During times of conflict, the people who suffer most are those caught between prevailing 
ideologies and ideals.  


In the April 10, 1999 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, under the News in Brief column 
on page 4A, there was a news brief involving Turkey.  The news brief started out, "A 
Turkish court sentenced 114 intellectuals and human rights activists to a year in prison for 
signing a 1993 declaration calling for a solution to the country’s Kurdish conflict."  


Turkey, as we all know, is a member of the NATO alliance along with many other 
nations, including ours.  Turkey, as we all know, is also the nation who has been aiding 
Azerbajian in their illegal blockade of Armenia and Karabagh since the latter proclaimed 
their independence from Stalin imposed Azerbajian rule.


At this point, the only difference between Kosovo and Karabagh has been the 
unsuccessful attempt by the Kosovars to break free from Serbian domination while 
Karabagh, on the other hand, is patiently negotiating.


Question: Why hasn’t the NATO alliance or the UN taken a more forceful stand against 
Turkey and Azerbajian for the way they’ve been blockading Armenia and Karabagh?


Or for that matter, why hasn’t NATO or the UN condemned Turkey for the way they’ve 
been ethnic cleansing their Kurdish population?


Moreover, judging by NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, how far would they have 
intervened had Azerbajian overpowered Karabagh at the onset, and started the same type 
of ethnic cleansing and pogroms that they used in Baku when the conflict first started?


As I recall, the number of displaced Armenians because of Azerbajian’s pogroms, 
coupled with the tragic earthquake in 1988, was in number as much if not more than 
Kosovo.  Yet there has been no massive multinational NATO response as is presently 
going on regarding Kosovo.


In Karabagh’s case, however, it has been the all powerful oil cartels who have been trying 
to influence a one-sided anti-Karabagh outcome with some of NATO’s nations, including 
ours, in full support.


As far as this writer is concerned, NATO’S intervention in Kosovo, if it was purely for 
humanitarian reasons, was justified.  The timeworn adage of condoning massacres and 
ethnic cleansing by saying, They’ve been killing each other like that for the last 
five-hundred years, doesn’t justify tragedy.


Our bloodiest of all centuries is going to be history in eight months.  Hopefully, by the 
time the twenty-first arrives, holocausts, massacres, pogroms, and ethnic cleansing 
against all peoples and nations (including Armenia and Karabagh) will be a capital crime 
deserving of universal capital punishment from a united world dedicated to fair play 
instead of a disassociated world practicing geopolitics.


And speaking of fair play, how about the French government’s latest turn around 
regarding the pending decision of their Senate to ignore and not to confirm their National 
Assembly’s declaration that the Ottoman Turks did indeed commit genocide on the 
Armenian people in 1915?  


Why?  Because the Turkish government has been threatening to suspend a 145 
million-dollar deal to buy Eryx missiles from them.  As a well-placed statement by a 
French official put it, "Is it up to the French lawmakers to proclaim the ‘truth’ on this 
historic tragedy?"  Maybe not, but if the Japanese hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor on 
December 7, 1941, and if our United States had remained neutral throughout WWII while 
Hitler had France and the rest of Europe on the ropes, we might all be goose stepping 
today.


But, on the other hand: Had the world, including France, remembered and proclaimed the 
truth of the genocide of the Armenians in 1915, the holocaust and genocides that 
followed, including Kosovo, may never have happened.


Fact is: Hitler, Stalin, Tojo, and Mussolini, may have never happened either.


Joseph Vosbikian