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At the
end of the 20th century human mankind became faced with an unprecedented
recidivism of the medieval barbarity - the mass expulsion of the people from
their home places and the direct genocide towards the whole people. Azerbaijan
turned out to be one of such victims. In 1987 Armenia raised a problem of
joining the Nagorny-Karabakh Region of the Azerbaijan Republic to Armenia and a
range of actions were undertaken by Armenia in this respect.
The wave
of Armenian chauvinism raised in connection with the forced problem of
"reunion" of Nagorny-Karabakh and even which does not have common
borders on Armenia, led to the mass violations of human rights of Azeris living
in Armenia. After this Armenians began
the process of the mass expulsion and abuse of over 200,000 Azeris, who had
lived on the lands belonging today to Armenia, for centuries. It was accompanied
by a wide-scale changing of the names of the settlements having historical
Azerbaijanian names into the ethnically Armenian ones. It was a stage of
"an ethnic purge" in Armenia. In 1988 - 1989 the first wave of the
refugees came to Azerbaijan from Armenia. They were old men, women and
children, who were beaten, crippled, frost - bitten and fled their own home
places to save only their own life. These refugees do not have normal living
conditions up to the present.
Since then during more than 10 years Armenia
has been realizing the plans of the armed occupation of the Azerbaijan
territory in front of the world community with the purpose of joining the
Nagorny-Karabakh Region of the Azerbaijan Republic to Armenia. After the stage
of "purge" Armenia started a new stage of ethnic combing out in
Nagorny-Karabakh where the Azeris were driven out successively. At this stage
one could observe a mass breaching of the human rights up to killing. At first
with the assistance of Political Bureau of the former USSR Nagorny-Karabakh was
seized from Azerbaijan and since then for achieving its goals Armenia chose the
methods of military aggression. Since Azerbaijan did not have its independent
Azerbaijan army, at that time the actions of the armed forces of Armenia were
dirested against civilians and accompanied by the abominable crimes.
One of the inhuman crimes against Azerbaijan
people was a tragedy of the Khojali town, which was captured by the Armenia
armed forces in February 1992. As a result of the barbarian act of vandalism
the number of the killed and frozen Khojalians exceeded over 1000 people. There
were noted the facts of the abominable insultations of the living and
dead people. The majority of the killed people were women, old men and children.
The victims of Khojali are vivid examples of pursuing a policy of genocide and
ethnic cleaning towards Azerbaijan people.
In May 1992 after the tragic Khojali events
the armed forces of Armenia captured the last Azerbaijan town of Shusha. Thus
the ethnic cleaning of Nagorny - Karabakh from Azeris which started in 1989,
was completely finished by Armenian separatists.
After capturing the town of Shusha and the
Shusha Region the armed forces of Armenia occupied the Lachin Region of the
Azerbaijan Republic in 2 directions - from the territory of the Republic of
Armenia and from the Nagorny-Karabakh Republic of Azerbaijan. Thereby according
to the international normative deeds this non - declared war began to be
qualified as direct aggression.
In summer 1992 SCCE began to intensify its
activity and at last the talks between the two countries started. Despite the
fact that the talks did not lead to any result they gave a chance to stabilize
the situation to a certain extent. But all the efforts ended in another provocation
of the Armenian aggressor. So in April 1993 the Kelbajar region of the
Azerbaijan Republic was captured by the armed forces of Armenia in two
directions - from the direction of Aghdara region and from the territory of
Armenia. After the capturing of the Kelbajar region, in spite of all the
hypocritical statements of Armenian leaders about the adherence to a peaceful
regulation of the conflict, the Armenian military clique occupied the Aghdam
region of Azerbaijan. In October and November of 1993 the armed forces of the
Armenian Republic occupied the regions of the Azerbaijan Republic, such as
Fizuli, Jebrail and Zangelan. Thereby the aggressor gained the state frontier
of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Azeris have been driven out
from all the territories occupied by the Armenian aggressors. The vast
territories, which form 1/5 of the republic, have been transformed into a
"dead zone", where only the armed forces play the masters.
As result of the aggressive activities of
the armed forces of Armenia there was much destruction not only in
Nagorny-Karabakh, but in the Aghstafa, Gazakh, Gedabey regions and in Sedarek
region of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic as well. The number of killed
people among civilians particularly among women, old men, and children was over
20,000.
The aggressive policy of the Armenia
republic shakes the efforts undertaken by different international organizations
and a number of countries for peaceful solution of the problem. The main reason
of the failure of the peace-making activity on stabilization of the situation
in the region is that the Armenian side refuses to admit the fact of the direct
aggression of the Armenia republic against sovereign Azerbaijan. Numerous
missions on facts collecting of such competent organizations as UN and CSCE
based their conclusion upon the complexity of admitting the fact of the direct
involvement of Armenia armed forces into the conflict. However, Azerbaijan
possesses necessary evidences and has presented them to the mediators and
competent international organizations more than once.
So the facts of the military nature need to
be specifically qualified, but how can one refute the well-known political
juridical acts affirming the realization of political and military aggression
of the Republic of Armenia against Azerbaijan, e.g. such as:
The resolution on "Reunion of Armenia
to Nagorny-Karabakh" which was adopted on December 1, 1989 by the
Parliament of Armenia is the breach of the standards of the international law
and has not been rescinded up to these days;
In the territory of the Nagorny-Karabakh of
Azerbaijan the elections to the Parliament of the Republic of Armenia were
held;
The Parliament made a decision not to admit
any normative statement on belonging of Nagorny-Karabakh to Azerbaijan
Republic;
Proclaiming its sovereignty Armenia
illegally included into the declaration a statment about recognizing the the
Nagorny-Karabakh as a part of Armenia s territory.
The frontier regions of Azerbaijan Republic
are incessantly fired on from the direction of Armenia. By its attitude towards
the peacemaking efforts Armenia challenges the world association undermining
all the endeavors of the political regulation of the conflict. Realizing its
annexation plans the leaders of the Republic of Armenia not only stop breaching
standards of the international law, but discredit political authority of the
mediatory countries. After realizing a minimum program on capturing of all the
territories of Nagorny-Karabakh region, the aggressor began to create the
"buffer zone" which includes the regions of Azerbaijan situated
around occupied Nagorny-Karabakh. Having driven out the local Azeris from these
regions violently and having broken all the communications except the ones
connecting the region to Armenia, the Armenian armed forces realized their
thorough - made strategic plan, which foresees transforming. Nagorny-Karabakh
into a territory surrounded by a "dead zone" with the purpose of the
ruling out the possibility of home - coming of the Azeris to the permanent
residences. The experience of recent years shows that indecision,
ambiguity and quite impossible balance between the interests of the agressor
and those of his victim not only are connivance towards the aggressor but also
threaten to undermine peace in all over the Caucasian Region and broaden the
framework of the conflict.
During all these years Azerbaijan diplomacy
did everything to draw world community s attention to the flagrant facts of the
aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, to search the ways of the peaceable
regulation of the conflict. The results of these efforts were 4 resolutions
adopted by UN Security Council and 6 statements of its Chairman.
In all resolutions the Security Council
confirms the sovereignty and integrity of the Azerbaijan Republic, emphasizes
impossibility to use force for capturing of the territories, demands immediate,
complete and unconditional withdrawing of all the occupied forces from all the
captured regions of Azerbaijan and returning refugees to their permanent
residences.
The decisions of Lisbon Summit of OSCE
(Lisbon,1996) have given clear foundation for resolution of the conflict on
basic of principle of territorial ointegrity of Azerbaijan.
But all these resolutions are ignored by the
Republic of Armenia up to the present. Moreover, it continuous to increase the
presence of its armed forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. On the
other hand Security Council did not exert all its powers to fulfill the carried
resolutions.
Azerbaijan, being devoted for a peaceable
political regulation, considers that only after liquidation of the results of
the aggression by carrying suitable resolutions it will be possible to conduct
the stable and efficient negotiations with the purpose of establishing lasting
peace and ensuring the safety of the whole population of the region. The
results of the aggression of Armenia turned a the national distress for
Azerbaijan. This aggression brought numerous human losses; over a million
people who lost their own homes, have been scattered all over the territory of
the Republic and have unbearable living conditions in refugee camps.
From the beginning of the war actions of the
armed forces of Armenia there have been plundered, burnt and ruined over 876
populated areas, about 7000 industrial agricultural and other undertakings,
over 153,000 dwellings possessing over 9 million sq. km., 4366 social and
cultural projects, 616 schools, 242 pre-school institutions, 397 hospitals, 10
polyclinics, 10 maternity hospitals, 76 drug stores, 4 sanatoriums, 10 mosques
and so on. The stock-breeders have lost 70% of summer pastures. The water and
hydro-technical structures have been put out of action; functioning of the
rail-traffic, motor-transport and other types of communications have been
broken. 72,400 hectares of crop area, 56,000 of hectares orchards of the
regions of Aghdam, Gubadli, Fizuli, Jebrail are under Armenians occupation now.
Till the occupation there were 69,000 head of horned cattle and 244,000 head of
sheep and goats in the farms of these Regions.
As result of a non - declared war of
Armenian against Azerbaijan the armed forces of Armenia occupied the lands of
which over one million hectars are suitable for the agricultural operations and
over 280,000 hectares of forests belong to a nature - protection category. A
lot of unique sacred things of the national culture of Azerbaijan were ruined
in the territory of Nagorny-Karabakh. Five most beautiful Azerbaijan regions,
not bordering on Nagorny-Karabakh have been captured and exposed to barbarian
plundering.
It is necessary to note that there are over
200 palaeontological, faunal and geological monuments of nature in the occupied
territories and it is very difficult to value these masterpieces because of
their uniqueness. The biocomplexes were broken by the actions of the aggressors
and they are losing the importance as reservations. According to the experts
preliminary calculation the damaged caused to the lands, forests, and the fauna
are estimated by billions of US dollars.
The Armenian aggressor ruined town museums
of Shusha and plundered cultural values of Azerbaijan people. They caused
damages to the cultural and art institutions, including 368 clubs, 927
libraries, 85 music schools, 22 museums, 4 picture galleries, 10 recreation
parks, 6 state theaters and concert organizations.
From 22 plundered museums the aggressors
took 40,000 rare values and exhibits away. Among plundered and ruined museums
are: Kalbajar museum of historical and regional ethnography with unique
historical exhibits, gold and silver works, rare and expensive stones and
carpets and hand and applied works;
Historical Museum of Shusha and Museum of
Bread in Aghdam, Museum of Stone monuments in Zangelan and so on. About 4,6
million of books and manuscripts were destroyed in the plundered and burned
libraries. 20 modern buildings of palaces of culture were ruined in the regions
of Aghdam, Lachin, Fizuli, Shusha and others.
At present the families of refugees have
been placed in more than 370 institutions of culture, health services,
sanatoriums, clubs, cultural centers, libraries, music schools museums and
recreation parks.
Thus, on one hand the aggression ruined a
great number of material values in occupied territories, on the other hand
resulted in great number of refugees, broke the formed social infrastructure
and led to the breach of the traditional inhabitation environment in the rest
of the territory of the Republic.
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