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"Khojalu" Is A Speculative Political Capital For Official Baku

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  • "Khojalu" Is A Speculative Political Capital For Official Baku

    "KHOJALU" IS A SPECULATIVE POLITICAL CAPITAL FOR OFFICIAL BAKU

    Tert.am
    2012-02-15 12:35

    Azerbaijan has started its traditional anti-Armenian campaign related
    to the 1992 events in the settlement of Khojalu - a village in the
    territory of Nagorno Karabakh, which, in 1988-1990, was intensively
    populated by the Azerbaijani SSR authorities, in particular, with
    Meskhetian Turks from the Fergana valley of Uzbekistan, to give it
    the status of a town. The official propaganda doesn't disdain any
    means to make the Armenian party guilty of the tragedy and inject
    a new portion of hatred towards Armenians into the conscious of the
    international community and in the thought of its own people.

    On February 25-26, 1992, the authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh
    Republic organized a military operation for lifting the blockade off
    the airport near the settlement of Khojalu and for neutralizing the
    enemy's fire points just in Khojalu, from where, since the spring
    of 1991, the NKR settlements had been periodically attacked by the
    Azerbaijani OMON (Special Purpose Militia Detachments) groups and
    systematically shelled from Alazan, Crystal, and Grad rocket volley
    fire facilities. In the period before the neutralization of the fire
    points in Khojalu, over 20 Armenian civilians were killed and hundreds
    were kidnapped, cattle and small cattle numbered in thousands were
    driven away from the nearby collective and private farms.

    Due to the lasting blockade, the inflow of a great number of refugees,
    the lack of fuel, the forced stagnation of enterprises, the siege
    of the inter-regional roads and others, the situation in the NKR,
    and especially in its capital town of Stepanakert, worsened with the
    passage of time, the food products, medicines, and fuel were exhausted,
    and so lifting the blockade off the airport and neutralizing the
    enemy's fire points in Khojalu became a matter of life-and-death for
    the population of Nagorno Karabakh, which Azerbaijan tried to subject
    to death.

    The necessity of neutralizing the military base in Khojalu was,
    in particular, caused by the fact of concentration of manpower and
    offensive weapons there. The Azerbaijani authorities deployed numerous
    OMON units in Khojalu; besides, fighters of the Azerbaijani Popular
    Front were positioned there. The NKR leadership had to prevent the
    intended operation of the Azerbaijani armed forces on attacking the
    Armenian regional center of Askeran and later - the capital town
    of Stepanakert.

    The military operation on liberating Khojalu and deblocking the airport
    started on February 25, 1992, at 11:30 pm and ended on February 26,
    at 3:00 am. The units of the NKR self-defense forces left a corridor
    for the civilians to safely leave the military operations area,
    of which the Azerbaijani party had been informed beforehand. The
    corridor extended from the eastern end of Khojalu to the north-east,
    along the Karkar River bed and from the north end of the settlement
    to the north-east. But, the Azerbaijani authorities did nothing to
    evacuate the civilian population from the military activities area.

    During the military operation in Khojalu, the NKR self-defense forces
    freed 13 Armenian hostages, including one child and six women, took
    as trophies two Grad MM-21 volley fire rocket facilities, four Alazan
    facilities, one 100-milimeter howitzers, and three units of armored
    equipment. The NKR Artsakh Rescue Service discovered 11 bodies of
    civilians in Khojalu and its suburbs. The area, where shots with
    numerous bodies of killed civilians were made later, is situated
    in three kilometers from the town of Aghdam and 11 kilometers from
    Khojalu, and it had been under the permanent control of the Azerbaijani
    units up to Aghdam's fall in the summer of 1993, which excluded any
    access to the area for the units of the Nagorno Karabakh Army.

    The NKR authorities had informed the Azerbaijani party about the
    scheduled operation on neutralizing the fire points in Khojalu
    two months before its start, which was repeatedly confirmed even
    by the Azerbaijani officials, in particular, the then President,
    Ayaz Mutalibov. But, the column of civilians, as it was noted above,
    was fired at the approaches to Aghdam, on the border between the
    NKR and the Aghdam region of Azerbaijan, which was later confirmed
    by Mutalibov who interpreted this criminal act as the opposition's
    attempt to dismiss him from the position, making him answerable for
    all had happened.

    Later, the shots made by the Azerbaijani cameraman Chingiz Mustafaev,
    who was also given access to the place of exchanging the bodies of the
    deceased Armenians and Azerbaijanis, were disseminated. It is known
    that Mustafaev made the filming twice, with a two-day break. The film
    testifies that some bodies had been disfigured by the second filming.

    During the second flight over the area of mass killing of the people,
    March 2, 1992, the journalists noticed that the bodies' position on
    the land and the degree of the injuries and wounds had strikingly
    changed, in comparison with the first examination. And this was in
    the territory fully controlled by the Azerbaijani Popular Front till
    the summer of 1993. Just this very fact is thoroughly concealed by
    the Azerbaijani propagandists. It is quite obvious that the bodies'
    position was changed to put all the blame for the events on Armenians,
    making semblance as if the Khojalu inhabitants had been killed as a
    result of the fire from the Armenian side.

    This fact was so shocking for Mustafaev that he presented it to
    President Mutalibov who had obviously guessed the tragedy's reasons by
    the moment. Mutalibov answered with really prophetic words, "Chingiz,
    do not tell anybody that you have noticed that something is wrong. Or,
    you'll be killed".

    Doubting that is was committed by the Armenian party, Mustafaev
    started his own independent investigation. But, after his information
    appeared in DR-Press Information Agency in Moscow on the possible
    participation of the Azerbaijani party in the crimes against the
    Khojalu inhabitants, the journalist was killed not far from Aghdam,
    under unclear circumstances.

    By the way, the fate was shared by field commander Ala Yakub who had
    stated carelessly that "...he could cast light on the slaughter near
    Nakhijevanik (an Armenian village near Khojalu), as well as give
    sufficient details on the recent downfall of the helicopter over
    Karabakh, with statesmen in it", for which the Azerbaijani Popular
    Front, on coming to power in the summer of 1992, arrested him and
    brought to death in the prison ward...

    Czech journalist Dana Mazalova, who, by an oversight of the
    Azerbaijanis, was included in both groups of the mass media
    representatives, to whom the "bodies disfigured by Armenians" were
    demonstrated, noticed a considerable difference in the bodies'
    condition. Having visited the place immediately after the events,
    Mazalova didn't see any traces of barbarity on the bodies. And two
    days later, the journalists were shown the disfigured bodies already
    "prepared" for filming.

    Some details of the military operation on neutralization of the enemy's
    fire points in Khojalu are still vague, on which official Baku actively
    cashes in for achieving its political goals. The topic of 'Khojalu'
    is still one of the corner-stones of the Azerbaijani domestic and
    foreign information, or rather, misinformation policy in the context
    of the Karabakh issue. Meanwhile, the statements on and assessments
    of the Khojalu events made by some high-ranking Azerbaijani officials,
    human rights activists, journalists, and inhabitants of Khojalu refute
    completely the false theses of Baku.

    Thus, Azerbaijani human rights activist Arif Yunusov wrote: "The town
    and its citizens were deliberately sacrificed to the political goals"
    (Zercalo Azerbaijani newspaper, July 1992).

    Following is the testimony by Tamerlan Karaev, the then Chairman of the
    Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijani Republic: "The tragedy was committed
    by the Azerbaijani authorities, specifically - by a top official"
    (Mukhalifat Azerbaijani newspaper, April 28, 1992).

    Even Heydar Aliev admitted that "the former leadership of Azerbaijan
    is also guilty" of the Khojalu events. According to Bilik-Dunyasi
    Agency, yet in April 1992, he expressed an extremely cynical idea,
    "We'll benefit from the bloodshed. We shouldn't interfere in the
    course of the events".

    Later, when representatives of the Popular Front came to power,
    Azerbaijani former Minister of National Security Vagif Guseynov
    stated shortly before his arrest: "The January events of 1990 in
    Baku and the events in Khojalu are the doing of the same people",
    hinting at some political figures from the Azerbaijani Popular Front.

    The abovementioned facts testify unambiguously that the Azerbaijani
    party is guilty of the civilians' killing in Khojalu, having committed
    a monstrous crime against its own people for political intrigues and
    power struggle.

    It is noteworthy that the number of victims stated by the Azerbaijani
    party increases from year to year. A few days after the neutralization
    of the fire points in Khojalu, the number of casualties stated by
    the Azerbaijani officials made 100, increasing in a week to 1234;
    the parliamentary commission "corrected" it to 450, and in Heydar
    Aliev's decree "On the Azerbaijani Genocide" the casualties were
    estimated at thousands.

    Meanwhile, by the start of the military operation in Khojalu the
    settlement had not comprised such a number of civilians, which is,
    by the way, confirmed even by the Azerbaijani official sources. The
    majority of about 2000-2500 inhabitants of Khojalu, or those who
    really lived there and were not just registered during its intensive
    construction for giving it the status of a town, had left the village
    beforehand.

    Thus, in late April 1993, at the CSCE Conference in Prague, the
    AR MFA disseminated document #249 entitled as "The list of the
    Azerbaijani-populated and mixed villages occupied by the Armenian
    armed forces". In this document, the 'population' column stated 855
    inhabitants for 'Khojalu'.

    In the first decade of March 1992, Azerbaijani journalists Ilya
    Balakhanov and Vugar Khalilov brought to the office of Memorial
    Human Rights Center a videocassette with the recording of the place
    of Khojalu inhabitants' killing made by Baku TV reporters from a
    military helicopter and just in place. Actually, all those present
    in the office admitted that the number of the casualties in the video
    didn't exceed 50-60 people.

    It should also be noted that the NKR Foreign Ministry disclosed a false
    photo placed at some Azerbaijani websites, including their honorable
    webpage of The Heydar Aliev Fund, which allegedly testifies to mass
    killings of Azerbaijanis in Khojalu. In fact, the photo has a direct
    relationship to the events in Kosovo. The Azerbaijani propaganda
    uses also other false materials, in particular, photos of the Kurdish
    pogroms' victims in Turkey, to mislead those uninformed.

    A month after his resignation, Mutalibov gave an interview to Czech
    journalist Dana Mazalova, which was published in the Nezavisimaya
    Gazeta. Speaking of Khojalu, Mutalibov noted, "According to the
    Khojalu inhabitants who escaped, all this was organized to dismiss me.

    Some forces acted to discredit the President. I don't think that
    the Armenians, who act very skillfully and accurately in similar
    situations, could let the Azerbaijanis gain any documents exposing them
    in fascist actions... The general reasoning is that a corridor for the
    people to escape was really left by the Armenians. Then why did they
    need to fire? Especially in the area near Aghdam, where sufficient
    forces were available for coming out and assisting the people".

    About 10 years later, the Azerbaijani ex-president confirmed his own
    idea in an interview to Novoye Vremya magazine, "The massacre of the
    Khojalu inhabitants was obviously organized by somebody for achieving
    coup d'etat in Azerbaijan".

    In February 2005, Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullaev from
    Monitoring independent magazine spent ten days in the NKR, describing
    his visit in his materials and interviews. He also dared to doubt the
    truthfulness of Baku's official version on the death of some Khojalu
    inhabitants, "...Once, ten years ago, I met with the Khojalu refugees,
    temporarily living in Naftalan, who frankly told me... that a few
    days before the attack, the Armenians, with the help of loudspeakers,
    kept warning the population of the scheduled operation, suggesting
    the civilians to leave the settlement and break out of encirclement
    via a humanitarian corridor, along the Karkar River. Even according
    to the Khojalu people, they took advantage of this corridor and the
    Armenian soldiers on the other side of the corridor didn't really
    fire at them... Getting acquainted with the geographical area, I can
    confidently say that the inventions on the lack of an Armenian corridor
    have no grounds. The corridor really existed; otherwise, the Khojalu
    people, fully encircled and isolated from the outer world, couldn't
    have run the rings and broken out of encirclement. But, having run the
    area over the Karkar River, the refugees divided into groups and, for
    some reason, a part of them made their way to Nakhijevanik. Apparently,
    the APF battalions sought more blood on their way to Mutalibov's
    dismissal and not the liberation of the Khojalu inhabitants".

    A few days after the Monitor's publication of Eynulla Fatullaev's
    first report from Karabakh, the magazine's editor, Elmar Guseynov,
    was shot, March 2, 2005, at the entrance into his house in Baku
    by a stranger. And Eynulla Fatullaev was convicted of a series of
    accusations, including of high treason...

    Azerbaijani former Minister of Defense Ragim Gaziev also confirms
    that "a trap was prepared for Mutalibov in Khojalu". In this way, the
    organizers of the mass massacre of the Khojalu inhabitants achieved two
    goals at once - dismissed Mutalibov, who became needless after the USSR
    collapse, and gained a reason for starting a noisy campaign on accusing
    the Armenians of inhuman war methods. The fact that since February
    13, the Azerbaijani army had been systematically firing Grad rockets
    aimed at destroying the town of Stepanakert with its 55-thousand
    inhabitants and other nearby Armenian settlements was pushed back.

    A Khojalu woman said in her interview to the Helsinki Watch on
    April 28, 1992, "The Armenians delivered an ultimatum... that it was
    better for the Khojalu inhabitants to leave the town with a white
    flag. Alif Gajiev (leader of the Khojalu defense) informed us about it
    on February 15 (10 days before the attack), but this didn't frighten
    either me or the rest. We didn't believe at all that they would be
    able to capture Khojalu".

    However, following these warnings, the majority of the civil population
    of Khojalu, being informed of the planned operation, moved to a safe
    place beforehand. The mass out-migration of the Khojalu population
    was widely covered by the Azerbaijani TV and Radio. The Azerbaijani
    mass media created deliberately a negative attitude to those leaving
    Khojalu and disgraced them constantly. We should note that Khojalu,
    which was turned into a town, was first left just by the people who
    had been forcedly moved here, mainly Meskhetian Turks, though they
    were constantly obstructed. Moreover, the municipal administration
    of Khojalu, which had been warned by the Armenian party, asked for
    assistance in evacuation of the population, but in vain. The Khojalu
    Mayor noted in his interview to Megapolis-Express Moscow newspaper that
    "after getting the news on the expected operation on the town capture
    I asked Aghdam to send helicopters for evacuation of the old people,
    women, and children. We were assured that a deblocking operation
    was being prepared. But, no assistance was provided". And board
    member of the APF Aghdam branch R. Gajuev stated, "We could help the
    Khojalu people, having the corresponding forces and abilities. But,
    the republican leaders wanted to demonstrate to the people that they
    had no forces, wishing to call upon the CIS Army for help also to
    suppress the opposition with its support".

    As we see, the Khojalu inhabitants were merely left at the mercy
    of fate; moreover, they were destined to become victims of a power
    struggle.

    However, by the start of the military operation, part of the
    civil population of Khojalu had left the settlement, and by late
    February 1992, according to different sources, about 1,000-2,500
    people had stayed there, the majority of them making soldiers of the
    Azerbaijani armed forces. Investigating the destructions in Khojalu,
    the observers of Memorial Human Rights Center confirmed the fact of
    artillery shelling and not persistent street battles, which could
    have resulted in numerous casualties. It should also be noted that the
    corresponding order, regulating the behavior of the NKR self-defense
    forces, strictly prohibited any violence against the enemy's civilians.

    All the civilians left in Khojalu were moved to Stepanakert, and a few
    days later, according to their will and without any conditions, they
    were passed to the Azerbaijani party. After a thorough investigation,
    the fact of voluntary passing of the Khojalu citizens to Azerbaijan
    was confirmed in the conclusion of Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights
    Center, as well as testified in the documentary film of Petersburg
    journalist Svetlana Kulchitskaya.

    After the operation, the teams of Artsakh Republican Rescue Service,
    besides members of the armed detachments dresses in military uniforms,
    found 11 civilians' bodies, including a child and four women,
    in Khojalu and its suburbs. So, the assertion of the Azerbaijani
    party on the alleged mass massacre of Azerbaijani civilians in
    Khojalu is exposed. This is also testified by radio interceptions
    of the Azerbaijani servicemen in Aghdam, later published even in the
    Azerbaijani mass media.

    It is noted in the report of Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center
    that a state forensic medical examination of 181 bodies (130 men and
    51 women, including 13 children) was made in Aghdam, where all the
    refugees came. The experts' conclusion testifies that 151 people's
    death was caused by bullet wounds, 20 people's - by missile wounds,
    10 people's - by blow with a blunt item. The NKR official structures
    informed the observers that they had passed to Aghdam about 130
    bodies (all those killed in Khojalu and near Nakhijevanik), 96 of
    which were buried in Aghdam, and the bodies of the rest were taken
    by their relatives.

    The comparison of the information of different sources, including the
    Azerbaijani ones, convincingly demonstrates that the NKR self-defense
    forces didn't plan and especially didn't carry out any actions on
    mass massacre of the civilians in the settlement of Khojalu.

    It should also be noted that as of February 26, 47 Armenians were
    being held hostages in Khojalu, but only 13 were left there after
    the operation (including 6 women and a child); the rest 34 hostages
    were taken by the Azerbaijanis in an unknown direction and there
    is no information confirming their further stay in the Azerbaijani
    imprisonment.

    Summarizing the abovementioned, we can state that the inhabitants of
    Khojalu became hostages of the dirty games of the Baku authorities
    who later turned this tragedy into a speculative political capital.

    Official Baku tries to present the Azerbaijani authorities' betrayal
    of the Khojalu inhabitants as Armenians' revenge for the bloody
    bacchanalia in Sumgait. And the entire propaganda is realized with
    expressive insinuations and aggravation of the ethnic intolerance and
    hatred towards Armenians. Regularly launching the issue of 'Khojalu',
    official Baku tries to draw the attention of the international
    community away from the Armenian massacres in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad,
    Khanlar, and other settlements of Azerbaijan, in the whole territory
    of which open extermination of Armenians was, actually, carried
    out; it also took place in the borderline settlements of the NKR, in
    particular, Maragha village where, in April 1992, the invaded subunits
    of the Azerbaijani regular army fiercely killed about 100 civilians.

    Unfortunately, the crimes committed by Azerbaijan are not given yet
    a corresponding assessment by the international community.

    Ministry of Foreign Affairs Nagorno-Karabakh Republic NKR, Stepanakert,
    Azatamartikneri 28

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