[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 146 (Monday, September 11, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4347-S4349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Azerbaijan and Armenia

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a horrific set of 
events that are taking place in a part of the world that we could do 
something about.
  In this photo, this dead man's body is completely emaciated. The 
skin, tight over his bones, barely covers his skeleton. Bruises and 
scars stretch across his chest.
  This is not a victim at the side of the road during the Ottoman 
Turks' Armenian genocide. It is not a holocaust survivor lying on the 
ground as allies liberated Buchenwald. It is not a human carcass left 
in the wake of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or the Hutu in Rwanda or 
Serbian forces in Bosnia.
  It is from the Human Rights Defender's Office in Nagorno-Karabakh, 
and it is from August--only weeks ago. Because, right now, as the 
Presiding Officer sits here on the dais and I stand here in the 
Chamber, the Aliyev government in Azerbaijan is carrying out a campaign 
of heinous atrocities that bear the hallmarks of genocide against the 
Armenians in Artsakh. They have purposely and viciously trapped an 
estimated 100,000 to 120,000 Christian Armenians in the Karabakh 
Mountains.
  There is only one road out connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia for 
people, food, medicine, and basic supplies. And the Azerbaijanis have 
blocked it since December of last year.
  Now, despite some reports yesterday, no aid has moved. They have 
tried to deny their role, but make no mistake--the Azerbaijani 
government is now wholeheartedly embracing this brutal blockade, 
denying the Armenian community food and fuel and medicine. Aliyev and 
his regime are trying to starve these people into death or political 
submission.
  ``There are no cemeteries and there are no machete attacks,'' wrote 
the former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno 
Ocampo, in a recent report. But he said:

       Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon. Without 
     immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be 
     destroyed in a few weeks.

  This group of Armenians--we're talking about over 100,000--will be 
destroyed in a few weeks. Not my observations; the observations of the 
former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
  In Artsakh, the shelves at stores are empty. Children wait in lines 
for the chance of finding bread to feed their grandparents who are too 
weak to leave the house. There is no gas for ambulances. According to 
the head doctor at one maternity hospital, miscarriages have nearly 
tripled. And the BBC reports that one in three deaths in Nagorno-
Karabakh is from malnutrition.
  For months, Azerbaijan was just doing the bare minimum, allowing the 
International Committee of the Red Cross limited access. But in July, 
Aliyev blocked even the Red Cross. And

[[Page S4348]]

in complete defiance of the Geneva Conventions, Azerbaijan detained 
medical patients the Red Cross was transporting through the corridor. 
This is not only outrageous at face value, but an insult to the 
international community and a threat to brave Red Cross workers around 
the world.
  In addition to arresting sick and elderly residents a few weeks ago, 
Azerbaijan also detained university students who were trying to go to 
Armenia to start the school year. Azerbaijan's foreign ministry says: 
Oh, there is nothing to worry about. These concerns are just a result 
of ``propaganda and political manipulations spread by Armenia.''
  Really? They are blaming Armenia for this? That is a flat-out lie.
  It was Azerbaijan, with Turkish backing, that launched the war in 
2020--a war that uprooted close to 100,000 Armenians from their homes 
in Nagorno-Karabakh; a war that killed 6,500 people. Now Aliyev blocks 
the Lachin corridor and says: I am ``not organizing ethnic cleansing.'' 
The same Azerbaijani President who has also threatened to ``chase 
away'' Armenian separatists ``like dogs,'' whose government issued a 
commemorative postage stamp showing a worker in hazmat gear spraying 
disinfectant on the region.
  We have seen and heard this kind of propaganda throughout history. It 
is the work of a regime intent on destroying and erasing this ancient 
Armenian community's history in Nagorno-Karabakh.
  And right now, the United States is failing. The United States is not 
meeting the humanitarian needs or publicly putting enough pressure on 
Aliyev to stop the campaign of ethnic cleansing.
  I sincerely hope the State Department is not considering renewing the 
907 waiver which allows for security assistance to go to Azerbaijan. I 
don't know how the United States can justify spending any kind of 
support--security or otherwise--to the regime in Baku.
  We have seen a video of Azerbaijani forces killing unarmed Armenian 
soldiers in cold blood. We have reports of Azerbaijani soldiers 
sexually assaulting and mutilating an Armenian female soldier. So to 
send them assistance makes a mockery of the FREEDOM Support Act. 
Section 907 of this act is meant to ban security assistance to 
Azerbaijan until it is ``taking demonstrable steps to cease all 
blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and 
Nagorno-Karabakh.''
  That is the end of the quote from section 907. But still, the 
Department of State has waived section 907 over and over and over 
again.
  Suffice it to say, I am strongly opposed to having any aid going to a 
fighting force known for war crimes and the violation of human rights. 
I understand the dynamics of the broader region are complicated, but 
our fundamental principles underlying security assistance should not 
be.
  When the United States untethers our security assistance from human 
rights and American values to focus on short-term tactical military 
assistance, it not only damages long-term American national security 
interests, it flies in the face of our duty to honor the victims and 
survivors of the Armenian genocide and our duty to ensure that history 
does not repeat itself.
  We cannot look away from a systematic attempt to eradicate and erase 
an entire people from the face of the Earth.
  In 2021, as my colleagues witnessed here on the Senate floor, I was 
overcome with emotion to see President Biden join us in recognizing--
for the first time of any American President--the Armenian genocide.
  More than a century ago, Ottoman Turks perpetrated a systematic 
campaign to exterminate the Armenian population through killings, 
through forced deportation, and, yes, through starvation.
  What the Turks did is an irrefutable historical fact. The recognition 
of this fact was a huge step forward, and I am proud to have played a 
role in that effort. I am proud that I spoke up as many 
American leaders stayed silent; proud that I pressured State Department 
nominees and officials to acknowledge this historical reality; proud 
that I introduced or cosponsored resolutions recognizing the Armenian 
genocide since before I came to the Senate in 2006.

  Make no mistake, fighting the denial of Armenian genocide is not only 
about the past, it is also about the present.
  That is why I am calling on Aliyev to immediately release the 
Armenian prisoners of war. It is why I have been working on legislation 
to address the current humanitarian crisis in Artsakh. And it is why 
when USAID Administrator Power came before the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee earlier this year, I pushed her to get humanitarian 
assistance to the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
  I believe the United States can--and must--play an active role in 
addressing this conflict because the so-called Russian peacekeepers, 
who have supposedly been enforcing a ceasefire following Azerbaijan's 
2020 invasion, have been--to no one's surprise--wholly ineffective. As 
Azerbaijani forces began an incursion in September of 2022, these 
Russian forces stood idly by. Moscow will, no doubt, exploit any 
instability to its advantage, but they have also proved their lack of 
worth, which is all the more reason that the United States must 
continue to play a role.
  Now, we have been facilitating talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, 
but we need to change our approach. We cannot continue to simply 
facilitate talks. We have a responsibility to mediate, to pursue a 
meaningful enforceable agreement with the guaranteed rights, security, 
and dignity of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh as a central tenet. We 
must also encourage--and if necessary--broker direct discussions 
between political leaders in Stepanakert and Baku.
  Of course, to be an honest broker means we need to tell the truth 
about Azerbaijan's atrocities. We need to call out those individuals 
perpetrating this campaign of ethnic cleansing. We need to target 
them--including President Aliyev--with sanctions. We need to be cutting 
off their access to the wealth and oil money they have stashed away in 
financial institutions around the world, to their yachts and mansions 
across Europe.
  The evidence is there, and we must preserve it so Aliyev can be held 
accountable for these atrocities.
  I have called on the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to 
introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council enforcing an end to 
Aliyev's blockade.
  I am pleased to see that Secretary Blinken is personally engaging in 
the crisis now, but the message he delivers must be crystal clear. At 
the same time, the EU needs to step in too.
  Now, I was pleased to see the High Representative Borell's statement 
in July that the EU is ``deeply concerned about the serious 
humanitarian situation'' in Nagorno-Karabakh. But I hope that actions 
accompany those words. Instead of just taking Azerbaijani gas and 
praising the country as a ``crucial energy partner,'' they must also 
bring pressure to end this blockade.
  How many leaders have solemnly promised to learn history's lessons 
and prevent future genocides?
  How many people have come to the floor of the Senate and said: Never, 
never again?
  How many people will have to die of starvation before we act?
  With Aliyev potentially moving troops along the border, we cannot say 
we didn't see it coming.
  This time must be different. In the past, plans to carry out genocide 
were clouded by distance or geography. But this time we know. We know 
Aliyev is doing it right now. We must not only hold him accountable for 
his actions, we must stop him from succeeding in erasing this Armenian 
community.
  We must stop him from starving these Armenians to death or imposing 
political control by opening only the Aghdam corridor. This is not a 
substitution for opening the Lachin corridor. It is not upholding the 
commitments of the 2020 agreement. Using basic humanitarian food and 
medical supplies as a political weapon is not acceptable. We have the 
power to do it--if we act now.
  Given the chance, who here among us would not go back and stop the 
Turks from rounding up the first Armenian victims of the genocide who 
were hung in the streets of Istanbul or the Serb forces who gave 
Bosnian Muslims a 24-hour ultimatum to surrender or the Rwandan radio 
broadcasts inciting violence?

[[Page S4349]]

  Unlike those times in the past, we are living on the brink right now.
  So to the Biden administration, I would say, now is the time to step 
up and protect this vulnerable population; to the international 
community, now is the time to work together to bring pressure to stop 
this tragedy from unfolding in front of our very eyes.
  To the Armenian people trapped in this blockade with no food as 
winter approaches, know that you have friends and allies here in the 
U.S. Senate and around the world who will not rest until you are safe 
and secure. Hang on. Hang on.
  And to the men organizing and carrying out this brutal campaign, we 
will hold you accountable for your crimes even if it takes a 
lifetime. You will pay a price. You will face justice, and I certainly 
will not rest until you do so.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.

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