On 20 January 1990 a serious crime was committed against the Azerbaijani people when Soviet military units illegally entered Baku and a number of regions of the Republic to punish the peaceful population, who had gone out onto the streets as a sign of protest against attempts to violate the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, against the unjust and biased policy of the leaders of the former USSR with regard to the Azerbaijani people. Hundreds of innocent citizens of Azerbaijan were wounded and killed as a result of the punitive measures carried out with unprecedented brutality. In this way a concerted act of terror was committed against the Azerbaijani people.
The
policy pursued by the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union, revealed a non-objective and biased orientation, impinged on the
sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and had caused, the
day before the events of 20 January, unbounded anger among the
inhabitants of the Republic.
From the outset the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh problem”, which had been artificially created in 1987, had been seen by the Azerbaijani people as an impingement on the territorial integrity of the Republic and a violation of the constitutional rights of its citizens. Although the inviolability of the borders of Azerbaijan had been officially confirmed by the government structures of the USSR, a policy had been initiated with purpose of taking the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region away from Azerbaijan.
In March 1988 the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, by adopting a special decision to accelerate socio-economic development in the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region had, in essence, laid the foundations for taking Nagorno-Karabakh away from the Azerbaijani SSR. Through this decision, adopted without any objective basis and for spurious reasons, Nagorno-Karabakh was granted exclusive rights and allocated considerable resources, and decisions on many questions relating to the region were entrusted immediately to the Soviet ministers and structures.
In a further step by the Centre to remove the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region from the control of Azerbaijan a statute was published on 12 January 1989 by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the introduction of a special form of administration in the autonomous region. The administration in the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh was entrusted to a specially created committee under the chairmanship of A.Volsky. This effectively signified the removal of Nagorno-Karabakh from the control of the Azerbaijani SSR.
In official documents adopted by them, the leaders of the USSR were attempting to give the impression that in the measures they were taking to normalize the situation in the region they were being equally fair to Azerbaijan and Armenia, whereas the biased attitude of the Centre to Azerbaijan were manifestly obvious to the Azerbaijanis. Even before 1988 the Azerbaijanis had found themselves subject to single-minded ideological aggression on the part of the mass media of the USSR and various publications in Armenia. This campaign was specially designed to put the Azerbaijanis in a bad light and could be regarded as the preparatory step for the mass ethnic cleansing operations, which began in 1988 in the Armenian SSR and also in the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region. Azerbaijanis living in Armenia were expelled from their own homes with unprecedented brutality and many of them, including old people, women and children, were killed. While official government structures, law enforcement agencies and the mass media of the USSR devoted a great deal of attention to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, not a single word was said about the large-scale tragedy of the Azerbaijani people.
The Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR adopted on the 1st of December 1989 a decision to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR. On January 15, a few days before the events of January 20, the hopes of the Azerbaijanis to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh were effectively dashed by the statute promulgated by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the introduction of a state of emergency in the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region and a number of other regions. As the very name suggests, the question of whom the autonomous region and “a number of other regions” belonged to was already being put in doubt.
The biased policy against Azerbaijan being pursued by the Centre provoked feelings of anger and protest among large groups of the population. The leadership of the USSR chose the path of open violence against the people, who had dared to speak out in favor of restoring justice in the Republic. The march into Baku on January 20 1990 of a large contingent of the Soviet army, together with special forces subunits and interior forces, without a state of emergency being declared, was accompanied by particular brutality and unprecedented atrocities.
The
tragedy of January 20, committed with the aim of smashing the faith
and the will of people daring to make a stand, trampling on their
national pride and demonstrating the strength of the Soviet military
machine, was an act of military aggression and a crime by the
totalitarian Communist regime against the people of Azerbaijan.
During the period of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, concrete facts and evidence collected by lots of people regarding the tragedy of January 20 and passed on to the State committee of inquiry were deliberately withdrawn and removed from Azerbaijan. During this period the Office of the Public Prosecutor and the law enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan did not take the appropriate measures to investigate; on the contrary, a number of secret documents connected with the tragedy of 20 January, including important archive documents, were completely or partially destroyed.
In spite of the fact that the events that had taken place in other regions of the USSR including Tblissi and the Baltic countries were discussed at the level of the Soviet leadership and the Congress of People’s Deputies, the events that had happened in Baku were deliberately distorted, incorrectly interpreted and consigned to oblivion.
Only in 1994 were serious steps taken towards a proper evaluation of the events of 20 January. The decree by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan of 5 January 1994 advised the Milli Majlis to make a full political and legal evaluation of the events of 20 January. Having devoted a special session to this issue, the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan discovered during meetings lasting several days the real reasons behind the events of 20 January and exposed the guilty parties. The resolution by the Milli Majlis of 29 March 1994 provided a political and legal evaluation of the tragic events of 20 January 1990.
As one of the bloodiest acts of terror carried out by a totalitarian regime in the history of the twentieth century, the tragedy of January 20, which was a crime against the Azerbaijani people, was also a terrible act directed against mankind, humanism and humanity. The perpetrators of this crime have not been punished to date. Our people are convinced that the guilty will come to be held responsible before history, mankind and also before the Azerbaijani people.