“THE BACKGROUND OF THE TRAGEDY”

What is hidden behind the comments and positions of some Argentine media about what is happening in Nagorno Karabakh

 

By Dany Smith

The resumption of conflict between Armenians and Azeris over the occupied territories of the upper Nagorno Karabakh has exposed - among other issues - an intertwined network of businesses and partners that are benefiting from the war regardless of who the victor is.

At the same time, this hides eminent geopolitical interests that make the conflict in a propitious scenario to settle their issues between the actors involved.

To understand this, first of all, let's get rid of prejudices and false ideological positions that certainly do not exist in this conflict. Neither is there a Turkish-Russian conspiracy against the Armenians nor are the Azeris Turkey's protégés to exterminate the Armenians, nor are the Armenians defenseless. In short neither Armenia is the good guy and Azerbaijan is the bad guy as some western media portray it.

The regulatory framework is clear. For the resolution of this conflict, it is required that the provisions of the United Nations Charter, that established by the Minsk Group and the provisions of the Helsinki Act be respected. This shows a legal complexity that cannot be resolved with biased definitions and without paying attention to the origins of the conflict.

We make this point in light of the misleading statements that some Argentine informants often make when referring to what is happening in the region. Coinciding with the editorial of media that are called “liberal”, “democratic” and / or “republican” (a term that has become fashionable), some journalists lightly argue that what exists is a “Russian-Turkish plot against Armenia” , trying to fit it into that victimizing and tearful story of the small town that defends itself from the wicked who, curiously, are Muslims.

These references are not accidental and clearly respond to a story that comes from ancient times, more precisely from the 1990s that associates the Islamic world with terrorism and evil. These are sectors ideologically aligned with the AMIA and the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that continue to struggle to establish geopolitical positions above an expected justice based on certain facts.

In some cases, these statements coincide with the Islamophobic and tendentiously political story of accusing the Lebanese resistance organization “Hesbollah” of the attacks in Buenos Aires and that it has tried to establish itself for years in the popular Argentine ideology.

It is not an assumption. It is a customary informational reality that reflects the influence of interests of certain embassies with special influence in the country. But what do these speeches hide? Possibly a lot of ignorance and in the rest of the cases pure bias.

The Armenian representation in Argentina has given its point of view on what is happening in the region and as expected, it did not accuse any kind of responsibility for the actions and consequences of what happens. The media have given space to the statements of the Armenian representation where they have freely expressed their views on the dispute, something that has not been seen with the Azeris. Likewise, that is only pure rhetoric and does not reveal a reality beyond what is exposed by these two contenders.

On the ground, in addition to the military casualties and material damage, there is a humanitarian reality immaterially materialized in the illegal occupation of territories that has displaced their inhabitants, depriving them, in addition to their properties, of their cultural and religious rights.

The construction of this de facto reality serves the geopolitics of specific actors such as Israel and the United States who seek to establish themselves in the region with clear and foreseeable objectives (Iran and Russia respectively). For the US, the interest in the agenda is twofold, although it knows that it must proceed with care. At the same time, the development of crises like this - at the same time - opens the door for the government budget allocated to the DOD to contribute millions of dollars in terms of areas of Imminent Danger.

For Israel, in addition to the strategic importance of supporting the Muslims of Azerbaijan to try to distance them from the influence of Iran, there is the situation of the passage of the most important oil and gas pipelines (Baku, Tiblisi, Ceyhan) that go from the southern Caucasus to the Caspian Sea and supply the European Union. With this in mind, one can see the great arms business founded on the needs of “security”.

For this it does not matter who is victorious in the clashes in the Nagorno Karabakh Heights, each one of the contenders helps only by opening their doors to their advisers and to the trade in last generation weapons (such as quasi-ballistic missiles from IAI “LORA” and Attack Drones).

This is how we can see how there are some connections that could not be explained without breaking stories sold in the mass media as platitudes. While we listen to several Argentine media reporters speak of “black and white”, of “good and bad” with the aforementioned tendency, in the reality of political relations we can see how Israel lends its tireless military support to Baku just as it Ankara does. Does it do it out of political, ethnic or cultural sympathy or maybe all of them together? Not at all. Furthermore, days before hostilities began chartered transport flights from Baku to the Israeli airport in Ovda were detected where tons of weapons were loaded. Preparations for hostilities? If so, why didn't Washington and Paris notice this?

Curiously, the CIA turned a blind eye to these operations but this has an explanation. In the past, Baku collaborated with Washington by providing a base for the logistics movement of supplies and “pseudo-jihadists” to Iraq during the occupation and later in Syria.

Without a doubt, money from arms sales and training programs is one of the incentives to deal with the Azeris but also (and perhaps the most important) is to gain their trust to discreetly locate in the region and over time develop a vast intelligence network that can be used for all kinds of strategic purposes that will only interest Israel.

Turkey's influence does not interfere with these plans and we have already seen this in Syria, where Turkish intelligence agencies MIT and the Israeli Mossad (and the Mutkhabarat of the petromonarchies) worked - in some cases in tandem - to undermine the legitimate government of Bachar Al Assad. And despite the fact that their governments argue that the Syrian government is a human rights violator, they keep quiet about their crimes and their dirty tricks that involve them with the use of terrorism as another weapon in their arsenal.