During public hearings under the heading Violations of the Ceasefire Regime in the Armenian-Azerbaijani Border Area; Is Public Interference Possible? that took place on June 16 in the village of Tekali, district of Marneuli, Georgia, Ali Abasov, a worker at the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences, also made a speech. He said about the subject at issue,
“Unfortunately, the civil societies of Azerbaijan and Armenia haven’t done anything to rule out violations of the ceasefire regime in the Armenian-Azerbaijani border area. Even the mediators in the talks think that civil societies have nothing to do in the Karabakh conflict settlement process and in solving issues related to the conflict. However, it is not the case, at the critical point the civil society can and must express its opinion on that issue. As for violations of the ceasefire regime, the main issue here is the humanitarian one. What happens – fire, killing of people – is a means for executing, destroying people, whereas the humanity has adopted a lot of documents, manifold laws and declarations on prosecuting crimes against humanity. There is no logic in that fire.” As a positive example, Ali Abasov reminded that there had been a movement against antipersonnel mines at the time, which had become a collective laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize. He said that the situations resembled, that in both cases, not only servicemen, but also civilians suffered.
In his opinion, one should establish an international organization, in which human rights advocates and society representatives known internationally, as well as representatives of some state institutions that deal with those problems, should be involved. To begin with, that organization should make a statement, in which the legal and humanitarian principles related to the problems should be reflected.
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The Azerbaijani scientist stated, “They shoot not at some people, but at us, they can kill us, our children, our relatives, it is a life-and-death issue, if the civil society should remain silent about such vandalism and barbarianism, I don’t know what to say….”
Voskan SARGSYAN
