A Quiet Descent into Atrocity

By Giselle Garcia ’23, Legal Fellow for the Aoki Center for Critical Race & Nation Studies

Human history is plagued with instances of war and genocidal action against groups of people. When examining the lessons born out of this history, we realize how quickly and quietly acts of war can descend into massacres and why it is imperative we do not turn a blind eye if we are to prevent it from happening again.

The 1915 Armenian Genocide

The Ottoman Empire’s rise to power and downfall is profoundly connected to the development of a nationalistic pride that motivated the use of military force against perceived threats. One of those perceived threats became Armenian Christians. During the 15th century, Armenians fell under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and when 400 years later they began to fight for civil rights and independence, they became a target of repression by the Ottoman government. When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I, it believed Armenians would betray them by joining the Allied Powers due to their proximity to Russia and shared religion.

In charge of the Ottoman government, The Young Turks called for the arrest of over 200 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders on April 24, 1915 and had most of them executed. This was followed by the issuing of a series of deportation orders and a forced exodus into the Syrian desert where Armenian men were killed, women and children were starved, treated with violence, and eventually died. The Ottoman government went on to deport more than 1 million Armenians and forcibly march into the desert, while “others were herded into concentration camps, drowned, poisoned, burned to death or shot.”

By 1918, the Ottoman Empire suffered defeat in WWI and its territory was portioned by the Allied Powers. As the Ottomans wrestled with the results of the war, Armenians continued to be targets of violence until 1923 when modern-day Turkey was established. This hatred resulted in the genocide of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians. Wholly two-thirds of the Armenians living in Ottoman territory before WWI were systematically murdered between 1915 and 1923.

The Armenian Genocide must serve as a reminder of how swiftly and quietly a mass extermination of a people can occur in the background of global politics. It requires all of us to take a closer look at this history, so that we can prevent another genocide from occurring. In that light, we must look to the Azerbaijani government’s action against Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh Today

Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, is a mountainous territory within Azerbaijan primarily occupied by an indigenous Armenian population and connected to Armenia through a single highway, the Lachin Corridor. The people of Karabakh have historically opted for independence from both Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, their autonomy has not been respected, and Armenians within Karabakh continue to face significant violence within Azerbaijan.

This region has been contested for over three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulting in two previous military conflicts. The second six-week military conflict erupted in 2020 as Azerbaijan attempted to recapture the territory. Although a ceasefire agreement was entered in 2020, in December of 2022, Azerbaijan initiated a blockade on the Lachin Corridor and launched an offensive strike against the territory on September 19, 2023 claiming the lives of hundreds.

Azerbaijan’s actions of deprivation and mass displacement against the people of Karabakh has created a humanitarian crisis and contains reflections of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. The blockade of the Lachin Corridor has led to severe food shortages, a depletion of medical reserves, declining fuel supplies, and electricity blackouts. More than half of the Armenian population in Karabakh has been forced to leave their homes in fear of their safety. The remaining Armenian population in Karabakh is asking the international community for attention and intervention. Experts on the United Nations Human Rights Council have urged Azerbaijan to lift the blockade and “alleviate the suffering of thousands of people in Nagorno-Karabakh and allow for the unimpeded flow of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population.”

The international community should fear for the fate of those remaining in Karabakh and raise public awareness of the ongoing crisis. We should stand in solidarity with the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh and condemn Azerbaijan’s acts of war.