Solidarity for the 32nd anniversary of the Nagorno-Karabakh’s Independence

Text anf photos by Onnik James Krikorian

On 2 September, rallies were held worldwide to mark the 32nd anniversary of the proclamation of independence by the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh. Situated within Azerbaijan, but inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians, current attempts to resolve the conflict with Armenia continue to falter.

Since 12 December, last year, the situation Karabakh finds itself in deteriorated with traffic disrupted on the Lachin Corridor, the 5 km wide highway that connects Karabakh to Armenia through what is internationally recognised as the territory of Azerbaijan. There are credible reports of a looming humanitarian catastrophe.

The intention of the 2 September rallies was to show solidarity with the ethnic Armenians of the besieged region and to raise public awareness globally.

However, the anniversary rallies organised by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D), a nationalist opposition party in Armenia and the diaspora. They failed to attract much press coverage at home or abroad and attendance was low. The largest, in Yerevan, numbered about 10,000.

Elsewhere, the rallies numbered only in their dozens.

In part, this was because the opposition remains unpopular in Armenia and among most Armenians. Former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan also participated in what was as much a rally calling for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation as showing support for Karabakh.

“Today, as 32 years ago, we are again at the point when the strong will of all Armenians and unity around one goal is the only way that will preserve the independence of Artsakh [Karabakh],” Kocharyan wrote in a short open letter. That message, however, appears not to have been heard.

In Tbilisi, for example, less than 100 people attended the rally. In recent years, however, what appear to be Dashnaktsutyun-affiliated organisations have been trying to mobilise the 40-000 strong ethnic Armenian community here, though with little success. Armenians number around 168,000 in Georgia as a whole.

Nonetheless, further rallies are planned by the small non-governmental organisational calling itself “The Armenian Community of Georgia” in October. In June, the group had already held another protesting Pashinyan’s government and its policy on Karabakh outside the Armenian Embassy in Tbilisi.