JUGHA ERASED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH

Tuesday, October 17th, an international delegation comprised of representatives of different National Parliaments and a Scottish history-of-art specialist, were received by Mr.Kotchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, from whom they will be solemnly requesting an international investigation and open denunciation of the crime perpetrated on the memorial site of Jugha (Djoulfa/Julfa) by the army of Azerbaijan.

• The delegation was formed at the behest of the Parliamentary Group Switzerland-Armenia – mainly the Co-Chairmen – the National Councillors Dominique de Buman (Vice-Chairman of the Christian Democratic-Party) and Ueli Leuenberger (Vice-Chairman of the Green Party) – with the support of Mr. Charles Aznavour, Ambassador of Armenia to UNESCO. The Parliamentarians will submit to the Director-General exhaustive documentation on the subject, as well as a signed Memorandum in which five recommendations will be presented to the state of Azerbaijan, among which, the construction of a Christian memorial on the site of the old cemetery. If Azerbaijan did not answer these recommendations, the delegation of the members of Parliament will ask the exclusion of Azerbaïdjan of UNESCO with arbitration of the European governments, Switzerland, Russia and Canada.
  
  
  
  Moreover, the organizers of this exceptional meeting, regretted not assistance of the Armenian government.
  /Jean Eckian – Paris, France/
  On January 23rd, 2006, French deputy François Rochebloine (UDF),recalled in his intervention at the Council of Europe:[…] «We have
  been made aware that the methodical destruction of khatchkars has begun again in the cemetery of Djougha, in the south of Nakhijevan: we see again the violation of tombs, the broken crosses, the emptied debris... The disregard for human rights and the insult to human memory converge in a somber picture that brings us back in distress to the saddest of periods in our contemporary history».
  On the 30th of August 2006, the Azeri authorities refused permission to a delegation of European Parliamentarians to go to Nakhijevan and to certify the massive destruction of the ancient « Crosses of Stone » (Khatchkars) of the cemetery of Jugha. The first Khatchkars appeared in the 9th century. The cemetery of Jugha was divided into three sectors.The first sector included tombs from the period of the 9th to the 13th century, the second sector from the 14th to the 15th centuries, and the third from the 14th century through 1605 – covering a total area of 1600 square meters. In the framework of the « Year of Armenia » celebrated in France in 2006 and 2007, the
  
  
  
  
  Louvre Museum will be offering to visitors an exhibition of 40 celebrated Khatchkars brought directly from Armenia. This will feature from 17th February to 14th May 2007.
  Jean Eckian – Paris, France
  A CULTURAL GENOCIDE A few months before the launch of the « Year of Armenia » celebrated by France, a cultural genocide (or ethnocide) occurred: the systematic elimination, by the Azeri army, of more than 3,000 tombs on the medieval Armenian site of Julfa (Jugha in Armenian), situated in the enclave of the autonomous Republic of Nakhijevan, a territory of approximately 5,500 square kilometres situated between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. Previously a historic Armenian province, that was annexed by Russia in 1826, Nakhijevan was arbitrarily ceded by Soviet Russia to Azerbaijan on the 16th of March 1921 according to the bilateral Turkish-Russian Treaty of Moscow. From 1918 to 1920, Nakhijevan was situated within the borders of the first Republic of Armenia.
  From 1919, the Turco-Azeris orchestrated a brutal ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population and its culture in order to realise the corridor between Turkey and Azerbaijan, while ensuring the disappearance of all Armenian traces from the region. This destruction comprises an integral part of the Armenian Genocide. The pillage of the archeological site began in 1903, in order to facilitate the construction of a railway section tying Jugha to Hamadan (Iran). Thus already, nearly 6,000 Khatchkars (1)
  The Parliamentary Group Switzerland-Armenia is headed by the National Councillors Dominique de Buman and Ueli Leuenberger. were pulverised by the Russians. In 1998 and 2002, the Azeri army re-initiated the destruction with general indifference despite the fact that NGOs, Diaspora associations and the Armenian government collectively alerted UNESCO for several months. Within a few weeks (December 2005), all that remained of the prestigious treasures of the Armenian cultural heritage was a firing and training ground of the Azeri army: in fact, a military zone –today off limits.
  Despite being signatory to the Convention on the Protection of Global Heritage (signed in 1993), this has not stopped Azerbaijan in its determination to eradicate the Armenian memory, eliminating with one fell swoop a true archeological treasure and a cultural testimonial of inestimable value.
  After the Genocide of 1915, this profanation has been experienced as part of the collective truth of 7.8 million Armenians on the planet, as they have been veritably torn from their history.
  Photo by Jean Eckian: Evgenios Haitidis (Greece) Jim Karygiannis (Canada) Ueli Leuenberger (Switzerland) Steven SIM : historian (Scotland) at the press Conference
  
  
  

  
  

  October 18, 2006

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