At the end of the 20th century human
mankind became faced with an unprecedented recidivism of the medieval barbarity
- the mass expulsion of the people from their home places and the direct
genocide towards the whole people. Azerbaijan turned out to be one of such
victims. In 1987 Armenia raised a problem of joining the Nagorny-Karabakh Region
of the Azerbaijan Republic to Armenia and a range of actions were undertaken by
Armenia in this respect.
The wave of Armenian chauvinism raised in connection with the forced problem of
"reunion" of Nagorny-Karabakh and even which does not have common borders on
Armenia, led to the mass violations of human rights of Azeris living in Armenia.
After this Armenians began the process of the mass expulsion and abuse of over
200,000 Azeris, who had lived on the lands belonging today to Armenia, for
centuries. It was accompanied by a wide-scale changing of the names of the
settlements having historical Azerbaijanian names into the ethnically Armenian
ones. It was a stage of "an ethnic purge" in Armenia. In 1988 - 1989 the first
wave of the refugees came to Azerbaijan from Armenia. They were old men, women
and children, who were beaten, crippled, frost - bitten and fled their own home
places to save only their own life. These refugees do not have normal living
conditions up to the present.
Since then during more than 10 years Armenia has been realizing the plans of the
armed occupation of the Azerbaijan territory in front of the world community
with the purpose of joining the Nagorny-Karabakh Region of the Azerbaijan
Republic to Armenia. After the stage of "purge" Armenia started a new stage of
ethnic combing out in Nagorny-Karabakh where the Azeris were driven out
successively. At this stage one could observe a mass breaching of the human
rights up to killing. At first with the assistance of Political Bureau of the
former USSR Nagorny-Karabakh was seized from Azerbaijan and since then for
achieving its goals Armenia chose the methods of military aggression. Since
Azerbaijan did not have its independent Azerbaijan army, at that time the
actions of the armed forces of Armenia were dirested against civilians and
accompanied by the abominable crimes.
One of the inhuman crimes against Azerbaijan people was a tragedy of the Khojali
town, which was captured by the Armenia armed forces in February 1992. As a
result of the barbarian act of vandalism the number of the killed and frozen
Khojalians exceeded over 1000 people. There were noted the facts of the
abominable insultations of the living and dead people. The majority of the
killed people were women, old men and children. The victims of Khojali are vivid
examples of pursuing a policy of genocide and ethnic cleaning towards Azerbaijan
people.
In May 1992 after the tragic Khojali events the armed forces of Armenia captured
the last Azerbaijan town of Shusha. Thus the ethnic cleaning of Nagorny -
Karabakh from Azeris which started in 1989, was completely finished by Armenian
separatists.
After capturing the town of Shusha and the Shusha Region the armed forces of
Armenia occupied the Lachin Region of the Azerbaijan Republic in 2 directions -
from the territory of the Republic of Armenia and from the Nagorny-Karabakh
Republic of Azerbaijan. Thereby according to the international normative deeds
this non - declared war began to be qualified as direct aggression.
In summer 1992 SCCE began to intensify its activity and at last the talks
between the two countries started. Despite the fact that the talks did not lead
to any result they gave a chance to stabilize the situation to a certain extent.
But all the efforts ended in another provocation of the Armenian aggressor. So
in April 1993 the Kelbajar region of the Azerbaijan Republic was captured by the
armed forces of Armenia in two directions - from the direction of Aghdara region
and from the territory of Armenia. After the capturing of the Kelbajar region,
in spite of all the hypocritical statements of Armenian leaders about the
adherence to a peaceful regulation of the conflict, the Armenian military clique
occupied the Aghdam region of Azerbaijan. In October and November of 1993 the
armed forces of the Armenian Republic occupied the regions of the Azerbaijan
Republic, such as Fizuli, Jebrail and Zangelan. Thereby the aggressor gained the
state frontier of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Azeris have
been driven out from all the territories occupied by the Armenian aggressors.
The vast territories, which form 1/5 of the republic, have been transformed into
a "dead zone", where only the armed forces play the masters.
As result of the aggressive activities of the armed forces of Armenia there was
much destruction not only in Nagorny-Karabakh, but in the Aghstafa, Gazakh,
Gedabey regions and in Sedarek region of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic as
well. The number of killed people among civilians particularly among women, old
men, and children was over 20,000.
The aggressive policy of the Armenia republic shakes the efforts undertaken by
different international organizations and a number of countries for peaceful
solution of the problem. The main reason of the failure of the peace-making
activity on stabilization of the situation in the region is that the Armenian
side refuses to admit the fact of the direct aggression of the Armenia republic
against sovereign Azerbaijan. Numerous missions on facts collecting of such
competent organizations as UN and CSCE based their conclusion upon the
complexity of admitting the fact of the direct involvement of Armenia armed
forces into the conflict. However, Azerbaijan possesses necessary evidences and
has presented them to the mediators and competent international organizations
more than once.
So the facts of the military nature need to be specifically qualified, but how
can one refute the well-known political juridical acts affirming the realization
of political and military aggression of the Republic of Armenia against
Azerbaijan, e.g. such as:
The resolution on "Reunion of Armenia to Nagorny-Karabakh" which was adopted on
December 1, 1989 by the Parliament of Armenia is the breach of the standards of
the international law and has not been rescinded up to these days;
In the territory of the Nagorny-Karabakh of Azerbaijan the elections to the
Parliament of the Republic of Armenia were held;
The Parliament made a decision not to admit any normative statement on belonging
of Nagorny-Karabakh to Azerbaijan Republic;
Proclaiming its sovereignty Armenia illegally included into the declaration a
statment about recognizing the the Nagorny-Karabakh as a part of Armenia-s
territory.
The frontier regions of Azerbaijan Republic are incessantly fired on from the
direction of Armenia. By its attitude towards the peacemaking efforts Armenia
challenges the world association undermining all the endeavors of the political
regulation of the conflict. Realizing its annexation plans the leaders of the
Republic of Armenia not only stop breaching standards of the international law,
but discredit political authority of the mediatory countries. After realizing a
minimum program on capturing of all the territories of Nagorny-Karabakh region,
the aggressor began to create the "buffer zone" which includes the regions of
Azerbaijan situated around occupied Nagorny-Karabakh. Having driven out the
local Azeris from these regions violently and having broken all the
communications except the ones connecting the region to Armenia, the Armenian
armed forces realized their thorough - made strategic plan, which foresees
transforming. Nagorny-Karabakh into a territory surrounded by a "dead zone" with
the purpose of the ruling out the possibility of home - coming of the Azeris to
the permanent residences. The experience of recent years shows that indecision,
ambiguity and quite impossible balance between the interests of the agressor and
those of his victim not only are connivance towards the aggressor but also
threaten to undermine peace in all over the Caucasian Region and broaden the
framework of the conflict.
During all these years Azerbaijan diplomacy did everything to draw world
community-s attention to the flagrant facts of the aggression of Armenia against
Azerbaijan, to search the ways of the peaceable regulation of the conflict. The
results of these efforts were 4 resolutions adopted by UN Security Council and 6
statements of its Chairman.
In all resolutions the Security Council confirms the sovereignty and integrity
of the Azerbaijan Republic, emphasizes impossibility to use force for capturing
of the territories, demands immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawing of
all the occupied forces from all the captured regions of Azerbaijan and
returning refugees to their permanent residences.
The decisions of Lisbon Summit of OSCE (Lisbon,1996) have given clear foundation
for resolution of the conflict on basic of principle of territorial ointegrity
of Azerbaijan.
But all these resolutions are ignored by the Republic of Armenia up to the
present. Moreover, it continuous to increase the presence of its armed forces in
the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. On the other hand Security Council did
not exert all its powers to fulfill the carried resolutions.
Azerbaijan, being devoted for a peaceable political regulation, considers that
only after liquidation of the results of the aggression by carrying suitable
resolutions it will be possible to conduct the stable and efficient negotiations
with the purpose of establishing lasting peace and ensuring the safety of the
whole population of the region. The results of the aggression of Armenia turned
a the national distress for Azerbaijan. This aggression brought numerous human
losses; over a million people who lost their own homes, have been scattered all
over the territory of the Republic and have unbearable living conditions in
refugee camps.
From the beginning of the war actions of the armed forces of Armenia there have
been plundered, burnt and ruined over 876 populated areas, about 7000 industrial
agricultural and other undertakings, over 153,000 dwellings possessing over 9
million sq. km., 4366 social and cultural projects, 616 schools, 242 pre-school
institutions, 397 hospitals, 10 polyclinics, 10 maternity hospitals, 76 drug
stores, 4 sanatoriums, 10 mosques and so on. The stock-breeders have lost 70% of
summer pastures. The water and hydro-technical structures have been put out of
action; functioning of the rail-traffic, motor-transport and other types of
communications have been broken. 72,400 hectares of crop area, 56,000 of
hectares orchards of the regions of Aghdam, Gubadli, Fizuli, Jebrail are under
Armenians occupation now. Till the occupation there were 69,000 head of horned
cattle and 244,000 head of sheep and goats in the farms of these Regions.
As result of a non - declared war of Armenian against Azerbaijan the armed
forces of Armenia occupied the lands of which over one million hectars are
suitable for the agricultural operations and over 280,000 hectares of forests
belong to a nature - protection category. A lot of unique sacred things of the
national culture of Azerbaijan were ruined in the territory of Nagorny-Karabakh.
Five most beautiful Azerbaijan regions, not bordering on Nagorny-Karabakh have
been captured and exposed to barbarian plundering.
It is necessary to note that there are over 200 palaeontological, faunal and
geological monuments of nature in the occupied territories and it is very
difficult to value these masterpieces because of their uniqueness. The
biocomplexes were broken by the actions of the aggressors and they are losing
the importance as reservations. According to the experts- preliminary
calculation the damaged caused to the lands, forests, and the fauna are
estimated by billions of US dollars.
The Armenian aggressor ruined town museums of Shusha and plundered cultural
values of Azerbaijan people. They caused damages to the cultural and art
institutions, including 368 clubs, 927 libraries, 85 music schools, 22 museums,
4 picture galleries, 10 recreation parks, 6 state theaters and concert
organizations.
From 22 plundered museums the aggressors took 40,000 rare values and exhibits
away. Among plundered and ruined museums are: Kalbajar museum of historical and
regional ethnography with unique historical exhibits, gold and silver works,
rare and expensive stones and carpets and hand and applied works;
Historical Museum of Shusha and Museum of Bread in Aghdam, Museum of Stone
monuments in Zangelan and so on. About 4,6 million of books and manuscripts were
destroyed in the plundered and burned libraries. 20 modern buildings of palaces
of culture were ruined in the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Fizuli, Shusha and
others.
At present the families of refugees have been placed in more than 370
institutions of culture, health services, sanatoriums, clubs, cultural centers,
libraries, music schools museums and recreation parks.
Thus, on one hand the aggression ruined a great number of material values in
occupied territories, on the other hand resulted in great number of refugees,
broke the formed social infrastructure and led to the breach of the traditional
inhabitation environment in the rest of the territory of the Republic.
