By Vestnik Kavkaza
In the embassy of Azerbaijan in Moscow a ceremony devoted to the 25th anniversary of the tragic January events in Baku took place. At night on January 19th 1990, Soviet troops entered the city and opened fire on peaceful residents of the capital of the Azerbaijani SSR. The troops were launched for the reason of suppressing the “People’s Front”, who were thought to have committed massacres of Armenians; but on that night, soldiers shot at common Baku citizens, including children. 132 people were killed, 612 were injured, 841 were illegally arrested. Those who were guilty of the tragedy haven’t been punished yet.
Students and representatives of the Azerbaijani Diaspora were present at the event and laid flowers at a list of the victims of the Black January tragedy, which was hung in the hall of the embassy. The event was opened by the ambassador of Azerbaijani to Russia Polad Byul-Byul Ogly: “25 years ago the leaders of the Soviet Union, who were losing control over the situation, took an unprecedented step. Troops were deployed to Baku. These were motorized troops with armored vehicles, tanks, fighting vehicles, arsenals. At night on January 19th about 200 ordinary people were killed by guns, tanks and violence which took place on the streets. Hundreds of people were injured. Still many people went missing. Baku is an international city, and there were people of various nationalities and religions among those killed. The worst thing is that almost none of the politicians of that time, the people who were involved in the events, were punished. Only the ordinary residents of Baku suffered.”
Ilham Badalbeili, a poet, translator and publicist, shared his memories: “Each time I visit Baku, I go to the Alley of Shakhids. Laying flowers, I feel guilty, as if it was my fault, I didn’t discharge my duty to them. Their shed blood avenged. At that night my sister telephoned me from Baku: “Brother, they are killing us, they have burst in!” I heard some noise and said: “What’s that?” She said: “These are bullets.” I told her to sit at home. Early in the morning I went to the permanent mission and thought: “Where am I going? It’s six o’clock, everyone is sleeping.” However, the whole territory near the mission was full of thousands of people. Nobody told them to come, nobody called them – they came there on their own. The same day we found out that an information blockade of Baku had been organized, the TV-center was exploded, and they had no contacts with the rest of the world. We understood that we had to break the blockade; and the organization committee was established. We realized that our main goal was to break the information blockade.”
“For the Azerbaijani nation the 20th of January is a difficult day. 25 years ago a fatal tragedy happened. Every year all Azerbaijani people mourn the innocent killed people, the peaceful citizens of Baku. It should be noted that we lived in one state; the tanks and troops were sent against the peaceful population of one of the capitals of the Soviet republics. So, for many of us it was a point of no return. People realized that they couldn’t live in that country. Apparently such events led to the dissolution of such a powerful country. Unfortunately, the leaders of the Soviet Union didn’t think about their citizens or the consequences of their deeds at the time,” Polad Byul-Byul Ogly stated
