The Chairman of the Political Science Association of Armenia, Doctor of Political Science Hayk Kotanjian delivered an address of the Association regarding the pardon and conferring a special military rank by the Supreme Commander of Azerbaijani Armed Forces, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Ramil Safarov, sentenced to the life imprisonment for murdering of the sleeping Armenian officer.
GENOCIDE – NEVER AGAIN: THE ANTIDEMOCRAT ALIYEV – A GENOCIDE APOLOGIST
THE ADDRESS OF THE POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION OF ARMENIA (PSAA) TO THE HEADS OF THE UN MEMBER STATES, LEADERS OF THE EU, COUNCIL OF EUROPE, CIS, THE OSCE, NATO, THE LEAGUE OF ARAB STATES, ORGANIZATION OF ISLAMIC COOPERATION, THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT, AS WELL AS
HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS: “AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL”, “FREEDOM HOUSE”, “HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH”
The ethnically motivated and extremely brutal assassination of the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan committed by the Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov at the NATO PfP linguistic training courses in Budapest on 19 February, 2004, which was qualified as a criminal offence of genocidal nature with a maximum possible punishment of life sentence by the Budapest City Court verdict. This act of crime fully complies with the logic of the Genocide policy, implemented by Azerbaijan towards the Armenian nation, as well as its propaganda of national hatred and ethnic discrimination. The genocidal acts committed in the territories of future AzSSR – in Baku, Shushi and other places in 1905-1920, as well as in Sumgait, Kirovabad, Baku and Maragha in 1988-1994, are vivid manifestations of the above-mentioned policy. Guided by the same logic the Azerbaijani instigators committed an act of massacre of Meskheti Turks in February, 1992, aimed at fabricating an alleged myth of the so-called “Khojaly counter-genocide” committed by the Armenians against the Turks through falsification of the murder circumstances and corps mutilation in the vicinity of Aghdam controlled by Azerbaijani troops – far beyond the reach of the Karabakh side.
President Aliyev’s pardon of the criminal who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of genocidal nature, despite the obligations taken by Azerbaijan – according to the statement of the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary on August 31, 2012 – of the possibility to parole Safarov no sooner than 25 years since imprisonment, is another vivid evidence of the antidemocratic nature of the Aliyevs’ hereditary regime both in the sphere of individual fundamental human rights – the right to life – by means of “canonization of the heroism” of the criminal by an illegal pardon, and in the sphere of collective rights – the peoples’ right to self-determination – by means of disregarding the legitimate referendum in Nagorno Karabakh in December, 1991. Moreover, the order of the Supreme Commander Aliyev honored Safarov for his brutal crime and conferred him Major’s rank out of turn.
This illegal act by the Azerbaijani President is an explicit violation of the UN 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, thus creating a precedent for impunity and encouraging future genocidal acts.
The pardon of the genocidal murderer is an irrefutable manifestation of the antidemocratism and bellicose militarism of the Aliyevs’ regime in addition to the fact of violations of such human rights as the involvement of the opposition in the Parliament, freedom of speech and gatherings.
Azerbaijan’s bold illegal disregard of individual and collective human rights makes it urgent to find out new legal means to ensure the non-recurrence of genocidal acts against the Armenian nation which is commemorating 100th centenary of the tragedy of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and in Azerbaijan.
Given the vital importance of legally guarantee for the non-recurrence of the Armenian Genocide, PSAA finds it essential to suggest to the Heads of States and the Parliaments of the RA and NKR the expediency to sign an “Intergovernmental Treaty on the Protection of Human Rights and Rendering Humanitarian, Financial and Economic Assistance to the NKR” between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. The amendments made to the RA Law on the International Treaties of the Republic of Armenia, adopted in December, 2010 by the National Assembly of RA, might serve a legal basis for Armenia. Taking into account the outrageous illegal actions taken by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan – the demonstrative pardon and encouraging of the genocidal murderer – it is worthwhile to initiate corresponding consultations with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen.
In the light of the above-mentioned, it becomes urgent to unite the efforts of RA, NKR and Diaspora, as well as the democratic forces of the international community to prevent the possibility of a new Genocide against the Armenian nation or any of its part.
