Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator
Samantha Power recently arrived in Armenia to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and pledged US support for Armenia in the aftermath of the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has left thousands of Armenians homeless at the hands of Azerbaijan. Power is the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and had previously served as US Ambassador to the UN from 2013-2017.
Power is lying again to the Armenians. In 2014, she lied to the Armenians from the UN, and now she is again lying to the Armenians from USAID, which is an agency of the US State Department.
According to her profile in Forbes, “Samantha Power, the youngest-ever U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is considered to be the moral compass of American diplomacy” while adding, “…she has been a powerful crusader for U.S. foreign policy as well as human rights and democracy since she took office in 2013.”
Samantha Power’s moral compass is broken. She stood by lying and humiliating the homeless Armenians in Kessab, Syria in 2014, and she is again lying to the Armenians arriving as refugees in Yerevan.
Samantha Power, Presidents Obama and Biden, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken do not care about Armenia, or Armenians wherever they are.
From her Forbes profile, Power has warned of the threat of ISIS globally. But, what the profile fails to reveal, is that Power, while part of the Obama administration, was funding, training and supporting the armed ‘rebels’ in Syria, which eventually morphed into ISIS. In fact, the last remaining ‘rebel’ controlled area in Syria today, Idlib, is under the control of Mohamed al-Julani, formerly with ISIS in Iraq, and Al Qaeda in Syria. Julani enjoys the protection of both the US and Turkey, and all humanitarian aid coming into Idlib goes through his hands exclusively, including from USAID.
Nagorno-Karabakh
Pashinyan received the delegation led by Power, and he said, “The process of ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh continues.”
This is the same process used by the US, and their ally Turkey, in Syria in 2014 at Kessab, which is a Christian Armenian village on the border with Turkey, north of Latakia. The village had no Syrian government buildings, nor Army posts, nor weapons storage. There was no reason to attack Kessab, it had no strategic value for the ‘rebels’ in their war to overthrow the Syrian government. The only reason for the attack, occupation, massacre, rapes and destruction at Kessab was ethnic cleansing. The US-NATO backed ‘rebels’ were Radical Islamic terrorists, cut from the same cloth as ISIS, and their goal at Kessab was to wipe out the Christians.
“The United States of America will continue to work with both your Government and the government of Azerbaijan to bring about lasting peace between the countries, also considering the profound economic dividends and stability it will bring for the Armenian people,” said Power to Pashinyan recently.
Power delivered the real message from Biden: the US is pleased Azerbaijan has won, and the Armenians are forever defeated, because the US values its relationship with the oil rich Azerbaijan. The Biden administration’s message to Pashinyan is: the EU gets their winter gas supplies from Azerbaijan, and Armenia has no economic resources to be exploited by the US or the EU, therefore, Armenia is of no value.
Power said in Yerevan, her mission was to mobilize resources, to support local authorities in finding places to stay, and other means of support, but also get other countries to do the same. But, the US never helped any of the 2,000 Armenians made homeless and destitute in Kessab in 2014. The US never even sent one loaf of bread, and because of US-EU sanctions on Syria, even the Armenian churches in the US, and other charities, were prevented from sending even one dollar to Kessab. The millions raised in USA, with Kim Kardashian sending 1 million herself, was sent to the Armenian church in Lebanon, and has never been distributed to Kessab. The US sanctions prevented even other Arab countries from sending aid to Kessab.
“The United States is deeply concerned about reports on the humanitarian conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh and calls for unimpeded access for international humanitarian organizations and commercial traffic,” said Power in Yerevan. She wants to send food and medicine to Yerevan, but refused to allow even one bandage or one blanket to be delivered to Kessab in 2014, where the mountainous terrain is blanketed in snow each winter.
On social media formerly known as Twitter, Power wrote recently: “I’m here to reiterate the U.S.’s strong support & partnership with Armenia and to speak directly with those impacted by the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Azerbaijan received tremendous military aid and support from Turkey, a US ally, and fellow NATO member. Armenia received no military help from the US. Of course they lost their territory to the stronger, wealthy and heavily militarized Azerbaijan, who are allied with the EU and NATO member Turkey. Now Power is going to oversee sending Armenians some bread crumbs.
Kessab 2014
According to the Syrian Bureau of Statistics, Kessab had a population of 1,754 in the 2004 census, and with the surrounding villages, had a total population of around 2,500 predominately Armenian Christians which date back to the medieval ages there.
The high elevation and pine covered mountains sloping down to the Mediterranean Sea made Kessab a favorite summer vacation resort.
Some feared that the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) might perpetrate genocide against the inhabitants. In August 2013, in the mountains near Latakia, at Ballouta, the FSA had massacred hundreds of unarmed civilians sleeping in their own homes. Men, women and children were killed, along with a pregnant woman who was cut apart, and her unborn fetus was hung in the trees. That community was also a religious minority targeted by the FSA. General Salim Idriss, the commander of the FSA, had been visited by Senator John McCain, (R. AZ), and McCain had lobbied vigorously in Congress to keep the money and weapons flowing to the FSA in Syria.
In the early hours of March 21, 2014, Kessab was attacked by FSA and their allies coming from Turkey over the border.
Residents of Kessab fled to Latakia where they sheltered in a church; however, 36 very elderly and immobile residents were left behind and were later kidnapped by the FSA and taken to Vikifly, Turkey. While in Vikifly, the US Ambassador to Turkey, Francis J. Riccardone, Jr. and his wife visited the kidnapped Armenian hostages, and the elderly begged him for help to get to Latakia and rejoin their family there. Riccardone refused to help them, even though his wife was the translator of their pleas to him, and captors were under US support and control.
On April 1, Ahmad Jarba, head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), visited the FSA front-line in Kessab to congratulate his troops on their victory and the occupation of Kessab. The FSA was the military wing of the SNC, which were supported completely by the White House and Congress.
While in Kessab, the FSA and their allied terrorist groups, burned three churches, dug up graves looking for gold rings, looted every home and shop, burnt the cultural center, raped elderly women because they could find no girls, and murdered a 21-year-old man in front of his parents. When the parents begged to be able to bury him, the FSA refused, saying they wanted the dogs to eat him because he was a heathen.
On April 2, during a hearing before the House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, Rep. Adam Shiff (D. CA) asked the UN Ambassador Samantha Power about Kessab.
“Most of the [UN Security] Council members raised the issue of Kessab, calling on the UN to do more, to try to meet the needs of these people. […] I would note that, unfortunately, the extremist group that appears to have taken hold of that town is not one that the United States and the United Nations overall has a great deal of leverage over. And so, our emphasis now, is on supporting the moderate opposition in Syria that is taking on those extremist groups and making sure that the UN has the funding it needs, and the resources of all kinds that it needs to accommodate […] in this case, the Syrian Armenian community, as you said, an internally displaced population flow.,” said Samantha Power.
Samantha Power lied to the US Congress, and to the Armenian people. The FSA were in Kessab, as evidenced by Jarba’s personal visit to Kessab. The FSA and their political wing SNC were directly supported, funded, trained and directed by the Obama administration. President Trump cut off the funding of the CIA program Timber Sycamore in 2017, which shut down the US support of the FSA. Power called the FSA the ‘moderate opposition’, and continued to support them even though they had committed war crimes and atrocities in Kessab.
On April 3, Ruben Melkonyan, deputy dean of the Oriental Studies department at Yerevan State University, said that the Armenian community of Kessab was unlikely to recover and that what had happened were “crimes that make a genocide”. As of 2023, Kessab is almost a ghost town. Residents have not all returned, as they had no funds to rebuild homes, farms, and businesses.
On June 15, 2014, the Syrian Arab Army entered Kessab and retook control over the surrounding villages and the border with Turkey. The massacre at Kessab was reminiscent of the Armenian Genocide, which took place about 100 years ago, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish Empire.
Gennady Gatilov, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, condemned the attack on Kessab and the ethnic cleansing of Armenian Syrians in Latakia. He accused Turkey, the US and Europe, and the Persian Gulf states of supporting terrorism in Syria and called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the situation. The UN Security Council declined Russia’s meeting proposal.
On May 13, 2014 US President Barack Obama, met with Ahmed Jarba of the SNC in the Oval Office after Jarba left his troops in Kessab raping and looting.
“President Obama welcomed the Coalition’s leadership and constructive approach to dialogue, and encouraged the Coalition to further its vision for an inclusive government that represents all of the people of Syria. President Jarba thanked President Obama for U.S. non-lethal assistance, which totals $287 million and supports the Coalition, local communities inside Syria, and the moderate armed opposition. He also thanked the United States for being the largest donor of humanitarian assistance. The $1.7 billion committed by the United States goes to those in need inside of Syria and in neighboring countries,” according to the White House. But, they failed to mention that not one dollar of the $1.7 billion went to Kessab to rebuild from the US sponsored attack and occupation.
Samantha Power is a high ranking US government official, and well aware in 2014 that the Armenian government had sent soldiers to fight the US sponsored FSA in Kessab. Power was lying in 2014, and is still lying to Armenia.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
