DEMOGRAPHIC DISCRIMINATION POLICY APPLIED AGAINST KARABAKH THROUGHOUT
ITS BEING PART OF AZERBAIJAN

STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 22. ARMINFO. Karabakh suffered from demographic
discrimination policy throughout its being part of Soviet
Azerbaijan. The goal of the policy was to reduce the Armenian
population and to increase the Azeri one, says Karabakh analyst,
professor of Russian-Armenian Modern Humanitarian Academy David
Babayan.

The policy got especially tough when Haydar Aliev was appointed the
first secretary of the central committee of Azerbaijan’s Communist
Party. Azeri Interior Minister Ramil Usubov says that only then did
Azeris feel themselves the real hosts of Karabakh and started actively
inflowing from the neighboring districts.

The demographic discrimination policy was launched right after
Karabakh was annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan. 36 new Azeri villages
appeared in 1923-1988. All strategic routes in Karabakh especially
those leading to Stepanakert were surrounded by Azeri villages. Later
during the Karabakh war these villages were turned into military bases
shelling Armenian settlements on a regular basis.

This all was aimed at seizing control over Karabakh’s communications
and water resources and at driving Armenians out (by lie or by force)
of their homes, says Babayan.-