I spent a week mingling with delegates from 90 nations at the 6th International Humanitarian Forumin Baku, Azerbaijan. Including me, three were from San Diego — a writer, lawyer and college professor. Being a student of cultural geography, I asked everyone I met where they were from.
One historic incident that still moves the nation is the bombing of a Birmingham church in 1964 that killed four little black girls. I was 23 when the Birmingham bombing occurred. I wept that day.
When news of the Pittsburgh shooting broke, I didn’t weep; I was enraged as I was about South Carolina and Texas. Attending an international humanitarian forum with people of all races and religions amplified my anger toward an anti-Semitic lunatic who swept a Jewish service with an assault rifle.
The 450 Azerbaijani families who lived a pastoral life of farming and herding sheep and cattle in the village were forced to flee for their lives. Armenian forces blocked normal road egress from the village, forcing men, women, children and their livestock to flee on foot, most heading into Iran. Men, women, children, sheep and cattle died crossing the border of the Araz River, either from drowning or Russian-supplied bullets.
Survivors became Internally Displaced People, or IDP, of the Republic of Azerbaijan. They were part of the almost a million IDP refugees documented by the United Nations. They have cost Azerbaijan billions of dollars.
The 1994 cease fire consolidated Armenian occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory to this day, 25 years later. All efforts to force the Armenians to leave, including four United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding withdrawal, have failed.
Three years ago, however, Azerbaijani forces successfully attacked and liberated a small portion of the land occupied by Armenia. After a quarter century, some Azerbaijanis could go home.
The village of Jojug Marjanli portends a positive future for the Caucasus region that has been in conflict since Armenian forces invaded Azerbaijan in 1992.
Once secure, the Azerbaijani government constructed new homes in Jojug Manjali and rebuilt a destroyed mosque, civic buildings and a school. Some 150 of the original villagers who were run out in 1993 have moved home. Another 300 families will come home as new homes are constructed.
With the aura of the 90-nation, multi-racial and multi-religious International Humanitarian Forum around me, I asked many questions of the villagers and of the Azerbaijan government officials.
In the country’s presidential offices in Baku, presidential assistant Ali Hasanov said his country is committed to peace with Armenia when Armenian forces abandon internationally-recognized Azerbaijan territory
When Azerbaijan reclaims its national territory, like the village of Jojug Marjanli, it rebuilds and moves refugees back home.
Under President Ilham Aliyev, post-war Azerbaijan has been developing along Western lines. The result is a modern nation that looks forward. Jojug Marjanli highlights the continuing efforts of the nation’s leaders.
On the other hand, at the end of the main street of the rebuilt village, there is a fortified barrier blocking off a “no-man’s land” on the other side. When I asked what was on the other side, I was told Armenian soldiers with Russian-made guns and armored vehicles.
What, I asked, would happen if I went past the barrier waving my American passport yelling “American, American!”
The answer: “They would shoot you.”
Raoul Lowery Contreras.