Events that led to Karabakh conflict. Part 2

Gorbachev’s policy is still waiting for its ‘true researcher’, and I hope it will have to wait for quite a while yet. However, one thing about his ‘achievements’ is already clear: the more indecisive and slow he was in introducing the necessary economic and social reforms to the outdated administrative machine, the more roughness and quick he was in shattering the pillars of the national unity of the Soviet state – the so-called ‘system of policy of checks and balances’.

It is enough to bring up the dubious enterprise of the “equalization of rights of the Union Republics and autonomies” – it resulted in appearance of 50 de-facto republics. Imagine the difference of status of, for example, Ukraine as one of the 15 Union Republics and as just one of 50 tiny beneficiaries of the ‘union pie’.

In the case of Nagorno-Karabakh this action of Gorbachev shows the strongest impact. However, the first (and the last) President of the Soviet Union didn’t know how to deal with the consequences of his own reckless decisions and proved to be indecisive and helpless in the most crucial moments.

It is noteworthy that the authors of the documentary starts the story of nationalistic rallies with Sumgait tragedy, and not with the events of 1986 in Alma-Ata, which also had a distinct nationalistic flavor and that also resulted in casualties. It is also untrue that, as the film stipulates, violent pogrom-makers in Sumgait didn’t make difference between Armenians and Russians – this imaginary ‘nuance’ is obviously invented to suit certain political agenda.

On the other hand, the documentary passes with silence some questions that naturally rise from the facts presented by the film: why did the state television, usually censored in the most meticulous fashion, report the death of two Azeri citizens (one of them was a 16-year-old boy) in Askeran region on February, 24, 1988 – two days prior to the Sumgait tragedy? Why didn’t the authors of the film choose to mention that some of the pogrom-makers in Sumgait were Azerbaijani who had to become refugees after similar pogroms committed by Armenians? Why doesn’t the film mention the name of Eduard Grigoryan, who is believed to be involved in organizing the Sumgait pogrom that resulted in the death of many of his innocent fellow Armenians?

And the most Important questions: how could the authors of the documentary fail to see the connection between the tragic events in Sumgait and the inability of central Soviet power? The USSR central government showed itself at least irresponsible in the matter and failed to prove itself as the guarantor of common good in the Union. And it is due to this attitude that irreversible process of disintegration was launched.

Later, Sumgait proved to be a perfect PR leverage for one of the conflict parties to prove that its case is the just one. Of course, in every ethnic conflict each side demonizes the other, but the facts speak for themselves: the only difference between the Sumgait and Khodjali tragedies is that in the first case the violence was committed by blind outraged crowed while in the second case state officials, namely, the army, slaughtered innocent civilians.

According to Georgian political expert Vakhtang Mudjiri, the Sumgarit events can’t be analyzed without putting them into a broader context of the Nagorno-Karabkh developments of the time, and the omission by the film’s authors of certain facts, such as Kafansk region and some others, can be regarded only as malignity.

It is worth noting, that the aggression against Azeri residents of Kafan region is passed with silence not only in the context of the Sumgait tragedy, but in the context of Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict in general.

To be continued

Georgy Kalatozishvili, exclusively to VK