by VK
Moscow has presented a film marking the 20th anniversary of the Khojaly Massacre. The documentary “Endless Corridor” was filmed by the Union of European Cinematographers within the framework of the project “Peaceful Caucasus”. The film was based on diaries of Lithuanian military reporter Richardas Lapaytis who was in Baku in late February 1992 and witnessed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Polad Bul-Bul Oglu, Azerbaijani Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Moscow, said that Leyla Aliyeva, head of the project “Justice for Khojaly”, “has done a lot, guiding youth of our countries to the big event so that the whole world could learn about the tragedy in Khojaly. Not a single nation, not a single ethnicity would forgive itself for failing to tell the world society about it. 613 peacefully Azerbaijani citizens were killed in a single night, including 63 children, 56 of whom were killed with indescribable violence, 106 women, 70 old men, 8 families were slaughtered, 25 children lost their parents, 130 children lost one of their parents, 487 people became handicapped, 76 of whom were children, 1275 people were taken captive and 150 went missing”.
Andrius Bronas, General Producer of the “Endless Corridor” described making of the film: “We started the project one and a half years ago, travelled thousands of miles. About 11 countries joined the idea, 5 languages can be heard in the film. The idea found supporters very fast, although it was not a familiar topic in Baltic states. Our goal was to expand knowledge of the topic and show what people have not seen for 20 years. It did not take much time to find materials: searching through articles of Lithuanian press published 20 years ago, we found our hero – Richardas Lapaytis who witnessed the events and noted everything he saw in his diaries. We were very impressed by what we saw in his notes and it was the basis of our film”.
According to Richardas Lapaytis, Nagorno-Karabakh was the reason he became a journalist: “Although the events are not of professional interest for me only. I had a very bad feeling of guilt, because I did not do my best to let the world know about the tragedy. I have run through my diaries repeatedly to find answers to “Who? What for? Why?”. And when my fellow cinematographers showed interest in my diaries, deciding to make a film about the events, our joint investigation was complicated, because foreign military conflicts in other states are often unclear and hard to explain. Usually, before making visits to such places, you information from media and sometimes you feel as though you have a full picture. When the military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh was starting, my opinion was formed by democratic press, depicting the events as Armenians’ fight for independence. Naturally, Baltic states support Armenians. But in reality, it was totally different. The conflict zone is a dangerous swirl capable of sucking in anyone. It is puts a great responsibility on journalists working in conflict zones. Fate of the small city of Khojaly is a bright example of mixture of all mentioned questions. It is a tragedy comparable with similar ones, which will always be one of the cruelest tragedies of the 20th century. I believe that in recent history it is the most shameful episode of states, which closed their eyes on murders of peaceful citizens, while watching “democratic” (if they can be called that way) reforms in Russia. I was confident in 1992 that no one and nothing could debate the crimes against humanity committed in Khojaly. By a twist of fate, Karabakh became one of the main burial ground of the USSR. Some tried to use Karabakh to keep the Union together, others to make it collapse. There were other tragedies after Khojaly. So why does it happen that way all the time? Is it because we, citizens of wealthy states, forget about monstrous injustice we witnessed every time? I do not have an answer to this question, but I have hope that such indifference can be countered. It will only be possible through trial of executioners, if the events will be recognized as genocide and if refugees return home. We tried to be fair when working on our film and tell the truth. Are we ready to put up with this injustice for 20 more years? It is up to you”.
