System Of A Down have condemned Azerbaijan’s recent bombing of Armenia’s eastern border, labelling it an act of “evil aggression”.
The Associate Press reports that the ongoing border clashes between the two nations have killed at least 155 troops in total – 105 Armenian soldiers and 50 from Azerbaijan. The fighting has been going on for decades, but this latest outbreak is said to be the most serious in at least two years.
System Of A Down are all of Armenian descent and were at the forefront of a campaign for the recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1915. Amid ongoing unrest, the band have continued to raise their voices in support of the nation.
In a recent statement, the band responded to Azerbaijan’s latest act of aggression: “Around midnight on the 12th of September 2022, forces of Azerbaijan led by its corrupt petro-oligarchic leader Aliyev attacked Armenia’s whole eastern border bombing civilian infrastructure and homes,” they wrote.
Adding: “Their goal is to terrorise Armenians and gain more concessions from Armenia along with regime change in one of the few democracies in the whole region. This is 2 years after they attacked Nagorno-Karabagh in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the region of Armenians.”
SOAD went on to address some of the political factors at play, arguing that Azerbaijan has been “emboldened by the EU’s ill perceived dependency on their natural gas and a perceived weakened Russian hegemon in the region. As a band, we have always done our best to entertain and inform. We have friends and family in harms way in Armenia right now and are extremely worried and concerned for the safety of our people and country.”
The band went on to note that unlike the war in Ukraine, “the enemy is not Russian so Western press has been slow to react and has even made the deadly mistake of both-sidisms, treating the attack as a border dispute when it is clearly a deadly attack on the sovereign state of Armenia. We are asking for your help in spreading the word about this evil aggression by Azerbaijan, bolstered by Turkey, the country that committed genocide against our people,” the statement concludes.
