According to Azerbaijani affairs expert Tatevik Hayrapetyan, in the post-war period, Azeri hate speech against Armenians received new manifestations. On March 2, during a discussion on “Armenophobia in Azerbaijan: The Danger of Ethnic Cleansing in Artsakh,” she quoted the Azeri president as saying that he called the Azerbaijani people a victorious people and the Armenians a defeated people, adding that this ethnic hatred could not bring good results, and that the war was led by the hatred that was generated in Azerbaijan for decades.
“The President of Azerbaijan always emphasizes that the Armenians will live forever as a defeated people, that there is no Armenian army, that everyone has fled, etc. That is, this humiliation is continuous. With his speeches, Aliyev wants to demonize the Armenian people and the presence of Armenians in Artsakh in general. The important thing here is that he is constantly trying to present that they have liberated the region from the fascists. In other words, he tries to give it a global character, without presenting any factual data that any former high-ranking official of the Republic of Armenia, any of the presidents has ever used a text that targeted Azerbaijan or the dignity of the Azerbaijani people.”
Tatevik Hayrapetyan noted that along with the propaganda of hatred, Azerbaijan also presents territorial ambitions, speaking about Armenia with the same rhetoric that was unleashed during the 44-day war against Artsakh. The expert drew attention to the fact that when talking about the Armenian people, Aliyev constantly emphasizes the “iron fist,” which is ready to strike new blows. A new element has been added: after the war, there have been three murders in the border regions of Artsakh, there have been cases of shepherds, abduction of animals from the borders of Armenia, etc., which, according to the speaker, are displays of Azerbaijan’s terrorist acts against the residents of those regions, the end goal of which is eviction of Armenians from Artsakh and the borders of Armenia. “After the war, there are no symbols in the war, it’s just Aliyev and his family. Aliyev has completely mastered military success,” said Tatevik Hayrapetyan, adding that during Aliyev’s visit to the territories under Azerbaijani control after the war, he was accompanied only by his wife in a camouflage uniform.
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According to the speaker, this proves that the 44-day war and its aftermath are being used by Aliyev’s family to deepen their dictatorial rule, which is accompanied by anti-Armenian rhetoric. At the same time, she said that in the 1990s, when the Armenian side was the victorious side, that victory embodied many characters.
She agrees with Yeghishe Kirakosyan’s observation that these elements of fascism, as history has shown, lead to catastrophic consequences. According to Yeghishe Kirakosyan, the representative of the Republic of Armenia in the ECHR, the propaganda of anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan is divided into two parts: hate speech and actions. According to him, they have quite deep roots, they go to the education system. “Even from preschool institutions, special training is carried out, sowing hatred towards ethnic Armenians from an early age, which is better rooted at an early age. In the future, I think it will become more entrenched in other educational institutions.”
Tatevik Hayrapetyan added that there are videos showing the Armenian flag being burned in Azerbaijani kindergartens. Of course, children do not understand that content, but from that age, hatred towards Armenians takes root in them, which is a big problem.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan considers the erasure or transformation of the Armenian cultural traces, one of the brightest points of which in recent decades was the desecration of the Armenian cemetery in Nakhichevan, to be a continuation of the logic of hatred. According to him, during the last month, new signals were received from Azerbaijan, destroying the culture and falsifying history, although we have the decision of the ECHR, including the preservation of Armenian cultural values.
Araks Melkonyan, head of the Rights Without Borders organization, said in his speech that by denying Armenianness in Artsakh and encroachments on Armenian cultural heritage, Azerbaijan actually has a long-term goal – to eliminate the traces of Armenianness from Artsakh and to deny the historical property of the Armenian people. The organization’s research showed that during the 44-day war, more than 30 Armenian cultural centers were targeted, the most prominent of which was of the Holy Savior Cathedral and the St. Hovhannes Mkrtich church in Shushi, as well as the shelling of the Mataghis church, the desecration of various monuments, statues, etc. And now, according to him, Azerbaijan has begun to distort the Armenian cultural heritage, mostly its spiritual heritage, by calling it Udi or Albanian. The speaker considers the access of international partners to these monuments, their registration, and preservation important, as long as we have not finally lost them, especially since it will not only be a loss for the Armenians, but also for the international community.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
