Learning About Human Rights By Studying the Nagorno-Karabakh War
Diego Olivieri
Like many people who first hear about human rights advocacy, I was not entirely sure what that entailed. Am I going to be learning how to set up charities that raise money for disempowered communities? Was I going to be taking pre-law classes that teach me how to defend victims of human rights violations in court? After working with and learning from University Network for Human Rights supervisors Tamar and Thomas, I have come to understand that advocacy is so much more than simply raising money or working on cases. It is holding people accountable on behalf of those who have been stripped of power; it is being critical, ensuring that those tasked with upholding human rights are doing their job, and, if they are not, or worse, if they are actively engaging in rights abuses, shining a spotlight on their activities; and it is mobilizing people to collectively come together to apply pressure to cease abuses and hold violators accountable.
I saw the many ways that these forms of advocacy can work together in the work I did with University Network for Human Rights, particularly in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. In Nagorno-Karabakh, the overwhelming number of human rights abuses that have occurred during and following the 2020 war have been committed by the Azerbaijani military with oversight and encouragement by the highest levels of government officials in Baku, the country’s capital. These abuses have been aimed at the ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, with Azerbaijan's end goal of having complete control over the highly disputed area.
Under the supervision of Tamar and Thomas at the University Network, the student team, which included me, Kalyani, and Annie from Wesleyan, as well as students from Harvard and Yale, began the project by diving into background on the country, including its rich history, why it is such an important homeland for so many people, as well as the reasons it has been a battleground for heavy fighting. After developing a background understanding on the country and its conflict, we divided up tasks. Those of us at Wesleyan would be interviewing refugees, internally displaced people, returning POW’s as well as the family members of people who have been disappeared by the Azerbaijan military. We would then use our interview notes to create a report that would tell these people’s stories to the world and, hopefully, generate support for the victims of human rights abuses in Nagorno-Karabakh.
During our spring break, Annie and I traveled with our instructors Tamar and Thomas to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, and met up with the Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ), a nonprofit in Armenia that has been doing great work on the ground. They guided us through different parts of the country and introduced us to people who they knew would give unfiltered accounts on the situation in the region. Though their stories were sobering, emotional, and, at times, tough to listen to, I found their willingness to fight for justice to be inspiring. Civilians who had experienced military shelling, soldiers who endured torture, and family members whose loved ones had been disappeared were entrusting us with their most vulnerable stories. None of them knew who I was before the interview started, but with the help of the team at CFTJ, who was intimately embedded in the community, they opened up, courageously telling us what they experienced. They knew we could not guarantee the return of missing loved ones or regain the part of themselves they might have lost in Nagorno Karabakh, but they trusted us to try to amplify their voices.
The urgency of the situation was on full display when we were in the country. Shortly before we arrived, a principal gas pipeline that was providing power to the people who had not fled Nagorno-Karabakh had been damaged. Initial reports suggested it had been bombed. While the specifics were not yet available, what was clear was that the areas where ethnic Armenians were living in Nagorno-Karabakh were facing a life-threatening situation. With snow falling and extremely cold temperatures, there was a fear that the people there would not survive without it being repaired. At the same time, despite the recent ceasefire, tensions remained high, and exchange of gunfire and targeting of civilians continued.
Seeing firsthand the dire situation in Nagorno-Karabakh highlighted the contradictory feelings one experiences doing human rights work. On the one hand, one can feel sad and frustrated by the work. Returning to classes to study theory after witnessing the real-world effects of exploitation and war compounded these feelings for me. On the other hand, the work I have done with University Network, particularly in Armenia, has been rewarding on an incalculable level. A sense of community, solidarity and empowerment that this work affords is something that can only be understood once you have experienced it.
