Newsweek: Armenian heritage at risk as UN watches in silence

PanARMENIAN.Net - With Armenia forced to concede swathes of its ancestral homeland after Azerbaijan invaded and occupied Artsakh (also Karabakh), some of the world oldest monuments to Christianity face a very real threat of destruction. As Armenians—and Christians everywhere—now look for global leadership to preserve this living chapter of early Christian history, the United Nations has been notably absent, says Alex Galitsky, communications director of the Armenian National Committee of America's Western Region, in a fresh article. published by Newsweek

"The "land of tolerance" myth is one Azerbaijan's authoritarian government has regularly deployed to distract the international community from its institutionalized dehumanization of Armenians, and concerted effort to destroy Armenia's heritage," the article reads.

"The silence and inaction of the international community in the face of the state's shameless vilification and incitement of hate has left the region's indigenous Armenian inhabitants fearing the worst."

In addition to cultural destruction, Azerbaijan also engages in historical revisionism—claiming to be the successor of the long extinct nation of Caucasian Albania, and labeling distinctly Armenian Christian sites as Albanian to assert ownership over them, Galitsky says.

"UNESCO's willingness to turn a blind eye to the destruction of Armenian heritage, and lend credence to Azerbaijan's false narrative of tolerance while it propagates and incites anti-Armenian racism, is history repeating itself," the author says.

"Amidst the ongoing assault on religious minorities throughout the region, countless cultural treasures—from Iraq's oldest Assyrian monastery to ancient Yazidi shrines—have been lost. UNESCO and the world must not sit idly by while Armenian heritage is at risk of suffering the same fate."

During the recent military hostilities, Azerbaijani forces launched two targeted attacks on the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi. After taking control of the city, they destroyed the domes of Saint John the Baptist Church. Azerbaijan earlier "restored" a church by replacing its Armenian inscription with glass art.

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.