"MASSACRES IN BAKU AND SUMGAYIT ARE BURIED IN OBLIVION"
By Arevik Badalian

AZG Armenian Daily
14/01/2009

Armenian Genocide

19 years passed after the slaughters in Baku

Asya Poghosian and her family recall January 13 of 1990 as a "black
day". The Armenian massacres in Baku started that day and continued
until January 15. During those three days dozens of Armenians were
killed, thousands of them became homeless and fled to Armenia and
Russia.

Asya Poghosian is a 75-year-old woman. It is already 19 years that
she lives in Yerevan having a refugee status.

Politician Alexander Manasian mentions that the massacres in Baku
and Sumgayit is the continuation of Turkish policy on the Armenian
Genocide.

"Our demands for recognition of the Armenian Genocide are restricted
in recognition of the genocide in 1915. The aim of Turkey was not
its national security but annihilation of the Armenian nation. That
is why the massacres continued even after the World War and embraced
territories beyond the borders of Turkey. In 1918, Turkish regular
troops massacred thousands of Armenians on their way to Baku",
Alexander Manasian said at "Urbat" club.

President of the Assembly of the Azerbaijani Armenians Gregori Ayvazian
is confident that taking into account the fact of the massacres in Baku
it is impossible to see Nagorno Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. "The
Azerbaijani Armenians were forced to leave their cradle. 418 thousand
Armenians of Azerbaijan became refugees; 300 thousand of them live in
Armenia today. The Armenian authorities don’t use this fact, while the
Azerbaijanis don’t miss the opportunity to speak of their refugees",
he said. The Assembly of the Azerbaijani-Armenians applied to the
Museum-Institute of the Armenian Genocide to define the massacres
of Baku scientifically. "The Museum-Institute didn’t delay the
answer. According to the conclusion of the Museum-Institute, the
massacres of Baku correspond to the international resolution on the
genocide phenomenon", Gregori Ayvazian added.

Asya Poghosian recalls that the Azerbaijanis, who committed the
massacres, clearly knew the houses of the Armenians.

A state of emergency was declared in Baku only in January 19. The same
day the Soviet troops broke into the capital of Azerbaijan. Tatul
Hakobian, the author of the book "Green and black; Artsakh diary",
writes that the Communist authorities of Armenia touched upon
the Armenian massacres of Baku a month late on February 13. The
Supreme Council considered inexplicable "the fact that in spite of
the massacres committed against the Armenian population, the troops
entered Baku unforgivably late, when there were already no Armenians
because of the ferocity of the extremists". The resolution condemned
"the massacres of Armenians in Baku and other provinces of the Soviet
Azerbaijan", qualifying them as "continuation of the genocide of the
Armenian people".

"The massacres of Baku are not assessed and qualified appropriately by
now. Moreover, massacres in Baku and Sumgayit are buried in oblivion",
the politician underlined.