I do agree with you that oppression in Nakhichevan is not exclusively limited to Armenian heritage. I do know that the people of Nakhichevan are oppressed through human trafficking, freedom of speech restriction, and even with destruction of gathering places. I don’t know if you read my blog (www.blogian.net), but I have covered all of these topics. At http://blogian.hayastan.com/2007/12/09/azeris-tied-to-trees-for-not-paying-utility-bills/, for instance I mention how small tea-houses are destroyed in Nakhichevan to promote monopoly business. At http://blogian.hayastan.com/2007/11/20/our-azeri-sisters/, I discuss human trafficking of Azeri girls and women from Nakhichevan to Turkey and Azerbaijan. At http://blogian.hayastan.com/2008/12/08/azerbaijan-18-month-sentence-for-letters-to-government/, I report how an ordinary citizen in Nakhichevan has been arrested for writing anti-government letters. You can search other posts at http://www.blogian.net.

I also agree that there has been vandalism against Azeri memory by the Azeri government in the name of business development. But you are wrong to suggest that “the purpose was not to destroy Armenian cemetry in Nakhichevan but other than that,like business or construction.” I don’t know how well you are aware of where Djulfa existed, but if you check out Google Earth (which shows the cemetery almost intact because the data is from 2003) you will see that the cemetery was in a remote region, surrounded by a lot more land that could have been used for “development.”(The image http://www.djulfa.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/google.JPG shows a 2003 Google Earth capture. The red circle is the cemetery. Only green areas are terrain inhabited by people. It makes no sense “developing” anything in a remote area far away from where people live. And if there is need to “develop” something, there are miles and miles of other similar terrains that don’t need to be “cleaned up” as opposed to a historic cemetery. In fact, “development” doesn’t often happen in military zones especially on an international border. Furthermore, today the cemetery is a military shooting range with limited materials used (see photos at http://www.djulfa.com/photos/today/). Why would Azerbaijan’s government use so much energy and money (it took several cranes, trucks, weeks) to “convert” a historic cemetery in a remote area to a military shooting range? If your answer is “why not,” then my question is then why Azerbaijan 1) either denies that the cemetery didn’t exist in the first place or 2) says that even if the cemetery exists/existed it was never Armenian or 3) the destruction never happened. None of these make sense.

I do commend you, though, for condemning the destruction. And I also agree that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan is a democratic country. My question to you is what individual progressive Azeris such as yourself should do to stop further destruction of historic Armenian monuments – if any are left – in Azerbaijan.