SYNOPSIS

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ARTSAKH Armenian Genocide Continues is a documentary feature film by multi-award-winning journalist, radio host, and documentary filmmaker, Vic Gerami, about the Artsakh Genocide (Nagorno-Karabakh)   perpetrated by Azerbaijan and Turkiye. It tells the story of this ongoing tragic chapter through the lens of Armenian-American journalist and LGBTQ+ activist Vic Gerami. Through a journalist’s perspective, ARTSAKH documents Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s unprovoked genocidal attack and ethnic cleansing against Armenians of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, starting on September 27, 2020. Azerbaijan, with the declared assistance from Turkey, reawakened the conflict from dormancy by launching a large-scale offensive against Artsakh. In its war effort, Azerbaijan relied on thousands of Turkish-paid jihadist mercenaries airlifted from terrorist camps in Syria, Libya, and Pakistan and brought to fight alongside the Azerbaijani Army. The   2020 invasion opened a new chapter in the history of regional warfare and involved the unmatched suffering of the civilian population. For 44 days, the world watched mainly in deafening silence as over 5,000+ Armenians were massacred.

The Artsakh Genocide took about three years to complete. Some call it the second Armenian Genocide, but it is the continuation of the Armenian Genocide, this time Azerbaijan taking the lead while the original perpetrator, Turkey, assisted. Moreover, now Azerbaijan is conducting its cultural genocide against everything Armenian, destroying millennia-old churches, monasteries, cemeteries, schools, and other cultural monuments.

Having invaded and occupied 90% of Artsakh, Azerbaijan was determined to land-grab the rest of the republic and drive out the remaining people. 

Starting on December 12, 22, over two years after invading Artsakh, Azerbaijan blockaded the republic in an attempt to force the Armenians to flee their native land. Aliyev’s government ordered a group of fake self-styled environmental activists to set up a roadblock on the Lachin corridor, the sole overland route linking Artsakh with Armenia. Many of these so-called activists were later revealed to be connected with the   Azerbaijani government. In the next nine months, Azerbaijan attempted to starve Armenians and drive them out of Artsakh.

On February 22 and 23, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered provisional measures to ensure that Azerbaijan ends the blockade of the Lachin Corridor. However, on April 23, Azerbaijani forces illegally installed a checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor.

In a September 5, 2023, report, Risk Factors and Indicators of the Crime of Genocide in the Republic of Artsakh, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention stated, The total blockade of Artsakh   civilians from access to the outside world led to the complete interruption of any imports through the Lachin Corridor. Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross were also forbidden from providing   external relief supplies. This left Artsakh’s 120,000, including approximately 30,000 children, rapidly dwindling food stocks, medicine, baby formula, and other indispensable supplies that could not be produced on the ground, rendering them vulnerable to illness and starvation.

To further intensify its siege, Azerbaijan drained the Sarsang Reservoir, a critical source of water for Artsakh that had been used for power generation and agriculture, to deprive Armenians of Artsakh, as confirmed by the Freedom House. It was part of Aliyev’s strategy to displace the Armenian population forcibly.

Following Azerbaijan’s illegal blockade of Artsakh that starved 120,000 civilians, including 30,000 children, on September 19, 23, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked military offensive on Artsakh in an attempt to subjugate the region’s ethnically Armenian population by force. Following a 24-hour assault that killed 200 Armenians, the remaining 120,000 fled Artsakh and left for Armenia. 

With the Armenian population wiped out, Aliyev set out to the next phase of his assault, the cultural genocide, systematically demolishing Armenian monuments to wipe any trace of Armenian heritage off the map.

In Artsakh, there are around 500 historical sites, home to approximately 6,000 Armenian monuments that are now under the control of Azerbaijani armed forces. However, their destruction is not just the work of the military. President Ilham #Aliyev ’s swift colonization program includes reorganizing and reoccupying urban and rural areas.

These monuments and stones testify to the generations of Armenians who worshipped and cared about them. To destroy them is to erase not only a culture but a people. 

Gerami interviewed and featured more than a dozen members of Congress, dignitaries, and other high-profile pubic figures including Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Congressman   Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), Baroness Caroline Anne Cox,   Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA), Congresswoman Katie   Porter (D-CA), Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA), Congresswoman   Barbara Lee (D-CA), Laguna Niguel, CA, Councilmember Stephanie Seraydarian Oddo, Israeli-Russian Journalist Alexander Lapshin, Republic of Armenia High Commissioner of Diaspora Affairs Zareh   Sinanyan, Head of ‘Bright Armenia’ Party Edmon Marukyan, Former Deputy Minister of Environment for the Republic of Armenia and Senior Advisor on Climate Change to the World Bank Group Dr. Irina   Ghaplanyan, Co-Founder of Aznavour Foundation Nicolas Aznavour, CEO of Aznavour Foundation Kristina Aznavour, Professor Barlow Der Mugrdechian, Azerbaijani blogger and activist Mahammad Mirzali, and several Armenian journalists, veterans, and refugees. 

The film also accounts for the apathy of the greater world community, the hypocrisy of public figures who preach about human rights but show inaction when reality hits, and how the press is easily manipulated by a rogue nation’s campaign of hate, disinformation, and propaganda.

The annihilation of Armenian life in Artsakh was enabled by the inaction and indifference of those who might have prevented it. The United States and the European Union spoke loftily of universal human rights but did nothing for nine months while the people of Artsakh were starved. They did nothing to enforce the order of the International Court of Justice, demanding Azerbaijan to end its blockade. That inaction emboldened Azerbaijan to attack, just as it would encourage others to do the same elsewhere. The Armenian Genocide continues...