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It was almost a good news story.<\/p>\n
After nine months of blockade, humanitarian aid finally reached the Armenian Christians of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday. But almost immediately, ending three years of tense ceasefire after the 2020 war, Azerbaijan renewed on Tuesday its military assault on the mountainous Caucasus enclave.<\/p>\n
And following today\u2019s surrender<\/a> and promised disarmament of local separatist forces, the region will almost certainly revert to the sovereignty of a neighboring nation that Armenians fear\u2014and a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court warns<\/a>\u2014is preparing a genocide.<\/p>\n Thousands massed<\/a> at the airport in the capital of Stepanakert, preparing to leave.<\/p>\n Advocates for Armenia are at a loss. But of the three aforementioned adjectives\u2014humanitarian, Armenian, <\/em>or Christian<\/em>\u2014which ones were most effective in pressing for humanitarian aid? And now in a new phase of the conflict, which will be the most crucial in mobilizing further support?<\/p>\n CT spoke with six religious freedom experts about best practices in Christian advocacy.<\/p>\n Only one day prior to the assault, the International Red Cross confirmed<\/a> that aid entered Nagorno-Karabakh from both neighboring countries. Ethnic Armenian separatists had agreed with Azerbaijani authorities to simultaneously open the Lachin corridor and the road to Aghdam.<\/p>\n Lachin connects westward to Armenia, and before the blockade facilitated 400 tons of daily supplies to what locals call their ancestral territory of \u201cArtsakh,\u201d home to several ancient churches and monasteries. Aghdam, a ghost town undergoing rebuilding that Azerbaijan recaptured along with portions of Nagorno-Karabakh during the 2020 war, connects eastward.<\/p>\n Last December, government-backed eco-activists set up a blockade\u2014later turned into a checkpoint\u2014on the Lachin corridor, as Azerbaijan insisted on its internationally-recognized sovereignty to prevent the flow of alleged weapons into the enclave.<\/p>\n Russia brokered the end of the 2020 war, and its peacekeepers were tasked to keep the flow of goods open along Lachin. Their failure angered Armenia, which recently responded by conducting<\/a> military exercises with the United States.<\/p>\n The regional demography is religiously complex, as Armenia\u2014the world\u2019s first Christian nation in 301 A.D.\u2014is allied with Orthodox Russia and Shiite Iran against Western-friendly Shiite Azerbaijan, Sunni Turkey, and Jewish Israel.<\/p>\n In addition to weapons, Azerbaijan kept out food, goods, and medicine. Families were restricted to one loaf of bread per day. Gas supplies were cut off, one-fifth of businesses closed, and last month was the first reported<\/a> death from malnutrition.<\/p>\n The International Court of Justice ruled to compel Azerbaijan to lift the blockade last February, while the European Court of Human Rights sided three months earlier with the local population.<\/p>\n Negotiations between the two nations have failed to produce a peace agreement. However, Azerbaijan has stated that once the enclave is reintegrated, its Armenian minority will enjoy the full rights of citizens in a multiethnic and multireligious state.<\/p>\n Yet Azerbaijan\u2019s president Ilham Aliyev has also stated<\/a> that any Armenian who does not want to live under Azerbaijani sovereignty should leave. Many advocates interpreted the blockade as a slow-moving attempt at ethnic cleansing, and in this new escalation, Aliyev emphasized the opening of humanitarian corridors\u2014including back to Armenia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n What compelled this week\u2019s minor breakthrough?<\/p>\n One week before the initial agreement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called<\/a> Aliyev to express \u201cconcern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation.\u201d According to the official State Department readout, however, neither the word Christian<\/em> nor Armenian<\/em> was spoken by the senior diplomat. Religion and ethnicity were completely ignored.<\/p>\n But one CT source stated that Blinken\u2019s outreach to Azerbaijan \u201cticked up\u201d following the June visit to Armenia by Sam Brownback, former US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. And at a congressional human rights hearing on Nagorno-Karabakh after his return, in calling for legislative action his language was completely different.<\/p>\n \u201c120,000 Christians are being suffocated,\u201d Brownback stated<\/a>, \u201cblockaded by Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n His trip was arranged through Philos Project, which works to ensure the citizenship rights of minority Christians and their ability to \u201cflourish\u201d in the region. President and founder Robert Nicholson said some believing advocates in the West are oddly reluctant to embrace their ancient brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians often make the mistake in thinking that the Christian thing to do is not specifically advocate for Christians,\u201d he said. \u201cBut love for the brethren is the preeminent marker of New Testament faith, so I double down in my support.\u201d<\/p>\n Like all sources interviewed, Nicholson resisted characterizing the Nagorno-Karabakh issue as Muslims persecuting Christians. Yet sectarianism is a factor, as both Armenia and Azerbaijan have effectively merged their religious and ethnic identities. And with the latter\u2019s attempts to erase the former\u2019s historic Apostolic faith from the enclave, Nicholson said it would be improper to neglect their status as Christians.<\/p>\n Both humanitarian concerns and religious solidarity were mentioned in Philos\u2019s open letter<\/a> to President Joe Biden in January. But in its bipartisan effort to influence US foreign policy, sometimes the word Christian<\/em> is strategic to highlight.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best people on this issue have been Democrats,\u201d Nicholson said. \u201cConservative Republicans who identify as Christians seem not to have gotten the memo, and we are trying to bring them in.\u201d<\/p>\n So is Joseph Daniel, Middle East and North Africa manager for International Christian Concern (ICC), who handles its Armenia file. ICC\u2019s public policy work, however, is a secondary priority to raising awareness in the church, with its persecution.org website aptly titled to get more believers to care. While such an approach helps with fundraising, he said it also puts them in a bit of a \u201cChristian bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n But for Armenia, the religious label is not sufficient on its own.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians should not side with the confession \u2018just because,\u2019\u201d said Daniel. \u201cBut advocating for the preservation of Christian heritage has value, independent of personal belief.\u201d<\/p>\n ICC has turned down several requests by Armenian activists to highlight their cause when the issue was primarily military\u2014or even humanitarian. But even during the Soviet era when the nation was Communist, Daniel said that advocating on behalf of a suffering people who consider themselves Christian would have been the right thing to do.<\/p>\n \u201cWho are we to determine the necessary percentage of individual faith?\u201d asked Daniel. \u201cBut where the light exists, however corrupted, God can still use it for the gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n That is the primary motivation for the Armenian Missionary Association of America (AMAA), founded in 1918 in part to care for the survivors of the Armenian genocide in Turkey. Their evangelism concentrates on their ethnic kin\u2014but by no means is their advocacy against Islam.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have experienced the love, welcome, and embrace of Muslim Arabs after the genocide,\u201d said Zaven Khanjian, AMAA executive director. \u201cReligious fervor is manipulated only by parties interested to enflame a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Therefore, when AMAA speaks of Artsakh to the wider world, the focus shifts to human rights and ethnicity.<\/p>\n \u201cChristians in America have an obligation to support Armenia against a clear and viable intent of ethnic cleansing,\u201d Khanjian said. \u201cBut what moves everyone is humanism, and the state, with no religious affiliation, has an obligation to uphold the values of freedom and justice around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n So also must Christians, argues Michel Abs, not least in the Middle East.<\/p>\n As secretary general of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), alongside his advocacy for the rights of Syriac Christians he has petitioned on behalf of Zoroastrian Yazidis, heterodox Shiite Alawites, and Palestinians\u2014most of which are Muslim. What matters, he said, is not their specific faith but their regional citizenship. Thus, when he issued<\/a> the council\u2019s letter on behalf of the blockade in Artsakh, he made no mention of religion.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone in the Middle East knows we are dedicated to the Christian presence in the region,\u201d said Abs. \u201cAnd to emphasize our religious identity in the West makes cheap use of our faith, showing us as a pitiful people.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, from the strength of the love of Christ, Christians must defend all. Where our people are wrong, he said, he would counsel them accordingly. The world is becoming a mosaic, and Christian distinctives must bring us together.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cross is our inspiration,\u201d Abs said. \u201cWe must not crucify others.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Wissam al-Saliby, there is a particular distinctive that helps.<\/p>\n \u201cOur advocacy puts the human\u2014made in the image of God\u2014above every other distinction,\u201d said the advocacy officer at the United Nations for the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA). \u201cAnd diplomats have praised our multi-faith efforts, sharing with us that it gains more traction than anything single-faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Recent advocacy in India, for example, has involved Muslims and Hindus.<\/p>\n Representing over 140 national alliances, Saliby said the WEA is driven by the concerns of local evangelicals. In some countries the message is distinct, if evangelicals suffer uniquely. In other countries, current or historic interchurch dynamics push leaders away from ecumenical engagement. And in others still, believers find themselves on conflicting sides, so peacemaking is prioritized.<\/p>\n But where possible, such as in Nagorno-Karabakh, collaboration is best. The WEA statement to the UN Human Rights Council in March was issued<\/a> jointly with the World Council of Churches, and made no specific mention of Christianity.<\/p>\n \u201cOur advocacy is for freedom, human rights, and dignity for everyone,\u201d Saliby said. \u201cIt is easier said than done sometimes, so we need to discern in prayer how best to speak up and engage with the authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n This same process has led Stefanus Alliance International to not advocate for Nagorno-Karabakh at all. A Norwegian Christian mission and human rights organization, its European orientation prefers the language of freedom of religion or belief<\/em>, which is not at stake in the blockade.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to play a card, the religious one plays well to get support,\u201d said Ed Brown, the American secretary general of Stefanus, of tendencies in US-based Christian advocacy. \u201cBut it can also exacerbate the situation and contribute to the long-term problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Religion is a factor in the enclave, he emphasized, but it is only one of many. Historical grievances in the Caucasus go back decades, and each side has often demonized the other. In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh, the ethnic Armenians are truly suffering and deserve support. But honest human rights work must also acknowledge their prior abuses as an occupying power.<\/p>\n Victims in one situation may end up being violators in another, Brown said, and advocacy must adjust accordingly.<\/p>\n But though the religious label is not the focus of conflict in this current crisis, might it be useful to center in others?<\/p>\n \u201cIt depends, and I think we need both approaches,\u201d Brown said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, in any given context, it is hard to know what works best.\u201d<\/p>\n So why did Blinken get involved?<\/p>\n A mere 21 hours after tweeting<\/a> his commendation of the humanitarian aid agreement, the US secretary of state called<\/a> for an immediate cessation of \u201cunacceptable\u201d hostilities. Four hours later he reported<\/a> speaking directly to Aliyev.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan pressed forward anyway.<\/p>\n Has all advocacy been for naught? Armenians lament that Western powers continually \u201cwarn,\u201d but failed to link aggression to specific consequences. Now in a new stage of the conflict, they and their allies will redouble their efforts.<\/p>\n Nicholson, the Philos Project president, felt vindicated\u2014in both assessment and support.<\/p>\n \u201cAzerbaijan has shown its true face to the world, and we advocates were the ones to help expose it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just goes to show what a small group of committed people can do, with God\u2019s help.\u201d<\/p>\n
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