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Khojaly massacre

Coordinates: 39°54′40″N 46°47′21″E / 39.91111°N 46.78917°E / 39.91111; 46.78917
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Khojaly Massacre
File:Hocali anit.jpg
Monument to the victims of the massacre in Baku.
LocationBaku, Azerbaijan
DateFebruary 25—26, 1992 (AZT)
TargetKhojaly residents
Attack type
Massacre
Deaths613 civilians
PerpetratorsArmenian and Russian military

The Khojaly Massacre was the killing[1] of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians[2] from the town of Khojaly on 25–26 February 1992 by the Armenian and Russian armed forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. According to the Azerbaijani side, as well as Memorial Human Rights Center, Human Rights Watch and other international observers,[3][4] the massacre was committed by the ethnic Armenian armed forces, reportedly with help of the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment, apparently not acting on orders from the command.[5][6] The official death toll provided by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 83 children.[7] The event became the largest massacre in the course of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[8]

Western governments and the western media refer to it as the Khojaly Massacre or Khojaly Tragedy. While Armenian sources usually underestimate the massacre[9] and mostly refers to it as the Battle of Khojaly, Khojaly event or sometimes Khojaly tragedy. Azeri and Turkish[10][11][12] sources on the other hand call it massacre or Khojaly Genocide (Template:Lang-az, Template:Lang-tr) and the Khojaly Tragedy (Template:Lang-az) [13]

Background

Main article: Nagorno-Karabakh war

In 1988 the town had about 2,000 inhabitants. Due to the Nagorno-Karabakh war and the population exchanges between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Meskhetian Turk refugees leaving Central Asia and subsequently settling in the town, this grew to 6,000 by 1991.

The town of Khojaly was located on the road that connected Shusha, Stepanakert and Agdam and had the region's only airport. According to reports from Human Rights Watch, Khojaly was used as a base for Azerbaijani forces shelling the city of Stepanakert, and in turn was shelled by Armenian forces.[14]

During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, both Armenians and Azerbaijanis became victims of pogroms and ethnic cleansing, which resulted in numerous casualties and displacement of large groups of people.[1]

In October 1991, the Nagorno Karabakh forces cut the road connecting Khojaly and Aghdam, so that the only way to reach the town was by a helicopter. The town was defended by local OMON forces under the command of Alif Hajiyev, which numbered about 160 or so lightly armed men.[1] Prior to the attack, the town had been without electricity and gas for several months.[15]

The massacre

File:LenkKhoMemoWide.jpg
Memorial dedicated to victims of Khojaly Massacre in Lankaran.
File:LenkKhoMemoWideData.jpg

According to Human Rights Watch, the tragedy struck when “a large column of residents, accompanied by a few dozen retreating fighters, fled the city as it fell to Armenian forces. As they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they came across an Armenian military post and were cruelly fired upon”.[16]

Armenian side officially claims that the killings occurred as a result of wartime military operations, and were in part caused by the prevention of the evacuation of town inhabitants by Azerbaijani forces. Armenian government officials asserted that the casualty count, though high, was due to the fact the fleeing civilians in Khojaly had mingled with the retreating defenders and when the Azeri troops shot back, Armenian forces fired upon them, killing both soldier and civilian alike. Helsinki Watch itself concluded "that the militia, still in uniform, and some still carrying their guns, were interspersed with the masses of civilians." [17] However, Human Rights Watch and Memorial, found this explanation of Armenian officials unconvincing, stating that the killing of civilians could not be justified under any circumstances. Human Rights Watch noted that “the attacking party [i.e., Karabakh Armenian forces] is still obliged to take precautionary measures to avoid or minimize civilian casualties. In particular, the party must suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that the attack may be expected to cause civilian casualties that are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."[18]

The Armenian side refers to Ayaz Mutalibov's interview to claim that the massacre had been committed not by Armenian soldiers but by Azerbaijan Popular Front militants who allegedly shot their own civilians escaping through the corridor.[citation needed] In one of his interviews Mutalibov stated that the event could be a ploy by opposition to denigrate his government.[citation needed] In later interviews, however, Mutalibov would go on to condemn the Armenians for what he said was a blatant misinterpretation of his words.[19] Other theories proposed by the Armenian side were that Azeri Popular Front soldiers had massacred 100 Azeri and Armenian civilians and then proceeded to mix the bodies and lay blame upon the Armenians.[20]

This explanation however is widely disputed, among others, the executive director of Human Rights Watch has stated that: “we place direct responsibility for the civilian deaths with Karabakh Armenian forces. Indeed, neither our report nor that of Memorial includes any evidence to support the argument that Azerbaijani forces obstructed the flight of, or fired on Azeri civilians”.[18]

At the same time, some Armenian sources admitted the guilt of the Armenian side. According to Markar Melkonian, the brother of the Armenian military leader Monte Melkonian, "Khojaly had been a strategic goal, but it had also been an act of revenge." The date of the massacre in Khojaly had a special significance: it was the run-up to the fourth anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogrom in the city of Sumgait. Melkonian particularly mentions the role of the fighters of two Armenian military detachments called the Arabo and Aramo, who stabbed to death many Azeri civilians.[21]

According to Serge Sarkisian, long-time Defense Minister and Chairman of Security Council of Armenia who is the current president of Armenia, “A lot was exaggerated” in the casualties, and the fleeing Azerbaijanis had put up armed resistance. At the same time he stated: “Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]. And that's what happened. And we should also take into account that amongst those boys were people who had fled from Baku and Sumgait".[1]

The role of 366th regiment of CIS army

According to international observers, soldiers and officers of 366th regiment took part in the attack on Khojaly.[22] Memorial called for investigation of the facts of participation of CIS soldiers in the military operations in the region and transfer of military equipment to the sides of the conflict. Soon after the massacre, in early March 1992, the regiment was withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh. Paratroopers evacuated the personnel of the regiment by helicopter, but over 100 soldiers and officers remained in Stepanakert and joined the Armenian forces, including the commander of the 2nd battalion major Seyran Ohanyan,[1] who currently serves as a Minister of Defense of Armenia. Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper reported that:

despite categorical orders of the command of the military district, some military personnel of the 366th regiment took part in military operations near Khodjaly on Karabakhi side on the 20s of February. At least two such instances were recorded. And during evacuation of the military personnel of the regiment paratroopers selectively searched several servicemen and found large amounts of money on them, including foreign currency.[23]

International reaction

The Khojaly Massacre was described by Human Rights Watch as "the largest massacre to date in the conflict" over Nagorno-Karabakh.[24] Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions.[25] Estimating the number of the civilians killed in the massacre, Human Rights Watch stated that "there are no exact figures for the number of Azeri civilians killed because Karabakh Armenian forces gained control of the area after the massacre". A 1993 report by Human Rights Watch put the number of deaths at least 161,[16] although later reports state the number of deaths as at least 200. According to Human Rights Watch, "while it is widely accepted that 200 Azeris were murdered, as many as 500-1,000 may have died".[24]

Remembrance

File:KhojalyMassacre.jpg
Khojaly Massacre Memorial, Hague, Netherlands.

A Written Declaration (No. 324), authored by Azerbaijan Popular Front member Gulamhuseyn Aliyev in 2001, was signed by 30 members of the PACE, including members from Turkey (12), Azerbaijan (8), United Kingdom (3), Albania (2), Luxembourg (1), Republic of Macedonia (1), Poland (1), Bulgaria (1) and Norway (1), condemning the massacre of the entire population of Khojaly and destruction of the city by Armenians.[26]

In January 2010, the Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC), composed of parliaments of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) members states, which includes Azerbaijan but not Armenia, recognised the Justice for Khojaly awareness campaign initiated on 8 May 2008 by Mrs. Leyla Aliyeva, daughter of the president of the republic of Azerbaijan and General Coordinator of Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue (ICYF-DC), describing the 1992 event as a "mass massacre by Armenian forces of Azerbaijani civilians in the town of Khojaly", and called upon "all member parliaments to give proper recognition to this crime against humanity and support the Campaign on national and international levels.[27][28] In response, the Armenian foreign minister Eduard Nalbandyan said that OIC member-states would not recognize the Khojaly Massacre as a "genocide", and noted that no international or regional organization have made statements that were inconsistent with the Armenian approach to the Karabakh conflict.[29][30][31]

On February 26, 2009, in congressional remarks, Congressman Ed Whitfield (R-KY), solemnly recognized the 17th anniversary of the massacre at Khojaly, and honored the lives of those lost in this great tragedy.[32] On February 25, 2010, in congressional remarks, Congressman Bill Shuster (R-PA), co-chairman of the House Azerbaijani Caucus, called Khojaly a site of largest killing of Azerbaijani civilians.[33]

On February 25, 2010, the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Robert A. DeLeo signed a citation, proposed by the state representative Ellen Story, offering "sincerest acknowledgment of the 18th commemoration of the Khojaly Massacre".[34]

On March, 2010, head of Lidice municipality in Czech Republic, Josef Klima, said that one of newly-constructed streets in Lidice would be named Khojaly.[35]

Memorials

There is currently one memorial in the Hague, the Netherlands, which was an initiative of Azerbaijani Diaspora and another one built in Ankara, Turkey, commemorating the Khojaly Massacre.[36][37] Another memorial will be constructed in Budapest, Hungary.[38]

In 2011, Turkish city Isparta's municipality also approved proposal for a memorial to the victims of Khojaly massacre.[39][40]

Films

Music

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c d e de Waal, Thomas (2004). Black garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through peace and war. ABC-CLIO. pp. 172–173. ISBN 0-8147-1945-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ Randolph, Joseph Russell (2008). Hot spot: North America and Europe. ABC-CLIO. p. 191. ISBN 0313336210. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ New York Times - Massacre by Armenians Being Reported
  4. ^ TIME Magazine - Tragedy Massacre in Khojaly
  5. ^ Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus By Svante E. Cornell
  6. ^ Bloodshed in the Caucasus: escalation of the armed conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, vol. 1245 of Human rights documents, Human Rights Watch, 1992, p. 24
  7. ^ Letter from the Charge d'affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations Office
  8. ^ Human Rights Watch / Helsinki Azerbaijan. Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York • Washington • Los Angeles • London • Brussels: 1994, p. 6. ISBN 1-56432-142-8
  9. ^ http://edoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de:8080/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/HALCoRe_derivate_00003079/Nagorno-Karabakh%20Conflict.pdf
  10. ^ Template:Tr icon http://www.turksam.org/tr/a2342.html
  11. ^ Template:Tr icon http://www.1news.com.tr/azerbaycan/kulturyasham/20110303125802833.html
  12. ^ http://www.hocalisoykirimi.com/
  13. ^ State Commission on prisoners of war, hostages and missing persons - Khojaly genocide
  14. ^ Human Rights Watch. Bloodshed in the Caucasus: Escalation of the Armed Conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. ISBN 1564320812
  15. ^ Hugh Pope, "Sons of the conquerors: the rise of the Turkic world", New York: The Overlook Press, 2006, p. 59, ISBN 1-58567-804-X
  16. ^ a b Human Rights Watch World Report 1993 - The Former Soviet Union.
  17. ^ Helsinki Watch. "Bloodshed in the Caucasus: Escalation of the Armed Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh" New York, September 1992 p. 21
  18. ^ a b Letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia from the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch dated March 24, 1997
  19. ^ Interview of Ayaz Mutalibov, Regnum News Agency
  20. ^ Letter to the UN from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia
  21. ^ Markar Melkonian. My Brother's Road: An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005 ISBN 1-85043-635-5
  22. ^ Bloodshed in the Caucasus: escalation of the armed conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. Human Rights Watch, 1992. ISBN 1564320812, 9781564320810, p. 21
  23. ^ Красная звезда, 11.03.92. Карабах: война до победного конца? несмотря на категорические приказы командования округа, некоторые военнослужащие 366-го мсп всё же принимали участие на стороне карабахцев в боевых действиях под Ходжалы в двадцатых числах февраля. По крайней мере зафиксировано два таких случая. А при эвакуации личного состава полка десантники на выбор проверили несколько военнослужащих и обнаружили у них большие суммы денег, в том числе и в иностранной валюте
  24. ^ a b Human Rights Watch / Helsinki. Azerbaijan: Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York. 1994.
  25. ^ Report of Memorial Human rights center (In Russian)
  26. ^ Mr Gulamhuseyn ALIYEV (Azerbaïdjan) (14 May 2001). "Written Declaration No. 324, 2nd edition, originally tabled on 26 April 2001".
  27. ^ "Islamic Conference assembly recognizes Khojaly massacre". news.az. 1 February 2010.
  28. ^ Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (30–31 January 2010). "RESOLUTION No. 26-PE/6-CONF ON COOPERATION BETWEEN PUIC AND ICYF-DC". {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
  29. ^ "Transcript: Fourth convocation of the seventh session". Armenian National Assembly. 3 February 2010.
  30. ^ "Глава МИД Армении не думает, что страны ОИК признают события в Ходжалу как «геноцид»". newsarmenia.ru. 3 February 2010.
  31. ^ "Armenia plays down Islamic Conference recognition of Khojaly massacre". news.az. 4 February 2010.
  32. ^ Extensions of Remarks from Congressional Record E463
  33. ^ Congressional Record 111th Congress (2009-2010)
  34. ^ "U.S. State of Massachusetts acknowledges Khojaly massacre". AzerTAj. Retrieved 2010-05-15.
  35. ^ Azerbaijan's Khojaly and Czech Lidice sign protocol of cooperation
  36. ^ Monument in memory of Khojaly victims to be erected in Ankara city municipality - Today.az
  37. ^ Commemorative events on 16th anniversary of Khojaly tragedy to be held in 60 cities - Today.az
  38. ^ Macarıstanda Xocalı faciesi qurbanlarının xatiresine abide ucaldılacaq Template:Az icon
  39. ^ "Monument To Khojaly Victims To Be Built In Turkish City". Historyoftruth.com. Retrieved 26 February 2011.
  40. ^ "Monument to victims of Khojaly genocide to be erected in Turkish Isparta". news.az. Retrieved 26 February 2011.
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39°54′40″N 46°47′21″E / 39.91111°N 46.78917°E / 39.91111; 46.78917

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