(MENAFN- AzerNews) By Orkhan Amashov
The Armenian government and society, in their preoccupation with
accusing Azerbaijan of various wrongful acts on the basis of
dubious videos floating freely in the unregulated world of social
media, seem to have conveniently airbrushed the most significant
page of the Second Karabakh War from the diary of international
humanitarian law, namely the unlawful indiscriminate rocket and
missile attacks against the civilian cities of Ganja and Barda in
2020.
ICC - a distant possibility
It is facile to think of justice conceived globally being served
on a whim. The conditions and procedures for a particular case to
be adjudicated on by the International Crime Court (ICC) or an ad
hoc tribunal are replete with complexities. Given that neither
Azerbaijan nor Armenia are party to the Rome Statute, the
foundational treaty of the ICC, any recourse after it is
established that a given national court is unable to prosecute
suspected criminals (regarding the case opened in Azerbaijan), or
unwilling to do so, (regarding a possible, but a highly unlikely
case that could be opened in Armenia), will require a convoluted
approach which, at the present time, can only be envisaged on a
theoretical basis.
Today's discourse is more about international condemnation, or
lacking thereof, of Yerevan's warfare practice in terms of attacks
on Ganja, carried out on 4, 8, 5, 11, and 17 October 2020, and on
Barda that took place on 27 and 28 October 2020. There are
reasonable grounds to believe that, on the basis of the
overwhelming evidence available, that these assaults constituted
serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions on the counts of
directing attacks on civilians, the unlawful wanton destruction of
property, directing attacks on humanitarian workers, and on several
other grounds.
International Humanitarian Law specifies the norms pertaining to
the conduct of warfare, cumulatively forming the law of armed
conflicts, with the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 forming its
earlier codified foundation, and the later developed Geneva Laws,
named after the four eponymously-named Conventions adopted in 1949,
thereafter complemented with three additional protocols enshrining,
inter alia, the precepts aimed at the protection of civilians and
other non-combatants.
Facts
Out of the five Ganja missile attacks, only the second, carried
out on 8 October, did not result in human casualties, with all
others leading to human deaths, life-changing injuries, and the
destruction of civilian infrastructure, with the overall death toll
reaching 32. The deadliest of these attacks was the fourth, which
saw the use of SCUD missiles, leading to the death of 15
civilians.
Barda was shelled two days consecutively, with the use of
prohibited cluster munitions, aimed at the densely populated part
of the city. The use of SMERCH missiles led to an overall death
toll of 27 and 85 injuries.
Application of relevant law
Neither Ganja nor Barda were legitimate targets for assaults, as
they were solely populated by civilians, containing no
infrastructure amounting to a military object. Yerevan, at first,
retorted that it was Azerbaijan that manufactured the destruction
so as to discredit Armenia. Then, the argument was propounded that
they were aiming at Ganja International Airport yet, as Human
Rights Watch (HRW) and other independent observers noted at the
time, no evidence of any military target was found in the area.
Both cities were located far away from the conflict zone itself,
rendering the idea of military necessity even more impossible.
International Humanitarian Law acknowledges that destruction of
life may be deemed permissible if it is incidentally unavoidable,
yet it forbids the killing of innocent inhabitants for purposes of
revenge or the satisfaction of a lust to kill. In the same vein,
the destruction of property could be lawful if imperatively
demanded by the unfortunate necessities of war.
Although the Armenian government has never accepted
responsibility for attacks, either during the war or subsequently,
its rhetoric preceding the 2020 campaign was replete with
belligerent remarks pointing towards readiness to destroy critical
infrastructure, justifying this as“the art of warfare”. After the
first attack on Ganja, the so-called head of the illegal entity
based in Khankendi, Arayik Harutunyan, claimed that the city had
military targets, and later his so-called spokesperson Vahram
Poghosyan went on a venomous rant stating that“a few more days….
and an archaeologist will not be able to find the place of
Ganja”.
It is manifestly clear that the intent of aiming at civilian
settlements, without reasonable military justification, was
present. In those cases, regarded as“grey”, due to the difficulty
of establishing a military justification, the International
Criminal Court has adopted a“clearly excessive” standard regarding
the determination of a criminal violation. Since the attacks on
Barda and Ganja could not have been motivated by military
considerations, there is, in principle, no need to look into
proportionality, which is a useful test employed, when a military
necessity exists, yet it is important to establish if military
gains were proportionate to the measures applied and collateral
human deaths and injuries caused.
Individuals are criminally responsible for the war crimes they
commit. In light of the Ganja and Barda missile attacks, there are
reasonable grounds to believe that such orders must have been taken
by the highest echelons of Armenia's political leadership, with the
Prime Minister being a likely decision-maker as a
Commander-in-Chief.
Two years on, as we are looking over our shoulders to the tragic
events of the recent past, the scenes of devastation and human
suffering continue to pervade our memories, being incessantly
relived. Their dark lustre will never fade. It is not revenge or an
uncontrollable urge for reprisal, but a desire for justice that
Azerbaijan legitimately seeks.
Armenia, on the other side, has resorted to the policy of two
strains namely, denial and self-victimisation. This is Yerevan's
way of spinning its way out of admitting to its wrongful acts.
Armenia has not even feigned to launch an investigation into the
malicious attacks on civilians, resorting to archaic and falsified
rhetoric, relying on stereotypes and prejudice in the hope that
international pressure will never reach the threshold of inexorable
compulsion.
Self-deprecation cannot be expected of Yerevan. A healthy dose
of self-reflection amounting to a sober look at one's misdeeds is
also light years away from the mentality of contemporary
Armenia.
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