From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Subject: To Blame the Victim -- Armenians in Azerbaijan, Part 5
Summary: 1967 letter from Karabakh Armenians to the Government of Armenia 
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 02:53:09 GMT

In article <1992Dec13.060610.16054@mail.cornell.edu> Mark Lipsits <ml12@cornell
.edu wrote:

[ML]     I am still not clear about the interests of the President of
[ML] Armenia.  My best guess is that he is a fanatic, who thinks that he cares
[ML] about Armenia, but he forgets that nation is made up of people.  And he
[ML] obviously forgets that there are other nations in the world, who are also
[ML] made up of people.

The President of Armenia, in a speech at the United Nations, September 1992
specifically stated Armenia has no territorial claim on land beyond its
borders. In addition, he has always called for the rights of the Armenians of
Karabakh to determine their own future.

[ML]    You know why there are all these killings that are going on right
[ML] now?  It is all because of people who teach extreme nationalism!  They
[ML] teach their children to hate!  From the childhood some of the children
[ML] are tought that their nationality is THE BEST.  They taught to hate
[ML] Muslims, Jews, Blacks, Oriental, just for their religion or the way they
[ML] look!  And you, Mr. Davidian is an extreme nationalist, as I can tell. 
[ML] People like you are guilty of the deaths of others for blindly following
[ML] fanatic leaders!

Let the people of Karabakh speak, as they did in 1967, Mr. Lipsits, 
TWENTY-FIVE years ago! And you talk about hate, call me a fanatic! YOU ARE 
THE APOLOGIST FOR THE OPPRESSOR! Go ahead, tell us the the current leadership 
of Armenia, most who were in grammar school at the time of the following 
letter, are at the root cause of the current Armenian-Azeri conflict!

September 19, 1967

	An appeal by residents of Mountainous Karabagh to the People and 
	Government of Armenia, Central Committee of the Party, and Public 
	Authorities.

Dear Compatriots:

With this, the afflicted people of Karabagh are appealing to you as our 
situation is worse than it has ever been even under the tyrannical Khans and 
Mussavats.

None of us are now safe to leave our houses or to return to our home in the 
evening. Our honor is being insulted. Our dignity and rights are being denied. 
No one is listening to our voice of protest. No one is listening to our 
supplications. We have sent hundreds of requests to the Central Government in 
Moscow and to the Government of Azerbaijan, and the answer to all of that has 
been total silence or fanatic persecution against us and our children. Today
dozens of young Armenians of Karabagh are illegally imprisoned or denied 
employment. They have pushed us to a point where we have to leave our 
ancestral lands and become refugee people without a fatherland. The tyrants 
are not satisfied with that. They are insulting and violating the corpses of 
our dead and forcing us to resort to criminal activities. Of the many 
instances let us mention a few so that you can visualize what is happening in 
Karabagh.

Two years ago in the center of Aghdam, they killed a young man, Avanessian. 
When they asked the Azerbaijani as to why he killed an innocent passerby, his 
obscene answer was, "I was aiming at the bird. My bullet got him. Whatever the 
fine is, I can pay."

A year and a half ago in front of the Party Regional Committee of Shushi two
Azerbaijanis stopped a communist agronomist of Karabagh and said, "We were 
going to kill an Armenian at this moment. You turned up." And they shot him on 
the spot. To this day, the criminal remains unpunished because he is a 
relative of the Azerbaijan prosecutor and the brother of Bilarov, the Vice 
President of the Executive Committee of the Karabagh Soviet.

The chief of the Martuni Region Sovkhoz, Grisha Solomonian, was killed and his 
body thrown on the side of the road. Two other youths, tractor drivers, were 
killed at night. And none of the criminals have ever been apprehended because 
they are Azerbaijanis.

They killed the 10 year old son of the chief of the local Martuni Sovkhoz, 
Benik Movsesian; they mutilated and violated his body. This time, too, the 
government was not able to "apprehend the criminals." They would never have 
been apprehended if people's patience had not been exhausted and the family 
of the victim itself had not apprehended the villains.

[description of the means by which justice was nevertheless evaded in this 
case] The criminals ended up with 5 years of imprisonment and 5 years 
probation. The State police responded to the anger of the public by spraying 
sewage water over them from fire engines. The guards opened fire on the father 
of the victim who was running right and left not knowing what to do. Then 
there were fatal bullets fired as the father's family was trying to reach him. 
Twelve were killed and their bodies have not been brought out yet. Only then 
did the people, boiling with anger, attack the criminals, kill them, and burn
their bodies.

The chauvinist leaders of Azerbaijan had planned this event and were not late 
in concluding it their way. Alikhanov, the President of the Council of Soviets 
and the person who has special feelings against the patriots of Mountainous 
Karabagh, reached Stepanakert, gathered all the leaders, declared that there 
is an anti-Soviet nationalist organization in the region and that his 
compatriots were victims of this alleged organization and that this is the 
result of nationalism provoked by Soviet Armenia.

"There is no nationalism here," declared the official Akhundov at a meeting of 
the party members. "This is a feud between two families." At any rate he 
warned by shaking his fist at those present: "Forget about your demand to join 
Armenia. You should know that Mountainous Karabagh is and will remain an 
integral part of Azerbaijan. No one who cares about his head can stand up and 
insist to the contrary." Upon his departure, there began the days of 
Stepanakert which reminded us of the horrible time of 1918-1920.

The militia and the state security personnel that came from Baku and filled 
the city with foreign soldiers surrounded the center of the region and began 
an unending series of questions and persecutions as a means to demoralize its 
people. They're imprisoning all those who dare and all those who care. Those 
who protest against the arbitrary decisions are released of their duties and 
persecuted. The fate of the Armenians of the region is in the hands of all the 
old and new traitors, spies, and their like. There is no end to this. And if 
there is, it is the end of every Armenian situation where there have been life 
and death struggles for defense until now.

The Armenians of Karabagh are awaiting salvation from you, people of the 
motherland.


-- 
David Davidian dbd@urartu.sdpa.org "It has been ever thus in all things, son, 
SDPA Center for Regional Studies    Whatever we thrash we give to the wind, 
P.O. Box 382761                     We too have been blown by the world's wind
Cambridge, MA 02238                 The chaff is gone but the grain remains." 
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