On September 19, at around 1 p.m. local time, the Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire along the entire Line of Contact by launching rocket artillery attacks against civilian targets, killing and injuring women and children under false pretenses.
“Azerbaijan’s terrifying escalation from starving to shelling the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh is part of a clear pattern of Genocide,” stated Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. “These actions, along with the words of President Aliyev and his subordinates, leave no doubt of the pattern to erase the Christian Armenians from their homeland,” Ardouny continued.
Recent House and Senate hearings exposed this campaign, and the failures of United States policy to address the most avoidable genocide in history. Not even an International Court of Justice decision has stopped the Aliyev and Erdogan regimes.
The United States has a duty to prevent genocide, and our allies are ready to join that effort. Now is the time to act. President Biden needs to prevent a situation akin to the Rwandan Genocide on his watch. The tools at the government’s disposal, including Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, Magnitsky Act and other sanctions are available. We also must call on Israel to halt supplying and aiding the Aliyev regime, and to stop siding with perpetrators of genocide instead of the victims. Anything short of decisive responses enables genocidal dictators and mocks the expression “Never Again.”
