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BLACK ANNIVERSARY FOR ARMENIANS OF BAKU: SOVIET TROOPS QUASHED POGROMS 22 YEARS AGO TODAY
By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow
News | 20.01.12 | 13:17
University students laying a wreath at the memorial to the victims
of Sumgait
Twenty two years have passed since the Baku pogroms and the
perpetrators are still unpunished. No legal proceeding ever took place
calling to account all those political forces and individuals guilty
of mass murder. Violently displaced Armenian refugees never received
any compensation for the moral and/or material damage they'd suffered.
The 5-day mass pogroms (January 13-19, 1990) of the Armenian population
of Baku stopped right before the Soviet troops entered the city on
January 20.
"For the first time in all of the history of the Soviet Union, openly,
in the daylight and in front of everyone, uncontrolled massacres were
perpetrated and no one prevented or interfered. And although Soviet
Russia wasn't the initiator, both the soviet government and Azerbaijani
Popular Front party board were well informed about it," says Grigory
Ayvazyan, president of the Assembly of Azerbaijani Armenians.
No investigation has been conducted to tell the exact death toll.
Various sources claim it exceeded 400.
Lida Harutyunova, who escaped from Baku in 1990 and settled in Armenia,
says that in 1988 after the Sumgait tragedy they moved to Armenia
but in 1989 returned to Baku together with her husband to collect
their belongings.
"Six people with knives attacked our house, told us that if we gave
them the certificate of ownership for the house and 5,000 rubles,
they wouldn't hurt us. So we were unable to bring anything with us,
only managed to stay alive," Harutyunova recalls.
Pogoms in Baku started in October-November of 1988, they stopped for
a while and resumed in August-September of 1989; the third and final
stage happened in 1990.
On January 17, 1990 the European Parliamentary passed a resolution
calling upon the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers and the
European Council to protect Armenians and demand from the Soviet
government to show immediate help to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On
January 18 a group of American senators address a letter to Mikhail
Gorbachev, expressing their concern over the Baku pogroms and calling
for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.
Heritage party MP Larisa Alaverdyan says that while after the Sumgait
massacre a Soviet court held judicial procedures - even if fictional,
but in case with Baku pogroms only protocols were drawn up for a few
cases stating assault, looting or beatings, that's all.
"We have to understand that before it's too late all the cases have
to be legally processed and presented to the international community
with both political and moral aspects," says Alaverdyan.
For three years now the statement drafted by Alaverdyan, defining
Azerbaijan's criminal actions of 1988-1994 against Armenians as
genocide, has been submitted to the parliament but the majority of
law-makers treat it negatively.
"Unfortunately, up until today the Armenian side has not investigated
the pogroms perpetrated by Azerbaijan against Armenians neither has
it ever properly addressed the issue in legal or historical terms,"
she says.
By Armenia's Migration Agency data, some 418,000 Armenians of
Azerbaijan migrated to Armenia 300,000 of whom now live here, the
rest have further moved to other countries.
By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow
News | 20.01.12 | 13:17
University students laying a wreath at the memorial to the victims
of Sumgait
Twenty two years have passed since the Baku pogroms and the
perpetrators are still unpunished. No legal proceeding ever took place
calling to account all those political forces and individuals guilty
of mass murder. Violently displaced Armenian refugees never received
any compensation for the moral and/or material damage they'd suffered.
The 5-day mass pogroms (January 13-19, 1990) of the Armenian population
of Baku stopped right before the Soviet troops entered the city on
January 20.
"For the first time in all of the history of the Soviet Union, openly,
in the daylight and in front of everyone, uncontrolled massacres were
perpetrated and no one prevented or interfered. And although Soviet
Russia wasn't the initiator, both the soviet government and Azerbaijani
Popular Front party board were well informed about it," says Grigory
Ayvazyan, president of the Assembly of Azerbaijani Armenians.
No investigation has been conducted to tell the exact death toll.
Various sources claim it exceeded 400.
Lida Harutyunova, who escaped from Baku in 1990 and settled in Armenia,
says that in 1988 after the Sumgait tragedy they moved to Armenia
but in 1989 returned to Baku together with her husband to collect
their belongings.
"Six people with knives attacked our house, told us that if we gave
them the certificate of ownership for the house and 5,000 rubles,
they wouldn't hurt us. So we were unable to bring anything with us,
only managed to stay alive," Harutyunova recalls.
Pogoms in Baku started in October-November of 1988, they stopped for
a while and resumed in August-September of 1989; the third and final
stage happened in 1990.
On January 17, 1990 the European Parliamentary passed a resolution
calling upon the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers and the
European Council to protect Armenians and demand from the Soviet
government to show immediate help to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On
January 18 a group of American senators address a letter to Mikhail
Gorbachev, expressing their concern over the Baku pogroms and calling
for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.
Heritage party MP Larisa Alaverdyan says that while after the Sumgait
massacre a Soviet court held judicial procedures - even if fictional,
but in case with Baku pogroms only protocols were drawn up for a few
cases stating assault, looting or beatings, that's all.
"We have to understand that before it's too late all the cases have
to be legally processed and presented to the international community
with both political and moral aspects," says Alaverdyan.
For three years now the statement drafted by Alaverdyan, defining
Azerbaijan's criminal actions of 1988-1994 against Armenians as
genocide, has been submitted to the parliament but the majority of
law-makers treat it negatively.
"Unfortunately, up until today the Armenian side has not investigated
the pogroms perpetrated by Azerbaijan against Armenians neither has
it ever properly addressed the issue in legal or historical terms,"
she says.
By Armenia's Migration Agency data, some 418,000 Armenians of
Azerbaijan migrated to Armenia 300,000 of whom now live here, the
rest have further moved to other countries.