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Unpunished Axe-Murder Is An International Travesty

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  • Unpunished Axe-Murder Is An International Travesty

    UNPUNISHED AXE-MURDER IS AN INTERNATIONAL TRAVESTY

    Tuesday, February 18th, 2014

    Armenian Army Lieutenant Gourgen Margaryan

    BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

    On August 31, 2011, the world watched silently--with the exception
    of Armenians and some restrained condemnations from international
    leaders--as Ramil Safarov was set free and returned to Azerbaijan
    where he received a hero's welcome and was glorified by none other
    than Azeri President Ilham Aliyev.

    Safarov was the Azeri soldier who on February 19, 2004 picked up
    an axe and murdered Armenian soldier Gourgen Margaryan while he was
    sleeping in his bunker in Budapest, Hungary while both were attending
    a training program as part of NATO's Partnership for Peace Program.

    The muted outrage at the time of the murder, coupled with the muffled
    condemnation of Hungary's decision to extradite a man who was convicted
    and sentenced serves as a reminder that the international community,
    especially the West, which has proclaimed itself the arbiter of human
    rights, is nothing but a farce and an accomplice in the gross breach
    of justice.

    The Margaryan family was joined by the entire Armenian nation in
    mourning and in shock of the gruesome crime and were forced to
    re-live that horror when Hungary decided to extradite Safarov and
    his subsequent glorification when he returned to Azerbaijan.

    For all intents and purposes, Margaryan's murder remains an unpunished
    crime and, save for the intermittent reminders by the Armenian people,
    an all but forgotten chapter in the 20 years of peace negotiations
    to resolve the Karabakh conflict.

    If anything, Margaryan's murder and Azerbaijan's vilification of the
    victim should have demonstrated Azerbaijan's inherent and continued
    anti-Armenian policy that has festered in Baku since its post-Soviet
    independence (not to mention its short history as a nation). Yet this
    abhorrent act and its subsequent "resolution" should have prompted
    the international community, especially the co-chairing countries
    of the OSCE Minsk Group, to take a hard look at one of the entities
    occupying a seat at the negotiating table.

    Until today, the international community's brazen disregard for
    Azerbaijan's actions continues to embolden Azerbaijan to continue
    its policies of hatred and military threats without any recourse or
    consequence, adding to the long list of crimes committed by Azerbaijan
    and gone unpunished.

    Successive US administrations have successfully turned public
    opinion against such leaders as Vladimir Putin of Russia, Syria's
    Bashar al-Assad and more recently Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine,
    vilifying them for gross abuses of human rights and oppression of
    their respective populations.

    If we use the US litmus test for Russia, Syria and Ukraine
    on Azerbaijan it will be extremely clear that the Baku regime
    fails--miserably--on all aspects.

    Quashing dissent: check. Violating speech and press freedoms: check.

    Advocating hatred and xenophobia: check. Violating internationally
    established guidelines: check. Pocketing the national wealth: check...

    And the list goes on, including the centerpiece of America's campaign
    against Putin and Russia--its treatment of the LGBT community, which
    has gotten the most traction in the US.

    One wonders whether systematic pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait,
    Baku and Kirovabad, the reign of terror by Azeri forces against
    the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, an axe murder and subsequent
    glorification of its perpetrator and the continued violations of the
    cease-fire qualify for the US to take a hard look at its policies
    vis-a-vis Azerbaijan.

    The 10th anniversary of Gourgen Margaryan's death serves an opportunity
    to pose these questions, and once again, raise our voices for
    unconditional justice.

    http://asbarez.com/119688/unpunished-axe-murder-is-an-international-travesty/

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