A PERSONAL VIEW: FOR ARMENIANS LIKE ME, THE LOSS OF A LOVELY HOME VILLAGE HURTS
By Sara Khojoyan
Institute for War and Peace Reporting IWPR
July 27 2009
UK
In my passport, my place of birth is listed as the Republic of
Azerbaijan. Of course, it was not the Azerbaijan of today, because
I am an Armenian, but the Soviet Socialist Republic, back in 1983,
before the conflict between our two peoples over Nagorny Karabakh.
In 1988, the troubles started and my family fled our home in an area
of Azerbaijan close to Karabakh. We have never been back.
I have many other relatives who are refugees. Although my grandparents
fled the village of Khanlar in the Dashkesan region – which was
inhabited by both Azeris and Armenians – most of my other relatives
came from Zaglik, which was for centuries purely Armenian.
In the 15 years since the ceasefire, they have lost hope that they
will ever return to the land where their ancestors are buried. They
cannot get used to the politicians’ talk of a "return of territory". If
they cannot go back, why should Azeris be able to?
"Our Zaglik was heaven on earth, but we understand we will never
get it back. Both sides now have what they have and you cannot turn
back the clock. I had many Azeri friends, and I am sure that they
think the same. Politicians are a long way from the common people,"
said my uncle, Ashot Khojaian.
In Armenia, almost everyone is connected to the Karabakh
conflict. Although few men actually fought, everyone knows someone
who did. Take Mher Davoian, the editor of the magazine where I used
to work. He and a friend were the only survivors from their division,
and hid in the forests for a week, having been given up for dead.
And now, when almost every week politicians discuss the return of
territory, my former editor refuses to believe it.
"I organised an opinion poll across all of Armenia and I know that
it’s not just me, it’s 80 per cent of Armenians who are ready to take
up arms to defend what belongs to us. This is even though I know that
there won’t be a second war," he said.
And he’s right. Ordinary Armenians cannot countenance giving up Nagorny
Karabakh. Levon Manvelian, my future father-in-law, took three years
to get over the psychological damage he suffered in the war, when he
had to gather up the pieces of his best friend. When he hears talk
of the interim status that the international mediators want to assign
to Karabakh under the Madrid Principles, he just laughs.
"Nagorny Karabakh already has a status. I don’t understand why our
authorities don’t stand by this. I do understand, however, what a
dirty business politics is, and maybe they don’t have the power to
do more than they are. But we the people are strong enough, just like
we were 20 years ago," he told me.
Ordinary people are a long way from diplomacy, and maybe do not
understand the niceties of the principles laid out for regulating the
conflict. A week ago, all the commentators in Armenia started talking
about resolving the Karabakh conflict along the lines of the Madrid
Principles. People at bus stops and coffee shops across the whole
of Yerevan could be heard saying things like, "Apparently, they are
going to return the territory. This cannot be allowed to happen."
I was born on Azeri territory but I have never thought of it as my
homeland. However, I have also never doubted that the village of
Zaglik, in which generations of my ancestors were born and died, is
Armenian land. It is land controlled by Azerbaijan, but it is where
my mother dreams of going, so she can visit the graves of my family.
But this does not trouble me. We are talking here about the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. It troubles me that no one in the world
seems to understand that Nagorny Karabakh is not a part of Azerbaijan,
and this is not a question of diplomacy. It is a question of memory,
and this is something we all have.
Many people do not know this, just as they do not know about Zaglik,
my home, which I will probably never see again.
Sara Khojoyan is the acting director of IWPR’s Armenian office.