AZERBAIJANI STUDENTS MAKE NEGLIGENT POLITICAL CLAIMS AT THE UC IRVINE
BY TALAR MALAKIAN
The crowd at the UC Irvine presentation
IRIVINE-On Thursday, November 15, more than a hundred community
members and University of California- Irvine students attended the
lecture entitled “The Karabakh Conflict From Ceasefire to Safarov:
Analysis Via Television News Coverage: 1990s to 2012” hosted by the
Armenian Studies Program at UC-Irvine. The lecturer for the evening
was Dr. Levon Marashlian, a professor of History at Glendale Community
College and a guest lecturer at California State University Northridge,
the University of California- Irvine, and the University of California-
Los Angeles.
The moderator for the evening was Professor Touraj Daryaee, a professor
of Persian Studies and a major contributor to the UCI Armenian Studies
Program. The informative lecture concluded with a Question and Answer
session in which several Azerbaijani students made political claims
that were misquoted and negligent of the information presented during
the lecture.
The lecture began at 7:30 p.m. following a reception hosted by the
program. Professor Marashlian showed news coverage of the various
events in the Karabakh struggle, that began in February 1988,
when the Supreme Soviet rule of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast,
voted to unite with Armenia, with between a 76% and 94% majority of
Armenians. By the summer of 1989 the Armenian-populated areas of the
NKAO were under blockade by Azerbaijan. On July 12 the Nagorno-Karabakh
Supreme Soviet voted to secede from Azerbaijan, which was rejected,
and in 1991, the oblast was back under Azerbaijani control. Marashlian,
in discussing the series of events chronologically, began by stating,
“both sides suffered greatly” during the time of war between Azerbaijan
and Armenia, with great losses on both ends. Video coverage included
images of Azerbaijani and Armenian losses during the war.
Professor Marashlian discussed the various requirements of the
Madrid Principles adopted by Armenia for ceasefire in 2005, which
is constantly being breached on both ends in a tense deadlock but
which grants Armenians some sort of autonomy in Azerbaijan until both
countries agree to let the region take a vote on its independence. He
concluded with several points drawn from his historical analysis of
the situation: Armenia needed Nagorno-Karabakh because Karabakh is a
current source of food and revenue for Armenia given that Armenia is
blockaded by both Turkey and Azerbaijan, leaving it “isolated” due to
“poor diplomacy.”
He pointed out that Azerbaijan did not need Nagorno-Karabakh
geographically, because the oil running through Azerbaijan brings in
roughly $13 billion. Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan only makes
their oil susceptible to damage by internal conflict in the region. He
concluded his lecture by stating that President Aliyev’s act of freeing
and promoting axe-murderer Ramil Safarov only a few months ago is a
message to the rest of the world and to Nagorno-Karabakh’s future:
it is acceptable to murder defenseless Armenians in their sleep,
and autonomy in Azerbaijan means Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh may
be on the verge of facing another genocide.
Azerbaijani students, present at the event, attacked the professor
in the Question-and-answer session. Professor Marashlian was asked
to draw a contrast between Ramil Safarov and Varoujan Garabedian,
a man convicted for the 1983 ASALA bombing of the Turkish Airlines
office in Paris. The Azeri student claimed that the two situations
were the same. Professor Marashlian answered in stating that the two
situations were different since Garabedian had completed his sentence
in France and then was deported from France, but was not pardoned and
promoted in Armenia, nor was he treated as a hero. He had simply been
given citizenship by Armenia. The students insisted the two cases
were the same, but then continued on to several other issues.
In a subsequent question, an Azerbaijani attendee asked the professor,
why he had not explicitly mentioned the 1992 Khojaly Massacre, the
killing of civilians during the early Karabakh conflict. Marashlian
insisted that he showed the photos from Khojaly, and did mention that
both sides of this war had experienced many losses. The Azerbaijani
students insisted on continuing the discussion by bringing up Markar
Melkonian’s “My Brother’s Road” – the diary of Armenia’s National Hero
and Armenian-American, Monte (Avo) Melkonian. Professor Marashlian
responded again that both sides suffered losses and that the Sumgait
riots during which 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis were killed was a
triggering event for the conflict that led to war. Marashlian also
mentioned the Azerbaijani photographer who had concluded, based on
photographic evidence, that many of the bodies found at Khojaly were
moved there, and that after publishing his findings he was executed
by Azerbaijani forces.
Another Azerbaijani student yelled that she had been born and raised
in Nagorno-Karabakh and that the professor’s claim to there being
no Azerbaijani people in Karabakh was wrong, and that the 800,000
Azerbaijani refugees had a right to go back to their homes. Professor
Marashlian reiterated that the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh
was approximately 1750,000 before the war, and that the majority
were Armenian. He also emphasized that the Armenian government was
prepared to return the regions jus outside the borders of the Republic
to Azerbaijan as part of the Madrid principles, thus allowing the
majority too return to their homes. He also pointed out that those
regions were held merely for security reasons and were a staging
ground for Azerbaijani acts of aggression, just as the current sniper
fire continues.
Because of the tense atmosphere of the lecture, Professor Daryaee asked
Professor Marashlian to conclude with a statement. Professor Marashlian
concluded with attention to the severity of the case: Armenians in
Nagorno-Karabakh are facing a deadlock that can erupt in war and
genocide at any moment. Without activism to keep Nagorno-Karabakh,
Armenia itself will eventually disappear.
Talar Malakian is the Chairperson of the Armenian National Committee
of America Orange County Chapter, which defends the rights, advances
the interests, and promotes the well being of the county’s Armenian
American community and promotes increased civic participation at the
grassroots and public policy levels.
1 Response for “Azerbaijani Students Make Negligent Political Claims
at the UC Irvine”
Not an inch of land should be given back to Azerbaijan. They have
proven time and time again that they are incapable of negotiating
a truce. Glorifying a convicted murderer, threatening to shoot
down civilian aircraft’s, declaring Armenians from all around the
world as an enemy of the state clearly proves that peace can not be
achieved. Lets not forget the historical truth behind this conflict.
The regions of Artsakh and Nakhichevan were and are historically part
of Armenia, unfortunately, for multiple reasons, Stalin decided to
annex both regions over to Soviet Azerbaijan even though the majority
of the population was Armenian. I sincerely hope that a peace agreement
can be reached, but this is not a realistic solution as long as one
party continuously undermine
From: A. Papazian
http://asbarez.com/106740/azerbaijani-students-make-negligent-political-claims-at-the-uc-irvine/