AZG Armenian Daily #225, 24/11/2006

Concern

KHACHKARS OF JUGHA’S ARMENIAN CEMETERY ARE NO MORE

Azerbaijan `Wipes Away’ the Armenian Trace and the
World Community Turns a Blind Eye

History is a chain of evidence that is often "edited"
and "supplemented" as one wishes. It’s especially easy
to do when the evidence is an unprotected manuscript
or an oral speech. Stone can also be an eyewitness of
history and events if it is not crashed down in a
barbaric attempt to "edit" history.

When in December of 2005 Azeri soldiers pulled down
the last Armenian khachkars (stone-crosses) of Old
Jugha in Nakhijevan and threw them into the Araxes
river, in this way Azerbaijan was keeping to its
policy of eliminating the trace of the Armenians. In
Azeri logic this was the simplest way of denying the
Armenian presence in Nakhijevan.

It was in December that daily Azg along with other
media representatives following the alarming news from
the Armenian Embassy to Tehran informed that around
100 Azeri soldiers infiltrated into the Armenian
cemetery of Old Jugha on the bank of the Araxes and
crashed down with huge hammers, spades and bulldozers.
To remind, these very khachkars were saved from
sacrilege in 2000.

Yet, there was no reaction from international
structures and not a single organization that holds
forth on lofty topics raised a finger. Destruction of
Bamyan Buddha statues by the taliban in Afghanistan
pushed those in charge to create additional mechanisms
for protecting cultural heritage. But the khachkars of
Old Jugha must be neither cultural heritage nor they
were deliberately annihilated, otherwise the
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage adopted in 2003 would be applicable
here.

Part of the monuments was destroyed in 1903-1904 when
a railway was being built. In Soviet era the khachkars
were used as construction materials in various
buildings. In 1970s there still were 3000 khachkars
and around 2000 tombstones. In 1998 nearly 800
khachkars were destroyed, in November and December of
2002 not only khachkars were crashed down but also
church remains.

In 2005 there still was a semi-ruined Armenian church
in one of Nakhijevan’s villages, and during
reconstruction works sponsored by a Norwegian
humanitarian organization the Armenian inscription on
the church’s wall was destroyed. After the incident
the Norwegian organization ceases financing the
project, and the Norwegian ambassador to Baku accused
Azerbaijan of "vandalism". In 2005 Scot architect
Stefan Seam was in Nakhijevan to study the state of
the Armenian monuments. Soon after he witnessed that
no such monuments were saved as "all of them were
destroyed by bulldozers during 1995-2005." In December
of 2005 the remaining few khachkars and tombstones
were also crashed down.

In 1998 the Armenian Foreign Ministry sent letters to
international organizations dealing with protection of
cultural heritage. Letters calling for stopping
cultural genocide in Nakhijevan were sent to Koichiro
Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General, in 1998, 2002 and
2005.

Suchlike letters were also sent to Council of Europe
Secretary General Walter Schwimmer (2003) and as a
reply the Committee on Culture, Science and Education
of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly
decided to send a fact-finding mission to Nakhijevan
in April 2003 to assess degree of the damage done to
the monuments.

Curiously, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura’s reply to the letter
sent on December 16 2005 is dated February 24 and
politely assures that UNESCO will discuss what is
possible to do "to ensure protection of this cultural
wealth." As it transpires, UNESCO and other suchlike
organizations need years to react to crimes and take
measures for protecting already inexistent heritage.
Moreover, the fact that by acting as it did Azerbaijan
has violated a number of international regulations on
protection of cultural heritage seem not to bother the
international structures, and one can only wonder what
the mission of these structures is.

Condemnation of the barbaric acts on Old Jugha is
first of all important for preventing such acts in
future. Though the destruction of the Armenian
cemetery on Azerbaijan had a political end of wiping
away the Armenian trace form Nakhijevan, those
khachkars and tombstones were not mere graveyard
articles but also cultural value. Moreover, they were
Christian monuments that should be more protected in
country’s practicing Islam.

By Aghavni Harutyunian

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress