Why ICRC's stance is threat to stability in region?

Unfortunately, the International Red Cross Organization (ICRC) has gone far beyond its principles on which the organization was established. In the second half of the nineteenth century, when the organization was established, the founders aimed to be impartial and to help the recovery of war traumas in societies by helping wounded soldiers and getting back POWs. However, the managers of ICRC have been betraying the same principles for a long time. The name of ICRC has been linked with scandalous deeds in all conflicts and it is famous for its ineffectiveness in all conflicts that happened over 100 years. Take WWII for example. Despite not helping Jews and Gypsies in WWII, the organization played a major role in helping nazis secretly to escape to Latin America after the war to escape from the trials. With the help of ICRC, hundreds of Nazis whose hands were smeared with the blood of innocent people in Europe were able to save their lives.

In some conflicts, the ICRC is remembered for its ineffectiveness, in others the organization betrayed its impartiality, in other conflicts its employees were linked with illegal activities such as bribery, smuggling, and so on. Similar notorious deeds of ICRC were repeated in Rwanda, Bosnia, Ukraine, and so on. Of course, the Garabagh War is one of the conflicts where ICRC lost its face.

The ICRC stepped in Azerbaijan at the beginning of the 1990s when the USSR collapsed and the Garabagh war broke out. Frankly speaking, since Azerbaijan lost the war, hundreds of Azerbaijanis got POWs, and hundreds of thousands of refugees and IDPs spread across the country, Azerbaijanis attached a great hope to the organization. They thought that ICRC would help them to deal with, at least, some of their problems. However, not long after, the ineffective and pro-Armenian approaches of ICRC frustrated locals.

According to the information as of 2020, during the first Garabagh War, 3,890 Azerbaijanis went missing. Of the total number of missing persons, 872 people, including 29 children, 98 women, and 112 elderly people, were taken hostage or remained in the occupied territories, confirmed by witness statements. In accordance with the interview of the POWs, Armenians behaved with them very badly. POWs were beaten, kept hungry for days, cauterized, etc. In his interview, former POW Mail Mammadov gave detailed information about the tortures that he had been subjected to. He pointed out that a person named Vagif Khachaturyan not only had beaten him but also had cauterized a hot-cross metal on his chest. Vagif Khachaturyan was detained on July 29, 2023, when ICRC took him from Khankendi to Yerevan for medical treatment. ICRC has made a great effort in the criminal's favor in the wake of his detain and as a matter of course it poses a question why the same organization had not made the same effort to get the release of Azerbaijani POWs. The ICRC revealed the concern about the criminal Vagif Khachaturyan and provided his family with information about his health condition. However, the families and family members of Azerbaijani missing persons have not had any information from their loved ones for over 30 years, and the ICRC has never released its concern on the issue. It is worth noting that according to the requirements of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949, it is the right of families or family members to receive information about missing persons.

Besides, in 2008, 14 years after the end of the First Garabagh War, the State Commission on POW, Hostages, and Missing Persons identified that 170 Azerbaijanis were kept as hostages in Armenia and Garabagh. It should be mentioned that hand-writing notes in Azerbaijani used to be found under the fruit in the fruitcases sent to Russian Markets several times. The notes read that the writers were Azerbaijanis who were kept in Armenia and forced to work in the orchards and gardens. Despite all the efforts of Azerbaijan, ICRC, which goes the extra mile to provide information about criminals, has never tried to investigate these handwriting notes.

Moreover, ICRC visited 54 Azerbaijani hostages in 1998-2001. All of them were named and confirmed to be alive by the organization. ICRC took letters written by the 54 hostages to their families. Later, ICRC confirmed that all of them were killed. The corpses of 17 out of 54 were handed over to Azerbaijan. It should be emphasized that killing 54 people whom ICRC confirmed alive was an insult against the organization. But, for some reason, instead of protecting its credibility, ICRC accepted this insult.

To top it all of, Azerbaijan has found 10 mass graves since the liberation of invaded territories in 2020, and of course, ICRC has stayed silent.

But the Red-Cross are doing something. For example, the organization voices its “concerns” about the so-called “humanitarian crisis” in Khankendi. It calls on Azerbaijan to “open” the Lachin-Khankendi road. Of course, the behavior of ICRC is crocodile tears. Because, first of all, Azerbaijan closed the Lachin-Khankendi road due to the investigation. For more details, the ICRC employees tried to smuggle prohibited products and Azerbaijan filed an investigation. Later it was found out the ICRC members sold these products in the black market. In addition, Armenian bloggers complained several times that the products sent to Garabagh with the ICRC are taken by the separatist leaders in Garabagh and later the same products are sold in the black market. Needless to say, the profit is shared between the separatist leaders and the ICRC employees, because the organization never voiced the issue.

Secondly, when Khojaly was sieged by Armenians in the 1990s, the same organization did not make the same efforts to help residents of Khojaly. The same organization did not release concerns about the lives of Khojaly residents.

After all these biased, ineffective, and unethical behaviors, many started to question the ICRC's works and actions in the region. Needless to say, ICRC has lost its credibility and esteem over 30 years. Nobody believes in the organization and if ICRC leaves the region. Azerbaijan has its non-profit NGOs such as the Azerbaijani Red Crescent and it would be better if the Azerbaijani Red Crescent replaced the ICRC.