PENDING JUST RETRIBUTION
Wednesday, 08 April 2015 16:59
Though it is sad to state, but the history of relations between
Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan is replete with numerous tragic pages
reflecting the criminal anti-Armenian policy of this state formation.
For decades, in fact, from the moment when the Bolsheviks included
Nagorno Karabakh in the structure of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani
authorities have systematically implemented the policy of ethnic
discrimination of Armenians.
Since the beginning of the current stage of the Karabakh Movement,
which originated in late 80s, this policy has openly gained a
genocidal character, which resulted in the mass pogroms and massacres
of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, Northern Nagorno Karabakh, Baku,
and other regions. The continuation of the long chain of bloody crimes
by the Baku regime was the terrible tragedy in the Armenian village
of Maragha, the Martakert region of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic,
which experienced the horrors of the Azerbaijani fascism.
On April 10, 1992, after three-hour artillery preparation, the units
of the regular army of Azerbaijan broke in Maragha. Victims of the
aggression were about 100 people – mostly women, children and the
elderly. Those who had not managed to leave the village were killed
by the Azerbaijanis in the most sadistic ways – were dismembered with
axes and sickles, were sawed and were burned alive. Dozens of people
were taken hostage, some were later exchanged, but the fate of many
is still unknown. The next day, the Karabakh forces liberated Maragha,
but after almost two weeks, on April 22-23, the village was subjected
to new attacks and was actually wiped out. Today, it is still under
the Azeri occupation.
There are a lot of documentary evidences by the residents of Maragha –
survivors of the massacre, irrefutably proving the extreme cruelty and
vandalism by Azerbaijan, which are beyond the human reason. They are
complemented by photos and videos by Vice-Speaker of the British House
of Lords, Baroness Caroline Cox, which recorded chilling footages. It
is known that on April 11, the day after this war crime by the
Azerbaijani army, Lady Cox visited Maragha. She was just shocked by
what she saw. “They are not of the human race”, such was Lady Cox’s
reaction to the atrocities of the Azerbaijani OMON units, which had
committed the massacre. She qualified the tragedy in Maragha as a
crime against humanity.
It is important to note that the armed attack on Maragha cannot be
considered a military operation, as the village, inhabited only by
civilians, was far from the epicenter of active hostilities. The fact
that the main target of Azerbaijan’s armed aggression was the civilian
population convincingly demonstrates that the goal of these criminal
acts, like in the bloody events in Sumgait, Baku, and Kirovabad,
was to intimidate the Armenians of Artsakh and to ultimately expel
them from their native land.
Unfortunately, the monstrous crimes in Maragha, like the preceded
“sumgait”, “kirovabad” and “baku”, have not got the appropriate
assessment by the international community. It is despite the fact
that in 1997, several human rights organizations issued a joint and
extensive inquiry about the tragedy in Maragha and submitted it to
the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Alas, there was no
reaction. Such indifference of the international structures to the
criminal actions of Azerbaijan prompts the latter to permissiveness
and encourages it to flagrant violation of international law. The
formation of such illusion at the criminal Baku authorities is very
dangerous, because it threatens the security of both the NKR and the
entire region.
Here is a remarkable fact. Recently, the mass media has informed
that seven men were arrested in Serbia suspected of war crimes in
Srebrenica, where in 1995 mass killings of Bosnian Muslim civilians
were committed. Agree, this is an example worthy of emulation for
Azerbaijan, which has not yet condemned the crimes of its army in
Maragha and other settlements of Artsakh. However, expecting similar
actions by the Baku authorities is a thankless undertaking, since all
the crimes against the Armenian population of Azerbaijan and Artsakh
were and are committed at the state level. Official Baku does not
either hide today its intentions to unleash a new war against the
NKR and to commit another act of genocide. In these conditions,
the words of Caroline Cox addressed to us are still topical:
“You have the most powerful weapon – the truth. You should raise
in international structures the issue that Azerbaijan attempted to
commit genocide against the people of Karabakh. You should actively
present to the world the mass crimes against Armenians in Maragha,
Sumgait, Baku and others. These are crimes against humanity”. They
are crimes pending their just retribution.
Leonid MARTIROSSIAN Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper
From: Baghdasarian
http://artsakhtert.com/eng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1754:-pending-just-retribution&catid=3:all&Itemid=4