ArmInfo. During studying the crime of 30 years ago, a simple and human question arises: how could the same people undergo pogroms in the city three times, the cornerstones of which it laid with his own hands?
According to the information received by ArmInfo, the Armenian parliament stated this on January 18 in a speech at a joint special meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee on Cooperation between the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh and the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia , dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the pogroms in Baku, NKR Speaker Ashot Ghoulyan stated.
The meeting was chaired by the Speaker of the Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan and the Head of the National Assembly of Artsakh Ashot Ghoulyan. At the beginning of the meeting, those present honored with a minute of silence the memory of those who died during the events mentioned.
"There is only one answer - a creative and constructive Armenian did not lose his humanity, did not give up his heritage, each time overcoming his pain. The incident in Baku in 1990 was a crime against humanity, organized and carried out by the authorities of a neighboring country. For a week, the Armenians in Baku was subjected to humiliation, torture and pogroms in their homes, at workplaces, in educational and other institutions, as a result of which hundreds of people died and thousands more left, which was concealed by the authorities of a neighboring country from the beginning.
These actions were part of the suppression of the full-fledged policy of the Artsakh Armenians who fought for freedom in 1988, which manifested itself in February 1988 in Sumgait, in November in Gandzak- Kirovabad, and in 1990 in Baku. Unfortunately, after 30 years, Azerbaijan continues to shirk responsibility for its past, directing the arrows of the brutal January days in a different direction and presenting itself as a victim. Armenianphobia continues to be a priority of the policy of Azerbaijan, which is reflected even in the fields of education, science, sports and culture. In recent days, we have witnessed another manifestation of it, when an Azerbaijani singer refused to perform on the same stage with an Armenian singer. What is this if not the result of a government-sponsored and xenophobic policy?
Against the background of persistent efforts to present Baku as an intercultural capital, cultural monuments that are the cultural heritage of the Armenian and other peoples are muffled. It is no coincidence that not only thousands of Armenians, but also Armenian cultural values in Baku became victims of the tragic events of 1990. A couple of days before the pogroms, "Grigor Lusavorich" church was burned, and thousands of" khachkars" and cemeteries were destroyed.
Although the crime of the late 20th century was recorded and condemned by the international community, its organizers and perpetrators were not held liable. On the other hand, people who left Baku and took refuge in Artsakh did not receive international status and support. The Artsakh community constantly called on the international community, international organizations and parliamentary structures to give a legal assessment of what had happened and to prevent the policy of Armenianphobia carried out in Azerbaijan at the state level. Artsakh will be consistent in the issue of holding the organizers and performers of the genocide committed against Armenians in different settlements of Azerbaijan accountable>, Ashot Ghoulyan said.
In turn, Ararat Mirzoyan stated that exactly 30 years ago these days in the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, Baku, with the obvious permission and assistance of the authorities, events occurred that, unfortunately, are known to us from history.
<People were subjected to inhuman torture, thousands were forced to leave their homes and continue to live in refugee status. These people were killed, tortured and persecuted only because they were Armenians. A few days later, the Supreme Council of Soviet Armenia stated that the pogroms in Baku were an obvious manifestation of the chauvinistic policy of Soviet Azerbaijan. Mockery of fate can be called the fact that they became the third only during the 20th century in Baku, which gained fame as the center of multiculturalism. The same events in exactly the same scenario occurred in the same city also in 1905 and 1918.
Shortly before the Baku pogroms, a massacre of the Armenian population took place in Sumgait and Kirovabad-Gandzak. Shortly after the pogroms in Baku, the massacre in Maraga and elsewhere began.
Armenianphobia manifested itself in the 21st century, the Azerbaijani authorities proclaimed the murderer Ramil Safarov a national hero, who killed an Armenian soldier with an ax, but this did not end there, and civilians were brutally killed in Talish in 2016. Evidence of this policy can be found throughout Azerbaijan: from textbooks to statements by the country's president, in which the entire Armenian people are declared the enemy of the people of Azerbaijan to be destroyed. Pogroms in Baku were only part of the long-term anti-Armenian policy of the authorities. They were preceded by clearly organized steps dating back to the 1980s, mainly social, cultural, educational, which forced Armenians to leave their homes and leave Baku, as a result of which the Armenian population of Baku was already significantly reduced at that time ... I want to note that despite the policies of the Azerbaijani authorities in those days, there were Azerbaijanis in Baku who helped the Armenians escape from death. I want to heartily, sincerely thank these individuals and urge them to also voice their memories of these pogroms, break the wall of Armenianophobia to prevent a recurrence of such events. In this way, they can also ensure their own security. In conclusion, as the President of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, I again want to state and confirm that all the pogroms in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, the periodic nature of these pogroms, their repeated occurrence over the course of one century, other previous and subsequent manifestations of the anti-Armenian policy make physically safe impossible the existence of Armenians under the sovereignty of Azerbaijan. Consequently, the only possible way of the existence of Armenians in Artsakh is the self-determination of Artsakh, and Armenia is the guarantor of the realization of this right of the Artsakh people>, Mirzoyan noted.