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By Anthony Morris
Not for the first time, a small territory between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea has become the focal point of a violent military confrontation, the latest resumption of hostilities in one of the world’s longest-lasting conflicts.
Since late September, the neighbouring nations of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been engaged in brutal shelling campaigns, on both military and civilian targets. Ordinary citizens have been suddenly plunged into warzones. In one neighbourhood, even playgrounds have become battlegrounds, as some residents have taken to using sand from children’s play-pits to cover the unexploded bombs that litter their streets.
At the heart of the conflict is Nagorno-Karabakh: a small territory, inhabited by around 145,000 people, and a part of Azerbaijan under international law. The territory’s population, who call themselves the Artsakhi, consist almost exclusively of ethnic Armenians that refuse to recognise the Azeri government. As a result, the territory has been administered by an Armenian-backed autonomous regime since the Artsakhi unilaterally declared their independence in 1991.
The dispute, which has been kept under control by a number of ceasefires since 1994, has not only embroiled Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also Russia, Turkey and other regional powers. Overall, an estimated 40,000 people - including thousands of civilians - have lost their lives since the breakup of the USSR ‘unfroze’ the conflict in 1989.
The most recent spate of violence, the deadliest episode since full-scale war in the 1990s, began on 27th September, with what regional authorities referred to as a ‘wholescale attack’ by the Azeri military. Since then, soldiers and civilians on both sides have lost their lives, mostly in vicious shelling attacks. While reliable figures are difficult to come by, most estimates claim that at least 1,100 soldiers and 100 civilians, including children, have died in the last month.
Of particular concern are the reports that both sides have deployed ‘cluster’ munitions: bombs that explode into smaller submunitions and have the ability to indiscriminately tear entire neighbourhoods apart. In Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Human Rights Watch reporters found Azeri-owned LAR160 rockets on the streets of the city. In Azerbaijan, an Armenian cluster attack on 28th October devastated the small city of Barda, killing 21 civilians and injuring at least 70 more, according to an Azeri government statement.
These unabashedly indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas on both sides of the border are flagrant violations of the Geneva convention. While most countries have taken steps to condemn the attacks, until this point the response of the international community has lacked substance.
The chief mechanism for negotiation in the region is the Minsk Group, set up in 1994 by the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe). The United States, which co-chairs the group with Russia and France, has traditionally taken the lead in using its influence to ensure stability. In 2016, for instance, significant diplomatic pressure from John Kerry was enough to halt a brief outbreak of hostilities. In recent years, however, there has been a growing sense of detachment from the region under the Trump administration, and analysts have cited this ‘void in real dialogue’ as a catalyst for renewed violence.
This disengagement has been exacerbated by recent events. A host of domestic issues, many of them related to the pandemic response, have dominated both international news cycles and political agendas in 2020. There is a sense from many experts that this unique geopolitical climate was a key factor in the timing of the Azeri attack. Launching the offensive at a time when the attentions of the United States were firmly on the pandemic and the presidential election seemed to pay off, they were indeed the slowest major power to issue a statement on the September attacks.
In the face of limited global attention, the acute human suffering in the region looks to only be escalating, as ceasefires agreed in recent week
s have been roundly ignored. This predicament could worsen further if the conflict begins to develop an international dimension, potentially creating a third proxy battleground (after Syria and Yemen) in Turkey and Russia’s Cold War.
There is considerable evidence that the Turkish government has already provided both weapons and soldiers to the Azeri cause. Most disturbingly, this includes Syrian mercenaries, some of whom have been found dead on battlefields far from their home nation. Russia, which is bound by the Collective Security Treaty Organization to militarily protect Armenia, is yet to intervene, though an apparently accidental shooting down of a Russian helicopter by the Azeri military may change this.
If this trend continues, there is a risk not only that the violence becomes more widespread, but also that the conflict will take on additional layers of complexity that could make it near-impossible to resolve. The threat of untold devastation is looming, and there is a distinct humanitarian imperative for meaningful action to be taken.
The international community failed the Armenians during the early 20th Century, as 1.5 million of them were driven to death by the Ottoman Empire, in a genocide that the UK, and others, still do not recognise. A century later, global powers cannot stand idly by again while the region is tormented by political violence - diplomatic intervention is crucial in order to prevent the conflict spiralling out of control.
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