CONFERENCE TO MARK 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF ARMENIAN POGROMS IN BAKU HELD IN YEREVAN
news.am
Jan 19 2010
Armenia
A scientific conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary
of Armenian pogroms in Baku, Azerbaijan, was held at the Armenian
National Academy of Sciences in Yerevan on January 19. A documentary
entitled "Baku. January, 1990: nothing but genocide" was shown during
the conference.
The author, journalist Marina Grigoryan said that the aim of the
documentary is not sowing hatred, but telling the truth about
the Armenian pogroms in Baku in January 1990. "This is the first
documentary of the series entitled ‘Nothing but genocide’," Grigoryan
said. The 40-minute documentary was created by the Public Relations
and Information Center, RA Presidential Administration.
The documentary contains Armenian and Russian residents’ stories,
quotes from the reports by central Soviet newspapers and western media
outlets, telling about the brutal and horrific murders committed for
ethnic and religious reasons.
The viewer can first see pictures of modern-day Baku, with an
off-screen commentary telling that the citizens of modern-day
Azerbaijan do not want to remember the native Armenians that played
a crucial role in the country’s socio-economic development and were
then forcibly displaced from their homes. "Few can imagine today that
blood was streaming down the streets 20 years ago, and brutal murders
were being committed," the commentary says.
The authors state that after 5:00 p.m. on January 13, 1990, about
50,000 brutalized Azeris, with Armenian residents’ addresses at
their disposal, were ready to go to murder, plunder and rape. The
documentary contains numerous quotes of the Soviet and western press,
which prove that horrific murders were committed in Baku January 13
to 19, with Armenians’ dead bodies shown.
Director of the Institute Museum of the Armenian Genocide Hayk Demoyan
pointed out that the Armenian people’s genetic memory made them draw
parallels with the tragic events in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915.
The authors paid great attention to the background to the Armenian
pogroms, namely, the bloody Armenian pogroms in Baku in 1905-1906,
1918, and in Sumgait and Kirovabad in 1988.
The documentary informs the viewer that over the last 20 years
Azerbaijan has been pursuing a policy of lie about the events in Baku
in January 1990. The State Television of Azerbaijan shows the world
the so-called "Shahids’ lane", the burial place of the thugs killed by
the Soviet troops introduced into the city to prevent further brutal
murders of Armenians.
The documentary end with pictures of the Memorial to the victims of
the Armenian Genocide, "Tsitsernakaberd", and the authors express hope
for a Nuremberg trial of the masterminds behind and participants in
the Armenian pogroms, who have so far remained unpunished.