SHUSHI FOREVER: FREE, GREEN AND BEAUTIFUL
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 16:33:20 – 17/05/2012
On 3rd February 1992, together with Lord Shannon ( as Chairman ),
Sir Anthony Buck (then Junior Minister of the Naval Forces during Mrs
Thatcher’s Premiership ) and the Lord Molloy of Ealing (Labour Peer),
we founded and registered the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary
Group in the British Parliament.
This was the FIRST Armenia-Host Country Parliamentary Group in
existence.
Immediately, upon the opening of the Armenian Embassy in London,
His Excellency Dr Armen Sarkissian, First ever Armenian Ambassador in
the world, became the Patron of the Group, of which he has remained
to this date its President-Elect .
By then , Baroness Cox of Queensbury , just back from her visit
with Andrei Sakharov and other scholars who were sent to observe
and report on the war in Karabagh, advocating and lobbying fiercely
against the aggression and the killings in Karabagh, was invited to
join the Group and has been, for the past nine years, its Chairman .
I remember attending Lectures by Baroness Cox where people (even
some Armenians! ) were hearing FOR THE FIRST TIME about the war in
Karabagh and the dire situation there.
Although the Group was initially created to provide reciprocated
interest and friendly relations between the Parliamentarians of both
countries, but our immediate task became one of education: as the
great majority of British Parliamentarians didn’t even know if such
country as Armenia was still in existence !
I remember 1993 when I had sent an invitation to a very illustrious
Parliamentarian: the Rt Hon Sir Marcus Fox MP who was the Chairman
of the 1922 Select Committee, asking him if he would like to join
the Group . His immediate response arrived: ‘I will be delighted
to join the British-AMERICAN All-Party Group ‘!!!!! First I did not
correct him but when a year later I met him , clarified his mistake
and thanked him for his support , he laughingly said … ‘ this is
nothing : often Dispatches sent from the Foreign Office to Azerbaijan
end up in Abijan !!!!!!!’
Every single day instructive letters, circulars, booklets and
statements were sent to our Members and by 1995 we had decided to
take a Parliamentary Delegation to Armenia and Karabagh.
The Members of the Delegation were: (in picture ONE) the Rt Hon
Baroness Seer (Leader of the Liberal-Democrat Party at the House of
Lords , 3rd from left) , Sir Trevor Skeet MP ( Conservative, second
from left ) Mr Max Madden MP (Labour, first left), Mr John Coleman
(Editor of the New European quarterly, fourth left) , Lord Shannon
(standing far right with a bomb in his hand) and of course, myself
as organiser of the visit.
The unexploded bombs captured by the Karabagh Army and seen in picture
2 are important because they carry the number-markings issued by NATO.
These were bombs given by NATO to Turkey ( as Azerbaijan was NOT
a member of NATO) and passed on from Turkey to their cousins , the
Azeris who were killing the Karabagh Armenian population with these
bombs . Baroness Seer was adamant that we should take them with us
to London, display them on the Dispatch Desk of Parliament and ask
the British Government to question and condemn the Turkish actions.
It took extreme arguing and pleading by Lord Shannon, Sir Trevor Skeet
and Max Madden for Baroness Seer to agree that it would be hasardous to
carry the bombs through Armenian and British Customs. But she insisted
to bring the pictures and ask about it in the House of Lords . Which
she did.
Picture 5 is showing a tank captured by the Karabagh Army (during the
fighting, it was customary for the Karabagh Boys to capture the Azeri
tanks, repair them and re-use them against the Azeris ) . But, in
addition to the Azeri flag, the tank carries the image of a grey wolf.
The grey wolf is the logo of the Turkish Army and this picture helped
prove the case in British Parliament, that Turkey was arming and
helping the Azeris in the killings. Baroness Seer referred at length
to the pictures in the Debate that followed in the House of Lords.
Pictures 6 and 3 are showing the Delegation in Karabagh, with their
Hosts, the Karabagh Authorities and Members of Government.
One can see in picture 4 Baroness Seer and the Members of the
Delegation at the top of a mountain: this is where the Church in SHUSHI
is situated , used as a warehouse where the Azeris were housing their
ammunitions using it to bomb and destroy Stepanaguerd, every day of the
week , relentlessly, firing over 400 Grad Missiles a day , without any
fear or concern about retaliation , secured in their knowledge that no
Armenian would ever desecrate its own Christian Church and attack it .
It was explained to the Delegation how the Karabagh Special Corps
had climbed – using only their hands and fingers as not to make any
noise and wake up the enemy- the 285 meters high mountain , in the
cover of darkness and in absolute silence to surprise the Azeris and
liberate SHUSHI and its beautiful Church . We entered that Church and
prayed in silence , praying for all who had perished , for all who were
engaged in its defence and for all who were to live there and prosper
it .That evening , during dinner, Baroness Seer proposed a Toast :
‘SHUSHI Forever and may it remain FREE, green and beautiful’.
We returned to London. The next day Baroness Seer had been invited
to her former school, Croydon High School. The girls had placed a
bouquet of roses on the chair where she had been sitting, as a pupil,
years ago. She told me that – answering to their questions about her
recent travel – she had described to these young girls what she had
seen in Armenia and Karabagh: darkness, poverty, shortage of every
imaginable commodity but, most of all, COURAGE, courage and an immense
LOVE for their Motherland, strength in their determination and faith
in their victory. She told me with great emotion in her voice : I
understand and appreciate why your people have challenged death and
sacrificed themselves for this piece of land : this is your land,
it belongs to your people and no matter what the future holds, you
must fight for it and protect it for your future generations .
The young girls, deeply moved by her words, had emptied their pockets
and gathered £107.35 of their own pocket money to be sent to children
in SUSHI.
Sadly Baroness Seer passed away, Max Madden resigned his seat in
Parliament, Sir Trevor Skeet was not re-elected and, during the
‘Hereditary Purges’ by Prime Minister Blair in the House of Lords,
over 900 Lords, Peers and Peeresses lost their seats , among them
our Chairman , Lord Shannon.
But seeing the Celebrations in Armenia, in Karabagh and in the entire
Armenian Diaspora last week, witnessing the 20th Anniversary of the
Liberation of Shushi, I remember what Baroness Seer had proposed
one evening, during dinner in Stepanaguerd and what we had toasted,
way back in 1995 : SHUSHI FOREVER. FREE . GREEN and BEAUTIFUL.
May she remain so.
Odette Bazil
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/society26232.html