SUMQAYIT, XOCALI, MOSCOW

In February 2011, the Azerbaijani nation commemorated the 19th anniversary of the Xocali tragedy - an atrocity perpetrated by Armenian armed units and members of international Armenian terrorist organizations with active participation by the military service personnel of Russia's 366th Motorized Infantry Regiment.  During this operation against ethnic Azerbaijani civilians, the town of Xocali was effectively wiped off the face of the earth, more than 600 people were killed, including more than 150 children, women and elderly persons, more than 1,200 people were wounded and about 4,000 people were taken prisoner or went missing.  The fates of some remain unknown to this day.  This premeditated crime was carried out with particular brutality.  The bodies of the dead were desecrated in unprecedented manner.  Scalps were cut off, eyes were gouged out, extremities were chopped or twisted off, bellies were cut open.  The Xocali tragedy meets the criteria for genocide, and was perpetrated against ethnic Azerbaijanis by Armenians and their sponsors.  The Military Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan conducted a thorough investigation of the event and issued an international search warrant via Interpol for the organizers and perpetrators of the Xocali genocide for whose crimes hard evidence was found.  The list includes the names of 38 criminals, including some incumbent, high-level Armenian officials.  The Azerbaijani government and public spare no effort to prosecute the culprits to the full extent of international law and to achieve recognition of the Xocali tragedy by the international community as genocide against the Azerbaijani people.  For now, double standards and political bias in a number of large countries remain the main obstacles to satisfaction of Azerbaijan's just demands.  But every year, an increasing number of countries become involved into the Justice for Xocali campaign, which was launched by Leyla Aliyeva, head of the Azerbaijani Youth Organization of Russia (AYOR), a few years ago.  The Youth Forum of the Islamic Conference Organization is also extending the geographical scope of the large-scale protest actions organized within the framework of this project.  Thanks to this campaign, the presentation of a book by Armenian journalist Robert Arakelov, 'Confessions by an Armenian intellectual', was organized in Moscow.  The book describes the horrors of the Xocali tragedy, of which he was an eyewitness.  In January 2011, the Parliamentary Union Council of the Islamic Conference Organization member states (PC ICO) passed the Abu Dhabi declaration which urges the parliaments of all 51 member states to recognize the Xocali tragedy as a crime against humanity.  Naturally, these developments cause Armenia and international Armenian organizations major discomfort.  In order to mislead the international community, the Armenian authorities and communities take desperate steps, sometimes verging on the absurd.  For example, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, one of the direct organizers and participants in the Xocali tragedy - bragged of his 'heroism' during the operation in an interview with British journalist Thomas de Waal.

To at least partially vindicate their crimes in Xocali, Armenians very often refer to the Sumqayit events of 1988, in which 26 ethnic Armenians and 6 ethnic Azerbaijanis were killed.  Of course, in 'remembering' the main organizers and agents provocateurs of that event, today's Armenians try not to recall the words of so-called representative of the Armenian 'intelligentsia', Zoriy Balayan, uttered on his first meeting with then-USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev who achieved notoriety for his support of Armenians.  Answering Gorbachev's question:  "Do you consider the destiny of the 200,000 ethnic Armenians who live in Baku?", Balayan uttered a phrase which leaves no doubt that Armenians will stop short of no act of provocation to achieve their perfidious goals:  "But why in the world do we need to think about the destinies of 200,000 ethnic Armenians in Baku, we are a state, after all."  The statement by one of the most ardent "defenders" of Armenians in Russia, Galina Starovoytova, was no less cynical:  "We shall force you to shoot at us."  This statement more than eloquently showed that Armenians planned acts of provocation to deal a serious blow to the image of the Azerbaijani people in the international arena.  And as a weak link, they chose the city of Sumqayit, where social problems and criminality were worse than in other cities.  In addition, many refugees from Armenia had already settled in Sumqayit by then, and just one spark would suffice to stir the city and provoke pogroms.  The role of spark was given to E. Grigoryan, an ethnic Armenian.  Although the investigation of the Sumqayit events has fully proved that Grigoryan was the main organizer of the pogroms in the city, the script writers of those developments did their best to blame Azerbaijanis.  Grigoryan's role was proved by testimonies from ethnic Armenians who were victims of violence back then.  But suddenly, as if with the wave of a magic wand, the events were interpreted in a totally different way, as Vladimir Kalinichenko, former investigator of particularly important cases at the USSR General Prosecutor's Office, admitted in an interview with S. Perets:  "Why did you think the Sumqayit cases were hushed up?  When during the court hearings the plaintiffs realized that Grigoryan was an ethnic Armenian, everyone - I mean everyone - retracted their testimonies.  You say that there is a video footage?  Indeed, there is.  Incidentally, on that footage alone, he kills six people...  But video for the judge is but air...  It is no evidence - in full conformity with the Criminal Code.  So, he was sentenced to 14 years, and I have doubts that he will have an early release.  But Ahmadov was sentenced to be shot for killing one man.  So, no other capital sentences are to be expected, no.  And, in general, where did you think the camera men came from on the roof tops?  Did they know the route of the mob or what?"  This is a statement by one of the leading criminologists who was a member of the investigative group of the USSR General Prosecutor's Office which investigated the Sumqayit events.  Back then, M. Gorbachev did not let investigators take the process to its logical conclusion.  Nonetheless, many parties involved, including Russia, are fully aware of the Armenians' provocative role in those developments.

The accusations which Russia's Liberal Democratic Party Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovskiy hurled at Semen Bagdasarov, member of Russia's State Duma from A Just Russia party and an ethnic Armenian, who demanded that V. Zhirinovskiy's behaviour be discussed and condemned by the Duma Council because it insulted ethnic feelings, also testify to this.  In a fit of anger, the LDPR leader divulged the open secret:  "Freedom of speech is for everyone, not just for Bagdasarovs, Bagdasaryans and so on.  People like you organized the massacre in Sumqayit.  Let Mironov look into who his fellow party members are."

The Russian law enforcement bodies and political circles will have to investigate more thoroughly the Armenian link in the December 2010 ethnic clashes in Moscow.  The clashes were sparked by a fight between a group of ethnic Russian football fans, which for some reason included a certain ethnic Armenian, Sergey Gasparyan, and young men from the North Caucasus.  During the fight, football fan Yegor Sviridov was killed by a shot from a pneumatic weapon.  Not only A. Cherkesov, who fired the weapon, but other men from the North Caucasus republics who took part in the fight, were arrested.  An unbiased investigation should dot all the i's.  But why is there no answer to this day to the question of who provoked the fight itself?  Bearing in mind the Armenians' inclination and experience in acts of provocation, it would be appropriate to take a closer look at S. Gasparyan and his role, especially as a compatriot, a certain Levon Arzumanyan, was an active participant in events which took place in front of the Yevropeyskiy shopping mall in Moscow.  Back then, the law enforcement officers managed to prevent ethnic clashes.  On 17 December, video footage was disseminated across the Russian-language internet in which Arzumanyan was shouting nationalist slogans more enthusiastically than anyone in Manezhnaya and Kievskaya squares during those events.  He also seemed very keen to pose for photographers and cameramen.  Another strange thing is that during the unrest on Kiev Square, the provocateur stood for quite a long time next to Viktor Biryukov, head of the Moscow Police press service, and even spoke informally to him.  Photographs show a person with an impressive ring on his left hand embracing him.  At some point, a special-purpose police detachment detains him for his excessive activity and he feigns a fit of some mysterious kind, saving himself from being taken to a detention centre.  Arzumanyan also produced an ID document for the policemen.  The oddities do not end there.  As soon as he was released by the police, Arzumanyan started posing for the cameras with a young man from the North Caucasus.  The conclusion is self-evident - the provocateur wanted witnesses to have the impression that mass rioting had taken place.  Arzumanayan's biographical data show that a couple of years ago he was a member of the Sochi branch (a favourite city of ethnic Armenians, who flood it) of the Nashi pro-Kremlin youth movement.  After the Moscow events, he hinted vaguely in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda:  "There will be a new beginning, my friend!  Current developments are a product of the arbitrariness of the masses.  Inaction is the cause of all action, and there are many reasons for this."  What new beginning was Arzumanyan hinting at?  The Russian law enforcement bodies would do well to investigate this thoroughly.

Keeping in mind that Armenians excel at causing interethnic clashes to achieve political dividends, there is a possibility that they are interested in the spread of nationalism in Russia.  All sound-minded Russians know very well that the slogan "Russia for Russians" is the direct route to dissolution of the multiethnic Russian Federation.  And the dissolution of Russia is in the interests of Armenians who have been planning the annexation of territories in the south of Russia as part of a plan to create their 'Great Armenia'.  Proof is close at hand.  It is sufficient to recall the June 1988 address by then-Catholicos of All Armenians Vazgen II to his congregation, in which he preached to Armenians the methods which would enable them to seize the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories and the Rostov area.  And if you add the growing displeasure among the local residents of those areas at the huge immigration of ethnic Armenians to their fertile lands, and the animosity which ethnic Armenians settlers have towards the Cossacks who confront them to any degree of effect, things become more than clear.  However, true to their traditions, Armenians endeavour to shift the blame where it does not belong.  In mid-January, Armenian National Unity Party leader Artashes Gegamyan expressed his "anguish" for his "beloved" Russia in an article about the December events in Moscow entitled "The Strategy to Partition Russia Enters a Crucial Phase?" carried by the Regnum news agency.  He feels "anger" when he realizes that the strategy to partition Russia, which was developed by the West, is not merely reviving these days, but is even at a crucial phase.  Emphasizing that it was ethnic hatred that resulted in the dissolution of the USSR, Gegamyan for some reason makes no mention of the provocative role of Armenians and the international Armenian Diaspora in those developments.  After all, the dissolution of the USSR, which A. Gegamyan "laments" so much, began precisely with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Armenian slogan "Armenia for Armenians."