Europe’s Double Standards On Display Once Again

During a recent visit to Karabakh, I witnessed firsthand Armenia’s destruction of the Karabakh region. 

According to Human Rights Watch, during the Second Karabakh War, “The Armenian forces carried out indiscriminate attacks, launching unguided artillery rockets and firing heavy artillery shells and ballistic missiles on population centers, including in some places where there were no evident military targets, causing civilian deaths and injuries. The Armenian military also used banned cluster munitions in populated areas, resulting in dozens of civilian casualties.”

In Sultanya, an entire village was left in ruin. All that remained was a monument to Soviet soldiers, which was also in horrific condition. In Shusha, I saw that a palace that belonged to an Azerbaijani national poet was destroyed by the Armenians, as was the local newspaper, the local bank, and numerous other sites within the city. Although there were Armenians who lived in Shusha, they lived among the ruins instead of rebuilding the city.  

In other cities like Fizouly and Aghdam, the Armenians destroyed everything, leaving these cities as ghost towns. 

In Aghdam, the Armenians did not even spare a historic tea house and the Bread Museum, which was a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There was also a mural that lay in ruins, surrounded by debris. A local mosque was left without a roof on it and was terribly damaged inside, only to be rebranded as an Iranian mosque.  

As we traveled across Karabakh, we saw nothing but ruined homes, uprooted trees, and burnt agricultural fields. In fact, the fires left by the retreating Armenian military were so bad that some of them were still raging on during our visit. On top of that, the roads were left in terrible shape, thus causing numerous car accidents, and making people sick. The bus that we traveled in also got into an accident, leaving us in a landmine infested area for several hours, until we were rescued by the Azerbaijani military and government.   

However, due to the accident, we did not make it to a local river, where Armenian pollution has literally killed off all the rare fish living in it and rendered the water unusable, both for drinking and agriculture. In fact, when the Armenians retreated, they did not even have mercy on their own cows. They slaughtered them all, leaving the corpses for the Azerbaijanis to clean up.