KHOJALY TRAGEDY INTRODUCTION ____________________2 EVIDENCE FROM INDEPENDENT Mass media reports ____________5 SOURCES Re ports and doc u ments of non-gov ern men tal or ga ni za tions ______________17 STATEMENTS AND RECORDS OF Congress man Dan Burton’s speech in the US House of Rep re sen ta tives _______19 STATE AGENCIES, OFFICIALS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS Letter of Britain’s Foreign and Com mon wealth Of fice to Vatan So ci ety ___21 ADDITIONAL SOURCES AND Charles van der Leeuw, Azerbaijan: REFERENCES A quest for identity: a short story ______ 21 Thomas de Waal, Black Gar den: Ar menia and Azerbaijan through peace and war ____21 Ednan Agaev, Azerbaijan: the next battle ground between EAST and WEST ____22 FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINATION Women ________________ 23 REPORTS Men__________________30 Chil dren ________________39 El derly ________________42 TESTIMONIES OF THE INHABITANTS OF KHOJALY TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THE ARMENIAN SIDE ____________________43 CONCLUSION ____________________54 PHOTOS OF VICTIMS ____________________55 1 KHOJALY TRAGEDY expel the Azerbaijanis from their lands. During INTRODUCTION this pe riod, the afore mentioned pol icy was im- ple mented sys tem at i cally and me thod i cally. After the sign ing of Gyulistan and Turkmanchai Thus, in 1920 the Ar meni ans de clared Zangezur trea ties in 1813 and 1828 re spec tively, a very and a number of other Azerbaijani lands to be rapid mass re set tle ment of the Arm e ni ans in the part of the terri tory of the Arm enian So viet So- Azerbaijani lands and the subse quent arti ficial cial ist Re pub lic. In 1923 they managed to se cure ter ri to rial di vi sion took place. the sta tus of the au ton o mous province for the mountain ous part of Karabakh within the Between 1905 and 1907 the Ar meni ans car ried Azerbaijan SSR. Thus, the arti ficial entity was out a series of large-scale bloody actions against created at the ter ri tory of Azerbaijan, while the the Azerbaijanis. The atroci ties be gan in Baku Azerbaijani pop ula tion living in the territory of and then ex tended over the whole of Azerbaijan Armenia at that time had not been granted and Azerbaijani villages in the terri tory of pres- similar rights. ent-day Ar me nia. Hun dreds of set tle ments were de stroyed and wiped from the face of the earth, On the pretext of reset tling the Ar meni ans com - and thousands of civil ians were barbarically ing from abroad, the Council of Min is ters of the killed. USSR adopted on 23 Decem ber 1947 and 10 March 1948 special de ci sions on the reset tle - Tak ing ad van tage of the sit u a tion fol low ing the ment of collec tive farm workers and the other First World War and the Febru ary and Oc to ber Azerbaijani pop u la tion from the Ar me nian SSR 1917 rev o lu tions in Rus sia, the Ar me ni ans be - to the Kura-Araks lowlands in the Azerbaijani gan to pur sue the imple menta tion of their plans SSR. Under these de ci sions, dur ing the pe riod un der the ban ner of Bolshevism. Thus, under the be tween 1948 and 1953 more than 150,000 watch word of com bat ing coun ter-rev o lu tion ary Azerbaijanis were forc ibly reset tled from their el e ments, in March 1918 the Baku commune be- his tor i cal home lands – the moun tain ous re gions gan to im plem ent a plan aimed at elim i nating the of Arm e nia – to the then waterless steppes of Azerbaijanis from the whole of the Baku prov- Mugan and the Mil plateau. ince. Apart from Baku, solely be cause of their eth nic af fil i a tion, the thou sands of Azerbaijanis The current stage of the conflict between Arm e - were an ni hi lated also in the Shemakha and Guba nia and Azerbaijan may be regarded as having dis tricts, as well as in Karabakh, Zangezur, formally begun on 20 Febru ary 1988, when the Nakhchivan, Lenkoran and other re gions of Soviet of the Peo ple’s Dep u ties of the Nagorny Azerbaijan. In these areas, the ci vil ian popu la - Karabakh Au ton o mous Province adopted a de ci - tion was exter mi nated en masse, vil lages were sion to pe ti tion to the Supreme Sovi ets of the burned and national cultural monuments were Azerbaijan SSR and the Ar menian SSR for the destroyed and obliterated. transfer of the prov ince from the former to the latter. Follow ing the es tablish m ent of the Soviet rule in Ar menia in late 1920, the Ar meni ans were pre - Before the adop tion of this de ci sion, namely al - sented with a real op portu nity to fulfill their ready at the end of 1987, the Azerbaijanis be - age-old dream of creat ing an Arm e nian State on came subject of at tacks in Khankendi (dur ing the the terri tories of other nations. Over the 70-years Soviet pe riod – Stepanakert) and Ar menia re - of Soviet rule, the Arm e ni ans succeeded in ex- sulted in a flood of Azerbaijani refu gees and in - pand ing their ter ri tory at the ex pense of ter nally dis placed persons. Azerbaijan and using every possi ble means to 2 KHOJALY TRAGEDY In tro duc tion On 22 Febru ary 1988 near the set tle ment of cal lead er ship. As a result, hundreds of the capi - Askeran on the Khankendi-Aghdam high way, tal resi dents were killed or wounded, muti lated the Ar meni ans opened fire on a peace ful demon - and sub jected to var i ous forms of physical stration by the Azerbaijanis pro testing against pressure. the above-men tioned de ci sion of the So viet of the Peo ple’s Dep u ties of the Nagorny Karabakh In 1991 central law-en forcem ent agencies of the Au ton o mous Prov ince. Two Azerbaijani youths then USSR appre hended doz ens of the Ar menian lost their lives in con se quence, be coming the armed groups that op er ated out side Nagorny first victims of the conflict. Karabakh. Thus, the Chaykend vil lage of the Khanlar district of Azerbaijan was turned by the On 26-28 Feb ru ary 1988 twenty-six Ar meni ans Ar menian armed groups into a crimi nal hub from and Azerbaijanis were killed as a result of the which they bombed and shelled sur round ing vil - dis tur bances in Sumgait. It is no ta ble that one of lages and roads, terror iz ing the local Azerbaijani the leading figures in these events was a certain pop u la tion. From 1989 to 1991, in Chaykend and Edward Grigorian, an Ar menian and na tive of ad ja cent ar eas only 54 peo ple fell vic tim to the Sumgait, who was di rectly in volved in the kill - Ar menian armed groups. In 1992 Azerbaijan re - ings and vi o lence against the Ar meni ans and the gained its con trol over the Goranboy dis trict. po groms in the Ar menian neigh bor hoods. By de - ci sion of the Crimi nal Di vi sion of the Su preme At the end of 1991 and the be gin ning of 1992 the Court of the Azerbaijan SSR dated 22 De cember con flict turned into a mil i tary phase. Tak ing ad - 1989, Grigorian was sen tenced to 12 years’ im- van tage of the po lit i cal in sta bil ity as a re sult of pris on ment. The Court found Grigorian to be one the dis so lu tion of the So viet Un ion and in ter nal of the orga niz ers of unrest and mas sa cres. Depo - squab bles in Azerbaijan, Ar me nia ini ti ated with si tions by witnesses and victims show that he the ex ter nal mil i tary as sis tance com bat had a list of flats in hab ited by the Ar meni ans operations in Nagorny Karabakh. and, to gether with three other Ar meni ans, called for repri sals against the Arm eni ans, in which he In Feb ru ary 1992, an un prec e dented mas sa cre took part person ally. His victim s (all Arm eni ans) was com mit ted against the Azerbaijani popu la - iden ti fied Grigorian as one of the or ga niz ers and tion in the town of Khojaly. This bloody trag edy, ac tive figures in the vio lence. In fact, events in which be came known as the Khojaly geno cide, Sumgait, being neces sary to the Arm enian lead- in volved the ex ter mi na tion or cap ture of the er ship as a mean of launch ing an exten sive anti- thousands of Azerbaijanis; the town was razed to Azerbaijani cam paign and jus ti fy ing the en su ing the ground. Over the night from 25 to 26 Febru - aggressive actions against Azerbaijan, had been ary 1992 the Ar menian armed forces with the planned and prepared in advance. help of the in fantry guards reg i ment No.