By Vestnik Kavkaza
Ana Veten, you are wearing black,
You drop flowers on the pavement.
Tell me, what’s the tragic event?
Who could only dare to attack?
The alley of victims… children, grown-ups,
The symbols of love who were shot.
Who could only set all these traps?
Who will your grief respond for?
23 years ago in 1990 on the night from the 19th to the 20th of January the Soviet authorities, who were losing control over the country, launched a contingent of regular troops to Baku, which murdered more than 150 peaceful citizens in one night, with more than 700 people injured. I
“It was neither politicians nor some activists expressing their thoughts who were killed, but ordinary citizens of Baku, peaceful citizens, including emergency workers, doctors who were fulfilling their duty,” Polad Bul-Bul Ogly, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Azerbaijani Republic in the RF, says. “Tanks ran over cars in which people were sitting. It was an attempt at threatening. It seems the Soviet authorities wanted to pacify the other peoples who comprised the Soviet Union by using Azerbaijan, Baku as an example. There was Vilnius ahead of Baku, as well as Tbilisi, but there were not so many victims as there were in Baku. Of course, any victim, any violent death of any person is a great tragedy. At that time we all lived in one country, and it was difficult to realize what was happening in reality. But January 20th was a red line for the Azerbaijani people, the Rubicon after which it was clear that we couldn’t live together any more.”
“Every new generation will assess this fact of history, our common history, as we lived in one country, and analyze it, considering the times in which they live. But for our generation, for people who lived in the ideology of the Soviet Union, were raised within it, the murder of the citizens of one country for disagreeing with anything was unacceptable to all people, including state workers. People understood that this ideology was doomed to collapse. That is why January 20th is one of the most important days not only in the history of Azerbaijan, but the whole Soviet Union,” the ambassador states.
“From the 19th to the 20th of January the Soviet army invaded Baku, it was a real attack on its peaceful citizens,” Oktai Guseinov, the chairman of the Moscow Society of Azerbaijanis, considers. “It was an act of deterrence to prevent the collapse of the USSR. Many politicians blamed Gorbachev for the developments in Vilnius, Tbilisi and especially Baku, because innocent people were killed for nothing. I believe that Gorbachev wouldn’t dare to do it, the conservatives in the Communist Party would remove him. Even Perestroika could prevent it, but he didn’t go all the way. However, he mustn’t kill peaceful citizens in interests of his policy.”
