United Nations S/2004/168
Security Council
Dist.: General
1 March 2004
Original: English
Letter dated 1 March 2004 from the Permanent Representative of Armenia to
the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General
I have the honour to transmit herewith my letter regarding the concerns of
the Republic of Armenia arising from the recent intensification of the
political situation after the brutal murder of the Armenian military officer
by his Azerbaijani colleague in Budapest, Hungary (see annex).
I should be grateful if you would have the text of the present letter and
its annex circulated as a document of the Security Council.
(Signed) Armen Martirosyan
Ambassador
Permanent Representative
Annex to the letter dated 1 March 2004 from the Permanent Representative of
Armenia to the United Nations addressed to
the Secretary-General
Letter on the concerns of the Republic of Armenia arising from the recent
intensification of the political situation after the brutal murder of the
Armenian military officer by his Azerbaijani colleague in Budapest
On 20 January 2004, during the discussion of the item entitled “Children
and armed conflict” in the Security Council, the Azerbaijani representative
launched another round of unsubstantiated allegations towards Armenia and we
took them as such. However, the recent brutal murder in Budapest of an
Armenian officer in his sleep through axing by a young Azerbaijani officer
at a NATO “Partnership for Peace” training programme could not but raise
concerns over the increase of aggressiveness in Azerbaijani society as a
result of such groundless accusations by the authorities, encouragements,
distortions, exaggerations, in short, effective hate propaganda. It comes as
no surprise that the cultivation and encouragement of war rhetoric by the
authorities, which adversely affects the prospects of the peace process,
would outpour into such gruesome acts. The response and the further comments
made by the Azerbaijani officials on different levels trying to justify this
horrendous act, and the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of Azerbaijan on 20 February 2004, are simply testimonies to it.
The significant flare-up of falsified propaganda from the Azerbaijani
officials aimed at presenting a distorted picture of the roots and causes of
the Nagorno Karabagh conflict and the resulting situation on the ground,
which has greatly deteriorated during the last several months, and the
unconcealed efforts to obliterate the 12-year efforts of the international
community aimed at achieving final resolution to the conflict serve no other
purpose than discrediting the international mediation and the peace process.
Moreover, it threatens the ceasefire regime, the tenth anniversary of which
would be marked in May of this year, and increases the instability and
insecurity in the region as a whole. The speech of Ilham Aliyev, now
President of Azerbaijan, in the general debate at the fifty-eighth session
of the United Nations General Assembly, the recent announcements by the
Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan and the numerous speeches of Azerbaijani
representatives in different international forums, including the United
Nations, are a demonstration of the concerted effort by the Azerbaijani
leadership to fuel aggressiveness and war-mongering in the society to score
internal points. However, a natural result of this kind of intoxication is
the vicious act in Budapest, as the younger generation is the most
susceptible to propaganda.
It is regrettable that the political short-sightedness of the Azerbaijani
leadership does not allow it to learn lessons from tragic events of a
not-too-distant past, when the deliberate manipulation of the Azerbaijani
public led to massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganja) and Baku.
Sixteen years ago to this date, on 27 February 1988, Azeris went on a
three-day rampage in Sumgait, a new industrial town 20 miles from Baku,
murdering members of the town’s large Armenian minority, looting and
destroying their property. Most of the victims were burnt alive after being
assaulted and tortured. The murderers enjoyed total support of the
Azerbaijani authorities and full freedom in committing their inhuman acts
against the Armenian population. The peak of the atrocities committed by
Azeri perpetrators occurred from 27 to 29 February 1988. The events were
preceded by a wave of anti-Armenian statements and rallies that swept over
Azerbaijan in February 1988.
I consider it unnecessary to give a detailed historical overview of the
pogroms in Sumgait here as the international community and the United
Nations, in particular, have been duly informed in the past of the events
through documents circulated on the occasion of the anniversaries of the
Sumgait tragedy, the latest one being A/57/742-S/2003/233. The international
community’s response to the events was explicit. On 7 July 1988, the
European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the massacres in
Sumgait, which read:
“The European Parliament,
“…
“B. having regard to the historic status of the autonomous region
of Nagorno-Karabakh (80% of whose present population is Armenian) as part of
Armenia, to the arbitrary inclusion of this area within Azerbaijan in 1923
and to the massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani town of Sumgait in
February 1988,
“C. whereas the deteriorating political situation, which has led to
anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and serious acts of violence in Baku, is in
itself a threat to the safety of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan,
“1. Condemns the violence employed against Armenian
demonstrators in Azerbaijan;
“2. Supports the demand of the Armenian minority for
reunification with the Socialist Republic of Armenia;
“…
“4. Calls also upon the Soviet authorities to ensure the
safety of the 500,000 Armenians currently living in Soviet Azerbaijan and to
ensure that those found guilty of having incited or taken part in the pogroms
against the Armenians are punished according to Soviet law.”
The Sumgait events were organized with a view to hushing up and concealing
the Nagorno Karabagh problem. While the population of Nagorno Karabagh,
trusting in glasnost and perestroika, and after 70 years of unlawful
subjugation to Azerbaijani rule, raised its voice in peaceful demonstrations
for the legally and universally recognized right to self-determination, thus
choosing the democratic, constitutional and peaceful path to the exercise of
its right, the response of the Azerbaijani authorities was pogroms and
killings of Armenians. The premeditated killings in Sumgait were to
transform the problem of Nagorno Karabagh from a peaceful and democratic
process into a violent confrontation, which turned into one of the world’s
bloodiest ethnic conflicts after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The
atmosphere of total impunity, the repeated incitements to the perpetration
of further Sumgait-like massacres and the encouragement to those who showed
the greatest zeal by the Azerbaijani leadership greatly contributed to this.
The assault of a sovereign Government against its citizens continued. In
May 1988 in Shushi, the local authorities initiated the deportation of
Armenians living in that hilltop city from which Karabagh’s largest city,
Stepanakert, was to be so easily shelled for the next several years. By
September 1988, the last Armenians were ousted from Shushi. In November and
December 1988, a wave of Armenian pogroms swept Azerbaijan. The worst took
place in Baku, Kirovabad (Ganja), Shemakh, Shamkhor, Mingechaur and
Nakhichevan. In the winter of 1988, all Armenians were deported from dozens
of Armenian villages in Azerbaijan. The same fate befell more than 40
Armenian settlements in the northern part of Karabagh – outside the borders
of the autonomous region, which was demanding self-determination – including
the mountainous regions of Khanlar, Dashkesan, Shamkhor and Kedabek
provinces. The 40,000 Armenians of Azerbaijan’s third largest city, Ganja,
were also forcibly removed from their homes. When it was over, there were
fewer than 50,000 Armenians left in Baku, out of a total of 215,000.
Throughout 1989, sporadic attacks, beatings, looting and massacres in Baku
reduced that number to 30,000. By early January 1990, Armenian pogroms in
Baku intensified and became more organized. Several hundred Armenians were
killed, some of whom were burned alive, ripped apart or their bodies
dissected. Pogroms continued until 20 January when Soviet army troops were
brought to Baku. By then, the city was fully “liberated” from “Armenian
elements” except for a couple of hundred Armenians in mixed marriages.
During the military conflict over Nagorno Karabagh, the latter were
literally “fished out” for exchange with Azeri prisoners of war.
The revisiting of history by Azerbaijanis is no surprise to us. However, it
is appalling that in the same statement that my Azerbaijani colleague made
in the Security Council, he referred to these very events as “Soviet
invasion [when] on 20 January 1990, Soviet troops, 35,000 strong, stormed
the capital of Azerbaijan in a desperate, extremely brutal and yet futile
attempt to strangle the ever-growing independence movement and to stop the
demise of the communist regime in Azerbaijan”.
The Azeri leadership encouraged the ethnic cleansing and massacres of the
Armenians of Azerbaijan or the Armenians of Karabagh, directly and
indirectly, through creation of a conducive environment for violence and
impunity for such crimes. Unfortunately the same policy continues today
when, after the vicious act in Budapest, which was unequivocally condemned
by the international community, so-called “committees for the support” of
the Azerbaijani military officer are being created in Azerbaijan and the
perpetrator of a cowardly act is, right before our eyes, being transformed
into a hero.
Azerbaijan presents itself as the victim, giving a distorted picture of the
facts on the ground today. There are refugees and territorial losses on both
sides. The Armenian side has a refugee problem of 400,000 – almost equal to
Azerbaijan’s refugees. Indeed, today’s facts on the ground are the
consequences of a cycle of violence and intolerance that began with
Azerbaijan’s suppression of the calls to peaceful self-determination.
It is dangerous that the lessons of tragic history are being forgotten.
Moreover, Azerbaijan is ready to throw the 12-year efforts of international
mediation away and start from a “blank page”, as stated by its Foreign
Minister, threatening the peace process and the relative stability
established 10 years ago with a ceasefire. It seems we have come full circle
here – from Sumgait to Budapest.
Meanwhile, at every step Armenia has stated and demonstrated its
willingness to cooperate, wherever possible, to create and implement
confidence-building measures. Without building such confidence, neither side
can convince its own population to accept peace. At each step and every
opportunity Azerbaijan has refused to demonstrate any flexibility or
willingness to start a process of unfreezing the conflict in the minds of
its own population. It is the reduction of tension, hostility and pumped-up
hatred that will lead to resolution and peace, not the other way round.