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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-17 Daily Xml
Contents
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Motions

Republic of Artsakh

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:54): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes that September 2025 marks the fifth anniversary since the start of the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war of aggression by Azerbaijan and reaffirms the South Australian parliament's decision to recognise the self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh;

2. Notes that 19 September 2025 marks two years since the ethnic cleansing of over 100,000 Armenians from the Republic of Artsakh by Azerbaijan after 10 months of siege, blockading the population from food, energy, medical supplies and humanitarian assistance;

3. Calls for the immediate release of 23 Armenian hostages, including leaders of the Republic of Artsakh, currently detained by the Azerbaijani regime, in contradiction to international law;

4. Calls on Azerbaijan to abide by the International Court of Justice's provisional measures handed down on 17 November 2023, and allow for the right of return for all Armenians forcibly displaced from Artsakh under enforceable international guarantees of their security and rights;

5. Calls on Azerbaijan to cease the deliberate destruction of the Armenian Christian and cultural heritage of Artsakh and take transparent steps to ensure the protection of all ancient Armenian cultural and historical sites; and

6. Calls on Azerbaijan immediately to withdraw its troops from, and respect, the internationally recognised borders of the Republic of Armenia.

I rise today to speak on a motion that highlights an issue which all too often does not make the nightly news bulletin: the plight of the Nagorno-Karabakh, known in Armenia as Artsakh. Five years ago, on 27 September 2020, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked 44-day war against the self-determined territory of Artsakh. Using illegal weapons and funnelling mercenaries into the conflict, Azerbaijan took the lives of 5,000 Armenians and occupied 70 per cent of Artsakh.

The ceasefire that followed never ended Azerbaijan's atrocities, and two years later, on 12 December 2022, Azerbaijan placed the entire civil population under siege. No food, no medicine, no electricity—nothing was able to enter Artsakh for 10 months, even in violation of orders from the International Court of Justice. On 19 September 2023, the unimaginable happened. After starving the people of Artsakh into desperation, a 24-hour lightning military assault resulted in the complete ethnic cleansing of Artsakh within days.

Earlier this year, both sides agreed to a ceasefire, sponsored by the United States, and whilst there are no bullets being fired at this moment this so-called peace simply rewards Azerbaijan for the crimes it committed against indigenous Armenians. To this day, 23 Armenian hostages languish in the prison of Baku, including seven Artsakh leaders, many who stood for the right for self-determination. Their fate is hidden from the world. This is a regime that builds war theme parks to mock the death of Armenian soldiers, a regime that silences dissent at home and exports cruelty abroad. If this is how they treat their own citizens, then imagine the fate of Armenians under their rule.

While hostages suffer in their cold, dark cells, over 100,000 Armenians remain stateless. They have the deeds to their homes, the keys to their front doors, but they cannot return. The right of return is not a request, it is a fundamental human right, recognised by the International Court of Justice in November 2023. Yet, Azerbaijan tramples these rulings with impunity, while the international community too often looks away, as we have seen elsewhere in the world, where the suffering of civilians is explained away, or worse, ignored.

Today, Artsakh, where prayers no longer echo in churches, where Armenian songs are no longer sung in classrooms, where the Armenian language no longer fills the streets, Azerbaijan has turned its hatred against stone and spirit. Churches, monuments, cemeteries, the sacred sites that embody centuries of Armenian life, are being systematically destroyed. This is cultural genocide: history itself is being erased. Let us be honest, Armenians are not alone in this pain, and I think we can all reflect on what is happening in other parts of the world today where that pain is felt.

As someone of very proud Greek descent, I know our communities are bound together by the scars of history. Armenians, Greeks, Syrians and Cypriots share a legacy of displacement, persecution and cultural erasure, and we are not alone. But we also share resilience, dignity and the determination to never let the truth be buried.

What is most harrowing is that Azerbaijan's aggression has not ended with Artsakh, it has spilled over into Armenia itself. In September 2023, Azerbaijan forces invaded Armenian territory, killing soldiers and mutilating women—grotesque acts that perpetrators proudly displayed on social media. Inside Azerbaijan, ancient Armenian cities are being renamed, identity papers rewritten and preparations laid for further erasure. There can be no lasting peace without justice. The right of return must be upheld, Armenian hostages must be released, the systemic destruction of Armenian culture and religious heritage must end and our government must do more than speak platitudes of peace.

I note at this point there is a motion in the other place along similar lines to this one being led by the Minister for Infrastructure, my fellow Greek Australian MP, the Hon. Tom Koutsantonis. I thank him for his support of this motion, together with other members of this place who we will hear from shortly, including the Hon. Tammy Franks and the Hon. Jing Lee. As I said, the systemic destruction of Armenian culture and religious heritage must end. When we pass this motion we send a message that South Australia does not stand idle in the face of injustice. The Armenian Australian community looks to us for recognition, solidarity and moral leadership.

I want to acknowledge and congratulate the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU), which has now established an Adelaide branch, and in particular Koryun, Anna and Elena, who are somewhere in our halls at the moment, listening to these motions as they are being read out in this place. I recently had the privilege of meeting with the ANC-AU upon their first delegation to the South Australian parliament in over a decade. I have known Elena for some time and I was also able to speak to her. She leads the Adelaide branch alongside Michael. Sebastian travelled from the national office in Sydney to be here for that meeting. For the Armenian Australian community to have representation in this state is crucial, and their growing presence here reflects how deeply the Armenian story is woven into the fabric of South Australia.

When the catastrophic Armenian genocide left survivors displaced, families broken and communities destroyed, South Australia raised more funds for Armenian survivors than New South Wales and Victoria combined as part of our nation's first major international humanitarian relief effort. We here in this parliament became the second state jurisdiction to recognise the rights to self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh in February 2021.

Passing this motion—and indeed any other motion, whether it be on Artsakh or Palestine or anywhere else in the world that we might be thinking of today—does not undo the pain. It certainly will not undo the pain of Artsakh, but it will say to the Armenian people here and abroad that their loss is not forgotten, that their rights are not negotiable and that their future must be defended. It will say that South Australians know that silence in the face of genocide is complicity and that our state chooses truth over denial, justice over impunity and peace built on rights rather than on erasure. That is why this motion matters and that is why I am hopeful that it will pass this place with overwhelming and unanimous support. Zito.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (16:03): I rise to associate myself with the remarks of the mover, the Hon. Connie Bonaros, and to support this motion. This motion outlines six different facets and I will speak to them not by repeating the motion but by reflecting upon them.

In February 2021, I stood in this chamber to speak in favour of recognising the sovereignty and right to self-determination of the people of Artsakh yet today, thanks to the deafening silence of our nation's leaders and of foreign governments around the world, the Armenians and Artsakh have been stripped of those rights: the right to return to their homes, to live on the land their ancestors inhabited for hundreds of generations, and to celebrate a culture cultivated over thousands of years.

These events prove a painful truth: when aggression and ethnic cleansing are met with silence, they do not cease; they grow. That silence has emboldened Azerbaijan, and now we are watching the bullying and extortion of Armenia itself unfold at the negotiating table. In fact, only last month Azerbaijan and Armenia signed what was hailed as a historic peace deal, but I ask: is this truly peace or is it merely codification of injustice?

The agreement ignores the ongoing plight of the ethnically cleansed Armenians of Artsakh. It contains no commitment to end Azerbaijan's cultural erasure, no demand for the release of Armenian hostages, and no guarantees that the people of Artsakh will ever be allowed to return safely to their homes, as they should.

Worse still, this so-called peace rewards Azerbaijan's campaign of ethnic cleansing with a corridor carved straight through internationally recognised Armenian territory. The parallels between the 1915 Armenian genocide, which saw over 1.5 million Armenians annihilated at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, and today's events are undeniable. What we are witnessing here is a continuation of those same genocidal policies. That is evidenced by the sheer brutality displayed by Azerbaijani soldiers during the conflict, including extrajudicial executions, mutilations, beatings and beheadings of Armenian soldiers and of civilians.

As the University Network for Human Rights reported, over half of these extrajudicial killings were perpetrated against elderly civilians, and nearly a third of the killings took place after a ceasefire had been reached in 2020. The torture and murder of these people were often circulated on social media sites such as Telegram, where you can hear the cheering of Azerbaijani soldiers in the background—utterly horrific.

The most chilling story within this report was the killing of an intellectually disabled woman, Alvard Tovmasyan. When her body was recovered in 2021, forensic analysis revealed that her feet, her hands, her left ear and the tip of her tongue were cut off while she was still alive, and she later died of blunt force trauma to the head. The report identifies dozens of similar cases involving both physical and psychological torture, almost entirely committed against unarmed people, civilians.

The soldiers committed these acts with impunity. Despite investigations and substantial evidence compiled by trusted NGOs and reporters, the Azerbaijani justice system has failed to hold these war criminals to account and no-one has been called to account for these crimes. The fact that these acts have occurred and gone unpunished is not surprising, however. Azerbaijan's government openly promotes racial hatred towards Armenians amongst its people. Prominent Azerbaijani leaders refer to those people who are Armenian as 'a disease', 'cancerous tumours' and 'a virus'. It is horrific, it is othering, it is dehumanising, and it must be called out.

This discourse by Azerbaijan's leaders has inevitably bled into its mainstream society. Words matter, leadership matters, and we can see here that that leadership has led to this. In response to the 2020 conflict, an Azerbaijani football club put out a statement saying:

We must kill Armenians. No matter whether a woman, a child, an old man. We must kill everyone we can…We should not feel sorry; we should not feel pity.

Again, it is just horrific. This hatred is not just limited, of course, to talk; it is seen in state-run programs and policies. In 2020, the Azerbaijani government opened a military trophy park featuring grotesque and degrading statues of defeated Armenians—a military trophy park—and in 2021, Azerbaijan began producing a commemorative stamp showing a split screen image of an Azerbaijani soldier and a man in a chemical biohazard suit standing over a map of Azerbaijan and fumigating the area of Nagorno Karabakh, clearly symbolising the supposed cleansing of Armenians from that region.

With Azerbaijan now occupying sovereign Armenian territory, the cost of silence towards this hatred is mounting. If that silence persists, we may witness the destruction of Armenia itself and the erasure of its indigenous people from a homeland that they have inhabited for thousands of years.

Our silence is complicity. It is why we must speak up and state parliaments like ours have a role to play. Unless the international community, including our own governments, finally step up and speak out and condemn Azerbaijan's litany of war crimes, Azerbaijan will continue to get what it wants, and, dictator Ilham Aliyev's own words that follow will not be challenged:

Erivan [Armenia's capital] is our historical land and we, the Azerbaijanis, must return to these historic lands. This is our political and strategic goal and we must gradually approach it.

We must refuse to let that rhetoric become reality. President Aliyev's declaration that Yerevan is an historical land cannot be allowed to serve as a road map for aggression. The international community of which we are part, including this government, including our federal government and our leadership here in this nation, must take concrete measures and they are concrete measures that this motion calls for.

I do hope that we will see bipartisan support on this matter. The community here are yearning for it. They are looking to us for leadership. I commend not just the Hon. Connie Bonaros for bringing this motion here to this place but also the member for West Torrens and his leadership in the other place today. September is a time of significance for many reasons in regard to this debate—none of them to be celebrated—and I hope that we can all come together to call out what is utterly horrific and stand together as one to end the silence that is currently prevailing against such injustice.

The Hon. J.S. LEE (16:12): I rise today to support the Hon. Connie Bonaros' motion marking the fifth anniversary of the 2020 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war. An anniversary such as this serves as a commemoration of atrocities, with so many innocent lives lost. It can be a very emotional time for the community, and I acknowledge the feelings that the Hon. Connie Bonaros expressed earlier.

I wish to acknowledge the ongoing distress and grief experienced by the Armenian community members in South Australia. I would like to extend my sincere sympathies and prayers to all those in the Australian Armenian community who continue to be deeply, deeply affected by this devastating conflict and the ongoing humanitarian situation in the region.

South Australia is one of two states in Australia to recognise the right to self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh and I hope that the multipartisan support for this motion goes a small way to providing justice and comfort to the community. I would like to commend the Armenian National Committee of Australia for its steadfast advocacy and longstanding commitment to raising awareness of the grave humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the ongoing situation in the Republic of Artsakh.

Earlier this year, I appreciated meeting with Mr Michael Kolokossian, executive director, and Mr Sebastian Majarian, political affairs director of the Armenian National Committee Australia, as well as Elena Gasparyan, to discuss their efforts to promote peace and justice for Armenians in the Republic of Artsakh.

I signalled my strong support for this cause and was proud to join with parliamentary, local government and community representatives and leaders from around the country as a signatory of the Australian Friends of Artsakh network. The Australian Friends of Artsakh supports upholding the rights of self-determination, calls for the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and condemns any use of force and suppression against innocent populations in the region.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Armenian National Committee on the relaunch of its Adelaide branch in June 2025. Congratulations to Elena Gasparyan for taking on the leadership of this new SA chapter. Elena is well-known to many honourable members here and she wears many hats within our multicultural community, including that of President of the Armenian Cultural Association of South Australia (ACASA).

I wish to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to ACASA for its diligent work supporting newly arrived Armenians to South Australia and advocating for the Armenian community and broader multicultural community in our state, especially those impacted by this conflict. My thoughts remain firmly with our Armenian-Australian community as we mark the fifth anniversary of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and call for the peaceful and lasting end to this terrible conflict.

I thank the Hon. Connie Bonaros, the mover, once again for bringing this important motion to the council, and I join the many honourable members here to reaffirm the South Australian parliament's decision to recognise the self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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