AZERBAIJAN WILL PRESENT A BILL

The twentieth century was a time of severe trials in the history of the Azerbaijani people. As a result of the deliberate policy of Armenian nationalism supported by the authorities of the Russian Empire first and then the Soviet Union, Azerbaijanis were subjected to genocide, deportation and ethnic cleansing. The result of this criminal policy was the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their native lands and the occupation by the Armenian armed forces of a fifth of the territory of the Azerbaijan Republic.

31 August marks 96 years since the establishment by the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry, whose mandate was to investigate crimes committed by Armenian nationalists against the Azerbaijani people in the spring of 1918. The policy of genocide against Azerbaijanis was continued at the end of the twentieth century with Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan.

The most terrible tragedy in the modern history of Azerbaijan took place in the spring of 1918. At that time, Baku and the eastern regions of Northern Azerbaijan were dominated by the Baku Council - a Dashnak-Bolshevik political regime established in the region at the time of great upheavals of the First World War and the collapse of the Russian Empire. Acting under the banner of the Bolshevik movement, this body, headed by Stepan Shaumyan, in fact, represented the interests of Armenian nationalism, the strategic aim of which was to create an Armenian state in large parts of the territory of Azerbaijan and Turkey. In fact, capturing Baku and the surrounding areas, the force led by Shaumyan could achieve its aim only through the extermination of the Azerbaijani people who became hostage to state terrorism in their own land. The outcome of the policy of Shaumyan and the Baku Council he headed was the genocide of Azerbaijanis, tens of thousands of whom paid for the hateful ideology of Great Armenia with their lives.

In March-May 1918, according to various estimates, from 30,000 to 50,000 Azerbaijanis became victims of genocide committed by Armenian armed forces. The crime of genocide was committed in almost all of Northern Azerbaijan - Baku, Samaxi and Quba districts, Karabakh, Zangazur, Naxcivan and Lankaran regions.

The government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) established in May 1918 made considerable efforts to investigate the criminal acts committed by Armenian nationalists against the Azerbaijani people. On 15 July 1918, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Mammad Hasan Hacinski was requested "to establish an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the violence over the Muslims and their property in the whole of the South Caucasus since the beginning of the European war".

The decision was made on the basis of Hacinski's report, which, inter alia, stated: "For the past four months, different parts of the territory of Azerbaijan have been torn apart by gangs, who, under the name of the Bolsheviks, irresponsible Armenian military units and stuff, have been committing untold atrocities over the life and property of the civilian Muslim population. At the same time, public opinion in Europe is set in the opposite way thanks to incorrect information being sent by the organizers of these gangs. In national interests and in the interests of the suffering groups of the population, it seems absolutely necessary to create an organization that would deal with: 1. Registration of all cases of violence; 2. Circumstances under which these atrocities were committed; 3. Identification of culprits and the size of the damage they caused. This organization must be an Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry in nature, and the works of the commission shall be made public in the main European languages (Russian, French and German, and, of course, Turkish) and widely disseminated. This commission should be set up immediately because most of the things that can be easily ascertained now in the sense of interviewing people, photographing and keeping other physical evidence will later become more difficult and maybe absolutely impossible..."

On 31 August 1918, the ADR government led by Fatali Xan Xoyski adopted a resolution on the formation of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry (ECI), which included its chairman, barrister Alakbar bay Xasmammadov; members of the District Court of Ganja, Ismayil bay Sahmaliyev and Andrey Novatskiy; a member of the Ganja settlement, Nikolay Mikhaylov; the former chairman of the Congress of Magistrates, State Councilor V. Gudvillo; and teacher Mirza Cavad Axundzada.

A little later, the ECI also included the barrister, future diplomatic representative of Azerbaijan in Armenia and ADR Deputy Foreign Minister Mammad Xan Tekinski (who substituted for A. Xasmammadov as chairman of the commission during the absence of the latter), prominent lawyers Czeslaw Klossowski and Aley Aleksandrovich.

The reports and materials compiled by the ECI are invaluable evidence of violence perpetrated by aggressive Armenian gangs against the Azerbaijani people. The activities of the commission were the first attempt to form a political assessment of the crimes of Armenian nationalists against the Azerbaijani people during the March 1918 genocide.

Living proof of the anti-Azerbaijan policy of the Dashnak-Bolshevik Baku Council was the mass grave discovered in April 2007 during construction work at the Quba city stadium. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev issued a decree on 30 December 2009 to create a memorial complex at the burial site with the aim of informing the world public about the criminal acts of Armenian nationalists, preserving the national memory for the future generations of the Azerbaijani people and immortalizing the memory of the victims of genocide.

Meanwhile, the first investigation of crimes committed in April-May 1918 in Quba district and accompanied by the widespread extermination of the Muslim population was carried out by a member of the ECI, Andrey Novatskiy. According to Novatskiy's report to the chairman of the Commission, which was included in the relevant criminal proceedings, in April 1918, a representative of the Bolshevik Party, David Gelovani, arrived in Quba district with an armed group of 187 people and announced the proclamation of Soviet power there. However, as a result of resistance from the local population, the detachment left Quba. When the news of a large armed group of the Baku Council approaching Quba came after two weeks, some residents left their homes and property and fled to the mountains and forests, but most people did not believe in the threat to their lives and remained in the city. The armed punitive detachment approaching Quba consisted of Armenians and was led by a former Russian army officer, a member of the Dashnaktsutyun party and double-dyed Armenian nationalist Hamazasp. On the morning of 1 May 1918, militants of the punitive detachment headed by Hamazasp surrounded Quba and freely entered the city after fire from cannons, machine guns and other small arms.

The investigation carried out by Novatskiy found that a massacre was committed in Quba, more than 2,000 Muslims - men, women and children - were exterminated, about 100 women and girls were raped, cash in the amount of 4m roubles and gold and jewellery worth 4.5m roubles was stolen, food and other goods worth 25m roubles were looted, and 105 houses belonging to Quba residents and public buildings were set on fire, which resulted in damage worth 100m roubles.

In addition, the punitive detachment headed by Hamazasp in Quba district looted and burned 122 Muslim villages in which 60 men, women and children were killed and 53 people were injured. As a result of the destruction of houses, public buildings and theft of property and livestock residents suffered damage worth 58.1m roubles.

Addressing the Muslim population of Quba, Hamazasp frankly stated that he arrived in Quba district not to establish Soviet power, but to destroy all the Muslim houses from the Caspian coast to Sahdag as was done in Samaxi.

The tragic events in Quba are just one example of the Armenian atrocities committed against the Azerbaijani people in 1918.

A political assessment at the state level of the criminal acts committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis in the spring of 1918 was given on 26 March 1998 by the decree "On the Genocide of Azerbaijanis" issued by the then President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev. This document, based on historical facts, proves that the Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties signed in 1813 and 1828 laid the foundation of the split of the Azerbaijani people and partition of their historical lands. Thus the ground was created for the mass resettlement of Armenians to Azerbaijani lands, the subsequent displacement of the indigenous Azerbaijani population from their ancestral lands and the genocide of the Azerbaijani people.

This decree of Heydar Aliyev gave a legal and political assessment to the tragic events of 1918 in conditions of modern aggression by Armenians against the Azerbaijani people. At the end of the 1980s - beginning of the 1990s, Armenian nationalism showed its inhuman face again, unleashing a bloody ethnic conflict in Nagornyy Karabakh. Armenian fascists committed the Xocali genocide, ethnic cleansing in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, expelled more than a million people from their native lands in Nagornyy Karabakh and surrounding areas.

One of the measures aimed at overcoming the Armenian aggression is the beginning of work on the assessment of the material and cultural losses suffered by our country as a result of the operations of the armed forces of Armenia. To this end, in October 2013, a special commission headed by the deputy of the Milli Maclis, Xanhuseyn Kazimli, was set up. It operates under the state commission for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the Azerbaijani territories occupied as a result of military operations and damaged in this connection.

The task of the commission is to determine the damage caused to Azerbaijan by Armenia for the past 22 years. Calculations involve international experts too in order to obtain references to international valuation standards. In particular, the documents of the European Evaluation Society, as well as other international organizations confirm that, based on the experiences of different countries, Azerbaijan has the right to demand compensation for the damage. Therefore, the present investigation also aims to appeal to international courts in connection with the assessment and payment of the total damage that Azerbaijan suffered as a result of the military operations of the Armenian armed forces.

Professor Xanhuseyn Kazimli stated in one of his interviews that if 15-16 years ago, the amount of damage caused as a result of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territories was 110-120bn dollars, according to today's estimates it has grown fivefold.

Relevant information will be conveyed to the international community - and this is another aspect that makes the mission of the ADR Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry formed in 1918 similar to the work of the modern commission that is determining the damage caused during the most recent aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan. The world needs to get a full and fair view of the essence of Armenian nationalism, which is continuing its aggression against Azerbaijan, has committed genocide against Azerbaijanis and has unleashed an international campaign for the recognition of the so-called "Armenian genocide" ahead of the centenary of the notorious "Armenian date".