
trying to collect food. And that went on for nine months.
And what stopped what's oether by John claimed it was
(16:34):
a group of ecological protesters who were stopping trucks of
food coming into Artsack for any any reason, which you
know is enough of the smoke screen for the Western
world to really throw up its hands.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, fascinating. So they literally have a blockade of these protesters.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
These protesters are blocked it. There'sn't The Russian troops that
were the peace coopers refused to disperse these protesters. They
were these old appraching kind of looking people wearing fur coats.
They were identified on social media as actually being members
of the Zari military, and they had these printed signs
that said things like protect nature, stop pollutionsic wildly generic things. Ostensibly,
(17:17):
they are against the gold mining operations in Artsk, which
is nuts because a protest is not allowed. And Azerbaijan
and THEI there had been an actual protest against a
real gold mine that was owned by the daughters of
the dictator and they were brutally shut down, you know before,
So anybody who was paying any kind of attention to
(17:38):
this knew that it was fictive. But I think the
EU in particular needing enough of the smoke screen not
to support these people. EU. Of course it's getting its
gas through Azerbaijan, Yeah, because they've said they don't want
it from Russia. But Russia's just feeding its gas to Azerbaijan,
and then Azerbaijean is selling it's Azerbaijani gas to the EU.
So they were just trying to do that.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, if we've just created a pass through and like
someone who can live off that rentier income, so let's
go to twenty twenty three. Okay, what do we see
happening in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
So the eco protesters they kind of run their course
and then there's a lightning operation art sucks attacked positions overrun.
There's this massive exodus of people, people who have to
leave their houses immediately. The road is blocked. People are
(18:31):
dying on this road on the way out, fighting each other,
you know, just to leave their houses. In twenty twenty,
Azerbaijan has said, sure, you know, our Meetians can come back.
We're just taking back a territory. You live here, you
can do that. But when Armenians did, there's this one
case of a sixty nine year old farmer who went
back to get his possessions. Every troops cut off his
(18:54):
head Jesus. They put it on a dead pig, and
they put all those images on social media. They raped
and tortured anybody that they could find left behind, and
they turned it into memes on telegrams, stickers that were
you know, something like down like twenty thousand times in
the five days that were being monitored for this. So
(19:15):
there was absolutely no question that people could stay behind. Yeah. Zero, Yeah,
So there's no Armenians left, and so there's literally been
daily ritual that's been going on for a thousand, seven
hundred years that doesn't go on anymore, and there's a
tragedy in that.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah, yeah, it's been lost.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Like yeah, it's hard to quantify the like you know
the meaning of that loss. I think, especially for folks
who aren't familiar with people and their culture and like
that connection to these things. Talking of quantifying things, I
need to look at the amount of time we got
here and pivot again to advertisements.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
And we're back. So what we see.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
In odds, especially in twenty twenty three, is a project
of ethnic cleansing, right, genocidal violence, whatever however you wish
to phrase it. I mean, ethnic cleansing is not a
term that has really like a definition in natural law.
Genocide does often very much like in this incidence, I'm
using them to mean one and the same thing, the
removal of people, either through killing them or forcing them
(20:32):
to leave or starving them.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
The International Association Genocide Scholars the Lumpkin Institute. Luis Moreno
Campo is a founding prosecutor of the ICC. You on
Your RESTR. Mendez a special advisor to the second General
on genocide prevention. They all call it genocide, so we
can call it that, Yeah, we can call it really safe. Yeah,
there have.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Been many genocide of products in history. Like what is
as Abajan's goal with this? Is it the remove full
of Armenian people with the areas such as a repeople
can occupy it? Is it access to the resources that
are there? Is it settling a historical school?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
If you look at a map, there's this idea of
pan Turanism. Is that something that's you're familiar with?
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, can you explain that to listen to a not.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Pan Turanism is this Turkish idea of an ancient Turkish
state that stretches from the Bosphorus all the way over
to Mongolia and there's one little country in the way
that is blocking this empire that should exist according to
(21:41):
the pan Tyrannism. And this is an old idea, it's
a nineteenth century idea. It's blumping in with every Nazi
and race junk scientist idea that you have. But that's
the idea. And the secondary thing is, you know, again,
Aliaf is raving his people, he's in prison. Every journalist
is any scientists, it's it's really on a level with
(22:03):
truth Mingistan or what was happening in Syria or North Korea.
And he needs ethnic hate to keep his country together.
He's made an ethnic hate theme park. It's not called that,
but that's what it is against Armenians. And so yeah,
so really I see it as a consolidation of power.
(22:23):
He needs an enemy, he needs to move forward, which
is why he's threatening to invade Armenia proper. Next.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, And like I think one of the things that
happened with the with the conflict in art Zak, I'm
just I'm thinking about this, this Panturkic stuff because I
see it every single day and their applies to my
post on social media. Right. In my case, it's a
reference to my time in Kurdistan and in Rishaba. Disinformation
played a massive role in the in the twenty twenty
(22:52):
three contract, in the twenty twenty conflict too, right, And
I think people who are hearing about this for the
first time are a massive risk for finding that some
of that differentormation.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
They hear about this driving to work today on our
podcast and they go to google it. There's a lot
of crap out there, right, So, like, can we address
that the role that it's played and continues to play.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
The load of crap, or the pan Turanism or both.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Well, the pan Turanism generates a lot of crap, right,
Like I'm convinced that some of the accounts in my
replies are not real human beings.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Oh yeah, that's been a well established phenomenon. The number
of bots that as of by genre to a lesser
except Turkey, because I think Turkey's more secure in its
genocidal aspect, whereas and it's really really going for it,
you know. So not only the bots in the replies
(23:45):
which has come up, no matter what you put in keyword,
there's going to be lots of mentions on your social media,
not to mention there's a pretty vicious campaign out there
to docks. Anybody who talks about this is that's happened
to me before and it's not pretty. But also there's
this thing called mirror propaganda. I don't know if you've
(24:06):
heard of that. But the Assaris will take something that
Armenians say like oh, our Armenians should go be able
to have a right to return, so they throub this
huge cloud of They'll take actual documents that have been
produced by I don't know, freedom House, right, yeah, and
then they'll copy the entire doc document and format things
(24:26):
the right of Azaris to return to Western Azerbaijan, which
is their new concept, and Western Ivverdjan is the country
of Armenia. So they have these maps where they renamed
all the towns of Armenia with Assari names. They claim
Armenians only came to the region in eighteen twenty eight
with the Russians, that they are fake people. Another tragedy
(24:47):
of Artsak is they're taking these monasteries and places, not
only destroying them but chiseling off ancient inscriptions to prove
that Armenians didn't exist there. They've already done this in
this other place called Natchivan, which is they call it
the largest cultural genocide of the twenty first century, where
they destroyed thousands of medieval monuments and stones with bull
(25:07):
josers and sledgehammers. So they're just wiping them out, any
record of our medium anything in their claiming Armenia it
is really should be called Western Azerbaijan. And anytime Armenians
talk about arts that going back, they're like, well, we
they've made cookbooks, they've got a television show How Western
as the Baisan, and it's just it's what you're laughing,
(25:28):
and I laugh too, but it's it's so ugly, so scary,
but it's funny too.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, what if these things are intil it's your grandma
or have you been beheaded? Like yes, it does seem
it does seem obscene, and it's so obscene that it's funny. Right,
But like this is a concerted state project, right that,
like it's easy to get caught up in. And it's
easy to get caught in this disinformation machine, not just
(25:54):
from like like like a bot in your replies, but
from news like you say, news outlets or a doctored
reports or things that look very convincing.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Search results that go to the top. I mean, you know,
on this course started with the writing and genocide which
ors Turkey and Azebaijan and Pakistan for some reason, say
it was fake. If you search for that, the top
results are gonna be our means are lying they committed
to genocide with us, And then they'll throw these numbers
like oh yeah, Armenian's killed three million Turks, Like what
are you talking about? These? It's just like like words
(26:26):
have meaning, you.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Know, but increasingly less and less, less and less.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
You know, there's that great Hannah Art line about constant
lying is not aimed at making people believe a lie,
but ensuring that no one believes anything anymore, and that's
what they want. We're an obscure part of the world.
This will say a bunch of shit and people throw
up their hands and walk away.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Yeah, oh it's too complicated, and so they.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Too complicated, right, yeah, Or you know, they'll say, oh,
it's ancient hatreds, and like that's bullshit. It's not ancient hatreds.
It's a very modern thing. These are real people who
have real understand all issues, you know, like in Gaza,
it's like it's very clear, Yeah, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
The different areas that it has received a lot more
coverage and long body attention.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
So where does this leave us now?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Right, as ab Giant has just hosted this conference, and
like it's important to recognize that this conference is it's
a project of kind of global liberalism, right to the
cop conference, and like it conveys legitimacy, and in this case,
it's a means of kind of laundering legitimacy. Right for
this Carabuck project in their case right through through the
(27:38):
lens of protecting the planet.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Where do they go from there?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Well, So what makes the dictatorship as a down a
little bit different from these other dictatorships I mentioned is
I think they care about what people think a little bit.
They bring in f one racing, the Eurovision. They really
do these projects because they want to be seen as
a legitimate state, whereas I think those others like North Korea,
(28:06):
they don't do that, like, no one's gonna like us
no matter what we do. They want to play on
the international stage. So that's one aspect. Another aspect, it
legitimizes themselves to their internal critics. People as their Bajana
smart they know what's going on, but they say, oh,
the world is coming to us. The world accepts us.
(28:28):
They must, you know, accept the brutal dictatorship that's cracking
down anybody's gay, lesbian, anything, you know. Orture is a
feature of this regime. So it legitimizes themselves internally, and
what they fear I guess is people were getting angry
that they invade Armenia. So it's just I think it's
(28:49):
that chene. Now we could argue whether that was effective
because COP twenty nine was an absolute train wreck for them.
But I'm not sure that matters to them right, matters
for the environment.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Yeah, I think probably these COP conferences are not going
to be the way we solve our our issues with
climate change. But that's another conversation going forward, Like what
is the status of odds? What can those people, those
people who were able to leave, Like what does the
future hold for them? Are they sort of refugees in media?
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Now? There are refugees in are Armenia. Amenia is a
poor state, doesn't have the oil reserves. The Azerbaijan just
announced that they're increased their military budget by twenty percent. Jesus,
it was already incredibly high. Last time I got statistics,
the flights from of Dah, which is the Israeli military
(29:44):
insulation for flying equipment to Azerbaijan, has ramped up. It's
higher than it was in twenty twenty before their invasion.
It's not a part for twenty twenty three. So that's
a pretty clear sign that they're getting all their equipment
from Israel. They stopped before copp and so I haven't
been able to get data on that since then. Azerbaijan
(30:06):
just issued a declaration that parents cannot visit their children
in the military, and that's a bad, bad sign. So
the question is not if it's win, it is winter.
I mean, he has a lot of mountains. Those are
pretty good defend. People are figured out. Sure, you've talked
(30:26):
to your friends of our Java. They figured out drones
a little bit, how to deal with them better. I
mean he has reached out to France, who's been helping
them a little bit. Azerbaijan says, there's some conditions for
peace that are insane, you know, like change your constitution
is one. Get rid of all EU observers is another.
(30:48):
Don't get any new weapons, and then give us the
what's called this Zeger Corridor, which is like this road
that goes to their exclave Nacheban to the to the
west there, and it's just like you can't stay. No
country is going to do that. Oh and they've got
another claim, which is they say allow the UNESCO to
visit Armenia to check out erased Azerbaijani sites, which is
(31:10):
just a mirror propacanda insanity because unesca's already in our
media and Armenia asked that of UNESCO for Azerbaijan.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But yeah, of course they just copy that right and say, well,
why do you do it?
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, right, which you know is not a real thing,
but anyway, so those are a conditions piece. So it
seems probable that Azerbaijan will invade, possibly in spring because
the snow will melt it away. Possibly now, because Alia
seems like he's very angry that the world kind of
paid attention to Cop twenty nine is figuring out that
(31:45):
he's a dick, and he's ramped up in arrest in
his own country. He does arrest an entire television station
of people that were you can't it's it's one of
the least press free countries on Earth. But I guess
people are doing something before or that, and they'll either
take the southern half of Armenia or they'll take all
(32:08):
of it, because they say Yerevan, the capital of Armenians,
is historically part of Azerbaijan. So that's the state where
we're at there, And I really think any other perspectives
are wishful thinking, and I'm Sartaly so grim about that,
but it's I think it's a very real possibility that
(32:28):
there's Armenian genocide that it's killed literally, you know, caluntable
millions of Armenians since the eighteen nineties and ramped up
through nineteen fifteen through nineteen twenty three, and then Society
a little bit is ongoing and their project will be
completed in the next year.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, that's pretty bleak.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
How can people they want to be in solid director
if they want to support I think this is something
that doesn't get reported on right in the US, even
though they just want to learn more. How can they
do that? Where can they go?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
There's a good side has learned for art SoC that's
a good site. There's a bunch of Armenian web sites
that people can go to. May I post some some
links on the show notes? Would that be? That'd be good?
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah, well absolutely Betters in the show notes.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yeah, yeah, I would be very happy to do that
if people want to donate things. But it's similar to
to Gaza or other places, like what what does awareness do?
I guess it could slow things down. Yeah, but really
we just need state actors to respond to this. Our
(33:37):
meetings get very cynically used in France and in the
United States by right wing politicians who claim that they're
protecting Christians, but I don't think that's something that will
actually happen.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah, I mean people did the same thing for a
sad right that he protected Christians in Syria while he yeah,
murdered to gas his own people.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
That's a best of cynical thing and a worst justicy.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I mean, what have you seen that's effective in terms
of world action or these things with Kurds or other people?
Speaker 2 (34:07):
I mean, look when we talk about how the Kurds
have defended themselves from get a state project to eliminate them,
right in some areas, they haven't been able to write,
and when they have it's through their own armed initiative
for the most part, right, they were very fortunate to
have the support of the United States. But that was
only ever in the battle against Isis. It wasn't when
(34:29):
genocidal violence, right, this genocidal project in a free and
where we're seeing it right now, in power of fact,
the US didn't stand beside them there, and it's not
in its nature too. And I think this is a
really difficult situation that we find ourselves in all around
the world right now. Right, we've seen this in Africa too, right,
(34:50):
it's not really in the nature of the United States,
not in this century, to intervene simply for human rights reasons,
simply because because genocide is wrong.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
We had a person that Sam had the power, who
wrote a book on how genocide is wrong and we
should intervene. And then what happens when she's in power
with Obama and Biden.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
We draw red lines and then less sad walk over them,
like it happens all over the world. And I think, yeah,
we're probably in a post hedge and monic era, but
that doesn't mean that people deserve to die because we're
in a post hedgemonic era.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
I know.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Look, if I look at the other genocide, which I've
spent more time with than most genocides, the weird thing
to say, it's the genocide in Meammar of the Rahine
of people. They are still facing genocidal violence now, even
from anti hunter groups. But I also see Muslim people
(35:45):
in the current National Liberation Army. I see them fighting
with the k and d F And the way that
those people liberated themselves was like from the bottom up,
and I think that, like I find some home, and
what's happening in Kurdistan and what's happening in me, amma,
And I don't see very much from the community of states,
(36:05):
so much of the thing that even fucking exists. I
don't really believe that states have a conscience. And yes,
I don't think it's in their nature to care about people,
because people are inherently valuable. But I do think people do,
and I do think it is in the nature of
people to care. So I guess we have to continue
to hope.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
And there has been some positive statements by your Java
regarding our Medians, and there's a lot of solidarity there,
which it was great. You know, Kurt's helped commit the
first Armenian genocide and they've apologized, and so I'm seeing
a little glimmers of hope in terms of the solidarity
of people who see what's right and wrong who aren't
state actors. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, one of the things people, there's another thing that
will be deployed very often. The Kurds are responsible for
the Armenian genocide. Court if people were part of the
Armenian genocide, and they will acknowledge that, and they've tried
to make amends for it.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yes, exactly right, and that's all.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Yeah, like we're here now, we're not is no to
our history, but we have to acknowledge it so that
we can move from it.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Thank you for sharing all of that.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Is there anything else that we've failed to address? You
want to get in quickly before we I mean, yes,
thousands of years of stuff.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
But you know, visit or Armenia. It's still called one
of the safest places on earth. Is it's been rated
safer than Japan. It's a beautiful place. It's a struggling democracy,
but it's the only democracy in the area. Try to
pay attention to the news, you know, is Hackeys. It
(37:32):
seems right, your senator, you know, like I just feel
wrong saying that, But what else can we do? Right?
If you're in Britain, the UK is an incredibly agregious
supporter of Azerbaijan through British petroleum. Really, you people probably
can have the biggest effect because the UK is the
(37:55):
biggest enabler of those dirt bags. And thank you for
the I really appreciate it. And I don't feel like
I've done justice to three thousand, five hundred years of history,
but thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
No, I think it's great. Is there any way people
can follow you online if they'd like to.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Oh, absolutely not. I'm tired of getting docs.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
Excellent, Yes, pretty fit.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
You know. That's why I pin icons. This is because
it's it's anonymous, you know.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
Yeah, very offline.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Yeah, but thank you so much, great, thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Robert Evans
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James Stout
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