Former ICC Chief Prosecutor Warns of Armenian Genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh

• Luis Moreno Ocampo, first prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calls on world powers to prevent a genocide starvation of 120,000 Armenians
• Nagorno-Karabakh has been blockaded by Azerbaijan for months, blocking food and other supplies
• Report notes the blockade constitutes genocide according to the Genocide Convention in "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction." 

MONTROSE, Calif., Aug. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Luis Moreno Ocampo, who as the International Criminal Court's Prosecutor obtained arrest warrants for Genocide in Darfur against then Sudan President Omar Al Bashir, has issued an alarming report. He warns that the 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the blockaded enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, cut off from food and other supplies by Azerbaijan, are victims of genocide by starvation. 

"Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks," Ocampo wrote in the pro bono report (read it here), entitled "Genocide against Armenians in 2023." 

He noted that Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention determined that "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction" constituted genocide. The blockade is therefore not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a genocide against an ethnic group: the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region known by Armenians as Artsakh.

"You will find no crematoria in Nagorno-Karabakh, nor machetes, but genocide by starvation is no less devastating for being silent," Ocampo said. "It was the same deadly method used against Armenians in 1915, against Poles and Jews in 1939, and against the people of Srebrenica in 1993. And unless we intervene right now, we'll have a group of Armenians exterminated by year's end." (genocide already happens. It is to create the conditions, it is not requiring the deaths)

Scathingly noting past world indifference, Ocampo wrote: "The U.S., Russia, members of the European Union, all state parties of the Genocide Convention, and UN members have a rare historic opportunity to stop genocide against an Armenian group in 2023."

The report has been delivered to the President of Nagorno-Karabakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, to Armenia's Ambassador to the United Nations Mher Margaryan, and to the Armenian Foreign Ministry in Yerevan. 

The enclave, which lies inside Azerbaijan's official borders but which has operated as a self-governing entity for decades, is connected to the outside world by the Lachin Corridor. On December 12, 2022, Azerbaijan blocked the road, allowing only intermittent passage by the Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers – and since June 15 all passage has been entirely blocked.

Ocampo, who began his legendary career by helping to liberate his native Argentina from military dictatorship, also references a recent ruling by the International Court of Justice that found "a real and imminent risk" to the "health and life" of the Armenians in the enclave.

Prior to the release of the report, on July 31, Ocampo wrote to Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, demanding explanations about his intentions and cautioning that his behavior could be investigated as a Genocide. He did not receive a reply.  Ocampo said Aliyev should be investigated by the ICC, but the priority now is to prevent the physical elimination of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Ocampo noted that since December 2022, Aliyev deliberately blocked the provision of life's essentials to the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, openly disobeying the specific orders of the International Court of Justice "to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions."

During his time at the ICC, in 2008, Ocampo obtained arrest warrants against Sudan's then-President Omar al-Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Bashir was deposed and is in jail in Khartoum.

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SOURCE Luis Moreno Ocampo