Dmitry Yazov: “I carried out the order, but the man giving orders is receding everything”

Azerbaijan will mark the anniversary of the Black January tragedy tomorrow. Forces of the Soviet Army suppressed the political opposition in Baku on January 19, 1990. The intrusion of a large group of troops of the Soviet Army, internal forces and special units in Baku was followed by a massacre of the peaceful population. 133 people were killed, 744 wounded, 841 illegally arrested, 5 went missing. 200 houses and apartments, 80 vehicles, including ambulances, were burned down. Women, children, old people, staff of ambulances and the police were found among the victims. 

Modern Azerbaijan does not associate the authorities of the USSR and modern Russia, blaming Mikhail Gorbachev and his team for the events in Baku. The victims of Black January, who gave their lives for freedom, and those who died in the Karabakh War unleashed on the background of all the events, partly at the behest of the political authorities of the USSR, will be commemorated tomorrow.

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, the founder of “the new thinking”, a combine operator, lawyer, “a political prostitute” and pussy-whipped man, and his followers organized ethnic pogroms. The provocation in Baku affected all the multi-ethnic population. It was organized to spread grief, shatter and break the country. It continued for days. Savages among criminals were summoned to organized the conflict. Gorbachev said then that the main reason for sending troops to Baku was the protection of the Armenian population. It is well-known that many Armenians had left the city before the forces arrived. Their neighbours, Baku residents among whom were Azerbaijanis, Russians, Lezgians and Tatars, were hiding them. They were neighbours, they lived in a multi-ethnic city that gave birth to Landau, Kasparov, Magomayev, Rostropovich.

The Moscow and republican authorities were not the ones saving people or stopping the conflict, the ordinary population organized militia groups. Without state protection, part of the population had been forced to leave the city before the special military forces arrived on the order of Gorbachev.

One group of executioners replaced the other on the night of January 19-20, special units entered Baku to exterminate the remains. Witnesses of that night are still in a state of shock, despite the 20 years that have passed, they cannot understand how the population could be put under such tortures. They are in dismay, no one expected such a thing from their own military. No one could expect to see forces of cutthroats hating the nations of their own country, pathetic executioners with no human dignity, ready to obey the orders of their masters and shoot the peaceful population.

Having done their dirty work at night, the monsters hurried to leave the city. They were substituted by ordinary soldiers serving in the Soviet Army. No one was punished for the atrocities, there was no trial, no one has repented for the deeds to the people or to God.

At this complex time for the country and the army the Minister of Defence was Dmitry Yazov, who was charged with carrying out the political decisions of Gorbachev. A correspondent of the Azerbaijani Lider TV channel in Russia, Anar Hasanov, spoke with the 90-year-old Marshal of the Soviet Union in a military hospital, where he was undergoing treatment.

Thank God, at least one person, namely Marshal Yazov, was punished by an international court, and cannot travel to foreign countries, where he will be arrested as a perpetrator of war crimes.

We ask you, dear readers and viewers, to read the interview and watch the video, as well as a story about the tragic events of January in Baku. Notice how the organizers of the crime disclaim responsibility. In particular, in the interview Yazov denies that tanks entered the city. Let's see if there were tanks.

Vestnik Kavkaza condemns not only those events, but also what is happening in the Donbas and Lugansk. History does not teach only amateurs, let us agree that these kind of events must never recur anywhere. Let us unite around this idea. Good must be strong, we are invincible in unity.

Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov. This name recalls the tragedy of Azerbaijan on January 20, 1990. We met with the general who led the Soviet troops into Baku in a Moscow hospital. After learning about the purpose of our visit, Dmitry Yazov not only agreed to the interview, but even contributed to its organization, although it is prohibited by the rules of the hospital. This meeting will also be remembered as the first interview given by Yazov to Azerbaijani media after his resignation from the post of defense minister.

- Dmitry Timofeevich, it is said that everyone has his own truth, but personally I do not think so. The truth cannot be individual for everyone, it is one. I remembered this saying because of the Karabakh conflict, which played a significant role in the collapse of the USSR. You were at the center of those events. In this regard, I would like to know your opinion, who is still to blame for what happened?

- During the earthquake in Armenia, it was the period of Gorbachev's perestroika, the conflict had already started, I was at a meeting of prominent Armenian cultural figures. When the writer Silva Kaputikian spoke about Karabakh, in a peculiar manner, Gorbachev said, "Are you talking about Artsakh?" Karabakh is called by Armenians "Artsakh" and they liked that. They smiled and said to Gorbachev: "You know the story." In fact, Gorbachev was not familiar with the story, he was someone just told about this fact and he screwed the phrase for the Armenians to enjoy it. At this meeting serious questions were raised. The Armenians demanded that Karabakh be transferred from Azerbaijan.

The meeting was also attended by members of the Politburo of the Central Committee Nikolai Ryzhkov, Slunkov. We looked at each other and realized that Gorbachev is not the conversation, and it is better not to add fuel to the fire. As the minister of defense I had already known that the Armenians at this time had kicked 172 thousand Azerbaijanis out of their lands.

The most difficult situation was in Sumgait. It was a shock to the Politburo. Gorbachev invited Kryuchkov, Bakatin and me and said that the situation was very tense in Baku, that he had talked by phone with Girenko and sent Primakov to Baku, who believed that it was urgently necessary to declare a state of emergency in Baku because "Azerbaijanis were throwing Armenians out of windows and it stinks of blood."

"Kruchkov then cheated, instead of himself he sent Deputy Bobkov. I myself went and ended up as the senior member of the delegation. In Baku Girenko, Primakov, Mutallibov and other members of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan were gathered and I said that at 3pm we would declare a state of emergency. Departing from Chkalov military airport in Moscow, I ordered which paratroop regiment must be sent to which regions. On the radio we announced the deployment of troops to the city, but we could not declare it on television, as it had been blown up. I do not know who did that. But on the radio we announced that we were asking people not to go out, because the city would be filled with troops. And the troops were not intended to kill, but simply to stabilize the situation and prevent conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

- In Baku, according to official figures, 136 people died.

- You mean, when troops were brought?

- Yes, exactly.

- We did not kill a single person.

- But there is evidence that several people were killed with bayonets of the machines, and employees of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan were killed right in their own car.

- Not a single case was reported to me that someone was shot by our soldiers.

- Dmitry Timofeyevich, and what about the ambulance which remained under the tank?

- I do not know about the ambulance which remained under the tank. In Baku there were no tanks. In Baku, there were infantry fighting vehicles.

- Putin visited Baku, visited the Alley of Martyrs and said it was a war crime commited by the Soviet leadership.

- Let him speak. He says that it was a crime of the Soviet Union? But the Soviet government was not only in Moscow but also in Azerbaijan. Everybody today denies the good that was in the Soviet Union. This statement of Putin's was made simply to explain at least something...

- We are meeting with you on the eve of the anniversary of those events. Do you feel guilty because of the events of January 20th, or do you think that you were following orders?

- Do I feel guilty? I obeyed another person’s order, now the man who gave the orders denies everything. I still cannot leave the country. Where can I go if I would be arrested, because of the fact that I sent troops, the state of emergency was also announced by me, and I am also accused of the execution of people? Who is accused?! Me, Yazov! I did not order people to be shot. Neither in Baku nor Vilnius. I went because I was sent. It was not only I who was sent but also the Minister of the Interior, the Secretary of State Security. Do I have to answer for the internal situation in the country? Of course, first of all this had to do with the Minister of the Interior. My position was to protect the country's borders and fight the enemy. I was cheated. I remember, Heydar Aliyev once in one of his articles wrote that he would not forgive Gorbachev and Yazov for those events, because we had declared the state of emergency. I believe that I was doing my duty. During a Civil War civilians are always dying. I deployed the army, but that does not mean that I ordered to shoot.

When we arrived at the meeting, we were waiting for Yazov to say he was guilty, but he did not consider himself to be guilty. Of course, not everyone can recognize themselves as responsible for their crimes. Today part of the case of the January 20th events is stored in the Russian prosecutor's office, and Moscow is not going to give these documents to their Baku colleagues. Dmitry Yazov has been declared a criminal in several countries. But these accusations do not yet have legal status.