CANBERRA: Hundreds of Armenian-Australians in busloads from Melbourne and New South Wales gathered in Canberra on 2nd October 2023 to protest at the Azerbaijani, Turkish, Russian and United States Embassies over the ethnic cleansing of Armenians unfolding from the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) to Armenia, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).
The protests attracted the national media's attention, including from the ABC, SBS and Sky News television networks, as well as
The Canberra Times.
Protesters condemned Azerbaijan's criminal implementation of their genocidal ethnic cleansing policy against the indigenous Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, which accelerated last December, when they subjected the population to a crippling blockade that attracted the criticism of the international community, including Australia.
The International Court of Justice also ordered provisional action for Azerbaijan to end the blockade. In what was referred to as genocide by academia and legal experts, the blockade lasted nine months, before the latest military assault on Nagorno Karabakh, which has led to the current displacement and refugee influx into Armenia.
Protestors similarly condemned Turkey for Ankara's active support for Azerbaijan's aggression, providing military assistance and overtly celebrating as victories the second genocide of Armenians––the first implemented in 1915 by the Ottoman Empire and still denied by the successor regime.
Armenian-Australians also took to the embassies of the United States and Russia, calling on both nations to fulfil their global obligations to stop Artsakh's occupation by Azerbaijan and provide meaningful humanitarian assistance to the refugees currently flooding into Armenia.
Unlike Azerbaijan and Turkey's representatives in Canberra, the embassies of the United States and Russia accepted letters on behalf of the protestors, with a delegation comprising of representatives from the Armenian Youth Federation of Australia and Armenian National Committee of Australia being invited inside for a meeting a representative from Moscow. Throughout the protests and in interviews with media, the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU) made clear the Armenian-Australian community's demands for the Australian Government to sanction Azerbaijan and provide critical humanitarian assistance through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to assist those displaced due to ethnic cleansing.
“There are hardly any Armenians left in Nagorno Karabakh. This is a second Armenian Genocide,” said Vache Kahramanian, the Chairperson of the Armenian National Committee of Australia.
“We want to see Australia take swift action on two critical fronts, by actively participating in humanitarian relief efforts and by imposing sanctions on Azerbaijan, as the 21st century cannot leave genocides unpunished," he added.
