Letter from the Consul of Western Armenia in Argentina: “Model of religious freedom and coexistence?”

I do not know the Secretary of Culture of the Islamic Centre of the Argentinean Republic (ICRA), neither I have the pleasure to get to know someone who shapes circumstances with malicious intent when writing, distorting true historical facts, introducing assassins as victims.

Far from honouring his role,the signatory of the news entitled “UN PAÍS DEL CÁUCASO MODELO DE LIBERTAD Y CONVIVENCIA RELIGIOSA”(A COUNTRY OF THE CAUCASUS, BEACONOF FREEDOM AND RELIGEOUS COEXISTENCE), published on July 14th of 2021in the newspaper Clarin, intends tomislead good-faith readers, who mostly do not know in depth a far country called Azerbaijan,bringing his skilful prose with the clear purpose of disguising and concealing its image for the “western audience”, from what is truly a nefarious dictatorial regime that has plagued that country for decades.

Azerbaijan is co-opted by theAliev’sdynasty since almost 30 years. The role of the president seems to be inherited from generation to generation, from father to son, as if it were a monarchical leadership in the antipodes of a democratic system. Can a country with these recordsbe introduced as a model to be replicated?

With no shame, the news-writer is introducing the president of Azerbaijan as a model of tolerance and respect for minority groups to follow, when Aliev now, and his father before, have destroyed the historical and cultural heritage of the native Armenian people in Artsaj (NagornoKarabagh) and Najichevan, by trying to misappropriate foreign territory, killing its population and erasing culture footprints of an ancient past with more than 5.000 years. Armenian stone crosses destruction in the cemetery of Najichevan in 2025, as well as the recent shelling of the Catholic Cathedral of Ghazanchetzots in Shushi in 2020, are concrete examples of this fact.

With detailed objective evidence against him,IlhamAliev is accused by the Armenian Nation for the flagrant war crimes repeatedlycommitted during September and November of 2020 against the defenceless civil population of NagornoKarabagh, called Artsaj by the Armenians, that belongs to the Armenian State internationally recognized in 1920, nowadays, the Western Republic of Armenia.

The current president of Azerbaijan actively inculcates hatred toward Armenians and has lately declared disrespectfully that the Armenian capitol of Erevan belongs to his country, showing once again in the facts his despotic and warlike character. The museum “of horror” recently opened in Baku exhibits a lot of wax dummies dressed with Armenian uniforms of soldiers that have died defending their homeland, with the sole immoral purpose of ridicule the native Armenians that were attackedin their lands, who in fact just showed unusual bravery given the armament asymmetry.

In strict historiographical terms, Azerbaijan is the perfect prototype of what we can call a country without history, 30 years of sovereignty, 70 years of soviet independence, and a past that derives from Turkish nomadic tribes that originally came from Central Asia and appears in the Caucasus approximately 1.000 years ago.However, the essayist affirms that it has a history of about 2.500 years, knowingly disregarding the Kingdom of Armenia, which at that time ruled the Mesopotamia region from end-to-end. Effectively, all territorial limits of that Kingdom, including Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, are part of the millennial history of Armenia, a controversial reality from the falsehoods narrated in the text in question,that only come from the fantasy of the author.

In the soviet era, the Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan had a large number of Armenians living within its borders, based on the fact that the Kingdom of Armenia included those lands in the past. In 1988, almost at the end of the URSS era, the Azeri people started to attack Armenians living in Baku, trying to kill them throughout the well-known pogroms initiated in Sumgait. In those attacks, hundreds of Armenians were slaughtered, and the famous chess champion Garry Kasparov and his family almost died, because of the only fact of being Armenians.

Whichis the real interest of the Secretary of Culture of the ICRA when writing this article trying to prise with falsehoods a country and a regime that in fact do not deserve such recognition, offending the 100.000 Armenians living in the Republic of Argentina?

Finally, it should be emphasized thatthe strategy of involving the Pope Francisco, using for that purpose a picture of a simply formal visit dictator Alievcarried out in the Vatican time ago, does not mean that the president of Azerbaijan is an ecumenical person, neither that the Holy Father endorses the atrocities committed by his regime.

Petrodollars that IlhamAliev counts in millions as a consequence of the oil and gas business buy wills that agree to distortthe history and past events. Lately, we realized that this activity is made with special emphasis in Argentina and Uruguay.

Armenians and Arabs, main exponents of the ICAR, have an excellent relationship that steam from the gratitude we profess for the outstretched hand they offered us at the end of the Armenian Genocide committed by Turkey against our people. In both, Lebanon and Syria, we inhabit entire neighbourhoods in absolute real and fraternal coexistence, thus I can not allow any public worker, no matter about his position or role, to come to break that natural harmony that exists since the Prophet Muhammad asked the Armenians to take care of the Holy Places of the Christianity in Jerusalem.

The Arab and Muslim people of the Argentinean Republic should not allow ICAR authorities to confront us, and should demand explanations from this man regarding his shameless aggression against the Armenian People.