War-crimes bill against Azerbaijan gets Costa, Valadao, McClintock support.

In what will be welcome news to Fresno’s large Armenian community, Reps. Jim Costa of Fresno and David Valadao of Hanford have joined other California colleagues in the House of Representatives in co-sponsoring a bill that could lead to U.S. sanctions against more than 40 officials of the government of Azerbaijan.

That Caucasus nation is an enemy of Armenia, the landlocked country that is the homeland of Fresno’s Armenian diaspora, which today is estimated at 50,000. The two nations have disputed over territory for decades.

Most recently, Azerbaijan forces pushed Armenians out of a border area known as Nagorno-Karabakh. The military action came after the Azeris engaged in a 10-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor, which deprived Armenian civilians living their access to food, fuel, medicine and other essential goods.

The blockade generated much international condemnation, but the Azeris did not relent until the Armenians living there were forced out.

The Azerbaijan Sanctions Review Act of 2024, as the new bill is known, cites war crimes allegedly committed by the Azeris during the recent fighting.

The crimes include “the extrajudicial killing of Armenian civilians and prisoners of war; the arbitrary detention, forced disappearances, and torture of Armenian civilians and prisoners of war and other captives; and the deliberate targeting of civilian populations,” the act says.

Among those named in the act as individuals to be sanctioned are Azerbaijan’s commander of the military’s special forces; the chief of military police; the chief of state security; the chief of staff to President Ilham Aliyev, and numerous prosecutors and judges.

“Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing against Armenians has long been overlooked by the international community. Over 120,000 Armenian refugees were forced to flee their homeland of Nagorno Karabakh,” said Costa in a news release.“Azerbaijan’s government has rejected calls for peace and weaponized basicneeds like food and water. We must hold Azerbaijan’s government accountable and strip any U.S. military aid.”

The act gives the Biden administration up to six months to determine whether to sanction the named Azeris. Sanctions could include freezing financial assets in America and keeping the individuals from entering the U.S.

RECALLING GENOCIDE

Joining Costa and Valadao in co-sponsoring the bill is Rep. Tom McClintock of El Dorado Hills; he represents northwest Fresno.

McClintock and Valadao are Republicans, while Costa is a Democrat. The bipartisan backing of the bill should help power its way through Congress.

Five other members of the California delegation have also signed on, including Barbara Lee of Oakland and Adam Schiff of Burbank. The two Democrats squared off against each other in the March primary race for U.S. Senate. (Schiff got the most votes to advance to the November general election.)

Fresno’s Armenian community held its annual remembrance of the Armenian Genocide on April 24. The event kept alive the memory of Ottoman Turkey’s systematic killing of between 600,000 and 1.2 million Armenians from1915 to 1917. Scholars believe that mass event inspired Nazi Germany to commit its Holocaust against Jews during World War II.

Several Fresno Armenians have written in op-eds in The Bee in recent years that what Azerbaijan is now doing amounts to a new genocide.

To be sure, America’s leaders have ignored Azerbaijan’s aggression against its neighbor for too long. It is past time to bring some accountability.

The sanctions act is a step in that direction, and will resonate with the estimated 150,000 people of Armenian descent living in the Central Valley. Congress should back it so the Biden administration can start its review and levy penalties for criminal behavior committed by the Azeris.