EYEWITNESS OF "BLACK JANUARY": PEOPLE WERE KILLED BECAUSE OF NATIONALITY

Panorama.am
10:53 14/01/2010

"After Sumgayit events we’ve decided to leave Baku, as the atmosphere
of horror crowned the city. Troops were everywhere in the streets, and
we felt that threat," former inhabitant of Baku Silva Saakova tells.

She remembers how in November of 1988 her family and her
sister-in-law’s were forced to quit Baku and come to Armenia. It was
terrible to leave Baku after so many years of life created there,
to leave their earnings, home. But, at the same time, she’s happy
her family managed to leave Baku right time and hasn’t seen those
brutalities of 1990. Rosy Aivazyan, grand daughter of Baku events
eye witness remembers those tragic events committed in Baku that her
granny told her. "My granny told me that it was not just an eviction,
it was massacre of a massacre of peaceful nation, which was organized
and coordinated by upper political forces," Rosy told Panorama.am
reporter. When the troops entered the flat and destroyed furniture and
everything in the room, Rosy managed to escape. The neighbors didn’t
see her and hid that there was an Armenian girls in the room. "But
Granny saw how they destroyed all the property in the room," Rosy
tells how difficult it was for her Granny to live those moments as
he lived all her life in Baku, prospered the city and contributed to
"restoration of the city." Eye witnesses of those brutalities who had
lived all their life in Baku and created their living were seriously
shocked by the so called "black January." Granny of Rosy, was 78 years
old and saw all that horror before leaving Baku. She saw dead bodies
of children and adults; she saw how people were being killed. "She
was lucky, she knew Azerbaijani language and nobody understood she
was Armenian. She managed to get to Turkmenistan," Rosy tells, but she
regrets her Granny couldn’t forget those sceneries. She even couldn’t
believe that people were being killed only because of nationality.

Historian Hayk Demoyan states, referring to historical facts, that in
20th century Armenians of Baku were resorted to violence three times
– in 1905, in 1918 and the developed and final one committed during
Heydar Aliev’s ruling. That infringement, Demoyan says follows one
single mission – to make Baku city of Muslim people and to murder
any national minorities. "Now Baku is mainly one ethnic city, that
national minorities left fearing of their securities. Currently the
city is inhabited by people from regions and lost its former image
of a city," Demoyan says. The historian tells that even today many
cultural and administrative buildings in Baku have Armenian marks.

"Older buildings in Baku have Armenian mark and soul," Hayk Demoyan
says.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress