The wipe out of medieval Armenia’s largest cemetery in 2005 by the Azeri authorities has finally brought international attention, at least in media, to the protection of both Armenian and Azeri monuments in the region.

Three articles from this week’s Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR)  issue deal with cultural protection in the South Caucasus – from another Armenian cemetery being erased by the Azeri authorities in Baku (that I wrote about in early June of this year); two mosques in Shushi being restored by Armenians to show off they are far from Azerbaijan’s official policy of cultural genocide, and a more realistic situation of Azeri graves neglected in Armenia.

One needs to applaud Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict expert Tom de Waal –  an IWPR editor – for his equal concern for Armenian and Azeri monuments.

Although rarely mentioned in these days, the unbelievable destruction of Djulfa has, perhaps, shook off people that cultural heritage protection is not a pr issue but a real concern.

The academic community seems to share the view. The world’s premier, and probably the oldest, history magazine, is interested in documenting cultural destruction. In its upcoming November issue, History Today will feature an article on the Djulfa destruction by this author.

In its second report (since the Djulfa destruction) on religous freedom in Azerbaijan, the U.S. State Department has failed again to mention the wipe out of the world’s largest Armenian Christian cemetery by the Azeri authorities in December of 2005.

Released on September 14, 2007, the International Religious Freedom Report on Azerbaijan is a copy-past of at least 6-year-old reports in regards to the condition of Armenian churches in Azerbaijan stating that “all Armenian churches, many of which were damaged in ethnic riots that took place more than a decade ago, remained closed.”

Even outside the Azeri exclave of Nakhichevan, where the Djulfa cemetery existed, the statement did not reflect actuality. A church in central Azerbaijan’s Nizh village, for instance, was reopened in early 2006 for the Udi Christian minority after a publicized restoration eliminated the Armenian letters on church walls and nearby tombstones.

What’s the purpose of the report?

The report is available at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2007/90164.htm.

Over a year and a half after Azerbaijan smashed to dust the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world (see “Djulfa” at the top of this blog), the Azeri authorities are preventing again European observers from visiting the site where the cemetery existed.

Whereas in April of 2006 Azerbaijan banned European observers from entering Djulfa with the pretext that accepting any possibilty of the “Armenian claim” that Djulfa is gone and, therefore, giving any credibility to anything that any Armenian says is the biggest crime any human being could make, now Azerbaijan has figured out the stupidest of all methods to prevent the delegation from monitoring cultural properties. It is saying that Europeans must enter Nagorno Karabakh from Azerbaijan otherwise they will not agree to the visit:

ARMENIAN DISAGREES PACE RAPPORTEUR EDWARD O’HARA’S VISITING NAGORNO KARABAKH VIA AZERBAIJAN, THE VISIT WAS PUT OFF AGAIN

Azeri Press Agency
Aug 31 2007
Azerbaijan

The PACE Rapporteur for Cultural Heritage in the South Caucasus,
British MP, Edward O’Hara’s fact-finding travel to Azerbaijan,
Georgia and Armenia from August 28 through September 6 has been
postponed again, Milli Majlis press service told APA.

The statement reads that Azerbaijan has always supported this
initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,
and PACE Rapporteur Edward O’Hara’s fact-finding visit to the region,
including Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan, Nagorno
Karabakh and the other territories occupied by Armenia.

Azerbaijan objected to Armenian side’s demand at PACE during
preparation for the visit that the fact-finding mission should travel
to Nagorno Karabakh through Armenia (by car from Yerevan).

Related to this issue, Samad Seyidov, head of Azerbaijani parliament
delegation to the PACE, informed the Secretary General Mateo Sorinas
of Azerbaijan’s official stance, underscoring recognition of the
country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty by the international
community and international organizations like UN, OSCE, NATO, CE etc.

Azerbaijan clearly announced its position that both domestic and
international missions and delegations have to seek permission of
official Baku to travel to its territory of Nagorno Karabakh and
other adjacent regions under occupation, and Azerbaijan will not
change its firm position in any condition.

As a result, PACE didn’t support Armenia’s unconstructive and baseless
stance and postponed the visit.

Now, how technically possible it is for European observers to visit Nagorno Karabakh from Azerbaijan is only for the pious Azerbaijani officials to figure out. What is Azerbaijan’s response to the fact that its own Ambassador to Russia visit Nagorno Karabakh, and logically through Armenia, in June of this year?

Of course the one and only logic behind any of the illogical Azerbaijani attempts to stop the monitoring of cultural rights in both Armenia and Azerbaijan is because they know they have smashed Djulfa to dust and can’t cover it up. For one reason they know there are satellite images, that are as objective as anything else can get in the world, that show the cemetery before the destruction. For another reason, they can’t admit that they committed an act of cultural vandalism, or cultural genocide, against a people they consider the creators of all evil on Earth. And most badly, they have lied so many times on the destruction of Djulfa that accepting they lied would undermine their very authority.

Anyhow, although I have been in touch with Mr. O’Hara (the head of the delegation who was supposed to visit and of course never will) and although he doesn’t sound interested in the faith (well, I guest in the past a lot) of Djulfa, I still believe it is to much extent the fault of Armenians that the world doesn’t know about the silenced story of Djulfa.

Well, I should go back to my homework. That’s the best I can do for Djulfa at this minute. But of course there is a reason I have not been really active on the blog recently. So yeah, Azerbaijan, I don’t know about the rest of my kin, but I have not forgotten Djulfa and never will.

After a friend of mine from Amsterdam thanked me yesterday for my latest article on the destruction Djulfa, I promised him never to forget Djulfa and not let others forget it either.

As part of my promise, I just set up www.djulfa.wordpress.com.

This week’s Reporter (June 30, 2007) has my newest article on the destruction of Djulfa cemetery that I just wrote for them using much information from my last semester’s research.

You can download the PDF version of current issue’s Section A – where my piece is – from here.

Here is the article in full:

International Reaction to Djulfa cemetery destruction has been only words and no action

by Simon Maghakyan

June 30, 2007

DENVER, CO. – After several failures to visit Djulfa (Jugha), where the largest medieval Armenian cemetery was reduced to dust by Azerbaijan’s military a year and a half ago, officials at international organizations are talking again about sending experts to the region.

      While reports about plans to send a mission by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to Armenia and Azerbaijan have again appeared in the media, words are all that have reached so far the remote shores of the Araxes where an archeological monument with thousands of ancient Armenian burial stones, khachkars, existed not too long ago.

      Still a UNESCO spokesperson says their talks are serious and, according to Armenpress, the organization is now working out the details of a visit both to Nakhichevan – where Djulfa is located – and Karabakh, where Azerbaijan alleges Armenians have destroyed Azeri monuments.

      And this week, the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Karapetian said that UNESCO has already determined the make-up of its monitoring group and that currently the issue is with the visits’ timing.

      Armenians and others have long urged UNESCO to interfere in the destruction of the Djulfa cemetery and other Armenian monuments.

      In October 2006, an international group of parliamentarians from Canada, France, Greece, the United Kingdom, Russia and Switzerland traveled to UNESCO’s Paris headquarters in order to request that Director-General Koїchiro Matsuura take up an investigation in Djulfa.

      Canadian Parliamentarian Jim Karygiannis, a member of the delegation to Paris, this week told this author that he still has not heard back from UNESCO.

***

      In addition to UNESCO, the Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis has expressed interest in sending experts to monitor cultural sites whenever a relevant agreement with Armenia and Azerbaijan is reached.

      But efforts by the European Parliament to send a delegation to Djulfa, headed by British MP Edward O’Hara, first in 2006 and again in April 2007 have been unsuccessful. This was despite the February 16, 2006 European Parliament resolution condemning the destruction of Djulfa and calling on Azerbaijan to allow “a European parliament delegation to visit the archaeological site of Djulfa.”

      O’Hara told this author that no party but himself is to blame for this year’s postponement which was “entirely due to domestic commitments.” This explanation is different from last year’s cancellation, which as The Art Newspaper (London) reported in June 2006, was due to Azerbaijan’s refusal to allow ten delegates to enter its territory.

      Meantime, there has been no reaction towards claims by Azeri officials and nationalist historians that the cemetery did not exist or was not Armenian. Foreign diplomats and organizations with presence in Baku have also been quiet toward Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian activities. Former Norwegian Ambassador Steinar Gil, who publicized a case of vandalism at an Armenian church in central Azerbaijan, remains the only exception.

      Thomas de Waal, an expert on Armenian-Azerbaijani relations says that “foreign investors and diplomats in Azerbaijan are very sensitive towards anything that touches on the Armenian-Azerbaijani issue and the peace process and are therefore very timid about raising the issue of the destruction of cultural monuments.”

***

      Azerbaijan’s continuing military build-up and threats to launch a new war to win control over Nagorno Karabakh add on to the concern for the peace process. But Human Rights Watch has also blamed the West, especially the United States, for trading human rights for oil in Azerbaijan for inaction to condemn broad range of human rights violations.

      The U.S. State Department did not react on the Djulfa vandalism until pressed for comment. Following a congressional hearing on February 16, 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a written response to Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) acknowledging U.S. awareness of “allegations of desecration of cultural monuments” and urged Azerbaijan to “take appropriate measures to prevent any desecration of cultural monuments.” She also said the U.S. has “encouraged Armenia and Azerbaijan to work with UNESCO to investigate the incident.”

      During a visit to Armenia in March 2006, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza called the destruction a “tragedy.” He said: “it’s awful what happened in Djulfa. But the United States cannot take steps to stop it as it is happening on foreign soil. We continually raise this issue at meetings with Azeri officials. We are hopeful that the guilty will justly be punished.”

      Later that month, Bryza’s State Department manager, Assistant Secretary Dan Fried, told the Armenian Assembly of America conference in Washington that he “would be happy to raise issues of Armenian historical sites” with Azerbaijani officials because respect and protection for cultural sites is “a universal policy of the United States.”

      And in her May 12, 2006 response to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), U.S. Ambassador-designate to Azerbaijan Anne Derse noted that the U.S. is “urging the relevant Azerbaijani authorities to investigate the allegations of desecration of cultural monuments in Nakhichevan. If I am confirmed, and if such issues arise during my tenure, I will communicate our concerns to the Government of Azerbaijan and pursue appropriate activities in support of U.S. interests.”

***

      The destruction of Djulfa, nonetheless, did not make it into the State Department’s 2006 International Religious Freedom Report on Azerbaijan released on September 15, 2006. The report only repeated the previous years’ language that “all Armenian churches, many of which were damaged in ethnic riots that took place more than a decade ago, remained closed.”

      Likewise, the report failed to notice the words of the Norwegian Ambassador that a church in the village of Nizh was in early 2006 “restored” with Armenian lettering eliminated from its walls and nearby tombstones. That “restoration” was part of the Azerbaijan’s effort to present the Armenian cultural heritage on its territory as “Albanian” – that is belonging to a culture that became extinct hundreds of years ago – and therefore not Armenian.

***

      The most detailed outsider’s account of Nakhichevan’s Armenian heritage remains that of Steven Sim, a Scottish architect who visited the area in the summer of 2005. During his visit he found no trace of a single medieval Armenian church he had travelled to research, with local interlocutors denying there were any churches there in the first place.

      Still, while traveling along the border with Iran, Sim did manage to see the Djulfa khachkars from his train before the hand-crafted stones were erased from the face of the Earth in less than half a year.

      More than 350 years ago before Sim’s visit, a foreign traveller to Djulfa had estimated 10,000 khachkars in the cemetery. By 1998, less than seven decades after a Soviet agreement with Turkey placed Nakhichevan under Azerbaijan, there were only 2,000 khachkars remaining while the entire Armenian population had disappeared.

      According to eyewitness reports cited by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), Azeri authorities made efforts to destroy much of the Djulfa cemetery in 1998 and again in 2002. Describing what he saw in Djulfa in August 2005, Sim reported “what I saw was real savageness, but I cannot say that they did not leave anything, since there are still lying khachkars.”

      Four months later, on December 15, 2005, Russia’s Regnum News Agency was the first international outlet to quote reports of approximately “100 Azerbaijani servicemen penetrate[ing] the Armenian cemetery near Nakhichevan… using sledgehammers and other tools… to crush Armenian graves and crosses.”

      This final stage of destruction, which also amounted to desecration of Armenian remains underneath the burial monuments, had reportedly started on December 14 and lasted for three days, leaving no trace of a single khachkar.

      An Armenian film crew in northern Iran, from where the cemetery was visible, had videotaped dozens of men in uniform hacking away at the khachkars with sledgehammers, using a crane to remove some of the largest stones from the ground, breaking the stones into small pieces, and dumping them into the River Araxes using a heavy truck.

      Nevertheless, Azeri president Ilham Aliyev told the Associated Press that the reports of the destruction are “an absolute lie, slanderous information, a provocation.”

      By March 2006, photographs of the cemetery site showed that it had been turned into an army shooting range. An Azerbaijani journalist who visited the area on behalf of the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting in April 2006 similarly found no traces of the cemetery left.

It could be a water bottle or something else, but a video camera is not ruled out either. In fact, the person who holds the object uses it too slow questioning its water bottle possibility.

After a weekend of examining the December 2005 video from the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, I have speculations the vandals videotaped their own “heroism.” The video, taken by an Armenian film crew from the Iranian border, shows Azeri men in uniforms hacking medieval Armenian burial monuments down at the Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian) cemetery. The footage has become pretty popular by now and received over 10,000 hits in YouTube.com and other videos.

Now, after going through some of the footage with examining every frame of that particular portion, I have noticed this object (circled in red) in the hand of a man pointing toward the Iranian border. Surprisingly, some of the men in the area are also looking into the same direction (circled in blue) offering speculation that the Azeri soldiers may have videotaped their destruction of the Armenian cemetery. If true, did they do this to prove to someone they did this or what?

Upon insistence of of my girlfriend, I am posting a summary of my recent talk in Toronto by one of the organizers of the event.  I have the cold. 🙁

This is me and Hon. Jim Karygiannis, a Toronto MP (like the national Canadian representative) who joined us at the end of the lecture.  I had e-mailed him a few days before the talk and he made the commitment to attend.  I am shocked with the accessibility of Canadian elected officials.  My own American representative, the Tom Tancredo, would never attend such a meeting even though he has paid tribute to me in the U.S. House a few years ago.  Wow, a lesson for us Americans to learn.

Simon Maghakyan, a 20 year old student at the University of Colorado, flew to Toronto and in the span of three days, he participated in an Armenian Genocide related Workshop in Montreal over the weekend, then gave an excellent talk on the destruction and vandalism of Djulfa khatchars.  His talk took place on Monday, March 19, 2007, at 8:00pm, in the Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in Toronto.  Without the help of Rev. Arch Father Zareh Zargarian, the pastor of the Church, this event would not have taken place.

Simon began his presentation with his 5-minute film – “The New Tears of Araxes” – that documents the destruction of thousands of khatchkars.  The film was followed by his talk on the destruction discussing its connection to oil, politics and cultural rights.  At the end, his PowerPoint presentation showed satellite images of the Djulfa cemetery before its 2005 final destruction. These images had not been shown to the public before

Simon’s talk was enthusiastically received by the audience, as evidenced by the lively question and answer period at the end.  Here is a comment from one of the attendees.

“Simon’s lecture was enlightening and he inspired hope in our new generation. God bless him and hope it will inspire other youth to go  in his footsteps. We the grown ups should keep an eye on these youth, help them every which way, so they will be encouraged.”

The Toronto Armenian youth was conspicuous by its absence.  Perhaps this was due to excusable circumstances, such as bad timing, late advertising, etc.  Here are some other comments from other members of the audience.

 “ …he [Simon] has all the qualities to become a scholar.  We thank all those who helped organize the special event.“

“Just wanted to say that I enjoyed Simon Maghakyan’s lecture yesterday, he had strong and energetic presentation skills at that young age with the knowledge of someone twice his age, a very bright young man, and he wasn’t shy at all, may he have a very successful future, my heartiest congratulations to him. I just wish that this lecture was advertised sooner.. as I believe there would’ve been a larger audience attending.“

Thank you Simon.

Artin Boghossian, Toronto

A thread I started in the Virtual Ani forum, that deals with the survived Jugha (Djulfa) khachkars, will have a  new addition now.  The idea of gathering the survived khachkars doesn’t belong to me, but to Steven Sim, a Scot architect and the last person to see Djulfa before its December 2005 annihilation.

I have just received a photo of one of the few (between 9 and 15) surviving khachkars from Jugha.  This particular one is in Geneva (Geneve):

The St Hagop church in Geneva has been inaugurated in 1969 and I reckon the khatchkar monument has been erected on this occasion. I settled down in Geneva on 1972 and the khatchkar already existed at that time. If I am not mistaken, it had been brought from Nor Jugha/Djulfa, Iran (and not from [Old] Jugha)… You will find attached a scanned picture of the khatchkar taken in 1994.

Today I Armenianized more non-Armenians, a.k.a, donated blood.  I think this is the best way of practicing nationalism or patriotism.  If you think your blood is better (which I don’t, especially when it is AB positive), you should donate it to make this world a better place.  This would make millions of, lets say, Turks to donate blood around the world. 

 Donating blood makes you healthy.  Until last year, I would get the cold at least 12 times a year in all of my life.  Since the first time I donated blood, I have not been sick and never will.

Donating blood is fun, in my case for the nurse or the nurses, at least.  These people had a lot of fun when I was playing Borat for them.  Wasn’t too much fun for me because they thought I was being myself.  Maybe some part of it.

 Donating fun will make you hate your computer less, at least in my case.  See, my home computer is the worst computer in the world (this is an absolute fact!!!!!!) and I couldn’t update my yesterday’s post after 10 attempts!  Now, as they have taken some blood of me, I don’t have too much energy to practice hate against my computer.  As Blogian’s readership is growing, I need to have a normal access to Internet, but this doesn’t seem the case.  So if I don’t respond to your comments, please don’t take it personal.  Usually, I approve them at work and cannot comment them from there.  If you notice, I don’t edit comments, and there is some Turkish-Azerbaijani love for Armenians in the comments.  But I do read your comments and get really excited especially when you link to Blogian!  One of my friends in Colorado, Kim Christianian, mentions my blog to everybody she sees.  I am serious.  She is the Blogian agent, and everybody is invited to be one.  🙂

Donating blood makes you feel good, despite the fact that nobody asks for an ID or whether you use/used drugs and alcohol.  What if Bin Laden wanted to donate blood?  Most likely not, and the same with the alcoholics or drug addicts, so don’t worry about getting intoxicated blood.

 So what makes you donate blood?  I don’t know the answer, but it paid well.  I was taking my independent study (on Cultural Rights and Djulfa) form for the dean to sign, and saw the blood seekers.  I told them I had to run, but ended up coming back.  I was told at the admissions office that it might take a week before the dean signed it.  I got a call, twenty minutes after I had dropped off the form, that my form was ready as I was already giving blood.  See, had I not volunteered I would have to do it on Friday!

As you noticed, my obssesion (or whatever the word is spelled.  I am not going to use spell check any more!) about Djulfa is becoming academic.  Indigenous rights scholar and very famous Native American Prof. Glenn Morris is going to supervise me on the research, and said many times he was really excited.  I will be also pursuing (and this is my own take) the state of Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia, so those of you who have some materials on the issue please let me know.  I would ask you not send me links to nationalist Azerbaijani websites that post photos of Armenian churches and say these were Azerbaijani monuments.

If Kirk Kirkorian ever ends up reading this entry, I would ask him to buy me a new computer.

A self-described independent blogger from Azerbaijan and Doctor of History Vulgar Seidov is writing in Russian the circumstances under which European parliamentarians and UNESCO would be allowed to visit Djulfa (Julfa or Jugha) – the site of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery that was wiped off the face of the Earth in December of 2005:

Путь в Джульфу европейским экспертам лежит только через разрушенные азербайджанские могилы и памятники в сегодняшней Армении и оккупированных азербайджанских территориях. Только после того, как каждый до последнего разрушенный и осквернённый азербайджанский объект будет наведан, задокументирован, зафиксирован европейцами, только после этого можно будет им сказать Welcome to Julfa!

(The road to Djulfa for the European experts lies only through [the examination] of destroyed Azerbaijani graves and monuments in modern Armenia and [in] occupied Azerbaijani territories. Only after that, when the very last destroyed and desecrated Azerbaijani object is visited, documented, and noted [fixed?] by the Europeans, only after that they can be told, “Welcome to Julfa!”)

Ironically enough, Armenia has agreed to the examination of the state of Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia by European experts. During such a visit last year to Armenia and Azerbaijan, the delegation was denied access to Nakhichevan where Djulfa lies. But you don’t tell this to Azerbaijani academicians, because they know it very well.

I agree that the price to visit Djulfa should be through the documentation of all Azerbaijani objects in Armenia (although I am not sure what Seidov means by “all objects”). There are Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia, and even if they all together do not have 1% of the significance of only one of the thousands of medieval Armenian cross stones forever gone in Azerbaijan, in the words of Norwegia’s former Ambassador to Azerbaijan, “Any kind of act of destruction toward any kind of historical monument of any religion, nation or people should be condemned.”

So why not go ahead and do it? Let’s have the delegation examine the ethnic artefacts and cultural sites of both countries. Although I have not seen reports of Armenian army or authorities destroying Azerbaijani monuments, I am sure Armenia is not an angel either – especially given the fact that even Armenian monuments are neglected in Armenia.
Unfortunately, it seems that the examiniation of Azerbaijani monuments is not Azerbaijan’s real intention. They don’t care about these monuments. They just want one thing – no foreigner witness what they have done in Djulfa. And here is how Seidov, for example, makes the transformation:

Да и вообще, я думаю тема памятников исчерпала себя и и её пора закрывать.

(And actually, I think, the topic of monuments has exhausted itself and it it time to close it.)

What was the whole point of Dr. Seidov’s post if he concludes that Armenian and Azerbaijani monuments should not be of concern?