12 replies to this topic

[MosJan]

CAROLINE COX TO PAY A VISIT TO NAGORNO KARABAKH

• Vice Speaker of the House of Lords of Great Britains Parliament Caroline Cox is on her regular visit to Nagorno Karabakh. She will meet with Nagorno Karabakh Republic Parliament Speaker Ashot Ghulyan and Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosyan today, ARKA reports say. Baroness Cox will also visit a Rehabilitation Center in Stepanakert named to her honor.

[Johannes]

Այստեղ հականգլիական բազմաթիւ գրումներ տեղի ունեցած են. իրաւացի, անիրաւ:
Սոսկ Տիկին Կարոլին Կոկսի սիրոյն (խաթեր) պէտք է զգոյշ լինենք, եւ մեր ձեռքբերած բարեկամները չկորսնցնենք:
Պատերազմի ամէնադժուար օրերին, նա իր խմբակի հետ թեւ ու թիկունք կանգնեցաւ պայքարող Արցախի կողքին: Մի պարագայ, որ շատ հայերին բախտ չվիճակուեց: Նա մեզնից աւելի հայ է:
Long live Baroness Cox.

[MosJan]

ինչ վերաբերվում ե Բարոնեսա Կոկսին այո կյանքով պարտական ենք իրեն.

Սակայն դա վոչմի պատձառ չե իրականությունը մոռանալու ՚ մեծ բրիտանյաի կատարատս հակաՀայկական քաղաքականությունը մորանալու

[hosank]

i met her when she came to mtl a few months ago, we have kept in touch since. she is an amazing woman, who has been in artsax since the beginning of the conlflict

Սակայն դա վոչմի պատձառ չե իրականությունը մոռանալու ՚ մեծ բրիտանյաի կատարատս հակաՀայկական քաղաքականությունը մորանալու

իրաւ է ըսածդ

[MosJan]

CAROLINE KOCK’S 65 VISIT TO Artsax

*

Today the delegation leaded by the vice spokeswoman of the Houses of Lords of the UK, Baroness Caroline Kock has been received by the Prime Minister of the NKR Ara Harutyunyan, reported the press service of the NKR Government. This is the 65th visit of the Baroness to Artsax. The mission of her visit is to take part in the 10 anniversary of a recovery clinic established by her initiative and named after her. Greeting the guests the Prime Minister said that hundreds of disabled people have turned to the medical center and after integrated to the society. He has greeted all the organizers who have supported to establish the center.

[Yervant1]

CAROLINE COX: TIGRANAKERT'S DISCOVERY PROVES THAT ARMENIANS HAVE BEEN LIVING AND CREATING IN KARABAKH FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL

DeFacto Agency
2008-09-23 16:10:00
Armenia

STEPANAKERT, 23.09.08. DE FACTO. A delegation headed by vice Speaker
of Britain's House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox, arrived in
Stepanakert.

According to DE FACTO own correspondent in Nagorno-Karabakh,
the visit's ground is the 10th anniversary of establishment of
Rehabilitation Center bearing Caroline Cox's name. Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic PM Ara Harutyunian received the delegation on September
22. NKR Minister of Health A. Khachatrian and Minister of Social
Security N. Azatian participated in the meeting.

Welcoming the guests, the country's PM thanked the Baroness for
assistance she had rendered to the Rehabilitation Center. NKR PM also
highly estimated the Center Director Vardan Tadevosian's professional
and humanitarian activity. In her turn, Caroline Cox thanked Ara
Harutyunian for warm reception and welcomed Nagorno-Karabakh
government's efforts in overcoming consequence of the war and
construction of a state.

"We are extremely impressed by what we have seen on the place of
excavations of Tigranakert, an ancient Armenian town. Tigranakert's
discovery is an incontestable fact to obtain historical justice. It
testifies that Armenians have been living and creating here from time
immemorial", Baroness Cox said.

[Yervant1]

Intimidation against Nagorno-Karabakh

The Guardian, Wednesday 5 February 2014 21.01 GMT

I am deeply concerned by the response of Fakhraddin Gurbanov,
Azerbaijan's ambassador to the UK (Letter, 30 January), to Anastasia
Taylor-Lind's interview and photograph (My best shot, 24 January)
showing a wedding in the historically Armenian enclave of
Nagorno-Karabakh. I've visited Nagorno-Karabakh 80 times, many during
the bitter war from 1991 to 1994, and I witnessed Azerbaijan's
attempted ethnic cleansing of Armenians, including firing 400 GRAD
missiles a day on the civilians in the capital city of Stepanakert,
and numerous atrocities, including the slaughter of civilians in the
village of Maragha in 1992. I saw the homes still smoldering,
decapitated corpses, charred human remains, and survivors in shock. In
a nearby hospital I met the chief nurse who had lost 14 members of her
extended family including her son, whose head had been sawn off. As Mr
Gurbanov suggested Ms Taylor-Lind should widen her perspective by
speaking to displaced peoples within Azerbaijan, so I suggest he speak
to the survivors of Maragha. Azerbaijan's aggression against
Nagorno-Karabakh has turned into a policy of attempted attrition
through economic and military intimidation, with aggressive propaganda
threatening further military offensives. This policy prolongs the
suffering of civilians displaced by the conflict - both Azeris and
Armenians, leaving many in limbo and in poverty.

If Azerbaijan's government removes the threat of renewed military
action, supports the shaky ceasefire and pursues confidence-building
measures, then perhaps opportunities for peace-building could develop,
including provision for displaced peoples to return to their homes - a
matter about which the ambassador claims to feel so strongly.


Caroline Cox
House of Lords


* The ambassador of Azerbaijan says that Taylor-Lind should visit
Azerbaijan to see the plight of displaced people there. It is not that
easy. Even a short visit to Azerbaijan requires a visa, photos, a
letter of invitation, a confirmed hotel booking and an eye-watering
minimum visa fee of £100. It is also disingenuous to says that anyone
wishing to visit NK should do so through Azerbaijani authorities. You
can only visit NK from Armenia and if you have a NK visa in your
passport you will be barred from visiting Azerbaijan.

Joseph Cocker

Leominster, Herefordshire

http://www.theguardi...bakh-azerbaijan

[Yervant1]

BARONESS CAROLINE COX ORGANIZES PILGRIMAGE TO ARTSAKH

13:02, 19 August, 2015

YEREVAN, AUGUST 19, ARMENPRESS. Member of the House of Lords of
British Parliament, Baroness Caroline Cox, visited Narogno Karabakh
with a group of pilgrims. Armenpress was informed from "Meran"
official newspaper editor that the pilgrims stayed the night at
Berdzor on August 17. The guests were welcomed at Berdzor by Artur
Mkhitaryan and Hakob Sayamyan, the Deputy Heads of the Kashatagh
Regional Administration, and Head of the Staff Davit Davtyan.

Baroness Caroline Cox noted that Artsakh had become dear to her
heart since war times. Caroline Cox told the members of her group,
who were in Artsakh for the first time in their lives, about the
heroic battle of the people of Artsakh. Speaking about Kashatagh,
the baroness said that the Armenian people had always founded and
flourished their country on ruins.

Disabled people who had participated in Artsakh Liberation War and
were later treated in Stepanakert Rehabilitation center named after
Baroness Caroline Cox also were in the pilgrimage group.

http://armenpress.am...to-artsakh.html

[Yervant1]

NKR PRESIDENT ATTACHED IMPORTANCE TO BARONESS CAROLINE COX'S REGULAR VISITS TO ARTSAKH

20:11, 20 August, 2015

STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 20, ARMENPRESS. The President of the Republic of
Artsakh, Bako Sahakyan, received the delegation headed by Baroness
Caroline Cox on August 20.

As "Armenpress" was informed from the Central Information Department
of the Office of the Artsakh Republic President, President Sahakyan
acknowledged regular visits of Baroness to Artsakh, the continuous
expansion of the delegations' composition, considering it important
from the viewpoints of getting acquainted with Artsakh, cementing
friendship ties with our country and people.

http://armenpress.am...to-artsakh.html

[Yervant1]

Baroness Caroline Cox visits the Karabakh frontline

11:57, 28 Sep 2016

Siranush Ghazanchyan

 

 

Member of the House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox and her delegation visited the military positions located in the eastern direction of the NKR Defense Army.

At the frontline they asked about the frequency of the ceasefire violations, examined the living conditions of the servicemen and the peculiarities of military duty.

[Yervant1]

news.am, Armenia

July 6 2017

 

 

Karabakh President to Baroness Caroline Cox: You have always stood by the Armenian nation

11:28, 06.07.2017

 

 

President of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR), Bako Sahakyan, on Thursday sent a congratulatory letter to the member of the UK House of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox, in connection with her 80th birthday.

“Dear Baroness, 

“Let me congratulate You on behalf of the Artsakh people, the authorities and personally myself on Your glorious jubilee, the 80th birthday anniversary.

“You have always stood by the Armenian nation, shared their pain and anguish, supported in every possible way our righteous struggle for freedom and independence, voiced against human rights abuses and violence. Due to Your efforts many people from all corners of the world learnt about Artsakh and obtained credible information on the Karabagh case.  

“The life You lead and Your entire activity deserve upper estimate and could be reckoned among the best manifestations of love for mankind.

“Thank You for Your allegiance and commitment to panhuman values and democratic principles, for Your long-standing fundamental and consistent work, for the heartfelt attitude and tender friendship You nourish towards Artsakh people. 

“I once again congratulate You and wish peace, robust health, success and all the best to You and all Your family and relatives,” reads the letter by the NKR President.

https://news.am/eng/news/398880.html

[Yervant1]

Asbarez.com

 

Baroness Cox Slams Baku’s Warmongering

September 11,  2020

 

 

Caroline Cox is a member of the British House of Lords

Caroline Cox, a member of the British House of Lords and a staunch advocate for Artsakh’s right to self-determination, blasted Baku for its continued war rhetoric and listed numerous examples of Azerbaijan’s inhumane treatment and murder of Armenians in Artsakh.

What prompted Baroness Cox to set the record straight on the myriad violations of human rights was a letter she received from Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Tahir Taghizade, who attacked Cox for her support of Armenia and Artsakh.

The Armenian National Committee of UK told Asbarez on Friday that the Azerbaijani Embassy has been sending similar letters to other British lawmakers, essentially threatening them to fall in line with Baku’s propaganda.

In a letter sent to Taghizade on Thursday, Cox sites several examples from the beginning of the Karabakh movement where Azerbaijan has shown disdain for human life and Baku’s countless violations of international conventions on warfare and human rights.

“Such a hostile policy underpins the widespread concern that Azerbaijan is committed to war and cruelty rather than the promotion of cross-border dialogue and a truly just settlement to the aftermath of previous aggression,” said Cox in her letter to Taghizade.

 

Baroness Cox meets with survivors of Maragha Massacres in 1992 in Artsakh

Cox has been—and continues to be—a vocal advocate of the Karabakh/Artsakh issue since the early days of movement, having visited Artsakh countless times. More notably, she witnessed first-hand the plight of Armenians in Artsakh who were victims of the Maragha massacres in 1992, where Armenians were brutally slaughtered by Azerbaijani forces. She visited Maragha the day after the April 10, 1992 events and spoke to survivors of the mass murder.

She has continued her advocacy, support and work in Artsakh, more notably by opening the Caroline Cox Rehabilitation Center in Stepanakert, which assists wounded soldiers, victims of mine explosions and children with disabilities.

Below is the complete text of Baroness Cox’s letter to Ambassador Taghizade.

Dear Ambassador,

Your letter of 7 September refers to so many misconceptions that I find it necessary to put some alternative accounts of reality on the record. In particular, I wish to highlight at least four serious concerns:

1. Nagorno Karabakh
It was Stalin who located the ancient Armenian land of Karabakh / Artsakh (with 95 per cent Armenian population) in Azerbaijan as an ‘autonomous region’. Azerbaijan later usurped large swathes of its lowlands and created Nagorno Karabakh as a mountainous enclave detached from Armenia.

Between 1991-94, Azerbaijan initiated a war against the Armenian population living in Nagorno Karabakh – in breach of internationally-recognised conventions – for example, by use of cluster bombs and 400 GRAD missiles a day fired onto the civilian population of Stepanakert. I was there and can testify to the truth of this violation of human rights. I also witnessed the immediate aftermath of the massacre by Azeris in Maragha and saw decapitated civilian bodies and homes still smouldering from the military attack. Further evidence is recorded in ‘Ethnic Cleansing in Progress: War in Nagorno Karabakh’ (Caroline Cox and John Eibner, 1993).

I believe that the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, who are engaged in a process of their independence on an equivalent legal basis as Azerbaijan in 1991, have sufficient evidence to claim the same right of self-determination justified by Azerbaijan’s attempted ethnic cleansing as the people of Timor Leste, Eritrea and Kosovo who have been awarded self-determination for suffering comparable attempted ethnic cleansing.

 

2. Shushi
Although Shushi was occupied by Azerbaijan for decades as part of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, it was originally a recognised centre of Armenian culture in the Caucasus, second only to Tbilisi, until thousands of Armenians were massacred in March 1920. The then Archbishop was decapitated and his head was put on display on a pole.

3. Nakhichevan
Following a dubious referendum process, and under a deal with Ataturk’s Turkey, Nakhichevan was made an Autonomous Republic in Azerbaijan, with which it had no land connection and was fully attached to Armenia.

Azerbaijan carried out ethnic cleansing of the Armenians historically living in Nakhichevan. The last Armenian village of Aznaberd was evacuated under Azerbaijani pressure in December 1988. Attacks against Armenians continued nearby and I was present when Azeri forces bombed villages and forced civilians to flee for their lives. In its attempts to rewrite the history of the region, Azerbaijan subsequently destroyed many historical Armenian sites and cultural artefacts, including the destruction of tens of thousands of UNESCO-protected ancient stone carvings, which commentators describe as the 21st Century’s most extensive campaign of cultural cleansing.

I believe the Armenians have the right to recover Nakhichevan. Or, perhaps, Azerbaijan would offer an honourable alternative: the right for Nagorno Karabakh to be recognised as Armenian land; and the Armenians to concede Azerbaijan’s occupation of Nakhichevan?

4. Escalation of tensions
Azerbaijan violated a key European convention by pardoning, rewarding and glorifying an Azerbaijani army officer who hacked to death a sleeping Armenian colleague in Hungary in 2004. According to a recent judgment by the European Court of Human Rights, Baku’s actions amounted to the ‘approval’ and ‘endorsement’ of the ‘very serious ethnically-biased crime’.
Over a four-day period in April 2016, Azeri forces launched an offensive into the territories controlled by Armenian forces in Nagorno Karabakh, resulting in many deaths.

In July this year, Azerbaijan deployed artillery batteries close to civilian populations in Tavush, north-eastern Armenia, far north of Nagorno Karabakh, with reports that the Azerbaijani military opened fire in the direction of a face mask production factory, which plays an essential part in the country’s coronavirus response. There were also reports of an attack against a kindergarten in the village of Aygepar, Tavush.

Also in July, pro-war demonstrations were held in Baku, during which thousands of protestors demanded the Azeri Government fully deploy the army, chanting ‘Death to Armenians’, with some even entering the national parliament.

There remains significant dismay at Azerbaijan’s established policy of promoting hatred of the Armenians – including the teaching of hatred in schools and proclaiming Armenia as the ‘Number One Enemy’ – as well as recent inflammatory statements from the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry: ‘The Armenian side mustn’t forget that the state-of-the-art missile systems our army has are capable of launching a precision strike on the Metsamor nuclear power plant.’

Such a hostile policy underpins the widespread concern that Azerbaijan is committed to war and cruelty rather than the promotion of cross-border dialogue and a truly just settlement to the aftermath of previous aggression.

I believe that there is an urgent need for all parties to adhere to the basic principles of moral justice and I would be willing to meet to discuss these tragic situations.

Yours sincerely,

 

 

http://asbarez.com/1...hXx6Rx6XAHc_8-M

[Yervant1]

Epoch TV

Dec 30 2023

 

‘Heartbreak Land’: Baroness Caroline Cox on Going Where Even the Red Cross Won’t Go

 

 

American Thought Leaders

 

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “In middle Nigeria, they are attacking—frequently—the Christian villages and townships in the Middle Belt, and that’s gone on for some time, and the attacks are ruthless. And I’ve been to the villages that have suffered an attack from the Islamist Fulani herdsmen, and homes are still burning.”

In this episode, I sit down with Baroness Caroline Cox, a member of the British House of Lords and founder of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust.

“We have a mandate to heal the sick, feed the hungry, care for the oppressed … Ask God, each one of us, what He wants us to do to fulfill that mandate,” says Baroness Cox.

We survey the Baroness’s humanitarian work throughout the globe, and discuss the current political conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which has recently escalated into a dire situation.

“I became so concerned about what was really happening to the people from Armenia in this little land of Nagorno-Karabakh, that that began my engagement with that whole area,” says Baroness Cox. “The Armenians are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. All the ones that have had to flee, 100,000 from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia, they’ve had to leave everything behind.”

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek: Baroness Caroline Cox, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Baroness Caroline Cox: Thank you. It’s a great privilege to be here.

Mr. Jekielek: The privilege is mine, in fact. I’ve been following your humanitarian work for at least two decades. Let’s start there. Please tell us about yourself.

Baroness Cox: All I ever say about myself is I’m actually a nurse and a social scientist by intention, and a Baroness by astonishment. I was not born a Baroness. I was appointed to the House of Lords by Margaret Thatcher, and I was the first Baroness I had ever met. But it’s quite a shock because you find yourself in the House of Lords, which is like the upper house of your Congress. I thought, “How do I use this privilege?”

Then the idea came that it’s a wonderful place to be a voice for people whose voices are not heard. That’s how I tried to use my role there in the House of Lords, largely with humanitarian aid work for people suffering oppression and persecution and largely unreached by other aid organizations. In a different vein, I work on behalf of Muslim women in the United Kingdom who suffer from only having Sharia marriages and not legally-registered marriages, and that leaves them very vulnerable. Those are the two threads. Most of my time is with humanitarian work with our partners on the front lines of faith and freedom.

Mr. Jekielek: The people I remember are the ones who take very public, principled stands on issues that are decidedly unfashionable, and you stand out in that view. With the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, especially in the early years, the hate propaganda was thick and a lot of western media outlets were basically picking it up. There were very few people that were saying, “Irrespective of all that, this is wrong.” Thank you for that.

Baroness Cox: It’s a great privilege. I happen to be Christian and we have a mandate to be associated with people suffering oppression and persecution. That is a great privilege because they are often heroes and heroines on their front lines of faith.

Mr. Jekielek: You have been working for a long time on the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the atrocities inflicted by the Azerbaijanis. Just recently there was a huge change in the reality of this particular region. I want to make sure I say it correctly, Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baroness Cox: Well done.

Mr. Jekielek: You’re in D.C. to talk about this, so please tell us about it.

Baroness Cox: Indeed. Armenia was the first nation to become Christian as early as 301 AD. There are some of the oldest Christian churches and traditions in the world in Armenia. Then Stalin with his Salami Tactics cut off part of ancient Armenia, Christian Armenia, and stuck it into an oblast inside Azerbaijan. That little oblast or bit of ancient Armenia isolated in Azerbaijan is called Nagorno-Karabakh. It has some of the oldest churches in the world.

But relatively recently, Azerbaijan has increased its persecution of the Christians living in that little land, and it’s been on and off for many years. In December of last year, Azerbaijan cut off the road which links Armenia to this little land of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan. It’s the only route by which medical supplies and food could come in.

Armenians were suffering very badly in Nagorno-Karabakh for much of this year. I’ve seen a photograph of one man who died of starvation. I’m sure many people suffered really seriously; elderly people, babies, and pregnant women. Then Azerbaijan upped the aggression against the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh when it began bombing them. It has bombed them before, but then bombed them again. The Armenians really had to flee for their lives and this began the process of what is legitimately called ethnic cleansing.

Over 100,000 Armenians had to flee from Azerbaijan into Armenia itself, taking only what they could carry. They couldn’t take their possessions from their homes and just flee into Armenia, and that was just very recently. That ethnic cleansing has left that little land of Nagorno-Karabakh bereft, and only about 40 Armenians are still there. It is a very serious and tragic situation.

It’s a very difficult situation and 100,000 Armenians have had to flee from their homeland into Armenia. Armenia is not a big country nor a wealthy country, and it’s now had this huge influx of people. There is another aspect which is very serious and needs a lot of prayer, if I may say so.

Azerbaijan has also captured and imprisoned quite a lot of innocent Armenians. There were some from the previous, short war in the year 2020, and there were some prisoners of war from that time. But more recently, they have abducted and imprisoned civilians and some leaders that I know personally. There needs to be a lot of pressure on Azerbaijan to release those prisoners that they are holding illegally.

Mr. Jekielek: Because the changes that happened recently are dramatic, what is your involvement in that region? Also, please tell us about your organization, HART [Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust], which goes to places that the Red Cross will not go to.

Baroness Cox: Very briefly, how HART became involved with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh goes way back, because I’m very old, a long time ago. I was at a very big international human rights conference in Moscow. It was probably the first human rights conference to be held in Moscow after the emergence of Russia from the Soviet Union.

There was a very famous person there, and her name may be familiar, Yelena Bonner Sakharov. Her husband was a very famous human rights activist, Andrei Sakharov, who had passed away. Yelena Bonner Sakharov was a wonderful, inspirational person who was passionate about human rights. She told us about the situation in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Long story short, I was asked to lead an international delegation down to the area.

It was the first time that I had visited Armenia. We visited there and heard about what the people were suffering in this little land of Nagorno-Karabakh. We actually did go up and walk across the border with no prior permission. It was a bit risky going into Azerbaijan, but we always have to hear two points of view. If you don’t get two points of view, a lot of the media won’t cover you, because they would think it was partisan.

We actually did walk across the border into Azerbaijan, which was interesting. We were carrying some white flags, which was also interesting, but we survived. That was my first time, and I became so concerned about what was really happening to the people from Armenia in the little land of Nagorno-Karabakh. That began my engagement with that whole area. I have since traveled there many times. I don’t count, but I’ve been told by those who do count, that it’s 88 times into Nagorno-Karabakh, and 90 times into Armenia. There were two times that I couldn’t go into Karabakh.

Mr. Jekielek: It might not be obvious to people why there is this hostility. Do you have a sense of why?

Baroness Cox: Unfortunately, Azerbaijan has a track record of hostility and of brutal treatment. President Aliyev of Azerbaijan has declared his intention to annex Nagorno-Karabakh entirely, but also to annihilate Armenians who are living there. More recently, he has threatened to invade Armenia itself.

Azerbaijan is extremely wealthy with oil and other resources, has very well-resourced military capacity, and they’re already building up quite worryingly along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has carried out military offensives against the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh and it is extremely serious.

But President Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan will occupy Armenia itself, along with Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. He has actually said that Lake Sivan, a beautiful lake historically inside Armenia, would belong to Azerbaijan. It is important to challenge President Aliyev’s lies with the truth.

Mr. Jekielek: It’s a kind of a land grab then. Is that how you view it?

Baroness Cox: Certainly with its intention, Azerbaijan has already succeeded in taking Nagorno-Karabakh and driving the ethnic Armenians out. In September, not so long ago, I was in Armenia and visited a long-established Armenian town called Goris, which goes up against the border of Azerbaijan.

From that town, up a hillside you could see an encampment by Azerbaijan that was already there. There were three Azerbaijan encampments there with impunity. They are really getting away with encroaching into Armenian sovereign territory with impunity, and that’s very worrying.

Mr. Jekielek: What is your intention here?

Baroness Cox: We’re trying to raise both aid and advocacy. As I mentioned earlier, the Armenians are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. The 100,000 that had to flee from Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia had to leave everything behind, so they are in great need.

But we also have one particular focus in that we have a hero, and I call him a hero of peace. His name is Vardan Tadevosyan and he established a rehabilitation center inside Nagorno-Karabakh. The rehabilitation center that he developed with his staff was so superb. It became internationally renowned as a center of excellence and people came from around the world to see it.

When I was there, not long ago, there was someone there from Japan who came to see it. People from Africa also came to see it. Vardan had to leave, which was heartbreaking, but he hopes to re-establish another center of excellence inside Armenia itself. That’s going to need funding.

We are trying to raise money for a new rehabilitation center for people with disabilities. It will be a replacement for the one that is stranded in Nagorno-Karabakh in Armenia itself. It will actually be very good for Armenia’s reputation as well. It’s very, very precious. That’s the humanitarian side.

On the advocacy side, we are trying to encourage nations and pressure groups and people who respect and cherish freedom and truth to be advocates for freedom and truth, and to call Azerbaijan to account for its appalling annihilation of the Armenian existence in the little land of Nagorno-Karabakh and their threats to extend their role into Armenia itself. We are here for advocacy, and also advocacy for those people who are imprisoned in Azerbaijan who desperately need to be freed.

Mr. Jekielek: What has the response been?

Baroness Cox: Here? The response has been wonderful. People have received us very graciously and responded very positively. I do raise these issues in the British Parliament. I know they have been raised in the U.S. Congress. I hope that we will receive funding that is desperately needed for the rehabilitation center and for the Armenians who had to flee, leaving everything behind them. We need aid and advocacy.

Mr. Jekielek: Please tell us about HART, your organization. What does it mean to go to a place where the Red Cross won’t go?

Baroness Cox: I was appointed to the House of Lords in 1983, I can’t believe it, 40 years ago. In the early decade, I did a lot of work for Poland, because Poland was in the very dark days of martial law in those days. I did a lot of work for a very good organization, the Medical Aid for Poland fund. We took in medical aid and went in many times on the trucks speaking for the Polish people who were suffering at the hands of communism. That country emerged, praise God, into freedom in 1989.

Then I did a lot of work in Russia with Soviet orphans who were having a rough time and helped to establish programs for enabling children to be kept in care homes or homes for orphaned children. Then I decided that I wanted to diversify, so I founded HART. It stands for Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust. HART was established to provide aid and advocacy for people suffering persecution and oppression in areas not reached by other major aid organizations, either for political reasons or security reasons.

I have great respect for the big organizations like the UN, but they can only go in with the permission of a sovereign government. If a sovereign government is victimizing a minority within its own borders, and if it doesn’t give them permission, then they can’t go in. We do spend quite a lot of our time going in unofficially. We work with local partners and they are the heroes and heroines.

On the security side, most of them are in war zones or conflict zones of some kind, and it’s quite dangerous getting there. Other aid organizations are quite rationally a bit nervous about going in. I can understand that because of their staff and their whole raison d'etre. But we do go where it may be politically incorrect and where it may be dangerous. A lot of our partners are in conflict zones in areas where they’re not supported by their national governments. We do provide aid and advocacy to the many who are suffering violations of human rights.

Mr. Jekielek: Do you have one particular success story that you would like to share from all these years of doing this work?

Baroness Cox: That’s a good question. Yes, I think we do. In one or two of the areas where we worked with HART, we now no longer need to work there. Because when we first started there, the population of civilians suffered from the criteria which HART tries to address. One of those early areas was in northern Uganda. We went there in the dark days when the Lord’s Resistance Army was active and attacking civilians. It was hell on earth, I can tell you. The first time I went there with a good colleague, it was really dangerous getting there, and it was dangerous when we were there.

But we ask the local people, “What’s your priority?” We always ask people their priority. We don’t tell them what we’re going to do. We ask them because they know their own priorities. They said, “Please help the orphans. There are so many orphans because the parents have been killed and have had to flee.” They were just little skeletons. Long story short, we managed to provide food aid and other aid for those orphans. We also helped find parental care for those orphans in a holistic way.

If you go there now, I can’t believe it. Here’s just one little vignette. Those kids are now teenagers. Recently, there was a football tournament in Africa, and a lot of African countries took part. A little team from our orphan program took part and they won the tournament. They were so talented that the United States chose one of those teenage football players to go to the states to develop in a proper, professional football program. Britain also selected another young player.

Going from little orphans who were like little skeletons to being such competent football players in their teens that they were actually selected to represent their countries and go to other countries for training is an example. We no longer need that orphan program now. It has been successful, and all the orphans have been happily placed with families. That was a very happy outcome to a very tragic situation.

Mr. Jekielek: We get so caught up in the many big issues, but the little small wins for these kids makes all the difference. Thank you for sharing that. You do advocate for places where you can’t easily inspect the situation. You were involved in the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China. You’ve actually taken your own government to task around the forced organ harvesting issue.

Baroness Cox: I mentioned aid and advocacy, and they are obviously closely entwined. But there are issues where we do need to defend freedom and fundamental values, and that’s part of a Christian mandate, and also part of HART’s mandate. One of the areas where we border between the controversial and the fundamental principles is Nigeria. We do a lot of work in Middle Belt Nigeria. The Islamist Fulani always make a distinction between Islam and Islamism. Islam means Muslims, our Muslim friends. Islamism means the Islamists, and they are the ones who carry out the brutal attacks.

In middle Nigeria, they frequently attack the Christian villages and townships in the Middle Belt, and that’s gone on for some time. The attacks are ruthless. I’ve been to the villages that have suffered an attack from the Islamist Fulani herdsman when the homes were still burning. I have seen the corpses before they’re buried, and it is a hell on earth.

On one occasion when I was there they were just recovering from an attack. I met a young mother and she had tried to flee with her little six-year-old daughter, but the village had been surrounded by the Islamist Fulani. They couldn’t escape and they were caught. They slashed her across the shoulder with a machete, and then they cut her little daughter’s throat. She fainted after having been attacked by the machete.

When she woke up her little six-year-old daughter was lying dead next to her, and inside the little daughter’s mouth was her mother’s finger. They cut her mother’s finger off and stuck it inside her mouth. This is a heartbreaking land.

Those attacks on Christian villages in Middle Belt Nigeria are still going on. We always ask the local people and they said that the children of these one-and-a-half million people displaced from these villages and little townships are desperate for education. We have the Roads to Hope education vans, and we take educational supplies to those kids who are displaced.

You could see the joy on the kids’ faces when these education vans arrived. It’s not just books, it’s computers and all sorts of things they need for proper education. Here’s hope for the future, and what a privilege to be able to do that. We’re now just diversifying into providing healthcare vans for the displaced people in Middle Belt Nigeria.

Mr. Jekielek: We’ve covered this whole situation extensively. It’s hard to fathom another one of these realities that people just don’t know about. Maybe they don’t want to know about it because it’s so horrific and it continues to this day.

Baroness Cox: Absolutely. It’s happening while we’re talking here today.

Mr. Jekielek: Baroness Cox, it’s such a pleasure to speak with you. Any final thoughts as we finish up?

Baroness Cox: Those of us who have freedom and those who have relatively plenty, we do have an obligation to share what we have with those people who are suffering and dying from starvation or from lack of medical care. We must learn to look beyond our comfort zone and to be alongside those people. Obviously, in prayer, we have a mandate to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and care for the oppressed. My passion would be for each one of us to ask God what he wants us to do to fulfill that mandate.

Mr. Jekielek: Baroness Caroline Cox, it’s such a pleasure to have you on the show.

Baroness Cox: It’s been a privilege to be with you. Thank you for letting me share the pain and the passion and the privilege of being able to make a little bit of a difference. Thank you.

Mr. Jekielek: Thank you all for joining Baroness Caroline Cox and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I’m your host, Jan Jekielek.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

 

Watch the interview at the link below

https://www.theepoch...wont-go-5551479