On January 18, 2010, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) wrote another letters to the Board, Staff and Trustees of the Freedom House (letter enclosed below), to thank them for fixing one important error on their map regarding Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, but also urging that all factual errors and biased reporting be fixed, as demanded in USAN's Board of Directors letter in December 2009, and USAN's Action Campaigns in February and December 2009.
The February 2009 campaign resulted in USAN members sending out 1,958 letters to Freedom House staff, as well as elected officials and media, whilst the December 2009 resulted in USAN members sending out 1,851 letters to the FH staff, board, trustees as well as elected officials and media. Thanks to the great advocacy and education campaign by USAN members as well as many more Azerbaijanis from around the world, Freedom House finally corrected its "Map of Freedom" in the most recent 2010 edition. However, several important errors continue to remain in the FH's reports.
Hence, the USAN would like to start its third Action Campaign, so that all Azerbaijani-Americans can quickly and easily send their letters to FH, displaying that we do care what our American organization does with our taxpayers' money (Freedom House is a tax-payer funded nonprofit organization), and we condemn Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, occupation of Karabakh, and the gross negligence by Freedom House which has been refusing to make appropriate changes to its biased, pro-Armenian reports for years. It is unacceptable for such an organization as Freedom House to support one side over another, and show off its reckless bias to the Azerbaijani-Americans. Hence, please send your USAN letters to Freedom House, as well as all your elected officials and media, today!
Enclosure: USAN letter to 24 Staff, Board and Trustee members of the Freedom House
Dear Freedom House Trustees, Board and Staff,
Thank you for updating the FH’s 2010 Map of Freedom. The Azerbaijani-American community and the USAN Board of Directors are very grateful for this map correction, something we advocated for in our December 12, 2009 letter to you and campaign by our members, as well as numerous earlier campaigns and individual letters from our members and Azerbaijani community at large. We are profoundly thankful for the correction.
However, the correction was left halfway: we are still very disappointed by FH’s continual portrayal of the Armenia-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan as somehow “Partly Free” and being designated under some joint rule of both Azerbaijan and Armenia in the 2009 Country Report -- and hope it would be updated for 2010 and beyond. The URL of the Report is at the link below: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7740
The NK region has been and is recognized as a de jure part of Azerbaijan by four UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884), several UN GA resolutions, as well as several official State Department statements. Being de facto occupied does not change its legal status and/or belonging to Azerbaijan. You may wish to examine specific quotes and facts about the U.S. policy on the occupation of NK here: http://Karabakh.USAzeris.org
When one checks the current Country Report, not only does he/she see “Nagorno-Karabakh [Armenia/Azerbaijan]”, but also reads the faulty “explanatory note” that: “The designation of two countries is intended to reflect the international consensus on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the de facto authority over the territory”. This is of course plain wrong:
· it is the de jure status that is important in the realm of politics and law;
· FH is a U.S. organization and gets government funding through American taxpayer contributions, including from up to 400,000 Azerbaijani-Americans, hence should listen to what U.S. government and public says;
· Azerbaijan continues to have de facto, as well as de jure, control of some 15% of NK (more than any other country with similar problems of occupation);
· are Abkhazia, Transnistria and Kosovo really de-facto controlled by the countries, indicated in the parentheses - Georgia, Moldova and Serbia, respectively? Obviously, they are not. Then to what does Azerbaijan owe for this "special treatment"?
· contrary to what is claimed in the “note”, the international consensus on the status of NK is that NK is Azerbaijan’s, not Armenia’s, and that has been reaffirmed numerous times by UN, OSCE, PACE, OIC, State Department and many other relevant authorities;
· moreover, despite giving many chronological details in the report, even mentioning the 2008 UN GA resolution, the report completely omits the all-important four UN SC resolutions from 1993
Additionally, the report on NK does not mention that the Azerbaijan legislature abolished NK’s autonomous status in November 1991, which is an important fact in the context of the same report mentioning the January 1992 “declaration of independence” by NK’s Armenian community.
Likewise, in the Armenia Country Report, a disturbing description is found: “[t]he predominantly Christian Transcaucasus republic of Armenia was divided between Turkey and the Soviet Union by 1922. Most of the Armenian population in the Turkish portion was killed or driven abroad during the war and its aftermath, but those in the east survived Soviet rule.”
Unprecedented emphasis of Armenia’s Christian religion and suffering from massacres is not reciprocated in other reports, such as Azerbaijan’s. If noting religion and complex history is deemed necessary, then for the sake of balance and even-handedness FH reports could say: “predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan was divided between Russia and Iran in 1828, and most of the Azerbaijani population of Armenia (the Muslim population of Armenia was half of that area’s total population in the 19thcentury and was still half of Yerevan during WWI) was killed or driven abroad during the war and its aftermath, but those in the eastern Transcaucasus survived Soviet rule”.
We strongly urge you to reverse this arbitrary and bizarre decision about the NK region of Azerbaijan, and correct the Country Report as soon as possible to bring it in-line with UN SC resolutions and U.S. Government’s policy. To make it consistent with similar cases in other post-Communist countries, NK region should be mentioned as the part of Azerbaijan only: “Nagorno-Karabakh [Azerbaijan]”. Moreover, being a militarily occupied land that ethnically cleansed 25% of population, it simply cannot be “Partly Free” by any possible definition.
Thank you and we wish you great success in your work.
Sincerely,
U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) Board of Directors
Adil Baguirov, Ph.D., Managing Director
Bedir Memmedli, CPA, Treasurer and Director
Yusif Babanly, MBA, Corporate Secretary and Director
