20 JANUARY: WHAT'S OFF-SCREEN?

Perhaps, people who think that it will only be possible to evaluate the true significance of many historical events after some time elapses are right. Eyewitnesses do not always manage to do it.

This commonplace truth is also applicable to one of the most tragic pages in Azerbaijan's history - the tragedy of 20 January 1990.

 People say aloud nowadays that what happened on 20 January was a stage-managed and planned punitive action. It is also known that its main purpose was to drown in blood the national liberation movement in Azerbaijan and to do everything possible to keep the recalcitrant "southern republic" within the USSR.

Nowadays, there is sufficiently detailed information to be found in the press and online about what happened in Baku on the night leading from 19 to 20 January, and information saying that originally it was planned to use as a pretext to deploy troops Armenian pogroms provoked by the USSR's KGB. It was only later that striking reports leaked out to the press, saying that troops deployment in Baku had started as early as 12 January, and the pogroms started one day later. Furthermore, both police and local Azeri residents detained pogrom-makers, who acted in a surprisingly well-organized manner. Then, the arrested ones were taken away by officers of the Soviet Union's Interior Ministry, who had been "dispatched" from Moscow, and several hours later they were in the street again with lists of Armenians. Nonetheless, by 15 January the Armenian pogroms were completely "put out" - mainly by, "civil society", as people would put it nowadays. Finally, on the evening of 19 January, officers from the Vympel special-purpose squad blew up the energy unit of the Baku TV centre - this terrorist act would later be blamed on certain "extremists" and would be used as a pretext to deploy troops.

The soviet army entered the then soviet Baku from several directions and shot to kill: soldiers shot at the windows of houses and at regular buses. At the same time, they fired on a "RAFik" ambulance vehicle and killed doctor Aleksandr Markhevka. Among the killed ones was Boris Yefimichev, blind from birth, who was killed with a bayonet; and Vera Bessantina, who was killed in her own flat when she just looked out of the window... British journalist Thomas de Waal later said: "According to eyewitnesses, soldiers shot at people running, and finished off the wounded ones. A bus that was carrying civilians was fired on, and many of the passengers, including a 14-year-old girl, were killed. Combat vehicles crushed any transport vehicle that came in their way, regardless of who it was carrying. For example, a car was fired on as it moved along Tbilisi Avenue. One of the tanks turned around and crushed it. A 13-year-old boy, who was one of the passengers, got out of the car and tried to run and hide in a safe place, but was killed by a shot in his back."

Another illustration: film director Stanislav Govorukhin wrote: "On the night leading from the 19th to the 20th, troops did enter the city. But the soviet army entered the soviet city... like an army of occupiers: under the cover of the night, on tanks and armoured vehicles, using fire and sword to clear their way. According to a military commandant, 60,000 cartridges were used that night. A car stood on the side of the Sumqayit road, giving way to a tank column. In the car there were three scientists from the Academy of Sciences, three professors, one of them a woman. Suddenly, a tank came out of the column and, with its caterpillar making grinding sounds, ran over the car, crushing all of the passengers. The column did not stop..."

Evaluations were voiced as early as the first days after the tragedy. "Concerning the events that have taken place in Azerbaijan - I regard them as unlawful, alien to democracy, and completely contrary to principles of humanity and the building of a law-governed state in our country," Heydar Aliyev said during a speech, which many remember, that he delivered at Azerbaijan's permanent representative office in Moscow. "There were possibilities for a political settlement to the situation in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's leadership, as well as the country's top political leadership, did not use possibilities for a political settlement to this issue or for dialogue with the people. Now we know well what tragic consequences this led to, and everyone involved in this tragedy should be punished."

 Already on the first days, the January tragedy was described as a crime committed by the USSR authorities against the Azerbaijani people. Signs of war crimes and crimes against humanity can be found in what happened then.

 However, there is another thing that is mentioned much more rarely. By the winter of 1990, notorious "centrifugal tendencies" in the USSR had reached their peak. The republics were already considering restoring their independence, and economists were putting forward dozens of arguments that their motherland was paying into the "Soviet Union's piggy bank" much more than it was receiving from it. And in Azerbaijan - with its oil and gas reserves on the one hand, and with the living standards of the population lagging behind even the standards of the Soviet Union, on the other, these arguments were particularly acute.

However, there was one more reason which Moscow experts prefer not to voice. Baku had already been asking these questions: why is "the centre of the Union" not trying to put an end to the banishment of ethnic Azeris from Armenia and Nagornyy Karabakh? Why is no-one putting an end to attempts at creating an "underground" army in Armenia - while the USSR still exists? Where have the Armenian "bearded" militants got their weapons from? 

These questions were much more dangerous than many thought. Because security and compliance with the law are exactly the areas where the state plays the defining role.

But there was one more aim, which was even more important, namely - to keep the republic within the union state at any cost. Elections to the Supreme Council of the then Azerbaijani SSR were to be held in February 1990. In 1990, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no blogosphere, and there were not even mobile phones which are commonplace nowadays. Independent and opposition media were only starting to take shape. Ratings, "sociological surveys", TV debates - all this would come later. But already back then specialists did understand that victory in these elections was actually predetermined for supporters of Azerbaijan's independence and the republic's exit from the USSR. The USSR constitution adopted in 1977 entitled each union republic to quit the USSR. Albeit, its authors could not imagine even in their wildest dreams that any one of the "15 sisters" - whose inviolable unity was symbolized by the famous fountain at VDNKh area in Moscow - would decide to exercise that right... 

The first precedent of a "constitutional exit" from the USSR took place in Lithuania, where supporters of the Saiudis movement won elections held in the republic. The same kinds of processes developed in Latvia and Estonia.

But for the leadership of the Union, Azerbaijan was a different matter. While it was only in 1940 that the Baltic countries were annexed, Azerbaijan had experienced the same 20 years earlier. And this created a much more dangerous precedent than many thought. Maybe it is only now that we start to realize Azerbaijan's actual political and economic "value". The year 1994 saw the signing of the oil "contract of the century" towards developing the fields "Azari", "Ciraq" and "Gunasli" [Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli]. The Baku-Ceyhan export pipeline started operating. The year 1996 saw the signing of an agreement on the development of the Sah Daniz [Shah Deniz] field, and now it is the turn of the gas contract of the new century - Sah Daniz 2. Today, Azerbaijani oil and gas are important factors in Europe's energy security. Azerbaijan is the main link in the Silk Road that is being revived. 

We did not know all this back then, in January 1990. But we clearly realized that there would be no going back to the past, to the "soviet times". And, perhaps, that was when Azerbaijan made its truly historic choice in favour of independence and revival of its statehood. Even if the authors of the January tragedy had expected the opposite result.

AT FIRST HAND

"Azerbaijan's leadership, as well as the country's top political leadership, did not use possibilities for a political settlement to this issue or for dialogue with the people. Now we know well what tragic consequences this led to, and everyone involved in this tragedy should be punished".

Heydar Aliyev,  from a speech at Azerbaijan's permanent representative office in Moscow, January 1990