The Senate of Colombia passed its decision unanimously, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev told a briefing on Monday, APA reports.

“The annex to the decision gives information about the history of Armenia’s aggressive policy against Azerbaijan, describes Azerbaijan’s position, says that Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven adjacent regions have suffered aggression from Armenia and are still under occupation by the Armenian Armed Forces,” Abdullayev said.

“The decision says that more than one million Azerbaijanis have become refugees and internally displaced people, condemns the violence committed against the Azerbaijanis and violation of their rights. The crimes committed in Khojaly are referred to as genocide in the decision. This means that Colombia is the second country in Latin America after Mexico to assess the Khojaly events as genocide. Prior to this, the decision was discussed at the Colombian Senate’s second committee on foreign affairs and defence issues.

“The decision, which was passed unanimously, is another successful step of Azerbaijani diplomacy towards a legal political assessment of the Khojaly genocide by the international community. We will continue to work on this. This is very important for us,” Abdullayev said.

During the night of 25-26 February 1992, 613 Azerbaijani civilians were killed in an attack by Armenian forces, backed by an ex-Soviet regiment, on the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh. Most of the victims perished as they fled the town. The massacre was the largest atrocity of the Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Karabakh.

News.az

The document, adopted unanimously by 102 Senators, pointed at one million refugees and internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan because of the Karabakh conflict.

The document also condemned torture against the civilian population in exile from their native lands. Events in Khojaly were regarded by the Senate of Colombia as genocide.

The document also notes the military occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven regions surrounding it.

The document of the Senate indicated the necessity to settle the Karabakh conflict in accordance with the four UN Security Council resolutions. In addition, it calls the parties of the conflict to resolve the problem within its internationally recognized borders and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

It is noteworthy that previously the Senate and National Assembly in Mexico, as well as the Senate of Pakistan recognized the events in Khojaly as genocide.

The town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh was occupied at night from 25 to 26 February 1992 by the Armenian armed forces with the support of the 366th regiment of the Soviet Army. Capture of the city was accompanied by massacres of civilians, and a total of 613 people were killed.

Contact.az

Signers of the address shared the grief of the Azerbaijani people and voiced regret that differently from the crimes committed in the territory of Yugoslavia, perpetrators of the Khojaly Genocide had not been punished yet, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Lithuania told Gun.Az.

The members of the Lithuanian Seimas drew the attention of the European Parliament to the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and noted that resolution No 2216 adopted on 20 May 2010 by the European Parliament was an important document, supported the moral and political assessment of aggressive acts of Armenian in that document. They emphasized that they supported the immediate implementation of principal regulations of that document.

The Lithuanian MPs hoped that the European Parliament would give a political assessment to that tragedy and take that bloody tragedy as part of the history of Europe.

News.az

During the 1988-1994 war in the southwestern Nagorno-Karabakh area of Azerbaijan, Armenian and Russian troops slaughtered hundreds of ethnic Azeri men, women and children in the town of Khojaly, about 230 miles west of the capital, Baku.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, its exact date in February commemorated with public tributes and marches on one of the few occasions in which the country’s powerful elite stand side-by-side with the beleaguered opposition.

The story of the massacre is taught to schoolchildren the way that tales of the American Revolution are taught to American students, except the details are far more grizzly and eyewitnesses are plentiful.

“I don’t think there has been a day in the last 20 years when I have failed to recall the butchered and tortured corpses left behind in Khojaly,” says 50-year-old Aloysat Gasimov, who was one of the first Azeri officials to arrive in the area after the Armenian and Russian soldiers withdrew.

Dreams of going home

The rugged face of Mr. Gasimov, the head of a cultural center near the site of the 1992 massacre, is familiar to most Azerbaijanis because he appears in many of the first photos documenting the tragedy.

According to reports, Armenian troops gunned down hundreds of civilians over two days as they tried to evacuate Khojaly during the height of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict — accounts that Armenian authorities still dispute.

“For me, it is like a nightmare that has lasted 20 years,” Mr. Gasimovsays. “The pain has never completely left me.”

It has never left other survivors, either, and not just because of the horror they witnessed in 1992.

Life for shantytown dwellers is difficult, in part because the government’s modernization plans have skipped over them and in part because they continue to hold onto dreams of returning to Khojaly — now a political no-man’s land claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia — and so they do not make efforts to improve the situation where they live.

“This is not my land,” says Figura Rustamova, a 42-year-old school director, gesturing around her small, plywood-framed home where the centerpiece is a large photograph of her older brother Furzoli, who was killed in Khojaly while trying to help older residents escape. “I am not connected to this land. I want to go back to Khojaly. When I die, I want to be buried next to my brother and my parents.”

That sentiment is almost universal in the shantytown, built on the remains of an old Soviet-era workers’ spa where running water and electricity disappear for days at a time and four out of five adults are unemployed, living on a government stipend they say translates to about $15 per month.

“Life here is hard, but it will be worth it if we can return to our land,” says Akbar Hasanov, another resident.

For its part, the government says it is working on the issue, and not without success. But Industry and Energy Minister Natig Aliyev says Azerbaijan’s situation is unique.

“There is one problem, which is to have no money, and there is another — to have too much,” Mr. Aliyev says. “In our case, the question becomes, what is the best way to spend it?

Prosperity belies problems

“The refugee problem is a serious one, but you can’t just give everyone $1,000 and send them on their way. You have to increase opportunities for them, and that is not so easy.”

Thanks to massive oil and natural gas reserves, Azerbaijan is home to one of the fastest growing economies in the world: Its GDP has tripled in the last eight years, and it’s public debt is barely 7 percent of GDP, and a mere eighth of its foreign currency reserves.

In per capita terms, it is the richest country in the region, and its economic might is apparent in Baku, where a small historic center is surrounded by a flurry of architectural activity.

Mr. Aliyev listed government spending on education, health, culture and infrastructure as the “pillars” of the government’s efforts to help the poorest Azerbaijanis.

“The problem is bad,” he says. “But it was much worse just a few years ago.”

In the shantytowns, residents are slow to criticize their government, but they say they have seen little evidence of its investments. The country’s growing international clout and the capital’s ambitious skyline do not interest them.

They just say they want to go home.

“For me, the top priority must be recovering our homeland,” says Rafael Ismailov, a retired truck driver injured during the attack 20 years ago.

Due to shrapnel he took in his ankle during the onslaught and infections that followed, one of Mr. Ismailov’s feet has withered into a twisted stump that requires him to hop on his good leg to get around his small home, an abandoned railway boxcar.

“There was a time for negotiating, but that has not given us the results we want,” he says. “I am against war, but if it takes force to get our land back and they can find a truck I can drive with my ruined foot, then they can strap me in and I will help lead the charge.”

The Washington Times

Pilot version of the documentary “Endless Corridor” filmed by the Union of European Cinematographers within the framework of the project “Peaceful Caucasus” was presented on Sunday at the Nizami Cinema Center of Baku under auspices of Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

According to APA, President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, First Lady of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the presentation ceremony. The film presentation was held within the “Justice for Khojaly” international campaign and dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Khojaly tragedy. The documentary filmed by the group of British, Lithuanian, Estonian and Finnish cinematographers is about the crossroad of the fates of the people with different nationality, profession and political view at night to February 26, 1992.

Leyla Aliyeva, Vice President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, General Coordinator of Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation highly appreciated the work of the filmmakers and said that this film would play an important role in delivering truth about the Khojaly genocide to the world community.

Leyla Aliyeva noted that Khojaly is a pain of not only Azerbaijani people, but every honest person, who at least once got information about this tragedy and saw its consequences: “Khojaly tragedy is an indelible pain of Azerbaijani people and everyone of us. This event took place 20 years ago, but memory of killed innocent people will always stay in our hearts. The film was produced by the foreign journalists. It is about the tragedy committed in Khojaly on February 26, 1992. I think this film describes those terrible events authentically and through the facts. As you know, Azerbaijani people commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Khojaly tragedy this year and we have held a series of events throughout the world. The memory of innocent old people, women and children killed and tortured during this terrible event will always live in our hearts. We believe that this terrible tragedy will get its international assessment soon and perpetrators of this
event will be punished”.

Leyla Aliyeva also noted that the activity under auspices of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum toward the legal and political recognition of the Khojaly tragedy and the restoration of justice will be continued in 2012.

A music muster captured during the tragedy, Russian military reporter, a woman, who lost most of her relatives and captured, participated in the journalistic investigation launched by the Lithuanian reporter Richardas Lapaytis, who changed his fate in February, 1992, 20 years later after the tragedy.

Along with the fates of different people, the period of USSR collapse and memories of the witnesses of the Karabakh conflict were described in the film.

Lithuanian reporter Richardas Lapaytis addressed the presentation ceremony: “I was making notes about the events I witnessed while working voluntarily in Aghdam and then visiting the conflict zone in my diary. I returned to my notes many times to find answer to the questions Who? Why? What for? I decided to participate in the film when I knew that my colleagues, cinematographers take interest in these questions and my notes as a witness”.

The journalist noted that he wants the world to know about Khojaly: “This is just main condition for the restoration of justice”.

The Lithuanian journalist said he advocated for the idea of screening this film in Armenia too. “I would like this film to be shown in Armenia too. It would help to start a dialogue, at least to find common point in this issue of humanitarian character”.

The horrors of Khojaly were described in the film through the historic facts. It contains interviews with not only Khojaly residents, but also Armenians and Russians, who perpetrated this tragedy, with their ideas and reasons, calling these events a crime against humanity.

Government and state officials, foreign diplomats accredited in Azerbaijan, members of the parliament, mass media managers and well-known public figures attended the presentation ceremony.

613 peaceful residents were killed, more than 1000 were wounded, 8 families were slaughtered, 25 children lost their parents, 130 children lost one of their parents and 150 people went missing during the massacre perpetrated against the peaceful people in the town of Khojaly by the Armenian armed forces and 366th regiment of the Russian army at night from February 25 to 26, 1992.

“Justice for Khojaly” International Awareness Campaign was launched in 2009 on the initiative of Leyla Aliyeva, Vice President of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, General Coordinator of Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation. The campaign directed toward the political and legal recognition of the tragedy was successfully launched in more than 35 countries. In January, 2012, on the initiative of International Conference Youth Forum, the Khojaly tragedy was recognized by the Parliamentary Assembly of Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which unites 51 countries, as genocide. Similar decisions were passed by the Mexican and Pakistani parliaments.

Source: APA

According to Azerbaijani Procuracy officials, before the escalation of the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, Khojaly had a population of about 6,000; its precise population in February is unknown since some residents may have fled earlier.⁶ In 1988 Khojaly had only 2,000 residents and had the status of a village; its numbers grew as Azerbaijani refugees from Armenia were resettled there. The Azerbaijani government had also settled in Khojaly several hundred Meskhctian Turks fleeing persecution in Central Asia. Finally, Azerbaijanis flocked there from other parts of Nagorno Karabakh, notably from Stepanakert, and continued to do so after Armenian forces overran their villages in the winter of 1991-92. It received the status of town from the Azerbaijani government only in December 1991, and, after Shusha, was the second most populous Azerbaijani town in Nagorno Karabakh.⁷

The only airport in Nagorno Karabakh is located in Khojaly. Since at least 1990, an Azerbaijani OMON militia unit was deployed in Khojaly, mainly with the purpose of defending the town and the airport. The exact number of militia deployed is unknown. Aidcn Rasulov, who leads the Azerbaijani Procuracy’s investigation of Khojaly, puts the number at twenty-two, although displaced persons said that as many as forty militia men fled with the town’s population. In addition, Khojaly had a self-defense group of about 200.

Armenian fighters maintain that they sent ultimata to the Azerbaijani forces in Khojaly warning that unless missile attacks from that town on Stepanakert ceased, Armenian forces would attack.⁸ According to A.H., an Azerbaijani woman interviewed by Helsinki Watch in Baky. After Armenians seized Malybeyli, they made an ultimatum to Khojaly . .. and that Khojaly people had better leave with a white flag. Alif Gajiev [the head of the militia in Khojaly] told us this on February 15, but this didn’t frighten me or other people. We never believed they could occupy Khojaly. According to nearly all of the twenty-two Azerbaijani witnesses of the Khojaly events interviewed by Helsinki Watch, the village had been shelled almost on a daily basis during the winter of 1991-92, and people had grown accustomed to spending nights in basements.

The attack on Khojaly began about 11:00 p.m.⁹ on February 25, with heavy shelling and artillery fire. Hassan Alahierov, a construction worker, told Helsinki Watch,

we were used to [hearing] shooting, but usually with machine guns. I was sleeping on the balcony and my son came to me and said that this was a different noise. I stood up and . .. saw BMPs [armed personnel carriers] and tanks were shooting from all directions. . . . When I went out I saw bombs falling everywhere.

Several refugees reported that they saw houses burning during the attack on Khojaly or while they were fleeing the village. Juleka Duncmalieva (whose sister died of exposure during their flight from Khojaly) said that at about midnight or 1:00 A.M. she saw the neighbourhood where Meskhetian Turks lived go up in flames: “Meskhetians lived in our neighborhood in Finnish-style cottages. When their houses were burned we got out right away.”

Most Khojaly residents remained in the town until about 3:00 A.M., some staying in basements in private homes. In addition, about 300 residents reportedly took shelter in the basement of one school. Some reported that they decided to leave at 3:00 A.M. because the self-defence forces were running through the streets shouting instructions to people to run away.

Residents fled the town in separate groups, amid chaos and panic, most of them without any belongings or clothes for the cold weather. As a result, hundreds of people suffered — and some died — from severe frostbite.

The majority of Khojaly residents went along a route that took them across a shallow river, through the mountains, and, by about dawn, towards an open field near the village of Nakhichevanik, controlled then by Armenians. It was here that the most intense shooting took place. Other people fled along different routes that took them directly by Shelli, an Azerbaijani village near Agdam. A number of Khojaly survivors wandered through the forest for several days before finding their way to Agdam’s environs.

Positioning of the Militia

Among one of these fleeing groups was the Azerbaijani OMON, led by Alif Gajiev, on retreat from the airport. Gajiev had, according to several Helsinki Watch interviewees, directed the group seeking shelter in the school basement to leave the village. At Nakhichevanik Armenians and troops of the CIS 366th regiment opened fire on the retreating OMON militia and the fleeing residents. All Azerbaijanis interviewed who were in this group reported that the militia, still in uniform, and some still carrying their guns, were interspersed with the masses of civilians. For example, Hijran Alekpera, a twenty-three-year-old former bakery worker, described a mass of civilians who moved along “surrounded by a ring of defenders. They tried to defend us. They had guns and they would try to shoot back.”

According to a twenty-one-year-old Azerbaijani woman whose toes had to be amputated because of frostbite damage, The leaders of our group were men. The Armenians opened fire as we approached the village [of Nakhichevanik]. They surrounded us and shot. There was shooting between Armenian soldiers and ours.” SA, a member of the OMON unit, told Helsinki Watch, “We were shooting and running in the pack, but it was not an organized retreat. We were all mixed together.”

Another young Azerbaijani woman, who suffered frostbite on her legs, also described the crossfire: “When Armenians saw us they began to shoot. We hid. At the same time Azcrbaijanis shot back. They were Azerbaijani OMON. Some of them were with us when we fled.’

Firing on Civilians

Witnesses to and victims of the shooting at Nakhichevanik told Helsinki Watch of varying numbers of people who fell under fire, and described how they received their gunshot wounds.

Thirty-three-year-old Nigar Azizova, who worked in a vegetable store, told Helsinki Watch that when the crowd started falling over bodies, they turned back and fled in different directions.

The crowd was about sixty meters long. I was in the middle, and people in the front were mostly killed. At Nakhichevanik we saw that people in front were felling. They shouted and fell. I recognized their cues. I could see their faces as we stepped over them. We covered the children’s eyes so they wouldn’t see.
Mrs. Azizova listed eight people whose bodies she had to step over, and claimed that they had no guns: Elshan Abushov, Hassan Abushov, Zelif Alekhpeliev, Tevagul Alekhpelieva, Sakhvet Alekhpeliev (who reportedly was nine years old), Elmar Abdulev, Etibar Aushov, and Habib Abushov.

A young Azerbaijani woman who was eventually taken hostage told Helsinki Watch, “It was a cultivated field. We approached it and saw that they began to shoot. I must have seen sixty people dead in the field. Those who were running away with me fell and died.”

Hassan Alahierov said: “First we ran to Nakhichevanik, but when they began shooting people we ran to the other side. There was a BMP standing on the road — I didn’t see it, I just saw the shells.” Alahierov’s eighteen-year-old daughter, who got separated from her father, said she saw the tank: “When the tank began to shoot we ran in all directions. I saw corpses scattered, and saw all the people surrounding them fall.”

Hijran Alekpera reported that:

By the time we got to Nakhichevanik it was 9:00 A.M. There was a field and
there were many people who had been killed. There were maybe one hundred.
I didn’t try to count. I was wounded on this field. Gajiv Aliev was shot and I
wanted to help him. A bullet hit me in the belly. I could see where they were
shooting from. I saw other bodies in the field. They were newly killed — they
hadn’t changed color.

Fifty-one-year-old Balaoglan Allakhiarov said:

We got to Nakhichevanik at 8:00 A.M., and were in the middle of the field when
they began to fire. They were shooting only from one direction — the forest.
Then we ran off the field toward a canyon, where my wife and daughter-in-law
were shot. They were shot from about twenty meters. My daughter-in-law was
struck three times — through the skull, in her stomach and in her leg. My wife
was hit from behind. [The Armenians] took off their rings.

At about 8:00 A.M. Nazile Khetemova received a gunshot wound in her left leg:

We were all crawling. Whoever stood up got wounded. I stood up to rest my
legs and was wounded. I saw many people get shot, and we had to leave them
as we crawled along. After I was wounded I didn’t see many people pass me;
they hid in the forest. I stayed in the snow until 7:00 P.M. Members of the
Popular Front came and helped me escape.

Beginning February 27, Azerbaijani helicopters brought in personnel who attempted to collect bodies and assist the wounded. Some of the rescue team were wearing camouflage clothing, and they were constantly shot at by Armenian forces.¹⁰ Members of the first rescue group, who were accompanied by a French journalist, reported that some of the corpses had been scalped or otherwise mutilated. One member of the group videotaped the mission.

Death Toll

There are still no definitive figures on the number of civilians who were shot while fleeing Khojaly. According to Aiden Rasulov, more than 300 bodies showing evidence of a violent death were submitted for forensic examination. At the rime of Helsinki Watch’s visit to Baky, the results of these examinations had not been completed, and the investigative team was in the process of tracking down the corpses of Khojaly victims that had been removed from Agdam by family members in the first days after the tragedy. Earlier figures made available by Azerbaijan and published by the Memorial group put the number of deaths resulting from gunshot, shrapnel, or other wounds at 181¹¹ (130 men and fifty-one women, including thirteen children). In addition, an undetermined number died of frostbite. Namig Aliev, who heads the Department on Questions of law and Order and Defense of the Azerbaijani Parliament and who is part of the parliamentary group investigating the Khojaly events, told Helsinki Watch in April that 213 Khojaly victims were buried in Agdam. Some of the bodies received at the makeshift hospital in Agdam were identified as combatants. Many male bodies that lacked all identification were not identified as civilian or combatant.12

Aliev also reported that of those bodies submitted for forensic examination, thirty-three had been scalped, had body parts removed, or had been otherwise mutilated.

One hundred eighty individuals from Khojaly are reported to be missing.

As noted in Appendix V to this report, the civilian population and individual civilians are not legitimate objects of attack in any armed conflict. The contending parties accordingly must distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants and direct their attacks only against the latter. Moreover, the parties may not use civilians to shield military targets from attack or to shield military operations, including retreats. Thus, a party that intersperses combatants with fleeing civilians puts those civilians at risk and violates its obligation to protect its own civilians.

Although retreating combatants and civilians who assume a combatant’s role while fleeing are subject to direct individualized attack, the attacking party is still obliged to take precautionary measures to avoid or minimize civilian casualties. In particular, the party must suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that the attack may be expected to cause civilian casualties that arc excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

The circumstances surrounding the attack at Nakhichevanik on those fleeing Khojaly indicate that Armenian forces and the troops of the 366th CIS regiment (who were not apparently acting on orders from their commanders)¹³ deliberately disregarded this customary law restraint on attacks. Nagorno Karabakh officials and fighters clearly expected the inhabitants of Khojaly to flee since they claim to have informed the town that a corridor would be left open to allow for their safe passage. No witnesses interviewed by Helsinki Watch, however, said that they knew beforehand of such a corridor. In addition, although witnesses and victims gave varying testimony on the precise time the shooting began at Nakhichevanik, they all indicated that there was sufficient light to allow for reasonable visibility and, thus, for the attackers to distinguish unarmed civilians from those persons who were armed and/or using weapons. Further, despite conflicting testimony about the direction from which the fire was coming, the evidence suggests that the attackers indiscriminately directed their fire at all fleeing persons. Under these circumstances, the killing of fleeing combatants could not justify the foreseeably large number of civilian casualties.

Source:  Human Rights Watch, Bloodshed in the Caucasus, Escalation of the Armed Conflict in Nagomo Karabakh, September 1992, ISBN; 1-56432-081-2

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Notes:

6 The investigative team of the Azerbaijani Procuracy in April was still trying to establish the exact number of inhabitants of Khojaly by checking passport registrations.
7 For a description of life in Khojaly before the February 25 attack, sec Thomas Golts, “A Town Betrayed: The Killing Ground in Karabakh, in The Washington Past, March 8, 1992, p. C1.
8 Helsinki Watch interview with AG., a member of the PLAA, April 28, 1992.
9 According to S A., a member of the OMON unit, shelling of the airport began at 5:00 P.M.

10See below, under “Abuse of Medical Personnel and Transports.*
11 See Appendix II for a list of these victims.
12 In a letter of July 17,1992, to Helsinki Watch, Mr. Alicv stated that 927 people died. It is not clear, however, whether these deaths were caused by frostbite, gunshot wounds, or some other cause.

13 The Dumber of servicemen in the 366it who participated in the massacre of civilians is still unknown. The Azerbaijani Procuracy’s investigative team sent a delegation to Tbilisi, where the 366^th was relocated after it withdrew from Stepanakert, to inquire how many men from the regiment bad been killed, wounded, and missing during their service in Nagorno Karabakh. According to Aidcn Rasulov,
military officials refused to meet with the investigative team, claiming that they are answerable only to Moscow. As of April, the investigative team had not asked for an accounting from Moscow military authorities.

Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory

 By Susan Allen Nan, Andrea Bartoli, Zachariah Cherian Mampilly

__________________________________________________________

26. Xocali, http://xocali.net/ (accessed Decembers, 2010).
27. T. de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War (New
York: New York University Press, 2003).
28. M. Melkonian, My Brother’s Road. An American’s Fateful Journey to Armenia
(London: 1. B. Tauris, 2008).

Koexistenz und Konfrontation: Beiträge zur jüngeren Geschichte und …

Kamer Kasim ISBN 3-8258-6819-2

_____________________________

6 Interfax, 6 March 1992.
7 Pascal Privat and Sieve Le Vine, “Faces of Massacre”, Newsweek, 16 March 1992.
8 The New York Times, “Massacre by Armenians”, 3 March 1992. Some of the other articles and news: Thomas Goltz, “Armenian Soldiers   Massacre Hundreds Of Fleeing Families”. The Sunday Times, 1 March 1992. Time, “Massacre in Khojaly”, 16 March 1992. The Washington Times, “Armenian Raid Leaves Azeris Dead or Fleeing”, 2March 1992.
9.Interfax, 27 February ,1992
10.Milliyet, 13Nisan 1993.