The Khojaly Massacre remains the most heinous crime of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. On 26 February 1992, this atrocity was carried out by Armenian armed forces, supported by the No. 366 Soviet Infantry Regiment, against the innocent inhabitants of Khojaly, the largest town in the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The final death toll of 613 civilians included 106 women, 83 children and 70 elderly people. All Azerbaijanis and all those who support human rights commemorate this date each year, remembering the victims of that terrible event. In Time magazine, dated 16 March 1992, Jill Smolowe and Yuri Zarakhovich reported: "While the details are disputed, this much is plain: something grim and unconscionable happened in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly."

Christopher Pincher MP, member of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, stated: "The commemoration of the Khojaly Massacre serves as a reminder of the barbaric acts that are perpetrated during conflict. Those who were killed, maimed or forced from their homes that day should not be forgotten."

Kristiina Ojuland MEP, formerly the Estonian Foreign Minister, commented: "It is important for the European community to remember and commemorate the Khojaly tragedy. It is through remembering and facing the past, and not trivialising it, that one can build a more peaceful future, the more so in the South Caucasus."

Altogether, more than 30,000 people were killed on both sides during the Armenian invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh and its seven surrounding regions during 1988–94, but the events in Khojaly were uniquely horrific. According to Serzh Sargsyan, long-time Defence Minister and Chairman of the Armenian Security Council, and current Armenian President: "Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, and thought 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."

As with many occurrences during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the atrocity in Khojaly received limited western media coverage at the time and a grave injustice was overlooked. The occupied regions remain under illegal Armenian control, in direct contravention of four UN Security Council Resolutions – a flagrant disregarding of international law. There are currently 870,000 internally-displaced people (IDPs) and refugees residing in camps across Azerbaijan, amounting to a humanitarian disaster. Since a ceasefire was declared in 1994, the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia, and the US, has been tasked with brokering peace. There have also been several meetings between Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian President Sargsyan. Despite this, 19 years have now passed, and the impasse continues.

GETTING TO THE TRUTH

The few western media representatives in the region at the time universally condemned the Khojaly Massacre. Human Rights Watch commented that 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." Both Human Rights Watch and Memorial – a Moscow-based human rights organisation – stated that the killing of civilians could not be justified under any circumstances.

Brian Killen in The Washington Times wrote: "Dozens of bodies lay scattered around the killing fields of Nagorno-Karabakh yesterday, evidence of the worst massacre in four years of fighting over the disputed territory. Azerbaijani officials who returned from the scene to this town about nine miles away brought back three dead children, the backs of their heads blown off. At the local mosque, six other bodies lay stretched out, fully clothed, with their limbs frozen in the positions in which they were killed. Their faces were black from the cold." Furthermore, some Armenian sources admitted the guilt of their own 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." Melkonian particularly cited the role of the Arabo and Aramo Armenian military detachments that stabbed many Azerbaijani civilians to death.

To date, nothing has been done to avenge these barbarous acts. On this day of mourning, The European Azerbaijan Society calls upon the western media to remember the victims of the Khojaly Massacre. It also calls for increased awareness of the ongoing suffering of the refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and a renewed impetus towards finding a solution to this intractable problem, according to the tenets of international law.

Christopher Pincher MP concluded: "A lasting peace must be brokered, allowing 870,000 Azerbaijanis to return to their rightful homes, and stability and prosperity to return to the South Caucasus region." 

Eliza Pieter
Senior Public Affairs Officer
The European Azerbaijan Society
Bastion Tower, level 20
5 Place du Champ de Mars
B - 1050 Brussels
Tel: +32 2 550 34 31
Email: eliza.pieter@teas.eu
www.teas.eu