Peter Bahlawanian on “Desire to Live” (Ethnic Cleansing of Artsakh, Armenia)

Peter Bahlawanian is the producer of director-writer-editor Mariam Avetisyan’s The Desire to Live. The winner of 136 awards from 72 Film Festivals worldwide, the film is “a visually stunning record of the 2020 war’s impact on the indigenous people of Artsakh” depicting “the uncertainty and challenges of a crippled or nonexistent livelihood in a region wracked by war.”

For background, Peter Bahlawanian recommends the article “Genocide is About to Unfold in Artsakh and the West Has Secured a Front-Row Seat.” It begins:

“Azerbaijani special forces and military personnel—masquerading as ‘environmentalists’—have blocked the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia. They have effectively severed the only lifeline the Artsakh Armenians have to the outside world—a lifeline guaranteed by the Trilateral Statement of November 10, 2020. With 120,000 Artsakh Armenians now completely encircled and isolated, Azerbaijan is poised to rid itself of the entire Armenian population…”

More background from Covert Action Magazine:

“In the past month, the Biden administration has condemned a blockade imposed on the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijanis, while at the same time extending a waiver for the second year in a row allowing provision of $100 million in military aid to Azerbaijan…”