By Fatime Letifova

The ex-candidate for U.S. president, Vivek Ramaswamy, is distinctive for his pro-Armenian position. In his speeches on every talk show and TV program, he defends Armenians to gain the favour of the Armenian lobby in the West. He zealously tries to make his speech more effective, but he fails to prove his biased condemnations against Azerbaijan, the country in the South Caucasus that he still thinks is situated on the African continent. This love of Vivek Ramaswamy for Armenians has made him quite popular, along with his anti-Azerbaijan rhetoric as well.

At the Hudson Institute, Vivek Ramaswamy raised awareness about the so-called “ethnic cleansing” issue in Armenia.

He claimed that in 2023, Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed over 120,000 Christians from their homeland of so-called artsakh. After the ethnic cleansing, Azerbaijan began supposedly converting and destroying churches that 'date back to the 4th century'.

But in reality, it was the Armenian government that committed the genocide against the Azerbaijani people, not over the last 3 decades but over the last two centuries.

Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani lands was followed by crimes that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the local civilian population. This was done in such a consistent and systematic way that it was plainly planned, directed, and carried out by the Armenian government.

Armenia's armed forces used the same military tactics to occupy Azerbaijan's cities, towns, settlements, and villages: militarily encircling residential areas where possible; indiscriminately firing on civilians to kill as many as possible; and taking hostages and subjecting them to mass rapes, tortures, and other degrading treatment.

Armenian militants, during the occupation of Azerbaijan's lands in the early 1990s, murdered 20,000 people, injured or handicapped 50,000 others, and left around 4,000 Azerbaijani civilians missing.

All captured areas were ethnically cleansed of more than 700,000 Azerbaijanis. Likewise, about 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia at the end of the 1980s. Thus, the Azerbaijani population, once the majority in the territory of present-day Armenia, was completely removed from their ancestral lands.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe confirmed in its resolution 1416 (2015) that "Armenia’s military operations led to large-scale ethnic expulsion and the creation of mono-ethnic areas, which resemble the terrible concept of ethnic cleansing."

Former President of Armenia Serj Sargsyan who used to be in charge of the military operations during the occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan, 'boldly' confessed in one of the interviews he gave to a foreign journalist that “our war somehow differed from others. We had it so that ethnic cleansing took place. Otherwise, it was not possible.” In the same interview, Serj Sargsyan stated in the context of the massacre in the town of Khojaly that “if civilian population stays there … then it means that it also participates in the military actions.”

This is a clear statement that Armenia’s armed forces regarded the civilian population of the occupied territories as military targets. By doing so, Armenia grossly violated International Humanitarian Law and disregarded its most important principles, namely the principle of distinction between civilians and combatants and the principle of military necessity. This state bears responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide committed in the course of war it unleashed against Azerbaijan.

Atrocities against the civilian population and ensuing ethnic cleansing committed in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are not separate cases. Apart from the Garabagh region, historically, atrocities and ethnic cleansing by Armenian forces have been committed in several Azerbaijani-populated areas, including in Zangazur. In 1918-1920, Armenian armed gangs committed atrocities and ethnically cleansed more than 200 villages in the Zangazur region. Even the Armenian historian Razmik Panossian refers to the Zangazur events as ethnic cleansing that enhanced the demographic balance in the region in favour of the Armenians.”

Today, even after the glorious Victory of Azerbaijani Army over the Armenian forces, Vivek Ramaswamy still trying to accuse Azerbaijan for being aggressor country. Having no proper knowledge of the history of the Caucasus, he has the audacity to raise voice against Azerbaijan of supporting the separatist views of Armenian lobby in U.S.

For some reason, whenever Ramaswamy, of Indian origin, talks about Armenia, he either loses himself or contradicts historical and geographical facts. It is clear that Ramaswamy does not give any thought to what was dictated to him when receiving assignments from the Armenian lobby, and that is why Vivek, who is claiming to be the president of the United States, has mistaken the South Caucasus for the African continent. This is still the beginning. In one of his speeches, he did not go unnoticed when he presented the missile strikes by Armenians on Ganja as a crime against Armenians by Azerbaijan. This gaff of his has torn the mask of him and other corrupt politicians in his face. Ramaswamy realised that he would not be a successful candidate in the presidential elections and later withdrew his candidacy. However, his appetite for a high chair is still insatiable, so he cannot stay away from the Armenian lobby.