He has a real cinema physique: tall, dark, dark face immediately recognizable from the success of the Canal, Pigalle and Kaboul Kitchen event series. We will soon discover him in a major role, that of General de Gaulle in the diptych that Antonin Baudry, successful director of Le Chant du loup, is currently filming. Trained in theater, notably with Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil troupe, Simon Abkarian has often reconnected with his Armenian roots by making films under the direction of Atom Egoyan (Ararat) and Robert Guédiguian (Le Voyage en Armée and The Army of Crime on the Manouchian resistance network during the Occupation). For Le Point, he agreed to discuss the dramatic situation in Armenia. He criticizes the inaction of the international community.
Le Point: What is your reaction since the Azerbaijani army’s offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenians’ decision to lay down their arms?
Simon Abkarian: I don’t think they had much of a choice. After this forty-four day war, the Armenian army was completely destroyed and defeated. In addition, we must add nine months of blockade, I mean a medieval blockade in the Lachin corridor. No medicine, no food that can get through, displaced populations. I’m not going to give a description, but it’s a bit like Julius Caesar against Vercingetorix, the one who holds together through his determination. All this in full view, under the silence or encouragement of some leaders of the free world, notably the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who sees in President Aliyev a reliable partner.
Precisely, last year, you published an article in Le Figaro to alert it to the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, but the situation remained the same. A form of immobility, of sinking?
Yes, we saw it with the Kurds and the resistance of Kobané against the Turks. Which is paradoxical because the latter talk about Azeri territorial integrity, while knowing very well that they have occupied part of Cyprus since 1974 and part of Syria since the last war. It’s politically schizophrenic. I have the impression that political ethics have completely disappeared and that it is the law of numbers that has won.
In Le Point, Xavier Bertrand, the president of the Hauts-de-Seine regional council, on a mission in the Lachin corridor, denounces “an ethnic cleansing” of the Armenian people. This goes your way.
Absolutely. We experienced the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians in 1915 and the fact that there was no longer any Greek, Assyrian or Armenian entity. I am talking about the people who have lived on this earth for centuries. In fact, there are no more non-Turks left on Anatolian territory. What saddens me the most is that during this forty-four day war, there was no deep and historical analysis of the situation. Armenians and Azeris were put on the same level and the aggression of the latter took a back seat.
120,000 inhabitants, including 30,000 children, live in fear and under constant threat. How can you imagine such a thing?
It all comes from brutal and archaic rhetoric. When Turks and Azeris speak to each other in Turkish because they are Turks, there is this general idea of ??saying: “We are going to finish the job of 1915 with these dogs of Armenians. » It must be said and repeated that Azerbaijan has existed since 1918 and Armenia since Herodotus. But we suffer from a total ignorance of history. Ignoring it contributes to this aggression and this desire for annihilation.
On September 21, Armenia requested the UN Security Council to send peacekeepers to ensure security and protect civilian populations. What do you think ?
I think it is a little late because the Azeris have got their foot in the door and we should have listened to the people who, in the early 1990s, demanded the right to a vote on the self-determination of the Upper Karabakh, included in the United Nations charter. The Azeris responded by creating pogroms against Armenian civilians in Sumgait, Baku and Kirovabad. At the time, the president was Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president. It is a dynasty that tramples on the values ??of democracy. Today, we understand why certain countries, including Russia, maintain relations with Azerbaijan, which has large oil and gas resources. Geopolitical and economic reasons take precedence over our values.
On the 108th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian genocide, President Macron reaffirmed “France’s resolute and lasting support for Armenia.” Can France play a role in a possible peace process?
Yes, and we all have a role to play. Now, it is not enough to say what is right or wrong. We need coercive measures: blocking Azerbaijan’s assets and exports. We must punish the Azeris as we did Putin’s Russia. I don’t see why we wouldn’t do it.
Armenia celebrated 32 years of its independence on September 21. Does this anniversary feel like mourning for you?
No. We must continue to fight. Our neighbors are Turks, Azeris, Iranians and Georgians. So we are stuck between these good people and we tried to please the Western world by democratizing the country. But no one helped us, no one came to collaborate with us. Saying that we are going to defend the Armenians is not enough. I believe that we must have a political and even military vision of our identity and critical positions towards our leaders.
Are you afraid that Armenia will disappear from the map?
In the 1990s, when I went to Karabakh, I saw mountains and churches from the 4th century. Today, when a church burns, it is like a library that dies, a whole part of human heritage disappears before our eyes. This saddens me deeply. I lived in Syria and Lebanon, and I saw what happened. Let’s not be naive. The French people and the whole world must know that Azerbaijan will not stop there, of course. Besides, didn’t President Aliyev say that, ultimately, Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, is an ancestral land? While Ursula von der Leyen was in Baku to collaborate with him, soldiers from the regular Azeri army tortured Armenian soldiers, dismembered them, raped them and broadcast the images on social networks. And Fifa or Eurovision go there, just for the money. There are too many consciences that are easy to manipulate.
Do you believe in lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan?
I don’t want to commemorate a second genocide. I know that not only will Azerbaijan try to do it, but it will do it in hiding. For them, the challenge is not to conquer Armenia, but to eliminate it and say that it is legitimate. That’s all. Meanwhile, the European partners pretend not to understand, turn a blind eye and the international community forgets that it was Stalin who, in 1921, gave Armenia to Turkey to please Mustafa Kemal who pretended to closer to Lenin. To ignore or forget history, to remain silent or not see anything, is to participate in the annihilation of a people.