Ministry of Education of the Republic of Azerbaijan Baku International Multiculturalism Centre Azerbaijani Multiculturalism Textbook for Higher Education
Armenia-Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Azerbaijani Multiculturalism
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3.6. Armenia-Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict and Azerbaijani Multiculturalism
In the early 20th century terror and genocide committed by Armenian nationalists constituted a bloody obstacle to the development of Azerbaijani multiculturalism. In autumn 1917, during World War I, the devastating anti-Russian policy of the Kaiser’s Germany ended in the overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia. Unable to realize the idea of ‘Great Armenia’ in eastern Anatolia, the Armenian separatists decided in those days to solve the ‘Armenian issue’ at the expense of Azerbaijani territory. At the end of 1917, while World War I was still going on, the Armenian nationalists committed massacres in Azerbaijani territories, destroying 157 villages in Karabakh alone in order to achieve their insidious goal. Encouraged by impunity, the union of Armenianism (the Armenian-Gregorian church, Armenian political parties and the Armenian lobby) pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing in order to realize the idea of ‘Great Armenia’ in Azerbaijani territory, in land historically alien to them. Thus, at the beginning of 1918, cloaking the essence of Armenianism in Bolshevik ideology, Stepan Shaumyan and his gangsters murdered tens of thousands of Turkic Muslim civilians in Baku and the surrounding area, carrying out ethnic cleansing, the goal of the Dashnaksutyun Party. But the declaration of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and a march by young Turks and units of the Turkish national army towards Baku foiled the plans of Shaumyan and his gangsters. Then Armenianism turned its attention towards the territory of Karabakh, bringing the ‘Karabakh issue’ into Azerbaijani history. Since ancient times the Armenians have been in search of ‘a motherland’ in territories they never possessed. After establishing their fake institution in the province of Irevan, they did not rest and set their sights on the province of Shusha. Acting on the instructions of the Dashnaksutyun party, the Armenian community of Shusha created a slogan ‘determine the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh’ in the summer of 1918. This is how the distorted Nagorno-Karabakh idea entered history. Encouraged by the terms of the Mudros Armistice signed on 30 October 1918, the Armenian nationalists committed massacres in Zangazur, slaughtering the population of Tat village in this province. Overall, they destroyed 115 Muslim villages, murdering or mutilating 10,068 Azerbaijanis. The Zangazur bloodshed was discussed at an emergency sitting of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic government on 20 December 1918. The members of the government noted that Armenian commander Andranik’s plan was to cleanse Zangazur and Shusha of the Muslim population and take this territory from Azerbaijan. The Armenian nationalists had no desire to abandon their insidious plans and forgot that they were incomers in Azerbaijani territories, particularly Karabakh. After the signing of the Turkmenchay and Edirne treaties (1828 and 1829 respectively), the Armenians had moved to different regions of Azerbaijan in large
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numbers, in particular Karabakh, as a result of the resettlement policy of the Russian Empire. They settled in Karabakh in later stages of history, too. According to the census of 1897 conducted by Russia, of the 415,721 population of Karabakh 172,872 were Armenians. They constituted 41.3 per cent of the entire population of Karabakh while the number of Azerbaijanis was 235,304 (56.6 per cent of the population of Karabakh). These statistics prove that despite the mass and regular resettlement in Azerbaijani territories, the Armenians could not become the dominant ethnos in Karabakh and were incomers in Azerbaijani territory. In winter and spring 1919 Armenian militants became active in Karabakh. The Armenian National Council* supplied the Armenians with arms in Zangazur, Goris and Shusha. They urged them not to recognize the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and directed their actions against the governorate of Karabakh. In order to put an end to the atrocities and terrors of the Armenian nationalists, the leadership of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic together with the governor-general of Karabakh, Sultanov, stopped the operation of the Armenian National Council in Karabakh. The members of the separatist organization were driven out of Shusha on 5 June 1919. On 10 June 1919, a meeting was held with the participation of Dashnaks and the bishop of Karabakh. At that meeting the Armenian community decided to recognize the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. In August 1919 the Seventh Congress of the Armenian Community of Karabakh adopted an Act on recognition of the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. But subsequent socio-political events in the region and the Bolshevik April revolution revived the Karabakh issue in Azerbaijani history. Between July 1919 and April 1920 Armenian separatists held nine congresses. After the second congress, held on 15 September 1918, the government created by the Armenian separatists began to be called the Armenian National Council. Using the sovietization of the south Caucasus for their own purposes, the Armenians annexed Zangazur and other territories of Azerbaijan in 1920. Investigating the issue, Academician Ramiz Mehdiyev found documentary evidence in various archives of Azerbaijan that Soviet Azerbaijan ‘gave 405,000 dessiatins of land to Armenia from the Province of Zangazur’ at the end of 1920 (Azerbaijan possessed 7,989,105 dessiatins of land). He also highlighted the fact that this process went on later, too. Based on a resolution of 18 February 1929 adopted by the Transcaucasus Central Executive Committee, ‘the villages of Nuvadi, Arnazir and Tughut in Jabrail Province, some parts of the villages of Karkivan and Kilid in Ordubad Province’ were torn away from Azerbaijan and Megri Province was established within Armenia. Thus, Nachchivan was separated from Azerbaijan and the highways were cut off. On 7 June 1923, the Armenians who had moved to Upper Karabakh, Azerbaijan, were granted the status of an autonomous province (in Russian Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast – NKAO). The creation of the NKAO badly broke up the pre-1923 administrative division of Azerbaijan, and according to the decision of the Soviet government, the provinces of Javanshir, Qubadli and Shusha were divided and given to the NKAO. Under the ‘Regulations’, Shusha, Khankandi and 115 villages from the province of Shusha, 52 villages from the province of Javanshir, 30 villages from the province of Qaryagin and the village of Qaladarasi from Qubadli were given to the NKAO. This not only damaged the territorial division of Azerbaijan, but created a precedent for further Armenian territorial claims against Azerbaijan. This was when the name Nagorno-Karabakh appeared. However, Khankandi was written as the regional centre in the Decree on the Establishment of the Autonomous Province; soon after, however, on 18 September 1923, by decision of the
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Nagorno-Karabakh Provincial Party Committee, the name of the town of Khankandi was changed to Stepanakert in honour of Stepan Shaumyan. That marked the beginning of the replacement of Azerbaijani names of historical places, districts, regions and villages in Karabakh.
Although the Armenians living in the upland areas of Karabakh had autonomy in political, economic, social and cultural spheres during the Soviet period, Armenian nationalists several times made territorial claims on this Azerbaijani land. After World War II, on the instruction of the Soviet leadership, Armenian nationalists made territorial claims against Turkey but these claims failed. Later, they made territorial claims against the Nagorno-Karabakh province of Azerbaijan and demanded the resettlement of Armenians from abroad in Armenia as well. Failing to obtain Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, the leadership of Armenia suggested the resettlement of Armenians from other countries, to which the Soviet government gave its consent. However, Armenia did not have the right conditions for the resettlement of Armenians from abroad. Using this pretext, they suggested displacing the Azerbaijani population of Armenia to scarcely populated cotton-growing districts of Azerbaijan and using the abandoned land and houses for the reception and placement of the Armenians who had arrived from other countries. According to the decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR ‘On the migration of collective farmers and other members of the Azerbaijani population from Armenia to the Kura-Aras lowlands of Azerbaijan’ adopted on 23 December 1947 and 10 March 1948, some 150,000 Azerbaijanis were forcibly moved to the lowlands of Azerbaijan in a mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands in 1948-1953, in particular from Irevan and the surrounding districts. Moreover, Armenia continued its territorial claims, pursuing an aggressive policy. It raised the issue of including Nagorno-Karabakh into the territory of Armenia. A draft resolution on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was drafted in March 1948 by Nikolay Shvernik, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The document sent to Azerbaijan also included a map showing the projected changes to the borders of Azerbaijan. Fortunately, this attempt was resolutely prevented as well. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue was raised several times in the 1960s. In November 1960, on the initiative of Anastas Mikoyan a document was drawn up transferring Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and it had to be discussed at a sitting of the Supreme Soviet of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Despite the Armenians’ serious preparations, during discussions held before the sitting their draft was rejected after a report from N. Hajiyev, the-then secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan. In early 1969, Mikoyan suggested to Khrushchev that Armenia annex Nagorno-Karabakh. Khrushev made an interesting response: ‘I am ready to give 12,000 military trucks for the transportation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to Armenia within 24 hours.’ Repeatedly failing to achieve their goal, the Armenian leadership and Armenian lobby did not stop looking for an opportunity. They found it in the late 1980s. Taking advantage of the policy of glasnost (openness) and democracy of the USSR, the Armenian nationalists made their territorial claim against the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. When the events of 1988 began, Armenian nationalists who had long nurtured the idea of ‘Great Armenia’ and their supporters in the leadership of the Soviet Union organized mass demonstrations in Khankandi and Irevan. In the second half of the year the situation became so fraught that the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh province was exposed to armed aggression. In late
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August and early September, Armenians attacked Karkijahan and Khojali. On 18 September, Armenians brutally expelled 15,000 native Azerbaijanis from Khankandi, making them move to Shusha and other neighbouring districts. On 12 January 1989, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a Decree setting up a special executive committee in Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region under the authority of the USSR administration. Though the main duty of the Committee was ‘to prevent further deterioration of relations between the nations and stabilize the situation in the region’, the situation worsened under the rule of the Committee. With so much tension in Nagorno-Karabakh, on 1 December 1989, the Supreme Soviet of Armenia violated the sovereignty of Azerbaijan by passing a resolution on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenia, which contradicted the Constitution of the USSR. In late 1990 and early 1991, the grave and inexcusable blunders and pro-Armenian policy of the Soviet leadership made the situation worse and Armenian aggression became widespread in Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions bordering on Armenia. Thousands of Azerbaijanis were killed as a result of terrorist acts committed on a Moscow-Baku train and on buses travelling on the routes Tbilisi-Baku, Aghdam-Shusha and Aghdam-Khojali. From 1991, tension grew in the mountainous part of Karabakh. In June-December that year 12 civilians were killed and 15 more wounded in an attack by Armenian armed forces on the village of Qaradaghli in Khojavand District and on Meshali in Asgaran District. In late October and November 1991 more than 30 settlements in the mountainous part of Karabakh, including Tugh, Imarat-Qarvand, Sirkhavand, Meshali, Jamilli, Umudlu, Qaradaghli, Karkijahan and other strategically important villages were set on fire, destroyed and plundered by the Armenians. 108
Overall, in 1988-91, i.e. from the onset of events till the collapse of the USSR, the Armenian leadership under the patronage of the USSR ruling circles pursued a policy of open aggression against Azerbaijan. As a result, 50,000 Azerbaijanis were forcibly driven from their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh; 514 died and 1,318 were wounded. As a consequence of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian SSR during that period, about 250,000 Azerbaijanis were driven out of 185 Azerbaijani villages in Armenia; 216 Azerbaijanis were killed, and thousands of women, children and elderly people were wounded and thousands of families lost their property. Starting in 1992, the Armenian army invaded the last remaining Azerbaijani settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh. Thus, on 12 February the villages of Malibayli and Qushchular in Shusha District were invaded by Armenian forces. From 13 to 17 February the village of Qaradaghli in Khojavand District was attacked and 118 civilians (women, children, and the elderly) were captured and 33 shot; the dead and wounded were thrown together down a well by the Armenians. Sixty-eight of those taken captive were ruthlessly killed, while 50 were freed from captivity with great difficulty. Eighteen of the freed captives died of their wounds. Eight members of two families from the village of Qaradaghli were killed, 42 families lost their breadwinners, and around 140 children became orphans. Academician Ramiz Mehdiyev who studied the Qaradaghli tragedy points out that this was the first operation commanded by the terrorist Monte Melkonian. Melkonian was an active member of the ASALA terror organization and did not hide his criminal nature in the attack on Qaradaghli. The operation under his command was exceptional in its mercilessness. From Qaradaghli onwards, the Armenian fighters committed ruthless atrocities against the Azerbaijanis.
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On the night of 25-26 February 1992, Armenian armed forces with the help of military personnel and equipment from the 366th Regiment of the Commonwealth of Independent States, based in Khankandi, attacked the town of Khojali and levelled it to the ground. The town was set on fire, and the inhabitants brutally killed. A total of 613 civilians were killed in the massacre, of whom 63 were children, 106 women and 70 elderly; eight families were wiped out and 487 civilians, 76 of them children, were permanently disabled. Moreover, 1,275 people were captured, and 150 remain missing. On 8 May 1992, a trilateral meeting of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Iranian leaders was held in Tehran as part of an Iranian initiative. The same day Shusha was occupied. Later it emerged that the Armenian side had had a different plan when they agreed at the meeting to cease fire along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenian side needed that meeting to conceal its real aim from the international community. The Armenian leadership was certainly aware of the planned attack in advance, because the time of the occupation of Shusha coincided with the time of the negotiations in Tehran and the signed peace treaty would be valid as soon as the ink dried. Besides, the Armenians as usual disseminated disinformation about heavy attacks from Shusha on Khankandi. Thanks to modern military equipment Armenian forces occupied the district of Shusha, with its 289 square metres of territory, 24,000 population, one town and 30 villages. After the occupation of Shusha, Armenian armed forces blocked the Shusha-Lachin route and fired shells into Lachin from the territory of the Armenian Republic. On 18 May, the old Azerbaijani town of Lachin was occupied. The occupation of Lachin showed that the war had gone beyond the boundaries of Nagorno- 110 Karabakh and the Armenian occupiers wanted more. In 1993, with the help of the states patronizing Armenia, the Armenian forces occupied and ethnically cleansed Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fizuli, Jabrayil, Qubadli and Zangilan, districts outside Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory four times the size of Nagorno-Karabakh. At present Armenian armed forces occupy 20 per cent of the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. As a result of the occupation nearly 900 settlements and 22 museums, and 40,000 museum exhibits – rare and valuable historical items – have been destroyed or plundered. The Aghdam Bread Museum, unique in the post-Soviet republics, has been completely destroyed, and 13,000 exhibits from the Kalbajar Museum and 45,000 valuable exhibits from the Lachin Ethnography Museum have been taken to the Republic of Armenia. The list of items stolen from museums is long: 500 exhibits of the Shusha History Museum; exhibits of the Shusha branch of the Azerbaijani State Carpet and Folk Art Museum; 1,000 exhibits of the Karabakh History Museum; 300 exhibits from the Memorial Museum of the great Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibayli; 400 exhibits from the Memorial Museum of the great singer Bulbul; 100 exhibits from the Memorial Museum of prominent musician and artist Mir Mohsun Navvab; 2,000 exhibits from Aghdam Ethnography Museum; 3000 from Qubadli Ethnography Museum; and 6,000 exhibits from Zangilan Ethnography Museum. Moreover, four art galleries, nine palaces of historical importance, 44 Albanian temples and nine mosques have been ruined, plundered and burned; 4.6 million books and valuable historical manuscripts in 927 libraries have been destroyed. Soon after the occupation of Shusha, the Republic of Azerbaijan called on the chairman of the UN Security Council and the international community to prevent Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan. However, the UN Security Council took no practical
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steps against Armenia. Armenia’s impunity led not only to the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, but to the further expansion of aggression too.
From 27 March to 3 April 1993, Armenian armed forces occupied Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar District. On 30 April 1993, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 822 on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The Security Council expressed its grave concern at the escalation of armed hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan, thereby confirming the involvement of the Republic of Armenia in the conflict. Moreover, the resolution reaffirmed respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states in the region, the inviolability of international borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory. On 23 July 1993, Armenian armed forces occupied Azerbaijan’s Aghdam District. Immediately after the occupation of Aghdam the Azerbaijani government addressed the chairman of the UN Security Council over the situation in the region. On 29 July, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 853 on the seizure of Aghdam District. The Security Council expressed its serious concern at the tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia; reaffirmed the inviolability of international borders and inadmissibility of the use of force to acquire territory; demanded the immediate cessation of all hostilities and the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the occupying forces from the district of Aghdam and all other recently occupied territories of Azerbaijan. In summer 1993, Armenia ignored the resolutions of the UN Security Council and went on to occupy other territories of Azerbaijan. Thus, on 23 August 1993, Armenian forces occupied Azerbaijan’s Fizuli and Jabrail districts and on 31 August Qubadli District. On 14 October 1993, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 874 on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Enjoying its impunity Armenia ignored UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853 and 874 and further expanded its aggression, occupying new areas of Azerbaijan. On 12 November 1993, at the request of the Azerbaijani government the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 884 in response to the expansion of the conflict and Armenian occupation of Zangilan District. Armenia ignored this resolution, too. All the documents adopted in 1993 by the UN Security Council and leading countries of the world in response to Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan affirmed the territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan. But the permanent members of the Security Council did not agree to recognize Armenia as the aggressor. On 24 March 1992, the first supplementary meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) decided to seek a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. After the Lisbon Summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE – the successor to the CSCE) in December 1996, the representatives of Russia, France and the USA were appointed co-chairs of the Minsk Group. In 1997-98, proceeding from the Lisbon Principles, the Minsk Group co-chairs put forward a two-part proposal: that is, the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the seven occupied districts outside Nagorno-Karabakh and determination of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani side did not fully agree with this, but they accepted it, while the Armenian side took a non-constructive position, declaring the proposal unacceptable. On 8 November 1998, the co-chairs suggested a third proposal, which contradicted the norms of international law; this was unacceptable to Azerbaijan and could have hindered the mediation process as well. The artificial ‘common state’ proposal not only contradicted the interests of Azerbaijan, it also ignored the resolutions adopted at the OSCE Budapest and Lisbon summits.
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After the failure of the co-chairs’ ‘common state’ proposal, the Minsk Group was deadlocked.
Negotiations between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan were stepped up in the first months of 2001. The two presidents held negotiations with the participation of the Minsk Group co-chairs first in Paris on 26 January 2001 and again on 5 March, then in Key West, Florida on 4-6 April. A proposal entitled ‘The Paris Principles’ emerged, which attempted to bring together the provisions of the three previous settlement proposals (‘package’, ‘staged’, and ‘common state’), which could satisfy both parties. On 6 April 2004, a new stage of talks known as the ‘Prague Process’ began. The talks focused on a new peace plan for step-by-step regulation of the conflict. The basic principles of the new peace plan were: Armenia withdraws its troops step by step from the occupied territories (Aghdam, Fizuli, Jabrail, Qubadli and Zangilan) along the borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Yüklə 2,25 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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