ON THE AZERBAIJANI AUTHORITIES’ POLICY OF DISTORTING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ANTI-ARMENIAN POGROMS AND SUBSEQUENT DEPLOYMENT OF TROOPS IN BAKU IN JANUARY 1990
The January 2014 marks the 24th anniversary of the massacres of
Armenians in Baku. These tragic events were organized by the
Azerbaijani Popular Front with the criminal connivance of the
Azerbaijan SSR and USSR leadership. In the capital city of Azerbaijan
hundreds of Armenians were killed by extremely brutal methods. They
were doused with petrol and to the applause of the fanatic mob
publicly burnt alive in the streets of Baku, defenseless children,
women and elderly people were thrown from the upper floors of houses
with the seizure of their apartments and property etc. The Armenian
community of Baku, by 1988 numbering around 300 thousand people and
playing a prominent role in Azerbaijan’s economic and cultural life,
ceased to exist, its surviving members lost everything and became
refugees. Apart from Armenians, there were Russians, Ukrainians,
Jews, as well as Azerbaijanis having dared to save some Armenians
who suffered from the Azerbaijani brutalized thugs.
These egregious crimes against humanity were never condemned.
Moreover, the Azerbaijan SSR leadership, entering into criminal
conspiracy with the central authorities, refused to investigate them.
Baku declined to publish the archival materials on the January events,
and subsequently – under Aliyev father and son – did not venture,
at least formally, to call for responsibility and institute court
proceedings against whoever it may be.
Official Baku continues its targeted policy of falsifying the
history and tries, playing up to anti-Russian sentiments, to depict
the above-mentioned events as an end-in-itself attempt by the Union
center “to drown in the blood the national liberation movement of
the Azerbaijani nation for its secession from the USSR”. Meanwhile,
the results of the USSR-wide referendum of 17 March, 1991, when
more than 70 % of all the Azerbaijan SSR population voted in favor
of maintaining the Soviet Union, are indicative of the contradiction
of this postulate to historical facts and elementary logic.
The “Plan of activities on commemorating the 24th anniversary of the
January 20 tragedy”, recently approved by the Head of Administration
of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan is a symptomatic
manifestation of the Azerbaijani authorities’ falsification
policy. It is based on the attempt by the direct successor of the
criminal state to exploit the traditions and rites of commemorating
victims of genocides so as to hide the horrific truth about the mass
atrocities by the thugs from the Azerbaijani Popular Front towards
the peaceful Armenian population of Baku in January 1990. Thereby,
the victims are cynically put on a par with their torturers, many
of whom at present are among the key actors in the political life of
the Republic of Azerbaijan.
This approach organically stems from Azerbaijan’s unconstructive
policy, a vivid example of which is the statement by Ilham Aliyev
at a Government Session of Azerbaijan on January 9, 2014 on the use
of Azerbaijan’s military machine for the resolution of the Karabakh
conflict, in case Armenia refuses to make unilateral concessions
imposed by Baku. At the same time, the arms race initiated by Baku
authorities forces the Armenian sides to take measures to maintain
the guaranteed balance of power. Meanwhile, the only reasonable way
to resolve the Karabakh conflict is the creation of an atmosphere
of mutual trust among the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic and the Republic of Azerbaijan, based – as is the case
with the proposal for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – on the
mutual recognition of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh
Republic established as a result of the 1991 law-governed referendum
in accordance with Perestroika Law “On Procedures for Regulation
of Issues Related to Separation of Soviet Republics from the USSR”
– before the Alma-Ata Declaration on the official dissolution of
the USSR, and the return of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to the
negotiation table as a full party.
Paying tribute to the memory of the innocent victims of the January
pogroms and massacres, the Political Science Association of Armenia
condemns the sacrilegious policy by the Azerbaijani leadership of
distorting the truth about the January massacres of Armenians in
1990, as well as the subsequent deployment of troops, and urges the
international community not to succumb to the propaganda fabrications
and manipulations by the Azerbaijani authorities. The Political Science
Association of Armenia draws the attention of the UN, the Council of
Europe, the European Union, the OSCE, Heads of the member states of
these international organizations and, first and foremost, the OCSE
Minsk Group co-Chairs to preventing the malicious perversions by the
Azerbaijani authorities of the historical truth with profanation of
the memory of the true victims of the January 1990 bloody events in
Baku. We also appeal to all the honest sons and daughters of the
Azerbaijani nation to face their own history, thus paving the way
for the democratic development of Azerbaijan and the establishment
of lasting peace between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples on the
basis of principles of international law and universal human values.