Azerbaijanis throughout the world honor the memory of the victims of the ‘Black January’ tragedy on January 20. The head of the Caucasian Research Center under the RSUH, Ismail Agakishiev, told VK about those tragic events of 1990.
“This tragedy affected all those who live in Baku, all citizens of Azerbaijan, no matter their ethnicity,” the expert pointed out. He said that the blockade and the bombing of the republican TV-broadcast center was a crime: “The cover-up of the Baku events is a real crime. After the broadcast center was neutralized, the attackers assaulted the city and its civilian population. Not only did this attack claim the lives of hundreds of innocent people, it destroyed Baku as a center of inter-cultural tolerance and dialogue. There were no nationality issues in Baku during Soviet times. Baku welcomed people from all over the Union. It was the synthesis of Azerbaijani, Russian and Jewish cultures that formed the cultural image and atmosphere of Baku that gave such prominent artists and scientists as Rostropovich, Atlantov, Landau and Ibragimbekov to that world. Soldiers of the punitive squad wearing Soviet Army uniforms killed not only Azerbaijani people; they killed members of other ethnic groups as well.”
The events that led to this punitive operation happened a day before: pogroms, which were not stopped by Azerbaijani government for unknown reasons. The peaceful population had to protect themselves from violent radicals on their own. “It is possible that the central government just wanted a good enough pretext to move in the troops. The soldiers got there only after the citizens managed to fight off the violent gangs,” Agakishiev said. According to him, Moscow moved in the troops to prevent Azerbaijan breaking away from the Union. However, these actions only pushed the Azerbaijani people further away from the Union: they no longer wanted to live in a state where the law enforcement agencies attacked civilians instead of protecting them.
The last bit of trust the Azerbaijani people had in the Soviet government of Gorbachev was destroyed by this slaughter of innocent civilians. The disintegration of the Soviet Union de facto commenced not in December 1991, but after the violent events in Tbilisi, Alma-Ata, Riga, Baku and Dushanbe. According to Ismail Agakishiev, he was in Moscow when the tragic events in Baku took place, and all Azerbaijani people who lived in Moscow went to the Azerbaijani representative office looking for the answers and solid data. Heydar Aliyev, who was also in Moscow at the time, directly called the events a crime committed by the Soviet authorities. After that, a peaceful procession made its way to Ostankino media center and demanded the truth about the Baku developments be told on air. The protestors were successful and the central television shed light on the events in Baku.
Not only Azerbaijani people became victims of ‘Black January’: there are Russian and Jewish names on the commemorative board in Baku. “The lawlessness was directed against a whole people that did nothing wrong but demanded observance of the Union's constitution. But I hope that friendship and personal relations between our peoples will help repair the breach between us.”
By VK
