[breeze]

At night from February 25 to 26 the Armenian armed forces occupied the town of Khojaly. The occupation was carried out with active support of several units of the Russian Army's 366th regiment.

Occupation of Khojaly was followed with unprecedented brutalities against the civilian population. In a few hours the aggressors killed 613 innocent and unarmed people. Among them were 106 women, 83 children. 56 people were killed with special brutality. 8 families were totally exterminated. 25 children were totally, and 130 children were partly orphaned. 476 people became disabled persons (of them 76 were minors). 1275 people were taken into hostage and even though afterwards most of the hostages were released from captivity, the fates of 150 of them are still unknown.

BRIEF INFORMATION

Khojay was a settlement of Azerbaijan situated in the strategic point on the road Agdam-Shusha, Khankendi (Stepanakert) — Askeran near the only airport in Karabakh. Its population was more than 7 thousand people. Just before the conflict It had recently acquired the status of the republican town due to the increase of the population (many Turks — meskhets with families escaping from Fergana and Azerbaijan refugees from Armenia took shelter here), construction of new blocks of flats and branches of powerful industrial enterprises.
Late on February 25 the city was under the intensive fire from the town of Khankendi and Askeran. The airport and neighboring houses were destroyed. More than 150 people defending the airport were killed by sporadic artillery shelling of regiment No 366. The next day, on February 26 the fire shooting grew heavier and more fierce. After powerful artillery shelling the armed men launched a massive attack. Armoured vehicles of Soviet Army regiment No 366 were in the first rows of the attackers. They were followed by Armenian armed bandit units. The weak self-defence of the town was overwhelmed by. superior forces and artillery shelling. The fight continued even after the aggressors had entered the town. The residents defended every house and street. The Armenian armed men backed by armoured vehicles killed the defenders of the districts and houses. The most valuable property and personal possessions were loaded onto the trucks and taken away towards the town of Khankendi.

R edit: Moved to HF.

[breeze]

That night Armenian nationalists with help of Russian 366th regiment committed one of the bloodiest tragedies of the XX-th century - the Khojaly bloodshed. The defense of this strategic settlement wasn't efficiently organized. The self-defense battalion of Khojaly consisting of 80 men wasn't equipped with any armored cars and guns. Only mortar battery of the 2nd battalion of Shikh brigade consisting of 20 men was helping them.
That night Armenian military units together with the 366th motor-rifle regiment of Russia (2 battalions out of 3 with their full complement, the other partially), besides hired assassins brought from abroad attacked Khojaly.
The first blow was at the airport situated near the town. Though the defenders were few in number and weren't armed well, were fighting bravely. The commander of Special Nominations Unit Alif Hajiyev was especially notable.
But forces were unequal. The brave commander died a dearth of a hero in this battle.
After a strong preparatory bombardment tanks and armored cars invaded the town. Street battles began. Dozens of men were killed, wounded and taken prisoners. Khojaly was ruined and burnt down. A part of people who saved their lives ran in Aghdam direction. Spending a snowy, frosty night barefooted, bare-headed in the forest most refugees congealed, some of them being wounded couldn't endure and died. The rest were shot down when they were going out of the forest, in the place called "Garagaya", 6 kms far from Khojaly. Hundreds of helpless women, old and children were killed. Those who were running in Abdal-Ghulabli direction were shot down. Armenian bloodsuckers tortured the wounded men, disfigured the corpses, raped the women and girls.
In this genocide committed by Armenians against the Azeri-Turks 613 men were killed, 487 mutilated, 1275 taken prisoners. 8 families were absolutely annihilated.

Legal basis for qualification of Khojaly massacre

as аn international crime.

The following instruments must bе considered as а legal basis for qualifying Кhojaly massacre as an international crime.

1. Convention оn the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (саmе into force in 1951) adopted bу UN General Assembly оn December 9, 1948 (resolution number 260 (III)).

2. Statute of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (although this statute does not point out genocide actions directly, these actions constituting genocide are considered to bе crimes against humanity and war crimes);

3. Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (par. 4);

4. Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (par. 1);

5. Statute of the International Criminal Court (par. 6):

6. Criminal Code of the Republic of Azerbaijan (par. 103);

7. Decree of the President of Azerbaijan Оn genocide of Azeris dated March 26, 1998.

Thus, the acts committed bу Armenian side against the ethnic Azeri population of the Кhojaly city are qualified in accordance with the international legal documents as genocide and а crime against humanity.

State of Armenia paid no attention to the word of international world by showing full distrust towards UN Security Council's resolutions 822 adopted in 1993 in April on occupation of territories of Azerbaijan Republic by Armenian army, 853 adopted in June, 874 adopted in October and 884 adopted in November.

All we are residents of this planet and we together should conduct firm fight against those threatening our common house with death and blood. We deeply believe that states, parliaments, international organizations in the world will support restoration of equity for happy life of nations having entered the XXI century, for equity, for high humanist values. Supporting the settlement of Karabakh problem in a peaceful manner and through talks, we once again express our certainty that due to joint efforts of states, parliaments, international organizations in the world territorial integrity of Azerbaijan Republic will be ensured and refugees and IDPs will return to their native lands

[Nikita]

What year is this?

[JohnRawls]

Unfortunately genocide is mostly a political question not a legal and Un advisory panel doesn't work with political questions although it might sometimes phisophize about vague concepts.

[Smilin' Dave]

What year is this?

1992 apparently
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_Massacre

All we are residents of this planet and we together should conduct firm fight against those threatening our common house with death and blood.

Maybe, but how do you feel about it when the shoe was on the other foot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumgait_Pogrom
Just off the top of my head.

[Aekos]

Having read quite a bit about the massacre, I'll agree that it was a gruesome and terrible deed. The result was that hundreds of innocent people were killed, and no one can or should dispute or diminish that.

However, you have some of your facts wrong. It has been confirmed by multiple sources that armed Azeri troops were interspersed with the civilians while they were fleeing from Khojaly. Many of the civilian casualties were caused by Armenian militiamen attacking these troops that were in the crowd.

Anyway, in response to:

Supporting the settlement of Karabakh problem in a peaceful manner and through talks, we once again express our certainty that due to joint efforts of states, parliaments, international organizations in the world territorial integrity of Azerbaijan Republic will be ensured and refugees and IDPs will return to their native lands

Artsakh was given to Azerbaijan by Stalin. The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has never had a Muslim majority population. The Azeris started the main conflict with ethnic cleansing (Operation Ring). If the Azeris won, there would be barely any Armenians left in Karabakh and Armenians would have once again lost their ancestral territory to Turks.

[eloweeth]

Artsakh was given to Azerbaijan by Stalin. The territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has never had a Muslim majority population. The Azeris started the main conflict with ethnic cleansing (Operation Ring).

The historical claims in the region are vaguely disputed and most regions that are ethnically heterogeneous now were not in the past.
If I were an Armenian I would blame Russians instead of Azeris for the Operation Ring by the way.

If the Azeris won, there would be barely any Armenians left in Karabakh and Armenians would have once again lost their ancestral territory to Turks.

It is not that Armenians won and Azeris and Armenians are living peacefully.Most Azeris of Armenia either left the country or hide their identity to continue living.
And it is really ugly to use Turkish-Armenian historical relations to justify Armenian's attitude against Azeris at that time..

[Aekos]

The historical claims in the region are vaguely disputed and most regions that are ethnically heterogeneous now were not in the past.
If I were an Armenian I would blame Russians instead of Azeris for the Operation Ring by the way.

Even though Karabakh has been heterogeneous in the past, it has had an Armenian majority or plurality for over 3,000 years...

If I were an Armenian I would blame Russians instead of Azeris for the Operation Ring by the way.

Operation Ring was not initiated by the Russians, the Azeri OMON and leadership wanted to cleanse Karabakh of all Armenians. They thought it would be easy. Instead, they got their asses kicked by a ragtag group of guerillas. It was kind of like the Turkish War of Independence.

Most Azeris of Armenia either left the country or hide their identity to continue living.
And it is really ugly to use Turkish-Armenian historical relations to justify Armenian's attitude against Azeris at that time.

Most Armenians of Azerbaijan became refugees in Armenia.

[eloweeth]

Operation Ring was not initiated by the Russians

But it could be stopped by Russians anytime they wished,couldn't it?They supported Mutalibov instead as far as I know.

Most Armenians of Azerbaijan became refugees in Armenia.

Yes,they did.There are several Azeri refugees as well.War didn't bring good to either side.It didn't differ when the winner of the war was Armenians instead of Azeris as you claimed before.

It was kind of like the Turkish War of Independence.

[Aekos]

But it could be stopped by Russians anytime they wished,couldn't it?They supported Mutalibov instead as far as I know.

That doesn't mean that you blame the Russians for it. Russian mercenaries during the war were very fickle - if you ask an Azeri why the Armenians won, he will probably (and wrongly) blame Russian support for Karabakhis.

Yes,they did.There are several Azeri refugees as well.War didn't bring good to either side.It didn't differ when the winner of the war was Armenians instead of Azeris as you claimed before.

During WWI, Azeris massacred something like 20,000 Armenians in Shushi (a town in Karabakh) alone. I believe that figure is a lot higher than the hundreds that died int he Khojaly offensive.

[eloweeth]

That doesn't mean that you blame the Russians for it

I wasn't so serious about blaming them. Yet one can blame them for all the ethnic clashes took place before and after the collapse of USSR

During WWI, Azeris massacred something like 20,000 Armenians in Shushi

So? No relevance.

[Aekos]

I wasn't so serious about blaming them. Yet one can blame them for all the ethnic clashes took place before and after the collapse of USSR

I would blame it on the Soviets more than on the Russians themselves.

So? No relevance.

I still love you.

[secator553]

with active support of several units of the Russian Army's 366th regiment

Russia has no 336th Army, it is USSR 336th army, that consisted of armenians, russians, georgians, ukrainians.
Shakhnazaryan argues that the soldiers of Soviet 336th Army, mainly armenians, without orders left the army location and took part in massacre.

[Aekos]

And let's not forget:

“Maraghar: the name of this village is associated with a massacre which never reached the world’s headlines, although at least 45 Armenians died cruel deaths. During the CSI mission to Nagorno Karabakh in April, news came through that a village in the north, in Martakert region, had been overrun by Azeri-Turks on April 10 and there had been a number of civilians killed. A group went to obtain evidence and found a village with survivors in a state of shock, their burn-out homes still smoldering, charred remains of corpses and vertebrae still on the ground, where people had their heads sawn off, and their bodies burnt in front of their families. 45 people had been massacred and 100 were missing, possibly suffering a fate worse than death. In order to verify the stories, the delegation asked the villagers if they would exhume the bodies which they had already buried. In great anguish, they did so, allowing photographs to be taken of the decapitated, charred bodies. Later when asked about publicizing the tragedy, they replied they were reluctant to do so as ‘ we Armenians are not very good at showing our grief to the world’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraghar_Massacre

[breeze]

Sorry for my long-time absence. Dear friends, thank you for your participating and also for your thoughts on this theme. I promised Aekos to publish list of several neutral authors. The authors have written about Karabakh, about Khojaly.


1. Articles about Khojaly by Thomas Goltz ( American journalist and author)

http://azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazi ... ticle.html

Also Thomas Golt's personal web site. You can find full version of his books here.

http://www.thomasgoltz.com


2. Thomas de Waal (British journalist, writer)

His famous book about Karabakh war - "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War"

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... ce-and-war

And free

http://books.google.az/books?id=pletup8 ... &q&f=false

[breeze]

World Media about Khojaly

THE GUARDIAN, 2 September 1993
NOWHERE TO HIDE FOR AZERI REFUGEES


Armenia is pushing a new wave of displaced people towards Iran.

Jonathan RUGMAN in Kanliq, south-west Azerbaijan, reports

On the main road south through Kubatli province, thousands of men, women and children are packed into trucks at an Azeri checkpoint waiting for permission to leave. Helicopters shuttle in and out with the wounded, while a group of women sit wailing at the roadside, tearing at their bloodstained faces with their fingernails in a frenzy of grief.

A new exodus of refugees is under way towards Azerbaijan’s border with Iran as Armenia forces continue ignoring United Nations demands that they stop their offensive.

This week the UNHCR began distributing 4,000 tents and 50,000 blankets to those displaced in the recent hostilities. The organisation said about 250,000 Azeris have been displaced so far this year and about 1 million since the massacre began in 1988

The New York Times, Tuesday, March 3, 1992
MASSACRE BY ARMENIANS


Agdam, Azerbaijan, March 2 (Reuters) – Fresh evidence emerged today of a massacre of civilians by Armenian militants in Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan.

Scalping Reported


Azerbaijani officials and journalists who flew briefly to the region by helicopter brought back three dead children with the back of their heads blown off. They said shooting by Armenians has prevented them from retrieving more bodies.

“Women and children have been scalped,” said Assad Faradshev, an aide to Nagorno-Karabakh’s Azerbaijani Governor. “When we began to pick up bodies, they began firing at us.”

The Azerbaijani militia chief in Agdam, Rashid Mamedov, said: “The bodies are lying there like flocks of sheep. Even the fascists did nothing like this.”

Truckloads of Bodies


Near Agdam on the outskirts of Nagorno-Karabakh, a Reuters photographer, Frederique Lengaigne, said she had seen two trucks filled with Azerbaijani bodies.

“In the first one I counted 35, and it looked as though there were as many in the second,” she said. “Some had their head cut off, and many had been burned. They were all men, and a few had been wearing khaki uniforms.”


The Times, 2 March 1992

CORPSES LITTER HILLS IN KARABAKH


(ANATOL LIEVEN COMES UNDER FIRE WHILE FLYING TO INVESTIGATE

THE MASS KILLINGS OF REFUGEES BY ARMENIAN TROOPS)

As we swooped low over the snow-covered hills of Nagorno-Karabagh we saw the scattered corpses. Apparently, the refugees had been shot down as they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew over, shown to journalists afterwards, showed DOZENS OF CORPSES lying in various parts of the hills.

The Azerbaijanis claim that AS MANY AS 1000 have died in a MASS KILLING of AZERBAIJANIS fleeing from the town of Khodjaly, seized by Armenians last week. A further 4,000 are believed to be wounded, frozen to death or missing.

The civilian helicopter’s job was to land in the mountains and pick up bodies at sites of the mass killings.

The civilian helicopter picked up four corpses, and it was during this and a previous mission that an Azerbaijani cameraman filmed the several dozen bodies on the hillsides.

Back at the airfield in Agdam, we took a look at the bodies the civilian helicopter had picked up. Two old men a small girl were covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor mortis. They had been shot.

[breeze]

"My brtoher's road" by Markar Melkonian.

http://praterblog.files.wordpress.com/2 ... 12_213.pdf

http://praterblog.files.wordpress.com/2 ... 14_215.pdf

[Smilin' Dave]

Since you're back you can respond to my question. It's the fifth post.

[breeze]

Of course, I'll answer you, Smilin' Dave.


Conflict between Azerbaijanis and Armenians has started long time before the Ring Operation (1991). It has been started in 1987. In November, 1987 Armenians attacked Azeri civilians in Armenia, in Kafan region. During regular attacks were killed Azeri civilians. Lot of them was tortured regularly. As result of this oppression in 25th January, 1987 Azeri civilians of Kafan were banished from Armenia. During this bloody banishment were killed 216 people. (57 people were women, 18 children and 5 babies.) It was the starting of ethnical purge of Armenia from Azeris.
Then the people who survive to settle down in different places of Azerbaijan. Some of them settle down in Sumgait too. This fact make easier to organize Sumgait accident for provokers.

Imagine, you have lost everything, Your home, your family. Suddenly someone comes and says lets revenge on Armenians. They banished you from your house. Your dear neighbors banished you and killed your family. Why you should feel sorry for them?

Yes, In February, 1988, 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis were killed in Sumgait. But I want to make remark on several facts according to this accident.

1.This accident was organized by activities from Krunk. The most famous activist of this organization in Sumgait was Grigoriyan.
2.The cameras which were take fragments the accident had been brought to Sumgait 2-3 days before.
3.The day after accident Armenians made inauguration of memorial monument for Sumgait victims in Stepanakert. It seems impossible but it is fact.
4.Some of Armenian families were escape by Azerbaijani families in Sumgait. They conceal them in their houses.


At last, if you want to know much more about Sumgait accident, I can advice you to read the book by Yuriy Pompeev “Bloody pool of Karabakh”. He is Russian writer and professor. This book based on real documents and facts.
Also the facts about crimes against azeri civilians in Kafan and about chronology of Karabakh war you can read from BBC web site.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/news/n ... 681079.stm




As regards the Ring operation, this operation mean anything for me. Firstly, this operation was realized by Soviet Union Army. Secondly, during this operation were realized 80 attacks to Armenian civilians and 60 attacks to Azerbaijani civilians. 40 people were killed during this operation. 20 people from each side.

Also after bloody January nights in 1990 in Baku, all people of my country hated the Soviet Union Army and Soviet Union too. This Army killed young Azerbaijanis in 19-20 January. They wanted freedom for Azerbaijan. They came to Azadliq square with three color flag. Only by that reason the Soviet Union Army shot at defenseless people.
In 1990-1991 years Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis tried to got free from Soviet Union’s control. Nobody asked about Ring Operation.

P.S. The real facts about victims of Ring Operation you can read from Memorial’s Report. (January-April, 1991) Memorial is International Organization. Also about victims of January 1990 you can read from this link.
www.january20.net

[Smilin' Dave]

I should probably clarify something before we proceed: While 'who did it first' is always interesting, I will never entirely except it as an excuse. Particularly when you talk about 'citizens of the world' and the threat to the 'common house' threatened by 'death and blood'. It seems pretty clear to me that there was a lot of death and blood being thrown around in the 'common house' by Azeris. You point to exceptions in the incidents where Armenians are victims, but brush aside Aekos' point about the presence of Azeri troops in Khojaly. This is a double standard we see too often on this forum from nationalists.

As regards the Ring operation, this operation mean anything for me. Firstly, this operation was realized by Soviet Union Army.

Deployed at the urging of Azeris, supported heavily by local Azeri troops and largely for Azeri benefit.