REBRANDING GENOCIDE.
Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing and merciless destruction of the indigenous Armenian population, cultural heritage, and religious sites of Christian Armenians in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) has entered a new and more sinister phase.
Azerbaijani state institutions have expanded their campaign to deliberately portray Artsakh as historically Azerbaijani territory following the recent forced expulsion of the region’s entire indigenous Armenian population. This time, their tactics include promoting petrodollar-funded luxury tourism tours, academic engagement projects, and geopolitical re-alignment initiatives in the territories of the Republic of Artsakh.
This new level of ongoing genocide and its denial are clearly aimed at supporting Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian false narratives to erase living evidence of millennia of Armenian presence and cultural production in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
In exchange for these new campaigns, Azerbaijan continues to appropriate Armenian (and world cultural heritage) artifacts, tangible and intangible cultural values and traditions, while exploiting Artsakh’s commercial, institutional and natural resources and assets. The eradication of an entire people is now justified, commodified and rebranded under the guise of tourism, academic and business initiatives.
GENOCIDE TOURS
American travelers are now being invited on “selective” trips to a “new” destination: Azerbaijan, with a stop in Artsakh, the very region that just months ago was subjected to systematic ethnic cleansing, in which over 120,000 indigenous Armenians perished.
In this regard, recent research has uncovered the activities of numerous travel agencies, including luxury travel groups, as confirmed by Condé Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure, which are now running “exclusive tours” to Artsakh. Travel agents enthusiastically described memorable moments of tasting “famous” dishes of the region, such as a certain “bread with greens.” The famous Azerbaijani culinary delicacy is actually an ancient traditional Armenian dish of Artsakh. “Jingyalov” bread, the natives of which are now refugees, victims of ethnic cleansing. These agencies “subtly” attract wealthy Western travelers for “adventure tourism” in occupied Artsakh.
Such disgusting ironies are the result of Azerbaijan’s genocide of Armenians and its active renaming of stolen lands, culture and heritage as its own, while global institutions turn a blind eye and, worse, are complicit in these endeavors.
These trips are not widely advertised, but offered selectively to avoid public attention, backlash and human rights concerns.
This covert marketing strategy signals a deliberate campaign to reframe Azerbaijan’s war crimes and present the sinister achievements of genocide as luxury.
ACADEMIC INVOLVEMENT
To top it all off, Dr. Jennifer Wistrand, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, recently participated in a global policy forum in Stepanakert, the capital of the Republic of Artsakh, currently under military occupation and control by Azerbaijan.
The participation of US-backed scholars and others in events held in territories that have been ethnically cleansed is a callous endorsement of this illegal occupation. It highlights the disturbing complicity of academic institutions that continue to hide behind the language of so-called diplomacy and “stability” while ignoring the glaring reality of forced displacement and cultural destruction.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
A number of people from around the world are now calling on all international media, humanitarian organizations and governments, as well as lawyers, academics and international human rights groups to speak out unequivocally and impartially against the consequences of genocide, ongoing human rights violations and unpunished war crimes.
Boycott all companies doing business in and with Azerbaijan until they stop collaborating with war criminals and stop advertising travel to ethnically cleansed regions. Some of these companies are featured in Conde Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure.
Demand that academic and business institutions be transparent about their involvement in territories occupied as a result of genocide.
Condemn the genocidal campaign of the Azerbaijani government and its efforts to destroy and appropriate Armenian cultural heritage.
Demand that American and European institutions be held accountable for their silent complicity and profiteering from ethnic cleansing.