THE WORLD REMEMBERS XOCALI

Mutilated bodies, maimed women and children, emaciated old people and a small town in Azerbaijan's Karabakh region reduced to ruins… The photographs and videos of the carnage wrought by the Armenians in Xocali turn the blood cold of all except those responsible for this tragedy. And yet a proper assessment has yet to be made of this crime against humanity.

However, in recent years the Xocali tragedy has been condemned with increasing frequency in various parts of the world, and this year could be a crucial one in the question of international recognition of the Xocali tragedy as a crime against humanity.

"The true face of the Armenian propaganda machine, based on lies and falsifications, is already being exposed and world public opinion is beginning to perceive the truth about Xocali. The Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has recognized this fact as a 'mass crime against humanity' and urged its member-states to make the appropriate political-legal assessment of this tragedy. Resolutions have been adopted in the parliaments of Pakistan and Mexico on recognizing this massacre as an act of genocide," Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in his address to the nation on the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Xocali. 

Today the calls to recognize the Xocali genocide in the USA have become even louder. Speaking in the House of Representatives on 18 February, Dan Barton, a representative of the state of Indiana in the US Congress and a member of the International Relations Committee, urged Congress to recognize the Xocali genocide. Honouring the memory of the victims of the genocide in Xocali, Chris Christie, Governor of the State of New Jersey, and Lt-Governor Kim Guadango issued a joint statement on this question. The State of Georgia has adopted a resolution condemning Armenia's denial of guilt for Xocali.

Of course, many more efforts need to be made before the world community is able to learn the whole truth about the events of 20 years ago, As Leyla Aliyeva, vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the initiator of the Justice for Xocali campaign noted at the unveiling of a memorial to the victims of Xocali in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 50 countries have now taken up the campaign, various events are being held and books, brochures and CDs published. "The aim of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the Justice for Xocali campaign is to bring the whole truth about the events in Xocali to the attention of the world community," the Day.az agency reports, conveying Aliyeva's words.

The amount of work being carried out in this direction may be judged by the scale of the events being organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the Xocali tragedy. Over 60,000 people in Baku and about 50,000 in Istanbul came out onto the streets and the squares to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the genocide and to demand the punishment of those responsible. Similar events, albeit with fewer participants, have been held in many countries. Documentary and feature films have been made all over the world about the genocide committed by the Armenians and posters with information about Xocali have been stuck on the walls of metro stations, in buses and at bus stops, as well as at other transport facilities in Washington and New York. Articles and dispatches to mark the 20th anniversary of the Xocali genocide have been published in such influential papers as New York Times, Washington Post, Sun Sentinel, Boston Globe, the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies, the German

Die Welt, Russia's Argumenty Nedeli and Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the Hungarian Nepszava, the Pakistani Daily Ittehad and Daily Times, and also the Turkish press. As the First News agency reports, articles to mark the 20th anniversary of the Xocali genocide have also been published by the media in Mexico, Kuwait, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and other countries. Reportages about the Xocali genocide and events to mark this tragedy have been relayed on the CNN, CNBC, Euronews, CNN Turk, France 24 and Rossiya 24 TV channels, and also other established TV channels and radio stations in various countries.

The world has once again seen how Armenian military formations, supported by the 366th motor-rifle regiment of the former Soviet Army, which is stationed in Xankandi, wiped the town of Xocali from the face of the earth on the night of 25-26 February 1992. As a result of merciless reprisals against innocent civilians 613 people were killed, bodies desecrated, and 1,275 people taken hostage. The fate of 150 of them remains unknown. Among the dead were 63 children, 106 women and 70 elderly people. Eight families were completely wiped out as a result of the military aggression.

Of course, the 20th anniversary of these tragic events could not pass without Armenian efforts to delude the world. However, by accusing Azerbaijan of spreading lies about Xocali, the representatives of the Armenian propaganda machine are forgetting not only the photo and video reports in the foreign press from the scene, but also the admissions of the very instigators of this evil crime. That is why we believe it is necessary to once again remind the world about a statement by one of the instigators of the bloody massacre in Xocali, the present head of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. Tired of the constant distortion by the Armenian side of the facts from his interview with Sargsyan, Thomas de Waal was forced to publish the verbatim report of his conversation. "Before Xocali the Azerbaijanis thought they were just joking with us. The Azerbaijanis thought that the Armenians were people who would not be able to raise their hand against innocent civilians. All this had to be overcome. And so it was," Sargsyan said in an interview with the British journalist.

This is also the most eloquent confirmation of the act of genocide - the deliberate mass annihilation of innocent civilians on ethnic lines. Experts in this field point to article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by Resolution 260 of the UN General Assembly of 9 December 1948 in Paris. The article gives the following definition of genocide: "…actions committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such…"

As another argument the Armenian side cites the alleged existence of a corridor for the rescue of the innocent civilians of Xocali. But in the ensuing 20 years no evidence has been produced that the population of this besieged Azerbaijani town was informed about such a corridor. On the contrary, there is irrefutable evidence that people were forced into a trap and then destroyed on a mass scale. And the Armenians' cynical arguments that it was Azerbaijani soldiers, who had confused the Xocali residents with Armenians, who shot the refugees do not hold water. This is shown by the fact that virtually all the bodies of the Xocali residents had been abused and mutilated beyond recognition. The reporters who covered the events of February 1992 testify that the Armenians also abused those civilians who were still alive. They scalped them and cut off the heads and other parts of their bodies, the eyes of the children were gouged out and they ripped open the bellies of pregnant women.

This is what the Armenian writer, Zori Balayan, another instigator of the genocide in Xocali, writes: "When Khachatur and I entered one of the captured houses our soldiers nailed a 13-year old child to the wall. Then I ripped the skin from this child's chest, stomach and scalp. I looked at my watch: the child died from loss of blood within seven minutes. Then Khachatur cut the body of this dead child into pieces. In the evening we did the same with three Turkish children. I carried out my duty as a true Armenian patriot."

The Russian journalist Viktoriya Ivleva, who was in the area where these tragic events took place, exposes the Armenian lie about a corridor. Pictures she took a few days after the Armenians captured Xocali clearly show that the streets of the town are strewn with the bodies of women and children. "I was able to enter Xocali after the attack and take terrible pictures showing children and women who were killed during the battle of Xocali. The photos show that the people of Xocali were shot at close range and the town was subjected to fierce artillery and rocket fire," Ivleva said.

According to the Russian human rights centre Memorial, after the town had been occupied by Armenian military formations, about 300 innocent civilians, including 86 Meskhetian Turks, remained in it. "According to reports obtained from both sides, by 28 March 1992 over 700 Xocali prisoners, who had been detained both in the town and on the way to Agdam, were handed over to the Azerbaijanis. Most of them were women and children…"

The numerous testimonies of servicemen of the 366th motor-rifle regiment and other eye-witnesses, not Azerbaijanis, also point to the horrendous brutality against innocent civilians in Xocali. It would seem that everything has been shown and retold that it couldn't be clearer…But today, 20 years after these tragic events, the wounds of Xocali are still bleeding, because this crime against humanity has still not been given a proper political assessment and the culprits have not been punished.

The instigators admit

"Before Xocali the Azerbaijanis thought they were just joking with us. The Azerbaijanis thought that the Armenians were people who would not be able to raise their hand against innocent civilians. All this had to be overcome. And so it was." 

Serzh Sargsyan, President of Armenia

"When Khachatur and I entered one of the captured houses our soldiers nailed a 13-year old child to the wall. Then I ripped the skin from this child's chest, stomach and scalp. I looked at my watch: the child died from loss of blood within seven minutes. Then Khachatur cut the body of this dead child into pieces. In the evening we did the same with three Turkish children. I carried out my duty as a true Armenian patriot."

Zori Balayan, Armenian writer

Witnesses speak

"In the morning of 26 February 1992, as we were returning from somewhere near Xankandi, the second pilot exclaimed: 'Look at all those rags down there!' I looked down and noticed that the whole field was full of colours. We flew lower and suddenly we saw that they were dead bodies. Soldiers were walking about the field and finishing off the wounded. When they saw us they fired at our helicopter. But we managed to get away.

We were shocked! I had never seen anything like it before in my life, and I have seen many things. This was the mass murder of innocent civilians. I have never in my life seen such a monstrous act.

The Armenians had taken Xocali from three sides, but they left one side allegedly for innocent civilians to get away. But on that side they placed machine-gun posts from where they fired at people leaving the town. The people had fallen into a trap and they had no chance of escaping."

Major Leonid Kravets, commander of the helicopter from which a video of the site of the Xocali tragedy was taken

"…The Armenians filled a 'KamAZ' belonging to them with the registration number 02-19MM with the bodies of dead Azerbaijanis. Then they built a fire in Xocali… Man's hatred for man on this scale exceeded all limits. I couldn't comprehend who could do this. I want to disclose the names of those Russian Army officers who joined the Armenians in shooting Azerbaijanis and got satisfaction out of doing so.

…I have to write this. I cannot forget the bodies of mothers and children and pregnant women ripped to pieces by bullets. May the Azerbaijanis forgive me for not being able to do anything during these bloody events. All I could do was send a secret report to the Kremlin and to the generals of the Defence Ministry."

Lt.Col Vladimir Sabelyev, head of a special department (No 02270) of the 366th motor-rifle regiment