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Letter of the ROA Permanent UN Rep to the UN Sec Gen. & Sec. Council

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  • Letter of the ROA Permanent UN Rep to the UN Sec Gen. & Sec. Council

    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.
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