THOMAS GOLTZ - EXPOSES THE ARMENIANS GENOCIDE OF AZERI'S Options

[Yerevan]

By the way God Bless Gary Kasparov, the internationaly knows chess palyer, an Armenian born in Baku, who hired many planes and helicopters to get all those Armenians out of Azerjaijan to Armenia becasue he knew that if they would of stayed there they all would of been slaughtered.

[BIGTURK]

Yerevan
My uncle was one of the first voluteers who went to Karabakh to save those Armenians who did not yet faced those barbarians who were burning the Armenian villages left and right, who were stoping the buses, taking the Armenians out of the buses and shooting them on the streets.

Source please, I'd like to see documented proof of your claims.

Is that what your Uncle told or is it the story he conjured up cos he cudnt face telling the family back home he just participated in the ethnic cleansing of Azeri's.

[Glock21]

I know how it started - I wrote a thesis on ethnic minority relations in former communist countries (Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Caucuses)... and no I was in college in the US during the war.

Please, enlighten us with your knowledge about how it stated. I was in Armenia when it all started. My uncle was one of the first voluteers who went to Karabakh to save those Armenians who did not yet faced those barbarians who were burning the Armenian villages left and right, who were stoping the buses, taking the Armenians out of the buses and shooting them on the streets. And like you said Azeris were going door to door looking for Armenians to kill them.

Source please for the buses incident - it is nowhere to be found.


"On 20 February 1988, the Oblast Soviet of the NKAO weighed up the results of an unofficial referendum on the reattachment of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, held in the form of a petition signed by 80,000 people.(10) In 1979, the entire population of the NKAO was 162,000, with 123,000 Armenians and 37,000 Azeris.(11) On the basis of that referendum, the session of the Oblast Soviet of Nagorno-Karabakh adopted the appeals to the Supreme Soviets of the USSR, Azerbaijan and Armenia, asking them to authorize the secession of Karabakh from Azerbaijan and its attachment to Armenia. Baku rejected the NKAO Oblast Soviet's decision. The line taken by the Centre seemed to be to wait and see, giving the Azerbaijani authorities the opportunity to resolve the crisis as they saw fit.

After the first direct clash between an Azeri crowd and Armenian residents, near Askeran, in which about 50 Armenians were wounded and two Azeri attackers killed, Deputy USSR Procurator-General A. Katusev, speaking on central TV on 27 February, told the audience about the killing of two young Azeris, specifically naming the nationality of those killed. This announcement may have acted as a catalyst. Within hours, a pogrom against Armenian residents began in the city of Sumgait, 25 km from Baku. The pogrom, obviously prepared months in advance and marked by forms of extreme cruelty, lasted for three days, with the Azeri police nowhere to be seen. Phone calls to the police or the ambulance service went unanswered. Leading AzCP functionaries took part in the meetings which preceded mob violence, and a local Party boss even led the crowds. Moreover, in 1988 the KGB machine with its network of informers was still functioning, from which it may be presumed that Baku, if not the KGB in Moscow, had known about the preparations for the pogrom. Soviet (Russian) troops, including those in Sumgait itself, apparently had strict orders not to shoot. It was not until the third day of the killings that Soviet troops finally intervened, arresting some small fry, mostly youngsters.(12) On orders from Moscow, the Sumgait affair was judicially covered up and the press largely silenced."

[Glock21]

above quote attributed to A. Zverev.

[Yerevan]

Website?

About the bus incident my uncle told me what he saw and what the locald were telling them.
If my uncles words are not enough for you, then I can take your friend's words the same way.

[Glock21]

Website?

About the bus incident my uncle told me what he saw and what the locald were telling them.
If my uncles words are not enough for you, then I can take your friend's words the same way.

http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/ContBorders/eng/ch0101.htm

Fair enough if that's what you want... but the Khodjaly massacre has been independently verified.

[Glock21]

Yerevan,
I hope you realize the extent to which Soviet authorities used this conflict to keep Armenia and Azerbaijan weak and unstable, thereby ensuring they would be the ones who could fix the problem that they themselves created. It's old Soviet policy to play ethnic groups against one another.... just look at why NKAO was put in the Azerbaijan SSR in the first place.

[Yerevan]

Yerevan,
I hope you realize the extent to which Soviet authorities used this conflict to keep Armenia and Azerbaijan weak and unstable, thereby ensuring they would be the ones who could fix the problem that they themselves created. It's old Soviet policy to play ethnic groups against one another.... just look at why NKAO was put in the Azerbaijan SSR in the first place.

I know that very well. And please tell to your Azeri and Turkish friends if you think Khojali incident a "genocide"

[Glock21]

Yerevan,
I hope you realize the extent to which Soviet authorities used this conflict to keep Armenia and Azerbaijan weak and unstable, thereby ensuring they would be the ones who could fix the problem that they themselves created. It's old Soviet policy to play ethnic groups against one another.... just look at why NKAO was put in the Azerbaijan SSR in the first place.

I know that very well. And please tell to your Azeri and Turkish friends if you think Khojali incident a \"genocide\"

haven't we covered this already? I said before I don't think it qualifies.

[BIGTURK]

Yerevan I term the entire "Greater Armenia Christian Kingdom" a Genocidal Ideology as it aims to create a pure Armenian Christian Kingdom over its so called ancient borders. If it was ever to do so it could only be achieved via Ethnic Cleansing/Genocide of the Muslim/non-Armenian populations who are the majority in the area. Armenias agression to all its borders is cos of this ridiculous ideology.

Therefore the Khodjali tragedy's aim and the Karabagh occupation is to ethnically cleanse Karabagh of non-Armenians to expand Armenia meaning Genocide. The systematic killing of thousands and the removal of 1 million people to become refugees in their own land is one of the saddest cases of Genocide been carried out on the Earth today.

[Yerevan]

Yerevan,
I hope you realize the extent to which Soviet authorities used this conflict to keep Armenia and Azerbaijan weak and unstable, thereby ensuring they would be the ones who could fix the problem that they themselves created. It's old Soviet policy to play ethnic groups against one another.... just look at why NKAO was put in the Azerbaijan SSR in the first place.

I know that very well. And please tell to your Azeri and Turkish friends if you think Khojali incident a \"genocide\"

haven't we covered this already? I said before I don't think it qualifies.

Thank You, thats all I wanted to know, because BigTurkey, Hanim and few of their friends do not agree with my and your opinion.

[Glock21]

Folks,
I might drop in later. I am going to lift weights. Poka and Sag Olun.

[BIGTURK]

Sagol Varol

[Azertos]

Here i found the following chapter from Goltz's book........it's really worth to read.




February 26th, 1992 seemed like a regular working day. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati was back in Baku to finally bestow diplomatic recognition on Azerbaijan, as well as to respond to the recent comments by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III about the growing threat of Iranian influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The wiry Iranian emissary insisted that it was not the Islamic Republic of Iran that posed a threat to the region, but rather the United States of America. In addition to being the country most responsible for the continued bloodshed throughout the world, it was America, he proposed, that was actively fomenting the conflict in Karabakh. By way of contrast, he noted that the Islamic Republic was interested in peace between nations and peoples. To that end, Dr. Velayati had brought a peace plan for the increasingly bloody and senseless conflict in Karabakh - and one that both Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to sign. He himself was planning to visit Karabakh the next day.




That was news. I was getting ready to file a story with the Washington Post when Hijran, my wife, came rushing in. She had been on the telephone with the Popular Front and had heard some very distressing news. Sources in Aghdam were reporting a stream of Azeri refugees filling the streets of the city, fleeing a massive attack in Karabakh.

There had been many exaggerated reports about the conflict from both sides. I wondered if this was just another example, but I thought it best to start working the phone. Strangely, no one in the government answered. Perhaps they were all at the Gulistan Palace having dinner with the Iranian delegation. I waited a while, and then started trying to contact people at home. Around midnight, I got through to Vafa Guluzade [an advisor to President Mutalibov].

"Sorry for calling so late," I apologized. "But what about this rumor"

"I can't talk about it," said Vafa, cutting me off and hanging up.

An ominous feeling filled my gut. Vafa was usually polite - to a fault. Perhaps he had been sleeping? I decided to call back again anyway, but the number stayed busy for the next half hour. Maybe he had left the phone off the hook, I thought. I made one last effort. Finally, the call got through.

"Vafa," I said, again apologizing. "What's going on?"
"Something terrible has happened," he groaned.
"What?"
"There's been a massacre," he said.
"Where?"
"In Karabakh, a town called Khojali," he said, and then he hung up the phone again.
Khojali?!

I had been there before. Twice, in fact. The first time was in September [1991], when a number of reporters and I had staked out the airport waiting for Russian President Boris Yeltsin to come through. The last time had been just a month before - in January 1992. By that time the only way to get to Khojali was by helicopter because the Armenians had severed the road link to Aghdam. I remembered that little adventure all too well.

Skeptical of the many reports coming from the Armenian side that the Azeris were massively armed and that their helicopters were "buzzing" Armenian villages, I had traveled to Aghdam with Journalist Hugh Pope, then of the [London] Independent to chat with refugees about their situation.

Refugees were easy to find in Aghdam. In fact, they were all over the place. The greatest concentration was at the local airfield for the simple reason that many of the refugees were tired of being refugees: they wanted to go back home to Khojali. Pride had overpowered their common sense. One was a 35-year-old mother of four by the name of Zumrud Eyvazova. When I asked why she was returning, she said it was better "to die in Karabakh than beg in the streets of Aghdam."

"Why can't the government open the road?" shouted Zumrud in my ear over the roar of the nearby chopper's engines, "Why are they making us fly in like ducks-easy targets to shoot at?"

I didn't have an answer.

Then someone lurched toward me from across the airfield. It was Arif Hajiyev, Commander of Airport Security at Khojali and the gentleman who had saved us from the Aghdam drunks during Yeltsin's visit three months earlier. He had been pretty chipper then, but despite the broad smile that he gave me, I could see that it was no longer fun and games. I asked him how the situation was in his hometown.

"Come on," said Hajiyev. "Let's go to Khojali - you'll see for yourself and you can write the truth-if you dare."

Behind him an MI-8 helicopter waited, its blades slowly turning. A mass of refugees were clawing their way aboard. The chopper was already dangerously overloaded with people and foodstuffs. There was even more luggage waiting on the tarmac, including a rusted 70mm cannon and various boxes of ammunition.

"I'm not going," said Pope, "I've got a wife and kids."

The blades began spinning faster, and I had to make a quick decision.

"See you later," I said, wondering if I ever would.

I climbed on board, one of more than 50 people on a craft designed for 24, in addition to the numerous munitions and provisions.

"This is insane," I remember telling myself. "There's still time to get off."

And then it was too late. With a lurch, we lifted off and my stomach rushed up to my ears. I could see Pope waving at me as he walked off the field. Somehow I wished I had stayed behind with him on "terra firma". The MI-8 wound its way up to a flight altitude of 3,500 feet-high enough to sail over the Asgaran Gap to Khojali and avoid Armenian ground fire. Two dozen helicopters had been hit during the past two months. In November [1991], one helicopter had crashed, resulting in the deaths of numerous top officials.

Another "bird" had been hit the week before. Even the machine we were flying in had picked up a round in the fuel tank just a week before. That's what the flight engineer told me. Luckily, the fuel supply had been low and the bullet had come in high. This was all so very reassuring to learn as we plugged on through the Asgaran Gap, bucking headwinds and sleet.

Through breaks in the cloud cover I could see trucks and cars on the roads below. They were Armenian machines, fueled by gas and diesel brought in via their own air-bridge from Armenia (or, perhaps, even purchased from Azeri war profiteers). Finally and I should add, "mercifully", after a journey that seemed to take hours but really only lasted maybe 20 minutes, we began our circular descent to the Khojali airfield. Any one who has ever been aboard such a flight can appreciate the relief I felt when the wheels touched ground.

"I'm alive!" I wanted to shout, but thought it most appropriate to stay cool and act like I did such things twice a day.

"How do you feel?" Arif Hajiyev asked me.
"Normalno," I lied in Russian, cool as cake.

Meanwhile, the chopper was mobbed by residents - some coming to greet loved ones who had returned, others trying to be the first aboard for the helicopter's return trip. Everyone had gathered to hear the most recent news about the rest of Azerbaijan - newspapers, gossip, rumors.

No phones were working in Khojali. In fact, nothing worked there. No electricity. No heating oil. No running water. The only link with the outside world was the helicopter that was under constant threat with each run. The isolation of the place became all too apparent as night fell. I joined Hajiyev and some of his men in the makeshift mess hall of the tiny garrison, and while we were dining by the light of flickering candlelight on Soviet army Spam with raw onions and stale bread, he gave me what might be called a front-line briefing.

The situation was bad and getting worse, a depressed Hajiyev told me. The Armenians had taken all the outlying villages, one by one, over the previous three months. Only two towns remained in Azeri hands: Khojali and Shusha, and the road between them had already been cut. While I knew the situation had been deteriorating, I had no idea it was so bad.
"It's because you believe what they say in Baku," Arif jeered. "We're being sold out. Utterly sold out!

"Baku could open the road to Aghdam in a day if the government wanted to," he said. He now believed the government actually wanted the Karabakh business to simmer on in order to distract public attention while the elite continued to plunder the country.

"If you write that and attribute it to me, I'll deny it," he said. "But it's true."
The 60-odd men under his command lacked both the weapons and training to defend the perimeter. The only Azeri soldiers worth their salt were four veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who had volunteered to try to bring some discipline into the ranks.

The rest were green horns. If the Armenians shot off a single round, they answered with a barrage of fire, wasting half of their precious ammunition. And thus we passed the night. Around 2 a.m., I was awakened by a distant burst of fire coming from the direction of a neighboring Armenian town called Laraguk, about 500 yards away from a part of Khojali called, ironically enough, "Helsinki Houses."

The Armenian sniper fire was returned with at least 100 rounds from the Azeri side, including bursts of cannon fire from an old BTR, newly acquired from some Russian deserter. It was the only mechanized weaponry that I saw in the hands of the Azeris. The firefight continued sporadically until dawn, making it impossible to sleep.

No one knew when the Armenians would make their final push to take the town, but everyone knew that one night they would. Khojali controlled the Stepanakert [Khankandi] airport and was clearly a major objective for the Armenians. They had to take it. I remember thinking to myself: "I would, if I were them." With that thought came another that made me very uneasy: "What would the residents do when the Armenians did attack?"

In the morning, people were just standing around - literally. There was not a single teashop or restaurant in which to idle away the time. Men stood in small knots along the mud and graveled streets, waiting. The only person I saw actually doing something was a rather fat girl who worked as a sales clerk in the one fabric shop where there was nothing to sell. I spotted her waddling in to work at nine that morning. She was so intense about what she was doing that I decided to follow her into the shop. But the next time I saw her was when I was viewing a video. She was lying dead on the ground amidst a pile of other corpses - but that would come later. The rest of the townspeople just hung around, waiting for the ax to fall. I just prayed that it wouldn't happen while I was there.

We wiled away the morning, hanging around the airport. A photographer from an Azeri news agency happened to be around, so the military boys put on a good show, rolling out of their bunkers and running behind the old BTR, guns blazing.

"Let's do it again, but this time, let me take pictures from the front," the cameraman had suggested.

I felt sick and refused to have anything to do with such theatrics.

"These guys are going to die," I told myself. "And I don't want to die with them just because they're stupid enough to be shooting at shadows that fire back."

Arif Hajiyev seemed to agree. We sat together in silence, watching his men pose for the camera, running hither and yon, full of bravado.

"Let's try that one again!" crowed the photographer.

I felt sick and refused to take a single photo or write a single note.

Finally, around noon, I heard the telltale whine of the chopper approaching from over the gap. Thank God! I let out a sigh of relief while trying to look indifferent. Then I made my way toward the airfield, just in time to see the overloaded bird disgorge its cargo of food, weapons and returning refugees. One kid got off with a canary in a cage, or maybe he was getting on. There were so many people at the airport, trying to get on and off that lone bird. I was merely one of them.

It seemed more were trying to get on than off. I desperately wanted on myself. I didn't care that the chopper was carrying twice or three times its weight limit, nor that part of the weight was a corpse - one of Hajiyev's boys picked off by a sniper the night before. I wondered if we had shared that Soviet-style Spam dinner together by candlelight the night before, but thought it too impolite to pull back the death sheet to stare. The engines gunned and whined, and we lifted with a lurch - but this time I was not afraid of the flight. I just wanted out. We climbed and climbed, circling high in the sky and blowing over the Asgaran Gap at 3,500 feet with tail winds. Maybe we took some ground fire; I don't know. But I did know one thing: I would never go back to Khojali again.

There was no need for vows. The last helicopter into Khojali - that town that had already been surrounded by Armenians - flew on February 13th.

The last food, except for locally grown potatoes, ran out on the 21st. The clock was rapidly ticking toward doom. It struck on the night of February 26th-the date that Armenians commemorate the attack on Armenians at Sumgayit in 1988.

[PhilinFL]

Ya know, this account strikes me as describing a war where one side was better organized... better-motivated...better-trained and better-led...SO THEY WON.

[Azertos]

than why does yo a$$ hurts whenever you heaa about the ''aaamenian genocide'' , well we can say that Turks were better organized, better motivated, better trained and better-led..SO THEY WON!

[PhilinFL]

If the Armenians relied on accounts like the one YOU posted, then I'd say: "That ain't genocide!"

But they have a lot more than that, don't they?

[BIGTURK]

Azertos
than why does yo a$$ hurts whenever you heaa about the ''aaamenian genocide'' , well we can say that Turks were better organized, better motivated, better trained and better-led..SO THEY WON!

Its called DOUBLE STANDARDS.

There was no need for vows. The last helicopter into Khojali - that town that had already been surrounded by Armenians - flew on February 13th.  

The last food, except for locally grown potatoes, ran out on the 21st. The clock was rapidly ticking toward doom.

And then the Genocide began

[Azertos]

here follows the rest of the story..........



We left Baku by car at seven in the morning and drove as quickly as we could across the monotonous flats of central Azerbaijan. Brown cotton fields stretched along the horizon. As we roared by, hunters standing along the roadside held up ducks that they had just bagged. We stopped for gas in a town named Tartar and asked the local mayor what was happening in Aghdam. He said he didn't know anything. We stopped again in another town called Barda and again took a moment to inquire about events and rumors. Clueless looks greeted us.

We were starting to think that the whole thing was a colossal bum steer when we arrived in Aghdam and drove into the middle of town, looking for a bite to eat. It was there that we ran into the refugees. There were 10, then 20, then hundreds of screaming, wailing residents - all from Khojali. Many of them recognized me because of my previous visits to their town. They clutched at my clothes, babbling out the names of their dead relatives and friends, all the while dragging me to the morgue attached to the main mosque in town to show me their deceased loved ones.

At first we found it hard to believe what the survivors were saying. The Armenians had surrounded Khojali and delivered an ultimatum: "Get out or die." Then came a babble of details about the final days, many concerning Commander Arif Hajiyev.

Sensing doom, Arif had begged the government to bring in choppers to save at least a few of the civilians, but Baku had done nothing. Then, on the night of February 25th, Armenian "fedayeen" hit the town from three sides. The fourth side had been left open, creating a funnel through which refugees could escape. Arif gave the order to evacuate: the soldiers would run interference along the hillside of the Gorgor River Valley, while the women, children and "aghsaggals" [gray-bearded ones - wise elders of the village] escaped. Groping their way through the night under fire, the refugees had arrived at the outskirts of a village called Nakhjivanli, on the cusp of Karabakh, by the morning of February 26th. They crossed the road there and began working their way downhill toward the forward Azeri lines and the city Aghdam, now only some six miles away via the Azeri outpost at Shelli.

It was there in the foothills of the mountains even within sight of safety, that the greatest horror awaited them - a gauntlet of lead and fire.

"They just kept shooting and shooting and shooting," sobbed a woman named Raisa Aslanova. She said her husband and son-in-law were killed right in front of her eyes. Her daughter was still missing.

Scores, hundreds, possibly even a thousand had been slaughtered in a turkey-shoot of civilians and their handful of defenders. Aside from counting every corpse, there was no way to tell how many had died. Most of the bodies remained inaccessible, in the no-man's land between the lines that had become a killing zone and a picnic for crows.

One thousand slaughtered in a single night? It seemed impossible. But when we began cross-referencing, the wild claims about the extent of the killing began to look all too true. The local religious leader in Aghdam, Imam Sadigh Sadighov, broke down in tears as he tallied the names of the registered dead on an abacus. There were 477 that day, but the number did not include those missing and presumed dead, nor those victims whose entire families had been wiped out and thus had no one to register them. The number 477 represented only the number of confirmed dead by the survivors who had managed to reach Aghdam and were physically able to fulfill, however imperfectly, the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours.

Elif Kaban of Reuters was stunned into giddiness. My wife, Hijran, was numb. Photographer Oleg Litvin fell into a catatonic state and would only shoot pictures when I pushed him in front of the subject: corpses, graves, and the wailing women who were gouging their cheeks with their nails. The job required stomach. Now was the time to work - to document and report: a massacre had occurred, and the world had to know about it.

We scoured the town, stopping repeatedly at the hospital, the morgue and the ever-growing graveyards. We moved out to the edges of the defensive perimeter to meet the straggling survivors stumbling in. Then we would rush back to the hospital to check on those recently admitted who had been wounded. Then back to the morgue to witness truckloads of bodies being brought in for identification and ritual washing before burial.

I searched for familiar faces and thought I saw some but could not be sure. One corpse was identified as a young veterinarian who had been shot through the eyes at point-blank range. I tried to remember if I had ever met him, but could never be sure. Other bodies, stiffened by rigor mortis, seemed to speak of execution: with their arms thrown up as if in permanent surrender. A number of heads lacked hair, as if the corpses had been scalped. It was not a pretty day.

Toward late afternoon, someone mentioned that a military helicopter on loan from the Russian garrison at Ganja would be making a flight over the killing fields, and so we traveled out to the airport. No flight materialized, but I did find old friends.

"Thomas," a man in military uniform gasped, and grabbed me in an embrace, and began weeping, "Nash Nachalnik..." [Our Commander]

I recognized him as one of Arif Hajiyev's boys, a pimply-faced boy from Baku who had described himself as a banker before he had volunteered for duty in Karabakh. He was speaking in Russian, babbling, but I managed to understand one word above his sobs: the commander...

A few other survivors from the Khojali garrison stumbled over to me. Of the men under Arif Hajiyev's command, only 10 had survived. Dirty, exhausted and overcome with what can only be described as survivor's guilt, they pieced together what had happened during that awful night and the following day. Their commander - Arif Hajiyev - had been killed by a bullet to his brain while defending the women and children. And about the women and children - most of them had died, too.

***

Towards evening, we returned to the government guesthouse in the middle of town searching for a telephone. There we met an exhausted Tamerlan Garayev. A native of Aghdam, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament was one of the few government officials of any sort that I found there. Tamerlan was interrogating two Turkmen deserters from the Stepanakert-based 366th Motorized Infantry Brigade of the Russian Interior Ministry forces that had descended on Khojali the week before. The last missing link of the tragedy suddenly fit into place: not only had the doomed town been assaulted by the Armenians, but the Russians had been undeniably involved as well.

"Talk, talk!" Tamerlan demanded, as the two men stared at us.
"We ran away because the Armenian and Russian officers were beating us because we were Muslims," one of the men, named Agha Mohammad Mutif, explained. "We just wanted to return home to Turkmenistan."
"Then what happened?" Tamerlan wanted to know.

"Then they attacked the town," the other explained. "We recognized vehicles from our unit."
The two had tried to flee along with everyone else in town and were helping a group of women and children escape through the mountains when they were discovered by the Armenians and the 366th.
"They opened fire and at least twelve men in our group were killed," Mutif recounted. "After that, we just ran and ran."

Could such a thing have really happened: a Russian-backed assault by Armenians on an Azeri town, which resulted in up to 1,000 dead?

This was news. But as we started to file our stories, we became aware of something very strange. No one seemed interested in the story. Apparently, the idea that the roles of the good guys had been reversed was too much: Armenians slaughtering Azeris?

"You're suggesting that more people died in this single attack in Karabakh than the total number that we have reported killed over the past four years?" observed BBC's Moscow correspondent when I tipped him on the bloodbath.
"That's impossible," he replied.
"Take a look at Reuters!"
"There's nothing on the wire."

Indeed, there wasn't. Although Elif Kaban had been churning out copy on her portable Telex, nothing was appearing on the wires. Either someone was spiking her copy, or was rolling it into a larger, anodyne regional report of "conflicting allegations".

To be fair, the government and press in Baku didn't exactly assist our efforts to get the story out. While we had been off in Aghdam trying to break the news, the presidential spokesman was claiming that Khojali's feisty defenders had beaten back an Armenian attack and that the Azeris had suffered only two casualties. They were pitching it as just an ordinary night in Mountainous Karabakh. We knew differently, but it was the three of us against the Azerbaijani State propaganda machine.

Finally, I managed to get a call through to the Moscow Bureau of the Washington Post and told them that I wanted to file a story. The staffers said they were too busy to take a dictation. When I insisted, they reluctantly patched me through to the Foreign Desk in Washington. I used the number of 477 people to indicate how many had died. After all, that was the figure that had been so carefully determined by Imam Sadighov. Though the figure turned out to be low, the editors "dragged me over the coals." Where had I gotten such a figure, since Baku was reporting that only two people had died? Had I seen all the bodies? They cautioned balance. Besides, the Armenian press was reporting that there had been a "massive Azeri offensive."

"Why wasn't that in my report?" The editors wanted to know.

I was about to defend my position that I had not written such because it simply had not happened when suddenly the first of many Kristal missiles started raining down on Aghdam and landing only about a mile away from the Government Guest House that I was calling from. Other missiles followed, and when one crashed into the building next door and blew out all the windows in our building, we thought it best to get down to the basement before we were blown to smithereens.

An hour later, crawling out from under the mattresses, we came up for air and decided we had better get out of Aghdam as fast as possible. About 60,000 other people had the same idea, and we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a mass exodus of trucks, cars, horses and people on bicycles, all rushing to flee east in the direction of Baku.

***

[Azertos]

If the Armenians relied on accounts like the one YOU posted, then I'd say:  \"That ain't genocide!\"

But they have a lot more than that, don't they?

well Phillo, who aaaa you then to say that it ain't genocide!!!!!

[PhilinFL]

If the Armenians relied on accounts like the one YOU posted, then I'd say:  \"That ain't genocide!\"

But they have a lot more than that, don't they?

well Phillo, who aaaa you then to say that it ain't genocide!!!!!

??? ???

[Azertos]

I broke the news about the Khojali massacre with a world-exclusive story on February 27th. It made an inside page of the Washington Post. London's Sunday Times took the story more seriously - maybe because they were Europe - and gave it front-page coverage. By then, the international hack-pack had started parachuting in to count bodies and confirm that something awful had really happened. The first Western reporter who managed to arrive in the killing fields and perform the grisly task of counting the dead was Anatol Lieven of the London Times. His companion was the late Rory Peck of Frontline News - another cool professional and dear friend. [Less than two years later, Rory would be shot to death in front of Ostankino TV in Moscow on October 3, 1993, when Boris Yeltsin decided to restore democracy in Russia through the barrels of guns.]

Others performed less well. One reporter from Agence France-Press, best left nameless, arrived in Aghdam the night we left and found the city "quiet," apparently confusing the silence that followed the missile-induced exodus of 60,000 people with an aura of peace and tranquility.

The government of Azerbaijan, meanwhile, made a complete about-face on the issue. The same people who had remained inaccessible during the early days of the crisis were suddenly asking me to provide telephone numbers of foreign correspondents in Moscow whom they could invite down - at government expense - to report on the massacre.

That didn't set well with me. I almost hauled off and assaulted the Presidential Press Secretary, accusing him of lying. He, in turn, started a rumor that I was an Armenian spy sent to Khojali to ferret out "military secrets" during my January visit to the doomed town. Consequence: I was temporally detained, causing me to slide into a very black mood. When I was released, I went downtown and found myself sitting at a shop with a bunch of black marketeers, who were vaguely waiting for me to exchange my dollars for rubles. Then the whole situation hit me and hit me hard.

The evening streets were still filled with light-hearted shoppers, apparently oblivious or, perhaps, indifferent to the fate of the citizens of Khojali. The men seemed to be all look-alikes in leather jackets, and the women had far too much rouge on their cheeks. They were all smiling and laughing and parading around. I have to confess: I hated every one of them. Maybe they didn't know what I had done. Maybe they did know but didn't care, lest it drive them insane. It wasn't clear, nor was my brain.

I canceled the dollar deal, walked out of the shop and wandered the streets. I think it was raining, but I can't remember for sure. I meandered the streets, unable to stop anywhere or see or talk to anyone for hours and hours.

"Ha ha," someone cackled, as he leaned toward his sweetheart and switched on the motor of his car.
"Ho ho," another chortled, as he lurched out of a "Komisyon" shop, a bottle of Finnish vodka under arm.

I wanted to slash their tires, smash their noses, burn their houses. I wanted to do something - something violent. Instead, I ended up wandering the streets in a daze. Finally, I arrived home and sat down and poured myself a long drink. Hijran asked me where I'd been.

"Khojali," I answered in a voice that I didn't recognize. I had been in that dump of a town with ghosts and no food to speak of, no water to wash with. And all the people from there that I had known were dead, dead, dead. I broke down and cried and cried and criedvowing that I would remember Commander Arif and all the others, whose names I had never known, but whose faces would be etched forever in my memory.

[Yerevan]

So far I haven't seen a single evidence of "genocide"

In fact I find this quote interesting. This is from the article that Azertos has posted.

At first we found it hard to believe what the survivors were saying. The Armenians had surrounded Khojali and delivered an ultimatum: \"Get out or die.\"

If Armenians wanted to systematicly exterminate the entire nation why would they say "get out or die". Also what did "get out of die" mean? Did it mean "get out or we will kill you" or did it mean "get out or if you stay here, you would get killed by the bombs"? Either way, if they wanted to kill them, they would if killed them on the spot.

[PhilinFL]

If the Armenians massacred 477 people out of 60,000, that isn't even in spitting distance of "genocide."

And it belittles the real suffering of the innocent victims, since it gets everyone focused on whether a politically loaded epithets is accurate, rather than on that suffering.

[Azertos]

So far I haven't seen a single evidence of \"genocide\"

In fact I find this quote interesting. This is from the article that Azertos has posted.

At first we found it hard to believe what the survivors were saying. The Armenians had surrounded Khojali and delivered an ultimatum: \"Get out or die.\"

If Armenians wanted to systematicly exterminate the entire nation why would they say \"get out or die\". Also what did \"get out of die\" mean? Did it mean \"get out or we will kill you\" or did it mean \"get out or if you stay here, you would get killed by the bombs\"? Either way, if they wanted to kill them, they would if killed them on the spot.

unfortunately i haven't got the whole book, and we don't know what''s written in the book further, now if it isn't a Genocide, than why did Armenians feel really necessary to scalp , slaughter people in pieces, if you want i have a video file about Khojaly


http://www.khojaly.net/video.html

[Azertos]

If the Armenians massacred 477 people out of 60,000, that isn't even in spitting distance of \"genocide.\"

And it belittles the real suffering of the innocent victims, since it gets everyone focused on whether a politically loaded epithets is accurate, rather than on that suffering.

Phil, Phil, Phil, you should really read the article attentively , cuz as you see it was about the registered ones, here the following part to refresh your memory;


One thousand slaughtered in a single night? It seemed impossible. But when we began cross-referencing, the wild claims about the extent of the killing began to look all too true. The local religious leader in Aghdam, Imam Sadigh Sadighov, broke down in tears as he tallied the names of the registered dead on an abacus. There were 477 that day, but the number did not include those missing and presumed dead, nor those victims whose entire families had been wiped out and thus had no one to register them. The number 477 represented only the number of confirmed dead by the survivors who had managed to reach Aghdam and were physically able to fulfill, however imperfectly, the Muslim practice of burying the dead within 24 hours

.

[BIGTURK]

We were starting to think that the whole thing was a colossal bum steer when we arrived in Aghdam and drove into the middle of town, looking for a bite to eat. It was there that we ran into the refugees. There were 10, then 20, then hundreds of screaming, wailing residents - all from Khojali. Many of them recognized me because of my previous visits to their town. They clutched at my clothes, babbling out the names of their dead relatives and friends, all the while dragging me to the morgue attached to the main mosque in town to show me their deceased loved ones.

At first we found it hard to believe what the survivors were saying. The Armenians had surrounded Khojali and delivered an ultimatum: \"Get out or die.\" Then came a babble of details about the final days, many concerning Commander Arif Hajiyev.

They just kept shooting and shooting and shooting,\" sobbed a woman named Raisa Aslanova. She said her husband and son-in-law were killed right in front of her eyes. Her daughter was still missing.

Scores, hundreds, possibly even a thousand had been slaughtered in a turkey-shoot of civilians and their handful of defenders. Aside from counting every corpse, there was no way to tell how many had died. Most of the bodies remained inaccessible, in the no-man's land between the lines that had become a killing zone and a picnic for crows.

These animals, 1000 killed in a NIGHT, this disgusting Genocide will be fully exposed and the Armenians made to be very sorry for this disgusting act of Barbaric killing.

1000 killed in a single Night, 1 million refuggees in their own lands, a policy of ethnic cleansing but yet again the West is just sitting back and watching.

Azertos Can Kardasim you see how when its us killed its some kind of joke, they get a sick perverse satisfaction, we are HUMANS, are blood is not Cheap it is the same as others have some HUMAN SYMPATHY

What I find most disturbing is certain members of this forum trying to justify the disgusting acts, play it down and not show any sympathy to the innocent DEAD, YES THEY WERE SLAUGHTERED BY THE ARMENIANS DONT NONE OF YOU HAVE A HEART

[Azertos]

I know BIGTURK, but i simply don't care about what others think, when i first knew about the Azeri Genocide, i was 16 years old, no familly members of mine have ever mentioned it, i finally saw it on tv, on Turkish tv, it was the worst day and a happy day of my life, i's weird to compare sad and happy, but i'll try to explain, sad because i saw the horror , and happy because i finally knew about Khojaly.

[BIGTURK]

Exactly Azertos, this is the same with me, my family never bought me up to hate Armenians, they always taught me to love all people and judge a person on their character. I was never fuelled with HATE stories, even in Turkey I had two Armenian freinds Alex and Agop, were still friends and never had a problem and neither did my family infact even our families are friends.

But all we hear is Turks this Turks that , Turks = Bad, just like years ago Native Americans = Savage/Barbarians, of Black people in the West = Slave, Thief, Bad person etc, just as even Jews = Traitors, Prophet Killers, Money Grabbers etc etc for over 1000 years across Europe. Turks are now the new tool of the racists to generalise and spread hate against.

The Dashneks have a big role to play in this Hate Campaign but dont like it when the other side is heard.

The way the Armenians massacred us, sided with the Russians, declared War on us, Invaded us, Burnt our Towns, Villages and Cities.

This extract is really moving.

We were starting to think that the whole thing was a colossal bum steer when we arrived in Aghdam and drove into the middle of town, looking for a bite to eat. It was there that we ran into the refugees. There were 10, then 20, then hundreds of screaming, wailing residents - all from Khojali. Many of them recognized me because of my previous visits to their town. They clutched at my clothes, babbling out the names of their dead relatives and friends, all the while dragging me to the morgue attached to the main mosque in town to show me their deceased loved ones.

At first we found it hard to believe what the survivors were saying. The Armenians had surrounded Khojali and delivered an ultimatum: \"Get out or die.\" Then came a babble of details about the final days, many concerning Commander Arif Hajiyev.

They just kept shooting and shooting and shooting,\" sobbed a woman named Raisa Aslanova. She said her husband and son-in-law were killed right in front of her eyes. Her daughter was still missing.

Scores, hundreds, possibly even a thousand had been slaughtered in a turkey-shoot of civilians and their handful of defenders. Aside from counting every corpse, there was no way to tell how many had died. Most of the bodies remained inaccessible, in the no-man's land between the lines that had become a killing zone and a picnic for crows.

To think humans would do this to each other

[Dîrî]

Emrah... Relax... Stop playing the victim already... Armenians have been subject to Genocide - and the Kojali affair is more like a massacre...

Compared to the Armenian Genocide - Kojali is one murder...


(Ps - don't say there never was an Armenian Genocide - just because Turkey doesn't recognise it (YET) doesn't mean it didn't happen)

[Azertos]

i found the rest of the story, i wish i could have all parts of Goltz's book, but unfortunately...



There weren't too many bodies. Most were still in the hills, waiting for the higher temperatures of spring for rot to set. Some, the few, were being spaded into the shallow ground of the growing Martyrs' Cemetery across from the parliament building in Baku. One of those was Alef Khadjiev. I liked to think of him as a friend because we had consumed a few drinks together. A jocular cop with a big swagger and smile, Alef had managed to galvanize the Xodjali community around him in the belief that despite the odds and an almost total lack of support from Baku they could hang on and survive. But now Alef Khadjiev was dead. He had bought a bullet through the brain and after rotting for a week in the mountains of the Black Garden his body was bought for 100 liters of gasoline and then brought back to Baku to be buried with military honors.

Despite the proximity of the parliament across the street no-one from the government came to the funeral and maybe that was out of good taste because had they been there, whispering eulogies about courage and fortitude, Alef, the hero and then martyr of Xodjali, might have broken free of the bonds of death and climbed out of his grave and strangled the hypocrites with his own cold hands. He was that sort of guy.

But they weren't there and the funeral procession was small because Alef was a native of Xodjali and all or at least most of the would-be mourners were either dead or had become refugees, and had to be brought to Baku by truck or bus or train for the last rites.

The exception was Alef's widow, Gala, a chubby Russian girl with a hint of a mustache who lived in Baku. We had met in Agdam in the aftermath of the massacre and she refused to believe that her husband was dead. Aside from an overwhelming sense of grief she was frightened out of her wits, wondering how she could live without him.

"I'm just a Russian, a Russian!" she cried. "And now everyone looks at me with hatred in their eyes!" That was in Agdam when anyone who wasn't speaking Azeri was indeed being looked at through the evil eye. I gave her my telephone number in Baku and told her to call if there was anything I could do. She called a few days later, babbling into the phone.

"Tomas," she wailed. "Alef is here."

At first I thought a miracle of mistaken identity had occurred and that Alef was still alive. But Gala was only calling to tell me that Alef's remains had been recovered in an exchange with the Armenians for several dozen gallons of gasoline, and then been shipped to Baku for burial. It was tough for me to understand her Russian on the telephone and probably a lot tougher for her to have to pick up the phone at all. But she stayed coherent long enough to give me her address and the time of the funeral procession. I went, not knowing what to expect: A week old cadaver in the living room? Mutilated like others? Scalped like some? I got in a taxi and traveled through a wasteland of hissing, blue and pink stuff-belching pipes of the oil refining area of Baku, driving over streets that had seemingly never seen repair. We drove and drove and it was a drive though an utterly depressing landscape, the sort that no-one ever sees, or admits to having seen: broken, diseased and bad. It was as much a symbol of the rapacity and ugliness of the regime in Baku as the corpses in Agdam had been. How can you allow people to live and die like this?

Complicating my dark mood was the fact that the Azeri taxi driver only wanted to make jokes, and in Russian. I told him what I thought. I told him I was going to find the funeral of my friend, Alef Khadjiev, Martyr of Karabakh, and that all the people of Baku were greedy cowards and that only the good men died and the filth remained behind. He agreed, refusing to take any money for the ride. It was his contribution to national defense, or something.

I got out of the taxi in front of a series of high-rise Soviet-style buildings-the ones designed so that the toilet is in a separate room from the sink. Degrading, like everything else around what was the USSR. Walking through the mourners I saw people I knew or at least recognized and embraced them. Then I saw Gala. She was standing in back of a truck carrying the flag-draped coffin and holding the hand of her smiling child who was still oblivious to what had happened to her father. I said something stupid like 'be strong.' I tried to plant a hand-extended kiss on the coffin perched on the back of the truck but I couldn't reach it and decided against climbing up on the truck and just waited for the procession to proceed. There were plenty of people crying. Everyone but me. My eyes were dry; I don't know why. Then someone somewhere responsible for formalities gave the word and the column started out toward the Martyrs' Cemetery in the heights above Baku. The funeral train in was the same as my journey out, although the route was different: another broken road leading through another industrial wasteland. It was Alef's route to anywhere, nowhere, death. We arrived at the Shehidler Xiyabani, or Martyrs' Lane cemetery, the place where victims of the Soviet army crack-down on January 20th, 1990 were buried in a long line along a granite wall shaded by dwarf Cyprus trees and pine.

I had visited the cemetery before and I have visited it since but it was different this time. I wasn't there as a journalist covering the event or even a political/cultural tourist. I was there as a mourner, mourning Alef Khadjiev, the most recent addition to the second tier of graves, where the dates of death are different than in the first row. There was no third road, then. a place that would and will continue to grow. Alef's was the 127th grave then, a hole in the ground surrounded by freshly dug earth. His casket was lifted down from the truck and I joined the pall-bearers as they hoisted it on their shoulders and brought Alef's remains down the line as a local man of religion recited the 'Fatiha', or Muslim creed of faith. This was odd because I was not sure whether Alef was a Muslim except in the formal sense of the word. He never expressed anything approaching piety to me. When he was alive he was a drinking man, although he didn't smoke. This was really odd, because Azeris usually smoke all the time, even at funerals.

I was thinking thought like this because I was remembering, which is what you are supposed to do when you punch bodies in the ground. Alef Khadjiev was about to become the first of a whole string of people I knew who died violently over the next few years, so he got more thought than most. Alef's wife Gala and her Russian relatives were confused by the ritual placement of the body, the pious incantations and the fact that the week-old corpse had to be lifted out of the casket to be put in the hole dug in the muddy ground. They put the body in. An honor guard clicked their heels, slapped dummy slugs in their Kaleshnikovs, and let off three volleys. The empty shells fell clattering on the granite walkway. I picked up one and put it in my pocket. Then the family and intimate friends began covering the body with dirt and the wailing really began. Women ripped their cheeks with their nails and men sobbed last regards. I was invited to say something into the grave but declined. I had quite a bit to say but I didn't want to say it, even in a language no one would understand. Cultural differences and all. I would do it differently today.

Then another, larger funeral procession started moving down Martyrs' Row. They were heading for the shallow grave next to Alef's. It was the corner spot and the next corpse would start a new row, even then being dug among the dwarf Cyprus trees in anticipation for the next to die in the Black Garden, that horrible place called Karabakh. More young men would soon lie here and their numbers would soon exceed all those killed at Xodjali and the events of February 25th and 26th, 1992 would soon become just a detail, just another grim statistic in the on-going litany of death and destruction in Karabakh, the Black Garden.

I swore I would remember Alef and all the others, whose names I never knew but whose faces were etched on my memory forever. Yes, I would remember Xodjali.

It was a dump. But now it was dead.

[Azertos]

P.S Alef is the same person as Arif,( Khojaly=Xojali)

[Azertos]

Emrah... Relax... Stop playing the victim already... Armenians have been subject to Genocide - and the Kojali affair is more like a massacre...

Compared to the Armenian Genocide - Kojali is one murder...


(Ps - don't say there never was an Armenian Genocide - just because Turkey doesn't recognise it (YET) doesn't mean it didn't happen)

righhtt Diri, and you just seem to be a pro about these issues....one 'big murder' to you, one big tragedy to us....

[Yerevan]

Azertos wrote:

unfortunately i haven't got the whole book, and we don't know what''s written in the book further, now if it isn't a Genocide, than why did Armenians feel really necessary to scalp , slaughter people in pieces, if you want i have a video file about Khojaly

Azertos I thought you were the smartest one from the bunch of your friends but if you haven't read the whole book yet and you don't know what's written, why do you present it as that book proves it that khojali was "genocide"


You can NEVER EVER EVER show any evidence that Khojali was a planned genocide.

[BIGTURK]

People like to talk about WW1 as if only Armenians died, it seems to come as shock when you tell people that nearly 3 million Muslumans of Anatolia were massacred in this War time alone

Armenians as I have said countless times were in no way the innocent party. There Dashneks ran off with the Russians, they had a fully trained army with better weaponry and arms than the innocent Muslims of Eastern Anatolia. They then declared war, invaded, started burning the East to the ground and expect us to accept they were just innocent Armenians who the Turks attacked for no reason, GROW UP nothing is ever so Black and White.

Armenians have a history of attacking Turks to try and grab land, Khodjali is another of the Genocides Armenians have comitted against our people.

[Yerevan]

Armenians have a history of attacking Turks to try and grab land, Khodjali is another of the Genocides Armenians have comitted against our people

Life is so not fair isn't it turkey? Armenians committed not one, but several genocides and not a single nation has recognized any of them.

PS. GO GET YOUR HEAD CHECKED.

[BIGTURK]

Yerevan over the past 100 years mainly due to Russians stuffing Dashneks heads full of ideas of Greater Armenia the Christian Kingdom this is what your people with the Russians behind them pushing them have done. Russians are just using you and have made you suffer under there rule FAR more than any Muslim Turks did, look at your history and look into how Turks treated you and how Russians treated you. You might work out who your actual enemy is.

Then another, larger funeral procession started moving down Martyrs' Row. They were heading for the shallow grave next to Alef's. It was the corner spot and the next corpse would start a new row, even then being dug among the dwarf Cyprus trees in anticipation for the next to die in the Black Garden, that horrible place called Karabakh. More young men would soon lie here and their numbers would soon exceed all those killed at Xodjali and the events of February 25th and 26th, 1992 would soon become just a detail, just another grim statistic in the on-going litany of death and destruction in Karabakh, the Black Garden.

I swore I would remember Alef and all the others, whose names I never knew but whose faces were etched on my memory forever. Yes, I would remember Xodjali.

WE ALL REMEMBER XODJALI

[Dîrî]

Emrah... Relax... Stop playing the victim already... Armenians have been subject to Genocide - and the Kojali affair is more like a massacre...

Compared to the Armenian Genocide - Kojali is one murder...


(Ps - don't say there never was an Armenian Genocide - just because Turkey doesn't recognise it (YET) doesn't mean it didn't happen)

righhtt Diri, and you just seem to be a pro about these issues....one 'big murder' to you, one big tragedy to us....

A pro? Come on... Everybody can read ALL the evidence and sources put out here - for everybody... And according to them - the middle thing - is a MASSACRE... That is what Kojali was... Obviously... How about Sumgait? Same thing...

The Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century - however - was a GENOCIDE...

Now... Why do you not focus on what Turkey does if you are so into justice? How do you feel about them deporting 3 million Kurds?

[Azertos]

Is that so, Diri???
sorry man, but i still do think that you are some kinda pro, take it as a compliment!! and you know Diri i am indeed into justice, but just not into import/export.
would you feel better if i just added that Turkey is a filthy, racist democracy of Grey Wolves, would it open your eyes a little bit? would you feel our pain then???

sorry bro, i'm not here to please the others.

I believed..i still do that only we (Armenians and Azeris) can save ourselves from this conflict, not Kurds, not Europeans, not Americans,,,, as you see everyone thinks about how to save his a$$ By trying to blackmail the others.

[Yerevan]

and you know Diri i am indeed into justice,

I'm not exactly sure about that. Azertos, show me proof that Khojali was a "genocide". Any proof that the Armenian government tryed to systematicaly exterminate Azeris. So far the worst word that was labeled by the independent sourses that I have seen regarding the Khojali incident is "massacre'.

[BIGTURK]

If a genocide was comitted against anyone it was against Turks, we were invaded, the aim to wipe us off the face of the map, we were slaguthered 3 million of us and the Armenians were part of the Killers who invaded and declared war.

But like all the invaders we defeated them all

Now the Brittish lost far more troops in the war than the Armenian losses you dont see them crying about a genocide, no, they are man enough accept there was a war they invaded us, they lost the war, there were losses on both sides and for example the Austallians and New Zealanders apologise for this.

But then we have the bitter Armenians, who still can't believe they lost the war whipping up stories about how they were not agressors in any way, shape or form and how Turks just attacked Armenians for the fun of it cos thats what Turks do.

The reality is Armenians were the agressors, Armenians the invaders, Armenians the War mongerers and Armenians the LOOSERS.

Now in Karabak they again were the agressors and attacked Azeri land by suprise with the Russians backing them and comitted a Genocide.

I wonder how many years it will be before Karabak is liberated, remember Armenians had invaded and illegally occupied lands of Erzerum, Trabizon, Van etc in WW1 but this only lasted a few years. Karabak will be liberated.

[Yerevan]

Hey moron, are you some kind of a joke that was put here to entertain people with your ridiculous accusations? Everytime I read your posts I can't belive that a person can be so ignorant and stupid, in fact you are not even worth to be called a human being. Do the humanity a huge favor annd go throw yourself from a very very tall bridge.

[BIGTURK]

Yerevan
in fact you are not even worth to be called a human being

If we read "The Voice of Blood" - Antonis Angastiniyotis

http://middleeastinfo.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5651

http://middleeastinfo.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6683

We discover its exactly this kind of mentality that causes people to commit such disgusting Genocides as the Armenians have done to our people.

You see when you cease to view your fellow humans as human being anymore, in your eyes there not human and so you'd treat them with no human dignity and far worse than any animal. So slaughtering them means nothing to you as the people your slaughtering in your eyes arnt even humans so this allows you to slaughter them and not feel a thing.

Yet another worrying revelation by Yerevan

[Azertos]

well well Yerevan,



By Thomas Goltz, Agdam,
Azerbaijan

Armenian Soldiers Massacre
Hundreds Of Fleeing
Families

Survivors reported that Armenian soldiers shot and bayoneted more than 450 Azeris, many of them women and children. Hundreds, possibly thousands, were missing and feared dead.

The attackers killed most of the soldiers and volunteers defending the women and children. They then turned their guns on the terrified refugees. The few survivors later described what happened: ‘That’s when the real slaughter began,’ said Azer Hajiev, one of three soldiers to survive. ‘The Armenians just shot and shot. And then they came in and started carving up people with their bayonets and knives.’

‘They were shooting, shooting, shooting,’ echoed Rasia Aslanova, who arrived in Agdam with other women and children who made their way through Armenian lines. She said her husband, Kayun, and a son-in-law were massacred in front of her. Her daughter was still missing.

One boy who arrived in Agdam had an ear sliced off.

The survivors said 2000 others, some of whom had fled separately, were still missing in the gruelling terrain; many could perish from their wounds or the cold.

By late yesterday, 479 deaths had been registered at the morgue in Agdam’s morgue, and 29 bodies had been buried in the cemetery. Of the seven corpses I saw awaiting burial, two were children and three were women, one shot through the chest at point blank range.

Agdam hospital was a scene of carnage and terror. Doctors said they had 140 patients who escaped slaughter, most with bullet injuries or deep stab wounds.

Nor were they safe in Agdam. On Friday night rockets fell on the city which has a population of 150,000, destroying several buildings and killing one person.

[Azertos]

BBC1 Morning News
3 March 1992

BBC reporter was live on line and he claimed that he saw more than 100 bodies of Azeri men, women and children as well as a baby who are shot dead from their heads from a very short distance.


Channel 4 News 2 March 1992

2 French journalists have seen 32 corpses of men, women and children in civilian clothes. Many of them shot dead from their heads as close as less than 1 meter.

[Azertos]

The Times, 2 March 1992

Corpses Litter Hills In Karabakh

(Anatol Lieven Comes Under
Fire While Flying To Investigate
The Mass Killings Of Refugees By
Armenian Troops)

As we swooped low over the snow-covered hills of Nagorno-Karabagh we saw the scattered corpses. Apparently, the refugees had been shot down as they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew over, shown to journalists afterwards, showed DOZENS OF CORPSES lying in various parts of the hills.

The Azerbaijanis claim that AS MANY AS 1000 have died in a MASS KILLING of AZERBAIJANIS fleeing from the town of Khodjaly, seized by Armenians last week. A further 4,000 are believed to be wounded, frozen to death or missing.

The civilian helicopter’s job was to land in the mountains and pick up bodies at sites of the mass killings.

The civilian helicopter picked up four corpses, and it was during this and a previous mission that an Azerbaijani cameraman filmed the several dozen bodies on the hillsides.

Back at the airfield in Agdam, we took a look at the bodies the civilian helicopter had picked up. Two old men a small girl were covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor mortis. They had been shot.

[Azertos]

Boston Sunday Globe
21 November1993

by Jon Auerbach
Globe Correspondent

CHAKHARLI, Azerbaijan—The truckloads of scared and lost chilthen, the sobbing mothers, the stench of sickness and the sea of blank faces in this mud-covered refugee camp obscure the deeper issue of why tens of thousands of Azeris have fled here.

What we see now is a systematic destruction of every village in their way, said one senior US official. It’s one of the most disgusting things we’ve seen.

It’s vandalism, the US official said. The idea that there is an aggressive intent in a sound conclusion.

The United Nations estimates that thre are more than 1 million refugees in Azerbaijan, roughly one seventh of the former Soviet republic’s entire population. Thousands who fled to neighboring Iran are being slowly repatriated to refugee camps already bursting at the seams. But because of the Karabakh Armenians’ policy of burning villages, relief organizations say there is no hope that the Azeris could return home anytime soon.

At Chakharli, about 10 miles from Iran, more than 10,000 refugees are crammed into a makeshift tent city. Aziz Azizova, 33, arrived in the Iranian run camp about three weeks ago, after she and her five children were forced to flee their home in the village of Buik-Merjan.

I left my village with nothing, not even my shoes, she said. You see how our children are living? Some of them are living right in the mud.

Azizova, like thousands of others, escaped by fleeing across the Arax River into neighboring Iran. The UN estimates that around 300 Azeris, mainly women and children, drowned in the river’s currents.

One of the people who did make it across was Samaz Mamedova, a 40-year-old accountant. Sitting with friends in tent No. 566 on a recent day, Mamedova explained how the Armenians seized her village in less than a half hour, forcing the entire population toward the river in a chaotic scramble for survival.

[Azertos]

The Washington Post 28 February 1992

Nagorno-Karabagh Victims Buried in Azerbajjani Town

“Refugees claim hundreds died in Armenian Attack...Of seven bodies seen here today, two were children and three were women, one shot through the chest at what appeared to be close range. Another 120 refugees being treated at Agdam’s hospital include many with multiple stab wounds.”

[Azertos]

Vatan Society
Press Release May 3, 2003



Britain has become the first European state to officially and publicly acknowledge and commemorate victims of the 1992 massacre at Khodjaly. Some 800 Azerbaijani civilians were murdered when Armenian forces overran the Azeri- populated town of Khodjaly in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a letter to Vatan Society of 16 April, Britain's Foreign and
Commonwealth Office stated the following: What happened at Khodjaly stands out as an appalling tragedy in a list of many that occurred during the course of the war. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and our assurance that their suffering will not be forgotten.

The Foreign Office stressed that UK is deeply aware of the horrific incidents that took place during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and of the terrible human cost to both sides . The statement came in response to Vatan Society's Khodjaly Appeal issued on February 26, 2003 with the aim of raising the profile and seeking public acknowledgement for the tragic events in Karabagh 11 years ago, as well as to commemorate all civilian
victims of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

The Foreign Office letter stated:

We understand the strength of feeling about the terrible events that occurred and know that the suffering continues for the families of those who died and for the many thousands of people displaced from their homes The UK will continue to work for peace, security and mutual understanding in the region.

The statement also reiterated Britain s support of the OSCE Minsk Group's efforts to settle the Karabagh dispute. UK called on the governments of Azerbaijan and Armenia to look to the future and build a better relationship between their countries, to ensure that such atrocities never happen again.

Vatan Society welcomes the Foreign Office statement as an important step towards a responsible and unbiased international public debate on the Karabagh conflict, necessary if a peaceful and just settlement to the dispute is to be found.

[Azertos]

Newspaper accounts regarding the Khodjaly massacres:

"Crual L'Eveneman" magazine (Paris), March 25, 1992: "The Armenians attacked Khojali district. The whole world became the witness of the disfigured dead bodies. Azeris speak about thousand killed people".

"Sunday Times" newspaper (London), March 1, 1992: "Armenian soldiers annihilated the hundred families".

"Financial times" newspaper (London), March 9, 1992: "Armenains shot down the column of refugees, fled to Aghdam. The Azerbaijani side counted up about 1200 dead bodies:

The cameraman from Lebanon confirmed that the rich dashnak community of his country sent the weapon and people to Karabakh".

"Times" newspaper (London), March 4, 1992: : "Many people were mutilated, and it was remained only the head of one little girl"

"Izvestiya" newspaper (Moscow), March 4, 1992: "Camcoder showed the kids with the cut off ears. One old woman were cut off the half of her face. The men were scalped."

"Financial Times", March 14, 1992: "General Polyakov said 103 Armenian servicemen from regiment No 366 stayed in Nagorni Karabakh".

"Le Mond" newspaper (Paris), March 14, 1992: "The foreign journalists in Aghdam saw the women and three scalped children with the pulled off nails among the killed people. This is not "Azerbaijani propaganda", but reality"

"Izvestiya" newspaper, March 13, 1992: "Major Leonid Kravets: "I saw about hundred dead bodies on the hill. One little boy was without head. Everywhere were the dead bodies of women, children, elders killed with the particular brutality".

"Valer actuel" magazine (Paris), March 14, 1992: "On this 'autonomous region' Armenian armed forces together with the people who are natives of Near East have the most modern military equipment, including the helicopters. ASALA has military bases and ammunition depots in Syria and Lebanon. Armenians annihilated Azerbaijanis of Karabakh, implemented bloody massacre in more than 100 Moslem villages".

Journalist of British TV company "Funt man news" R. Patrick who visited the place of tragedy: "Crime in Khojali can not be justified in public opinion".

"Around 200 bodies were brought into Agdam in the space of four days. Scores of the corpses bore traces of profanation. Doctors on a hospital train in Agdam noted no less than four corpses that had been scalped and one that had been beheaded. ... and one case of live scalping". ("A tragedy whose perpetrators cannot be vindicated. A report by Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, on the massive violations of human rights committed in the taking of Khojaly on the night of 25/26 February 1992 by armed units", newspaper Svoboda, 12 June 1992.)"

"I had heard a lot about wars, about the cruelty of the Fascists, but the Armenians were worse, killing five- and six-year-old children, killing innocent civilians", said a French journalist, Jean-Yves Junet, who visited the scene of this mass murder of women, old people, children and defenders of Khojaly. (Khojaly - The Last Day, op. cit.)


"Some children were found with severed ears; the skin had been cut from the left side of an elderly woman's face; and men had been scalped." (In the words of the journalist Chingiz Mustafaev, Khojaly - The Last Day, Baku, Azerbaijan publishing house, 1992)

"A group of 19 members of the Nukhiyev family from the village of Gorazly in the Fizuli district of Azerbaijan was said to have been taken hostage by ethnic Armenian forces at around 5pm on 2 July 1993. They had gathered for a wedding. Seven members have been released in exchanges since then and one, Vagif Kutais ogly Nukhiyev, is said to have died five to six months ago. The remaining 11 family members - four women, two men and five children, all named above - are reported by their relatives to remain held as hostages on the premises of the hospital in Khankendi (known to the Armenians as Stepanakert). The five children still detained, all girls, are Sevda (born 1980), Leyla (born 1983), Matanat (born 1983), Arzu (born 1986) and Narmina (born 1989)." From the Amnesty International archives