[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 9, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                THE NEED FOR PEACE IN THE TRANSCAUCASUS

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                       HON. JOSEPH P. KENNEDY II

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 9, 1994

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, representatives of Armenia, 
Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh signed a ceasefire, raising hopes 
again for an end to a conflict which has cost 15,000 lives and left a 
million refugees over the past 6 years. Unfortunately, cease-fires have 
broken down in the past and the people of Armenia are suffering through 
another winter, short of food, heating fuel, and electricity, because 
of the brutal blockade imposed by their neighbors.
  The United States must remain active in urging all the parties to the 
conflict to honor the current ceasefire and agree to further 
negotiations for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. And we must 
continue to insist that Azerbaijan and Turkey end the blockade of 
Armenia.
  I would like to commend to my colleagues a recent editorial in the 
Boston Globe, which eloquently describes the costs of this conflict and 
the need for us to do what we can to bring it to an end.

                 [From the Boston Globe, Feb. 9, 1994]

                     The Invisible war in Karabakh

       Hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by war, 
     Villages of one ethnic and religious group destroyed by the 
     army of another. Children hacked in half, women raped, 
     civilian populations pounded daily with rockets, artillery 
     shells and cluster bombs.
       This is not the siege of Sarajevo but the hidden horror of 
     Azerbaijan's war against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. 
     The inhumanity of this war can hardly be hidden from the 
     victims--neither from the innocent Azeri villagers driven 
     from their homes nor from the Armenians of Karabakh who have 
     been subjected to ethnic cleansing. The horror has been 
     hidden only from the cameras that can impassion spectators in 
     the global village.
       Attention must be paid to the victims of this war. Refugees 
     on both sides must be able to return to their homes. The 
     Turkish and Azeri blockades of Armenia must be lifted so that 
     children and the elderly no longer freeze to death in 
     Yerevan.
       The governments in Washington, Moscow and Europe have a 
     humanitarian duty to end the suffering. Moreover, if they 
     were sage enough to fear the perilous precedent created by 
     their indifference--and if they understood the meaning of the 
     mercenaries attracted from Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and the 
     West--they would act on their strategic interest in fostering 
     a negotiated peace.
       Until now, Russia has been selling weapons to both sides, 
     using the tragedy of Armenians and Azeris to retrieve 
     Moscow's dominion over a lost sphere of influence. The 
     government in Istanbul has pandered to popular feelings of 
     kinship with the Turkic people of Azerbaijan. Western 
     nations, avid for oil concessions from Baku, have pretended 
     that Azerbaijan's brief for preserving the boundaries legated 
     by Stalin justifies the ethnic cleansing of Karabakh.
       US envoys and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 
     Europe have dabbled at peacemaking, but their efforts have 
     been too timid, too solicitous of Azeri, Russian and Turkish 
     preferences. Children are being massacred, and the Western 
     governments act as though they do not know for whom the bell 
     tolls.

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