Lika Zakaryan
In order to address these issues in light of the 44-Day War, the Armenian Mission to the United Nations recently organized a round table titled “Between War and Pandemic: Voices from the Field.” The event was held remotely due to COVID-19 as part of the UN Commission on the Status Women’s 65th session, in coordination with the work of the UN Women’s Status Committee. The panelists delivered thoughtful presentations aimed at informing the public but also finding solutions to existing issues. Maria Victoria Cabrera-Balleza, the founder and chief executive officer of the Global Network of Woman Peacebuilders (GNWP) spoke first and expounded on the importance of sending relief packages that GNWP send to women in conflict areas around the world that include reproductive products as well as other forms of aid. She decried the exponential increase during COVID-19 of gender-based domestic violence. Another key element in her organization’s work is simply information dissemination so that people are made aware of the problems at hand and so that women know where to go for help. The GNWP is notably implementing peace resolution efforts and aid to Armenia in Tavush and other parts of the country. This type of action plan is being made available regionally, nationally and internationally thanks in part to a comprehensive database that is being put together by the organization. She also hinted that Armenians should stay tuned as the organization is planning new soon-to-made-public relief activities in Armenia.
Cabrera-Balleza was followed by Lucy Snell, a remarkable investigative journalist and Edward R. Murrow Award recipient. Snell has been on the front lines of numerous war zones, including in Syria. It was shocking to hear her say that the shelling by Azerbaijani and Turkish forces of Nagorno Karabakh was more intense and destructive than any she had seen because it happened so quickly after the outbreak of the war and due as well to its sheer intensity. The fact that the Turkish-Azerbaijani forces also shelled civilian areas and hospitals meant that the women who were left behind to take care of their families while the husbands were on the battlefield had to risk their lives on a regular basis in order to get food or household supplies. Like several of the other speakers Snell emphasized the bravery of these women and the toll that the war has taken on them psychologically and physically.
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Civilnet journalist Lika Zakaryan offered invaluable first-hand experience from the front lines of the 44-Day War. She emphasized that the shelling of Stepanakert was so intense that she and her fellow Artsakhtsis felt that any moment in time could be their last one alive. As a result COVID-19 was not even a factor in their consciousness as they all huddled together in bomb shelters. Many caught the illness but could not give it a second thought amidst the immediacy of a greater threat to their lives — drones and bombs exploding above.
Dr. Shant Shekherdimian
The panel was rounded out by Shant Shekherdimian, Professor of Surgery at UCLA and by political scientist Karena Avedissian.
Shekherdimian volunteered his services and had to literally piece together bodies on a daily basis. But even he emphasized that the true heroes of the war were the women of Artsakh. Left behind they helped him in surgery and themselves performed operations 24/7. He also spoke about the bravery of pregnant women who had to be evacuated from the hospital which was being shelled and transported to Armenia itself. Finally, he emphasized the mental and physical consequences of the war on women who still carry scars from the previous war with Azerbaijan. This was a difficult segment to listen to, so raw were the facts that he related.
Finally Karena Avedissian had perhaps the most surprising presentation. She spoke of the daily abuse that Armenian women are receiving through social media and the internet from Azerbaijani hackers who send on-line messages of hate, thus making the women feel as if they were not safe in their own homes.
The mental anguish this causes them reminds one of cyber bullies in American schools who sometimes drive students to suicide from fear and shame.
In his opening remarks Mher Margaryan, the Permanent Representative of Armenia to the UN, noted that within the UN family, Armenia has consistently raised the issue of strengthening the protection mechanisms and rights of women affected by conflict. While Margaryan’s comments were indeed welcome, this writer found them to be a bit ironic given the Republic of Armenia’s reportedly poor record in protecting its own women from domestic violence.
Karena Avedissian
Lucy Varpetian, President of the Armenian Bar Association, was a remarkably informed and effective panel moderator. She began by reading a poem by the late African-American poet Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise.” To my mind this is indeed a perfect commentary on the Armenian condition and the Armenian will to survive:
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Just as African and Native Americans have been victimized in the US country, so too have Armenians been victimized over the centuries by their Turkic neighbors. The underlying message of the round table: like the descendants of African slaves who yesterday celebrated the verdict in the Derek Chauvin case, so too will Armenians rise again.
Watch the roundtable discussion: http://webtv.un.org/…/beyond-war-and…/6241643402001/
Read resolution 1325 on the Rights of Women: https://peacemaker.un.org/node/105
Main Photo Caption: Maria Victoria Cabrera-Balleza