BARONESS CAROLINE COX ON ARTSAKH – “WITH COURAGE – AND SOME MIRACLES – THE ARMENIANS HUNG ON TO THEIR HISTORIC LAND –
The Times, Jan 25, 2014 –
LONDON
In the 1990s my passion for freedom led me to try to be a “voice for
the voiceless” – for victims of oppression ignored by the big aid
agencies and international media, often trapped behind closed borders.
Big aid organisations can generally only visit places with the
permission of a sovereign government. If a government is victimising
a minority and denies access, humanitarian organisations such as the
UN cannot reach those victims.
I therefore established a small NGO, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
(Hart), to reach such people with aid and advocacy. One example:
a small historically Armenian land, Nagorno-Karabakh, was cut off by
Stalin from Armenia and reassigned to Azerbaijan. In the early 1990s
Azerbaijan began ethnic cleansing the 150,000 Armenians who lived
there, unleashing full-scale war. With courage – and some miracles
– the Armenians hung on to their historic land. A ceasefire was
signed in 1994. Now, Hart (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust) supports
a path-breaking Rehabilitation Centre there and I have just returned
from my 80th visit.