Skip to content or view screen version

Bloody Aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan

Mahmud Ekeler | 19.07.2003 00:14 | Anti-militarism | Anti-racism | Repression | World

At the end of the 20th century human mankind became faced with an unprecedented recidivism of the medieval barbarity - the mass expulsion of the people from their home places and the direct genocide towards the whole people. Azerbaijan turned out to be one of such victims. In 1987 Armenia raised a problem of joining the Nagorny-Karabakh Region of the Azerbaijan Republic to Armenia and a range of actions were undertaken by Armenia in this respect.
The wave of Armenian chauvinism raised in connection with the forced problem of "reunion" of Nagorny-Karabakh and even which does not have common borders on Armenia, led to the mass violations of human rights of Azeris living in Armenia.

After this Armenians began the process of the mass expulsion and abuse of over 200,000 Azeris, who had lived on the lands belonging today to Armenia, for centuries. It was accompanied by a wide-scale changing of the names of the settlements having historical Azerbaijanian names into the ethnically Armenian ones. It was a stage of "an ethnic purge" in Armenia. In 1988 - 1989 the first wave of the refugees came to Azerbaijan from Armenia. They were old men, women and children, who were beaten, crippled, frost - bitten and fled their own home places to save only their own life. These refugees do not have normal living conditions up to the present.
Since then during more than 10 years Armenia has been realizing the plans of the armed occupation of the Azerbaijan territory in front of the world community with the purpose of joining the Nagorny-Karabakh Region of the Azerbaijan Republic to Armenia. After the stage of "purge" Armenia started a new stage of ethnic combing out in Nagorny-Karabakh where the Azeris were driven out successively. At this stage one could observe a mass breaching of the human rights up to killing. At first with the assistance of Political Bureau of the former USSR Nagorny-Karabakh was seized from Azerbaijan and since then for achieving its goals Armenia chose the methods of military aggression. Since Azerbaijan did not have its independent Azerbaijan army, at that time the actions of the armed forces of Armenia were dirested against civilians and accompanied by the abominable crimes.
One of the inhuman crimes against Azerbaijan people was a tragedy of the Khojali town, which was captured by the Armenia armed forces in February 1992. As a result of the barbarian act of vandalism the number of the killed and frozen Khojalians exceeded over 1000 people. There were noted the facts of the abominable insultations of the living and dead people. The majority of the killed people were women, old men and children. The victims of Khojali are vivid examples of pursuing a policy of genocide and ethnic cleaning towards Azerbaijan people.
In May 1992 after the tragic Khojali events the armed forces of Armenia captured the last Azerbaijan town of Shusha. Thus the ethnic cleaning of Nagorny - Karabakh from Azeris which started in 1989, was completely finished by Armenian separatists.
After capturing the town of Shusha and the Shusha Region the armed forces of Armenia occupied the Lachin Region of the Azerbaijan Republic in 2 directions - from the territory of the Republic of Armenia and from the Nagorny-Karabakh Republic of Azerbaijan. Thereby according to the international normative deeds this non - declared war began to be qualified as direct aggression.
In summer 1992 SCCE began to intensify its activity and at last the talks between the two countries started. Despite the fact that the talks did not lead to any result they gave a chance to stabilize the situation to a certain extent. But all the efforts ended in another provocation of the Armenian aggressor. So in April 1993 the Kelbajar region of the Azerbaijan Republic was captured by the armed forces of Armenia in two directions - from the direction of Aghdara region and from the territory of Armenia. After the capturing of the Kelbajar region, in spite of all the hypocritical statements of Armenian leaders about the adherence to a peaceful regulation of the conflict, the Armenian military clique occupied the Aghdam region of Azerbaijan. In October and November of 1993 the armed forces of the Armenian Republic occupied the regions of the Azerbaijan Republic, such as Fizuli, Jebrail and Zangelan. Thereby the aggressor gained the state frontier of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Azeris have been driven out from all the territories occupied by the Armenian aggressors. The vast territories, which form 1/5 of the republic, have been transformed into a "dead zone", where only the armed forces play the masters.
As result of the aggressive activities of the armed forces of Armenia there was much destruction not only in Nagorny-Karabakh, but in the Aghstafa, Gazakh, Gedabey regions and in Sedarek region of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic as well. The number of killed people among civilians particularly among women, old men, and children was over 20,000.
The aggressive policy of the Armenia republic shakes the efforts undertaken by different international organizations and a number of countries for peaceful solution of the problem. The main reason of the failure of the peace-making activity on stabilization of the situation in the region is that the Armenian side refuses to admit the fact of the direct aggression of the Armenia republic against sovereign Azerbaijan. Numerous missions on facts collecting of such competent organizations as UN and CSCE based their conclusion upon the complexity of admitting the fact of the direct involvement of Armenia armed forces into the conflict. However, Azerbaijan possesses necessary evidences and has presented them to the mediators and competent international organizations more than once.
So the facts of the military nature need to be specifically qualified, but how can one refute the well-known political juridical acts affirming the realization of political and military aggression of the Republic of Armenia against Azerbaijan, e.g. such as:
The resolution on "Reunion of Armenia to Nagorny-Karabakh" which was adopted on December 1, 1989 by the Parliament of Armenia is the breach of the standards of the international law and has not been rescinded up to these days;
In the territory of the Nagorny-Karabakh of Azerbaijan the elections to the Parliament of the Republic of Armenia were held;
The Parliament made a decision not to admit any normative statement on belonging of Nagorny-Karabakh to Azerbaijan Republic;
Proclaiming its sovereignty Armenia illegally included into the declaration a statment about recognizing the the Nagorny-Karabakh as a part of Armenia’s territory.
The frontier regions of Azerbaijan Republic are incessantly fired on from the direction of Armenia. By its attitude towards the peacemaking efforts Armenia challenges the world association undermining all the endeavors of the political regulation of the conflict. Realizing its annexation plans the leaders of the Republic of Armenia not only stop breaching standards of the international law, but discredit political authority of the mediatory countries. After realizing a minimum program on capturing of all the territories of Nagorny-Karabakh region, the aggressor began to create the "buffer zone" which includes the regions of Azerbaijan situated around occupied Nagorny-Karabakh. Having driven out the local Azeris from these regions violently and having broken all the communications except the ones connecting the region to Armenia, the Armenian armed forces realized their thorough - made strategic plan, which foresees transforming. Nagorny-Karabakh into a territory surrounded by a "dead zone" with the purpose of the ruling out the possibility of home - coming of the Azeris to the permanent residences. The experience of recent years shows that indecision, ambiguity and quite impossible balance between the interests of the agressor and those of his victim not only are connivance towards the aggressor but also threaten to undermine peace in all over the Caucasian Region and broaden the framework of the conflict.
During all these years Azerbaijan diplomacy did everything to draw world community’s attention to the flagrant facts of the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, to search the ways of the peaceable regulation of the conflict. The results of these efforts were 4 resolutions adopted by UN Security Council and 6 statements of its Chairman.
In all resolutions the Security Council confirms the sovereignty and integrity of the Azerbaijan Republic, emphasizes impossibility to use force for capturing of the territories, demands immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawing of all the occupied forces from all the captured regions of Azerbaijan and returning refugees to their permanent residences.
The decisions of Lisbon Summit of OSCE (Lisbon,1996) have given clear foundation for resolution of the conflict on basic of principle of territorial ointegrity of Azerbaijan.
But all these resolutions are ignored by the Republic of Armenia up to the present. Moreover, it continuous to increase the presence of its armed forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. On the other hand Security Council did not exert all its powers to fulfill the carried resolutions.
Azerbaijan, being devoted for a peaceable political regulation, considers that only after liquidation of the results of the aggression by carrying suitable resolutions it will be possible to conduct the stable and efficient negotiations with the purpose of establishing lasting peace and ensuring the safety of the whole population of the region. The results of the aggression of Armenia turned a the national distress for Azerbaijan. This aggression brought numerous human losses; over a million people who lost their own homes, have been scattered all over the territory of the Republic and have unbearable living conditions in refugee camps.
From the beginning of the war actions of the armed forces of Armenia there have been plundered, burnt and ruined over 876 populated areas, about 7000 industrial agricultural and other undertakings, over 153,000 dwellings possessing over 9 million sq. km., 4366 social and cultural projects, 616 schools, 242 pre-school institutions, 397 hospitals, 10 polyclinics, 10 maternity hospitals, 76 drug stores, 4 sanatoriums, 10 mosques and so on. The stock-breeders have lost 70% of summer pastures. The water and hydro-technical structures have been put out of action; functioning of the rail-traffic, motor-transport and other types of communications have been broken. 72,400 hectares of crop area, 56,000 of hectares orchards of the regions of Aghdam, Gubadli, Fizuli, Jebrail are under Armenians occupation now. Till the occupation there were 69,000 head of horned cattle and 244,000 head of sheep and goats in the farms of these Regions.
As result of a non - declared war of Armenian against Azerbaijan the armed forces of Armenia occupied the lands of which over one million hectars are suitable for the agricultural operations and over 280,000 hectares of forests belong to a nature - protection category. A lot of unique sacred things of the national culture of Azerbaijan were ruined in the territory of Nagorny-Karabakh. Five most beautiful Azerbaijan regions, not bordering on Nagorny-Karabakh have been captured and exposed to barbarian plundering.
It is necessary to note that there are over 200 palaeontological, faunal and geological monuments of nature in the occupied territories and it is very difficult to value these masterpieces because of their uniqueness. The biocomplexes were broken by the actions of the aggressors and they are losing the importance as reservations. According to the experts’ preliminary calculation the damaged caused to the lands, forests, and the fauna are estimated by billions of US dollars.
The Armenian aggressor ruined town museums of Shusha and plundered cultural values of Azerbaijan people. They caused damages to the cultural and art institutions, including 368 clubs, 927 libraries, 85 music schools, 22 museums, 4 picture galleries, 10 recreation parks, 6 state theaters and concert organizations.
From 22 plundered museums the aggressors took 40,000 rare values and exhibits away. Among plundered and ruined museums are: Kalbajar museum of historical and regional ethnography with unique historical exhibits, gold and silver works, rare and expensive stones and carpets and hand and applied works;
Historical Museum of Shusha and Museum of Bread in Aghdam, Museum of Stone monuments in Zangelan and so on. About 4,6 million of books and manuscripts were destroyed in the plundered and burned libraries. 20 modern buildings of palaces of culture were ruined in the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Fizuli, Shusha and others.
At present the families of refugees have been placed in more than 370 institutions of culture, health services, sanatoriums, clubs, cultural centers, libraries, music schools museums and recreation parks.
Thus, on one hand the aggression ruined a great number of material values in occupied territories, on the other hand resulted in great number of refugees, broke the formed social infrastructure and led to the breach of the traditional inhabitation environment in the rest of the territory of the Republic.

Mahmud Ekeler

Comments

Display the following 4 comments

  1. You would think that Armenia would know better — Thomas J
  2. Awful article — Armenian Communist
  3. Article that reflects the truth. — Jovdat
  4. ARTICLE THAT REFLECTS THE TRUTH — JOVDAT Guliyev