HOCALI ISSUE PLAYED UP BY AZERBAIJAN FOR PROPAGANDA PURPOSES: KARABAKH
HISTORIAN
STEPANAKERT, MARCH 5. ARMINFO. The Azeri authorities keep discussing
the Hocali subject with an obvious view to mislead public opinion both
inside and outside Azerbaijan – with the quantity of Hocali victims
growing every hour from speech to speech from interview to interview,
says Karabakh historian Hrachik Haroutyunyan.
Particularly during a recent radio bridge Vagif Nagi, a native Azeri
journalist from Tabriz, said that 613 people were killed in Hocali
including children and women, 151 were missed, 1,300 captured. Another
journalist claimed that there were 1,200 people killed.
Meanwhile official statistics says that there were only 1,600 people
living in Hocali before the events in question. Besides it is known
that before starting the military operation to destroy the enemy’s
weapon emplacements (Feb 26 1992) the Karabakh authorities had opened
a humanitarian corridor for civilians which had been reported by Azeri
media a few days before the operation. It is also well known that only
military units remained in Hocali by the time the operation was
launched. Azerbaijan claims that all Hocali civilians were killed
while each second speaker today says he is former resident of that
village and that he escaped therefrom with his family, sons and
daughters, says Haroutyunyan.
He says that before the emergence of Azeri Hocali there was
Kaladarasian Hocali, home to Armenians fleeing the 1918 Ottoman
invasion of Shushi. Later they were forced to leave that place
too. The 1926 census mentions Hocali as Armenian village of 900 people
while in the early 60s there already was a neighboring Azeri
Hocali. In 1977 there is no longer Armenian Hocali and finally in 1989
Hocali is a fully Azeri village of 1,600 people.
Harotuyunyan says that Azerbaijan is speculating on the subject with a
view to blacken Karabakh and to get internal and external political
dividends.