Dear Australian Government - next is #RECOGNIZEJAVAKH!
Firstly, we write to you as Australian citizens, who appreciate the multicultural tolerance and diversity of our nation. Secondly, we address you as Australians with Azerbaijani roots to inform you of our utmost concern and your need to pay attention to the activities of the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANCA). Our community is composed of first-generation Australians and immigrants, who are diverse in their origins, religious affiliations and speak a number of different dialects and languages. The word ‘Azerbaijani’ does not constitute being ethnically Azerbaijani. On the 4th of December, ANCA made a post on their Facebook page calling “Hundreds of Armenian-Australians to Protest at Federal Parliament in Canberra, calling for Artsakh recognition”. We acknowledge that it is within any community’s rights to protest.
However, we would like to bring to your attention the falsified statements made by this organisation, that aims to wrongfully vilify Azerbaijanis and Turkish governments and their people, creating an agenda of open discrimination by bringing foreign politics and matters where they don’t belong.
Please refer to their Facebook page to read their full statement https://www.facebook.com/ancaustralia
Here are some known points about the ANCA organisation:
- Armenian National Committee of Australia is a pan-Armenian global organisation, and has been found to have links with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) headquartered in Yerevan (capital of Armenia)
- The ARF website (in Armenian version) cites ANC-AU as one of their overseas organisations.
- The ARF is a marxist ultra-nationalist group founded in 1890.
- ANC-AU is led by the former chairman of the ARF, both organisations share the same address in Sydney.
- ANC-AU representatives admitted this direct link to Yerevan in an interview with Wolvaardt Francois Adriaan for his PhD thesis.
- The extremist ANCA group supports this idea of expansionism, as one of the agendas outlined on their website is the “Awareness of the status of Armenians in Javakh”. Javakheti (“Javakh” in Armenian) is part of Georgia with pre-dominantly Armenian population.
- ARF was the founder of JCAG — Justice Commandos of Armenian Genocide — and recruited terrorists from its youth organisations, according to JCAG.
- A JCAG cell in Australia between 1980 and 1986 carried out two deadly attacks and at least two other plots were thwarted by ASIO.
- JCAG killed Turkish diplomats Engin Sever and Sarik Ariyak on 17 December 1980, in Sydney Dover Heights. Mr Ariyak was murdered before the very eyes of his then 8-year old daughter, Cagla.
- A joint strike force (Esslemont) led by NSW Police Counter Terrorism officers, including officers from ASIO, AFP and NSW Crime Commision have been reinvestigating this case for over a year now.
Haig Kayserian writes about Javakheti and makes parallels with Karabakh
Here are the facts about the distorted claims made by ANCA on their social media platform
1.“Call to recognise Artsakh”- The illegitimate “Republic of Artsakh”, internationally known as ‘Nagorno-Karabakh’ has never been recognised by any United Nations member states, including Armenia. During the time of the illegal occupation of Nagorno Karabakh and the seven surrounding districts, from the period of 1992–2020, the Council of Europe and European Union condemned the ‘self-determined’ Government of Nagorno-Kabarabakh outlining that their elections “cannot be legimitate”. Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, represented by France, Russia and the United States who led the peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia for 28 years, did not recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. Most importantly, on the 10th of November, a peace deal was signed between the three nations, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, which clearly outlines that the seven regions belonging to Azerbaijan will be returned to them, meaning the peaceful evacuation of Armenians from those lands, and the relocation of Azerbaijani Internally Displaced People back to their homes. Due to the volatile nature of the conflict Russian peacekeepers are being deployed along the line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor that connected the region to Armenia.
2. “Armenians under occupation following 44 days of war crimes by Azerbaijan”- The use of the word ‘war crimes’ is abhorrent. Armenian troops committed the biggest war crime in the 1990’s by forcibly removing 900,000 Azerbaijani people from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, resulting in the death of 20,000 individuals and 50,000 people became disabled.
The ANCA organisation has no justification to call upon the humanitarian displacement of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, after the Armenian forces committed large ethnic cleansing and a Genocide in the city of Khojaly. Close to a million Azerbaijanis lost their livelihood, loved ones and their dignity.
In the most recent conflict since September 27th, Armenian forces engaged in continued attacks on civilians in cities well outside of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Due to their defeat and military inferiority, they decided to target innocent men, women and children, often when they were fast asleep in their homes. Some of the cities attacked include: Ganja (second largest city of Azerbaijan), Barda, Aghdam, Terter, Beylagan, Fuzuli, Mingechevir and others. A simple google search will tell you that these cities are not situated in the conflict zone. Under the Geneva Conventions Act attacking civilians is a war crime. During the last bloodiest attack on the city of Barda, which resulted in the death of 21 civilians, including children, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report confirmed and condemned the use of banned Smerch MLRS/cluster munitions being used by the Armenian forces. We would like to inform you that during the current relocation of Armenians from the regions of Azerbaijan as outlined in the current peace treaty, not a single civilian of Armenian ethnicity was harmed. There is footage of them leaving the cities in their branded cars, guarded by Russian peacekeeping troops. Azerbaijan issued a clear timeline for the relocation from each city of Azerbaijan, and even offered extensions on occasions when requested, abiding by every humanitarian law, in sight of the war crimes committed by Armenia. This is in stark contrast to the ill-treatment Azerbaijanis received in the 1990’s often being given less than 10 hours to clear the region, by the same Armenians who had been their neighbours, whoever did not leave in time was brutally murdered, tortured or raped (Please watch the ‘Endless corridor’ film to have insight into the Khojaly massacre).
3. “Turkey’s support and Islamist Jihadi mercenaries”- If you are unfamiliar with the Azerbaijani demographics, we would like to inform you that Azerbaijan has a largely secular culture, that promotes the open freedom for people to practice their religion. There are; Armenian Apostollic Church, German Lutheran Church, Russian Orthodox church and a recently established Catholic church. In addition, around 30,000 Jews reside in Azerbaijan, and have Jewish synagogues. The claims that ‘Islamist Jihadi mercenaries’ were deployed for the Azerbaijani army are not based on any factual evidence. However, what is evident is that Azerbaijan did receive moral support from many allies including but not limited to: Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, Georgia, Ukraine, Italy, Moldova, Baltic countries and so forth. Throughout the course of the most recent conflict, Azerbaijan did not need or seek the support of external powers, as it had sufficient military power, unlike the Armenian government who engaged in frequent provocations to insight a bigger problem in the South Caucasus to justify the invitation of foreign militants.
4. “Armenian cultural and religious sites being desecrated”- What we have gathered over the period of this conflict is that Armenian propaganda is very artful in taking actions committed by them and painting them as being instigated by Azerbaijan. Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh have committed immeasurable damage to historical, religious sites, have engaged in ecological destruction and have brutally murdered innocent animals, in defiance of being evacuated from regions that they forcibly took in the first place. Please see the following article to familiarise yourself with the ‘scorch the earth policy’ employed by Armenians.
During the period of occupation, 1891 cultural artefacts belonging to Azerbaijan were held under the occupation of Armenia, of these included were Albanian Agoglan Monastery of the VI century, the Malik Ajdar Turbeh of the XIV century, and many others. You can see that these historical sites outlived the Armenian relocation to these lands. During the period of occupation and most recently, Armenian separatists have destroyed numerous mosques, cemeteries, museums, and have stolen artefacts
5. “The neo-Ottoman pan-Turkic expansionism”- Firstly outlining that for Azerbaijan there was no expansion being committed, as the conflict occurred within the internationally recognised borders of Azerbaijan. The expansion and separatist ideals were committed by Armenia in the 1990’s when they took Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven adjacent districts (majority Azerbaijanis lived in the seven adjacent districts). At the time, the UN Security Council released resolutions 853, 874, 884 referring to Nagorno-Karabakh as a region of Azerbaijan, and demanded the unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is important to point out that throughout history Azerbaijan has never been a part of the Ottoman empire. In addition, the extremist Armenian ideology to create ‘Magna Armenia’ or the ‘Great Armenia’ dates back to early 20th century, during which time the Armenian Revolutionary Party committed brutal massacres against Azerbaijanis with the purpose of ethnic cleansing Azerbaijanis from their traditional lands. At the time, “only 21 percent of the population (of Nagorno-Karabakh) was Armenian and 73 percent Moslem”. The creation of the current Armenia, was established “with the killing or expulsion of nearly 500,000 Azeris from their traditional lands, which had been Erivan Khanate” (present day capital of Armenia, Yerevan).
The expansionist ideology of Armenia is existent in present day, as they have made statements to claim the surrounding four neighbouring regions, in their efforts to create the Great Armenia.
The extremist ANCA group supports this idea of expansionism, as one of the agendas outlined on their website is the “Awareness of the status of Armenians in Javakh”- http://www.anc.org.au/about-us
Javakh is a city in the neighbouring country of Georgia (non-Turkic Christian country), to which Armenia made claims to take over during the most recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They received open backlash from Georgia, as you can imagine that ‘self-declaring’ in any state where Armenian communities reside is absurd and against international law and the OSCE Helsinki Final Act 1975, which clearly states that “states will refrain in their mutual relations, as well as their international relations in general, from the threat of or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State..”
The Azerbaijani community of Australia feels safe living in their homes knowing that the Australian Federal Government supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and does not recognise Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. We respect the Australian government for following International Law and the stance taken by UN countries around the world. We ask politicians and individuals with government affiliations to be informed and aware of the strong Armenian propaganda which is very diligent and exertive, and has succeeded in manipulating some Australian politicians to vehemently and wrongfully represent their side of the story, celebrating these politicians and awarding them with “Friend of the Year”.
We ask that you do not fall into the trap of the statements released by such organisations as ANCA, maintaining the stance set out by the Australian government and respecting the most recent peace treaty which has been signed and is being abided by.
And lastly, Azerbaijan is a multicultural state where Christians, Jews and Muslims have coexisted for centuries.
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