This year marks the 29th anniversary of the pogroms of the Armenians in Sumgait. During the USSR collapse, in terms of actual complicity of the Azerbaijani authorities, there were pogroms and ethnic cleansing of the Armenians in several cities of the country – Baku, Kirovabad, and Maragha. The pogroms were especially cruel in the Azerbaijani city Sumgait situated 25 km away from the capital Baku, ambassador of Armenia to Spain, Avet Adonts told Spanish news agency EFE.
According to the ambassador, the large-scale and mass pogroms ended only in a few days, after the Soviet authorities decided to send their troops to Azerbaijan in order to prevent the pogroms of the Armenians. Only after that, the evacuation of the Armenians from Azerbaijan became possible.
Even the then Soviet Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov noted that the Soviet soldiers were terrified to see the mutilated bodies of the Armenians. The real number of the Armenians, who became victims of the Azerbaijani aggression in those days, is unknown.
According to the ambassador, it is difficult to believe that those events took place in the contemporary world, however, that was only the start of the anti-Armenian and racist politics of the Azerbaijani authorities. The organizers of the pogroms were declared national heroes in Azerbaijan. That terrible tradition went on in the future. The history proved the veracity of these words. Azerbaijan continues this policy after independence and attempted to repeat the crimes committed against the Armenians in the 20th century already in the 21st century. Therefore, Azerbaijan established the tradition of glorifying and awarding people for the murdering Armenians.
For example, the Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov, who axe-murdered the sleeping Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan during NATO program in Budapest, was declared a national hero in Azerbaijan.
In April 2016, Azerbaijan initiated another aggression against the population of Artsakh. International organizations pointed to Azerbaijan’s military crimes against the civilians, children, and elderly people in Artsakh. Shortly after the start of the Azerbaijani aggression, the local media spread photos of an Azerbaijani officer, who proudly demonstrated the photo of a beheaded Armenian soldier. In a month, president Ilham Aliyev personally awarded him.
Adonts notes that analyzing Sumgait pogroms and April events in Artsakh, one involuntarily remembers the Nobel Prize winner academic Andrei Sakharov’s words: “even if some doubted it before Sumgait, no one sees a moral opportunity to insist on territorial unity of NKAO and Azerbaijan after this tragedy happened.”
According to the ambassador, refusing to accept Sumgait pogroms and condemn its perpetrators is already a crime. However, instead the current Azerbaijani authorities do their best in order to distract the international community’s attention and use the millions if the state budget on propaganda.
The so-called campaign “Justice for Khojaly” serves that purpose. The Azerbaijani authorities try to disseminate the thesis that they were “killed” and they are victims instead of drawing certain conclusions and repenting. “In brief, it is immoral. There are facts, against which even the millions of the Azerbaijani propaganda are helpless,” the ambassador says.
According to him, Azerbaijan “inherited” the current style of propaganda from “brotherly” Turkey. When in 2015 the whole worlds was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Turkey, the authorities of which committed that crime, instead of repenting, decided to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Canakkale on the same day. It was another failed attempt to distract the international community’s attention. “We expect more creativity from our Azerbaijani and Turkish neighbors, who still keep the borde...
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