BY\u00a0LUIS MORENO OCAMPO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Luis Moreno Ocampo was the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n December 2023 marked the 75th anniversary of the Genocide Convention<\/a>\u2019s adoption. And yet, here we stand, at a moment when, despite constant discussion of the term, the international community is failing miserably to address the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just in the last months of 2023, the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu alerted the world to six different situations where there\u2019s a risk of genocide against ethnic groups. She mentioned the risks affecting the Rohingya, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Tigray in Ethiopia, Israelis and Palestinians, and the Masalit in Darfur. Since her mandate doesn\u2019t allow her to say if genocide was, indeed, committed, this is the most she can do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now, we face another: Last month, the California-based Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ) petitioned the International Criminal Court<\/a> (ICC), where I served as the first chief prosecutor, to investigate Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for genocide against Armenians in Armenia \u2014 and it\u2019s a petition the ICC should consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenge in substantiating genocide often lies in proving intent to destroy \u2014 in whole or in part \u2014 a designated group. That\u2019s why the massive dossier<\/a> presented to the ICC on Apr. 18 by U.S. Orange County Superior Court Judge Gassia Apkarian, who represents the Center for Truth and Justice, is remarkable. It presents the consistent declarations made by Aliyev over the last decade, unequivocally demonstrating his intention to destroy ethnic Armenians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be clear, this isn\u2019t just about the Armenian community in Nagorno-Karabakh \u2014 a disputed, self-governing enclave within Azerbaijan. The communication is focused on different forms of genocide committed against Armenians in Armenia itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As early as April 2015, Aliyev published a statement<\/a> on the Azerbaijan government\u2019s official website, warning ethnic Armenians: \u201cIf you do not want to die, then get out of Azerbaijani lands.\u201d He has also repeatedly dehumanized ethnic Armenians, referring to them as a \u201cvirus,\u201d \u201crats,\u201d \u201cdogs,\u201d \u201cdevils,\u201d \u201cterrorists,\u201d \u201cfascists,\u201d \u201cenemies,\u201d \u201cusurping interlopers,\u201d \u201cbarbarians and vandals,\u201d while encouraging violence against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To destroy different Armenian groups that were in areas of Armenia under illegal Azerbaijani occupation, he created conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of civilians and produce mental harm (as defined by the Genocide Convention\u2019s Article 2c), in turn leading to their decimation (Article 2b) and forcible displacement. Subsequently, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched military attacks to take control of these areas, indiscriminately killing ethnic Armenian civilians who refused, or were unable, to flee (Article 2a).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev implemented this strategy in a clear view of the international community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially, his armed forces enforced an unlawful blockade of the Lachin corridor \u2014 the only lifeline to the outside world \u2014 for nine months, ignoring two<\/a> binding orders<\/a> from the International Court of Justice, which warned about the risk of genocide against the 120,000 Armenians living there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Subsequently, in September 2023, Aliyev launched unlawful military aggression, taking control of the territory and forcing ethnic Armenians to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aliyev celebrated this forced displacement of ethnic Armenians during several televised addresses, declaring<\/a>: \u201cI said that if they do not leave our lands of their own free will, we will chase them away like dogs, and we are doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Judge Apkarian\u2019s legal analysis sheds new light on previous facts, uncovering that a similar genocidal strategy was implemented in sovereign Armenia\u00b4s provinces of Gegarkunik, Syunik, Vayots Dzor, and Ararat in May 2021, resulting in the unlawful, forcible displacement of at least 3,000 ethnic Armenians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She also judged that women captured by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces were systematically singled out to be subjected to gender-specific brutalities, resulting in mental harm to the entire Armenian community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one of many incidents in 2022, the \u201cYashma\u201d brigade of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces shared a video on social media, showing a woman \u2014 captured, mutilated, and killed, stripped naked, her eye gouged and replaced with a stone, her legs cut off, her ears cut off and her severed finger placed in her mouth, being kicked by an Azerbaijani soldier. The CFTJ\u2019s documentation reveals that approximately 20,000 Azerbaijani users downloaded some of the images depicting tortured Armenian women within a mere five-day period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Azerbaijan\u2019s genocidal policy continues to pose an imminent threat to other Armenians residing within Armenia\u2019s borders as well. In 2023, Aliyev stated: \u201cThe Azerbaijani flag flew in Karabakh today . . . Today, the Azerbaijani flag flies in the Zangezur mountains. Can that human-like creature [ethnic Armenians] and his likes approach those flags? . . . One day, they may wake up to see the Azerbaijan flag above their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, on Mar. 9, 2024, Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev\u00a0demanded the immediate surrender<\/a>\u00a0of border villages Baganis Ayr, A\u015fagi Eskipara, Heyrimli, and Kizilhacili by Armenia, which would tragically condemn their ethnic Armenian residents to the same fate. Eventually, an agreement was reached, and Armenia agreed to return all four villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, Azerbaijan\u2019s parliament confirmed its genocidal intent toward Armenians in Armenia by adopting a resolution titled \u201cStatement on the return of Western Azerbaijanis to their historical homeland<\/a>,\u201d claiming its sovereignty over the entirety of Armenian territory and marking the first genocide adopted by a parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a bitter reality that more than a century after the first widely recognized genocide of the modern era, where over a million Armenians were slaughtered by the Ottomans, Armenians are again the victims of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, soon after the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan visited Azerbaijan to show his support. And Western political leaders seem to support Aliyev too \u2014 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has even called Azerbaijan a \u201ccrucial partner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this is a sobering reminder of how little we\u2019ve learned from history, and how vulnerable we still are to evil. In 1932, Albert Einstein wrote to Sigmund Freud, arguing that extreme nationalism could beget violence on a huge scale. It\u2019s time the world understood this as well \u2014 and created new strategies to stop all genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Politico-20240510-1.png\")