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.