January 13 marks 18th anniversary of the beginning of Armenian pogroms
in Baku

2008-01-13 17:53:00

ArmInfo. January 13 marks the 18th anniversary of the mass pogroms of
Armenians in Azerbaijan’s capital.

On January 13, 1990, after the People’s Front of Azerbaijan (PFA)
finished its regular rally in Baku, several thousands of pogromists
started attacking the apartments of Armenian residents in Baku, whose
addresses had already been hung on the walls of PFA headquarters.

"Yesterday mass disorders began in the city, there are a lot of victims
and wounded people. We have got together to prevent further
developments", First Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the
Azerbaijani Communist Party (ACP) Abdurahman Vezirov said at the Jan 14
emergency meeting of the ACP CC Bureau. Soviet generals who came from
Moscow the same day, started the deployment of additional 10 thsd
contingent of internal troops.

However, the situation had entirely been out of control by that moment.
As the central press reported several days later, the capital of Soviet
Azerbaijan practically passed to the complete control of "the extremist
forces of the People’s Front". The military units dislocated in the
city were blocked near the Salyan billets.

Ethnic ground violent murders took place in Baku. To note, Sumgait
experienced similar mass murders two years earlier. Dozens of thousands
of native Armenians in Baku were driven out of their own apartments,
and hundreds of them were beaten. According to official data, 91 people
were killed during the Armenian pogroms in Baku. The victims were
"chiefly Armenians", as the joint statement of the Azeri leaders
Vezirov, Kafarova and Mutalibov published in the "Bakinskiy Rabochiy"
newspaper said.

It was possible to establish order in Baku only after the belated
decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Council dated January 19,
when Soviet army troops entered the city in the face of resistance of
the PFA fighters who had managed to partially armed themselves. In the
long run, over 200 thsd Armenian residents, who lost their whole
property, were expelled from Baku. Most of them still live in bad
social conditions in Armenia, Russia and other countries.