Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On 12 December 2022 we saw the closure of the Lachin corridor, a small humanitarian corridor which was the only route into the Republic of Artsakh, in which ethnic Armenians live. This was closed by the Government of Azerbaijan. This act of closing the Lachin corridor was described by the International Court of Justice as a breach of international law. It also flew in the face of well-established European Court of Human Rights norms on collective punishment. The closure led to a cruel and deliberate forced starvation of a civilian population. There was the denial of food and medication. As I have said, it was collective punishment of an innocent civilian population that was left to rot and starve in scenes reminiscent of the Armenian genocide of 1915. This is a genocide that we refuse to recognise in this country, despite many other countries moving to this way. Many of the countries that had diplomats there at that time described very clearly the genocide.

In recent weeks, unbelievably, this situation has managed to get worse. We have seen open attacks on civilian populations. We have seen 100,000 people displaced in what is essentially ethnic cleansing. In the war in the Nagorno-Karabakh area in 2020, the Azerbaijani Government proceeded to scrub any evidence there had ever been an Armenian culture in areas that they captured. Churches that dated back to the 4th century, some of the earliest Christian churches anywhere in the world, were wiped out. They were simply reduced to dust that was left to blow away. This is more than ethnic cleansing. This is an attempt to eradicate not only an entire people in a region but also any record or any history that they were there, including their churches, their writing, their culture, their buildings and their homes. They were all utterly demolished.

What we saw in the war in 2020 was barbaric treatment of captured soldiers and captured civilians. We now have an International Court of Justice ruling that clearly states what we are witnessing is a breach of international law. We have European Court of Human Rights interim measures from September that ordered Azerbaijan to refrain from collective punishment and to respect the right to life, something the Azerbaijani Government has utterly failed to do.

We have moved beyond ethnic cleansing. Once again we are moving into the realm of genocide. It is not only about destroying the people who are there but destroying any memory that they were even there to begin with. What will we do to uphold international law? We have two rulings, which is a rarity in these situations, from the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. What will we do to make international law real? Will we say that crimes of aggression are totally acceptable if the country is providing us with gas? What will we do to provide help and support for those people who have been internally displaced? There are 100,000 people who are starting their lives afresh.

See this speech in context