As an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan, I wish to express my shock, disgust and confusion at a visit last May by a Maine delegation (Sen. Jill Duson, Rep. Deqa Dhalac, Rep. Mana Abdi, Probate Judge Paul Aranson, Reza Jalali, Abdullahi Ali, Ekhlas Ahmed, Tarlan Ahmadov) to authoritarian Azerbaijan on an official visit. Azerbaijan is listed as one of the most brutal regimes in the world, one of the worst and most corrupt countries on the Personal Freedom Index, with a documented history of mass atrocities against Armenians.
Their gleeful visit to Armenian Artsakh was the most shocking. Armenians there were blockaded and starved for one year and, in September 2023, Azerbaijan brutally bombed and ethnically cleansed this territory of 120,000 Christian Armenians, destroying our churches, removing crosses and annihilating all historic reminders that Armenians lived there for two millennia, as they destroy for decades.
I spent that October with these refugees, battling my own PTSD flashbacks of childhood memories of crimes against humanity. Sen. Duson and Rep. Dhalac blocked me on social media and deleted my questions when I asked them why.
Are fine dining food and travel posts on the very land where Armenians were starved eight months prior tone deaf or deliberate? Does the delegation support the regime and its brutal actions? We know this foreign dictatorship paid for our elected officials to be used as political PR props. How is that appropriate?
Anna Astvatsaturian Turcotte
Vice President, Westbrook City Council/Ward 3 City Councilor
Westbrook
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