War is one of the greatest man-made evils that has accompanied the history of human development since time immemorial. Regardless of their goals, the wars have their regular developments and peculiarities of the course, only the technical assistance provided by the development of science has changed over time. The only constant thing is that the operation of this monstrous machine takes human lives. War is the greatest evil.
Just imagine that even in that greatest evil there are permissible and impermissible crimes. Even in that apparatus of murder and cruelty, there are acceptable, unacceptable steps, which throughout their history people have qualified as war crimes. In this way, the international community is digesting the deaths of thousands of soldiers silently, they condemn the fire against the civilian population with unequal empathy towards the struggle and grief of the people of Artsakh, aka. Nagorno Karabakh and the people of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Today, the whole world is reconciled with the unjust, disproportionate, unequal war on the border of two small states, which violates many international treaties and humanitarian laws. In the conditions of the military equipment of the 21st century, an air-artillery war has been going on for more than a month, causing thousands of human losses, destruction, deportations, and various other humanitarian crises.
Violating all the ceasefire agreements with criminal cruelty, the instigator of the war aborts all the negotiation process.
War is accompanied by a number of crimes against humanity, which must be strongly condemned by the international community, with all their practical consequences. Among the recorded և documented war crimes are:
- Involvement of terrorist groups and mercenaries in the war,
- fire on peaceful civilians, civilian structures,
- use of prohibited weapons: cluster munitions, white phosphorus,
- inhuman treatment of prisoners of war, public execution,
- իgnoring the corpses left on the battlefield, etc.
The war is accompanied by a strong nationalist policy and propaganda that promotes the spread and rooting of hate speech.
Humanitarian crisis is already visible: rights to security and safety of Artsakh people is being violated, there are thousands of displaced people, thousands of Artsakh Armenians are seeking asylum, wounded citizens are deprived of the right to health care, children are deprived of the right to education, the state is more vulnerable to the corona epidemic, etc.
We are still hopeful that the international community, the civilized world, will intervene in order to restore peace, security, fundamental human rights and the rule of law in the South Caucasus.
Among the emergency response actions, we demand:
- Consistently impose a humanitarian ceasefire and watchdoging over the process;
- Monitor the behavior of the states committing criminal aggression in the conditions of the ceasefire, document and bring to justice,
- Organize evacuation of the wounded and deaths,
- Recognition of the rights of the population of Artsakh.
