On 12 and 13 February 1988, the district councils of Mountainous Karabakh adopted a resolution that called for a meeting of the Regional Council of Deputies of Mountainous Karabakh for the purpose of examining the issue of reunification. On the 21st, this council voted in favor of reunification by a large majority, providing a legal basis for Armenian demands.[19]
The massacres that took place on February 28-29 brought in tragedy and interrupted the peaceful events. A few dozens of Armenians according to official records, were killed by Azerbaijanis in the industrial city of Sumgait, although estimates range is as high as two hundreds. The percentage of the Armenian population estimated less that 10% of all inhabitants of Sumgait. During the night of 27 February several hundreds of Azerbaijanis armed with weapons and flammable liquids raped, tortured and burned alive victims after beatings and torments. There were hundreds of wounded who became invalids. The rapes included rapes of underage girls. More than two hundreds houses were destroyed and robbed; automobiles owned by Armenians were burnt or smashed. Thousands of refugees fled to Armenia and Russia.[20]
The past became present. Such words as “pogroms,” “massacres,” and even “genocide” became current vocabulary words in the turbulence of the events. This provoked resurrection of memories and implied immediate, direct analogy with the Genocide of 1915. The Azerbaijanis related by race, language, and culture to the Turks were perceived by Armenians as the same savage executors who carried out the genocide of 1915.[21]
There were traced some indirect evidences that led Armenian community to suspect Azerbaijani governmental authority being involved in these murders.
1. During the days preceding 27 February, the Third Party Secretary of Baku personally participated in several violently anti-Armenian television broadcasts.
2. Some Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, knowing the massacres were coming three days before the 27th, warned some Armenians of their fate.
3. Piles of rocks were delivered beforehand by trucks to the outskirts of the Armenian quarters.
4. The killers were brought to Sumgait in special coaches and vans.
5. Telephone lines linking Sumgait and the outside world were cut before the killings.
6. Soviet soldiers stood aside for three days, doing nothing to put a stop to the massacres.
The indifference of Moscow towards the massacres was expressed clearly by giving no orders to Azerbaijani government and Soviet troops that were located precisely on the boarder of Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop the violence. Is it a repetition of what Turkish government did against Armenians who were a subject of Ottoman Empire in 1915? There was no explicit approval from the Kremlin on measures Azerbaijanis took against Armenian population, yet there was no immediate response to it either. The official record displayed 32 deaths for the three days of the outrage; however, during the entire year of 1988, the case didn’t take place in court. As the memories of the genocide became vivid the Azerbaijani authorities played with this psychological trauma caused many years ago and passed into a new stage of fear by letting Armenians know they had gone too far and, thus jeopardizing those who reside in territories governed by Azerbaijan.[22]
By November and then aggravating in December 1988, pogroms started to spread in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The attitude towards Armenian population rapidly began to decline after Sumgait pogroms with only periodic help from the Soviet Army. Breaks out of hostility and hatred were directed even at religious objects. The Armenian Cathedral in Baku was burned. On December 5, 1989, crowds of Azeris started threatening Armenian population. Gangs of young Azerbaijanis (age range was 16-30), carrying the Turkish flag stopped buses, checked ID’s of passengers and after tracking down an Armenian they would pull a person out of a bus and beat him/her (!) up, regardless of age of the victim. Such violence and cruelty are not easy to understand, for Armenians and Azerbaijanis were living in peace and harmony prior to the events. The perpetrators apparently were given the implicit approval from the Azerbaijani government in regards to Armenians. Azereis were granted with right to do whatever they wanted with Armenian population. In stores if a sales person suspected in a customer an Armenian, a clerk would refuse to sell bread to that person. And the more harming assaults are not even to mention. They raped young pregnant women and older women, torturing and outraging them; Azeris poured their victims with gasoline and burned them. The entire city seemed infected by hysteria. On the day of the earthquake in Armenia Azerbaijanis were jumping up and down in celebration of the catastrophe, rejoicing over sufferings of other humans. Only on January 19, 1990, a state of emergency was declared and 20 000 Soviet troops were dispatched to put down the riots again the Armenian population of Azerbaijan.[23]
Many Armenians made a direct analogy between events in Azerbaijan and 1915 in Turkey. Armenians living in Baku and Sumgait were assimilated with the native population. Intermarriages were popular and well accepted by people. Most Armenians living in Azerbaijan sent their children to Russian schools, and therefore, the primarily spoken language was Russian even at homes. Hence, the history of Armenia was more known from books and family memories rather than through official teaching. Therefore, how can be explained hasty leaving by 350 000 Armenians their homes, possessions and lifetime memories except that they feared the old scenario to be played again. The pogroms left houses in Armenian quarters of Baku ravaged, however, the massacres of 31 people in Sumgait and 160 in Baku (according to official records, though the number might be underestimated) is a relatively small number. Hence, the explanation for such massive reaction of Armenians can be found in a historical memory that led to conviction that Armenians refused to be scapegoats again. There is a palpable parallel between sociopolitical status of Armenians in Azerbaijan and Armenian in Turkey on the eve of slaughtering. In both cases Armenians were a prosperous element of the society they lived in, however, they were in minority, thus obviously suitable for any kind of persecution. Ironically, but pogroms and killings in Sumgait and Baku as well as the compulsory migration of Armenians to Armenia and Russia might have prevented a second cycle of genocide against Armenian population.[24]
Some aspects in analogy between 1915 and 1988-90 don’t fit the large scaled picture, compiled of both tragic periods of the Armenian history. However, some parallels are obvious. For example, deprivation of basic essentials and lack of even first necessities present during the blockade against the Republic of Armenia and while deportation of Armenians was carried out in Ottoman Empire. Also, the sadistic tortures against Armenian population took place in both Sumgait-Baku massacres and the genocide. Moreover, there is an ideology and attitude of perpetrators in both cases played an important role. There were cases in Turkey where officials refused to follow the orders of the central government and to carry out execution of innocent people and many Turks hid their Armenian neighbors in their houses, thus saving their lives. The same way some Azerbaijanis treated Armenians, as interviews with survivors testify. However, the overwhelming majority of Azerbaijanis and Turks celebrated festively deaths of Armenians, and that was common in both cases.
Although, the pogroms in Sumgait and Baku resemble more the pogroms of the late nineteenth century rather than the genocide of 19154, yet the methodology and ultimate purpose were figuring as major aspects of projecting the genocide of 1915 to massacres in 1988-90. The political environment was also an important element of the turmoil, for if Armenians didn’t side with Russians in the early twentieth century and if Armenians didn’t claim reunification with Karabakh in the late nineteenth century, all of the bloodshed would have not, perhaps, take place at all. [25]
The Karabakh crisis <…> reveal much about the transgenerational psychological impact of genocide. In the best of circumstances, the trauma persists for decades, even generations and manifests itself in a very unexpected way. The trauma is clearly compounded when the perpetrators are left unpunished, when there are no acts of contrition or indemnification, and when external society or governments find it inexpedient to join in remembrance. Historical memory forcefully shapes contemporary outlook. The past is present[26].
[1] Alfred Schultz, “The Phenomenology of the Social World” (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1967)
[2] Donald E. Miller ,“The Role of Historical Memory in Interpreting events in the Republic of Armenia,”in Richard G. Hovanessian (ed.) “Remembrance and Denial” (Detroit, Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 1998) p.187
[3] Frank Chalk “Redefining Genocide,” ed. George J. Andreopulos Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994) pp. 48-50.
[4] Richard G Hovanessian “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide” ed. George J. Andreopulos Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994) pp.111-112
[5] Donald Miller “The role of Historical Memory in Interpreting Events in the republic of Armenia,” ed. Richard G. Hovanessian Remembrance and Denial (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 197
[6] R. G. Hovanissian “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide,” ed. G.J. Andreopulus Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania University Press, 1994) pp.117-121
[7] Gerald J. Libardian “The Ultimate Repression: The Genocide of the Armenians, 1915-1917” in I. Walliman and M. Dobkowski (ed.) Genocide and the Modern Age (Westport, Connecticut, Grrenwood Press, 1987) p. 204
[8] Ibid., p. 205
[9] Ibid., pp. 204-206
[10] Richard G. Hovanissian “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide,” G.J. Andreopulus (ed.) Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions” (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania University Press, 1944) p. 115
[11] Pierre Verluise Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1995) p. 82
[12] Pierre Verluise Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake, (Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 1995) p.82
[13] Alexander Benigsen “The Caucasian Fuse”, Arabies, nos. 19-20 (July/August 1988)
[14] Pierre Verluise Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake, (Michigan, Wayne State University Press, 1995) pp. 82-83
[15] Pierre Verluise Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake (Detroit, Wayne State University Press) p.83
[16] Uwe Halbach “Anatomy of an Escalation: The Nationality Question”, Federal Institute for Soviet and International Studies (ed.) The Soviet Union 1988-1989, Perestroika in Crisis? (San Francisco, Westview Press, 1990) p.73
[17] Pr, 8 February 1986
[18] Uwe Halbach “Anatomy of Escalation: The Nationality Question”, Federal Institute for Soviet and International Studies (ed.) The Soviet Union 1988-1989, Perstroika in Crisis? (San Francisco, Westview Press, 1990) p. 74
[19] Pierre Verluisse Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake (Detroit, Wayne State University, 1995) p. 86
[20] Donald E. Miller “The Role of Historical Memory in Interpreting Events in the Republic of Armenia” Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) Remembrance and Denial (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1998) p. 191
[21] Richard G. Hovannisian “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide”, G. Andreopoulos (ed.) Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,1994) p.116
[22] Pierre Verluise Armenia in Crisis, The 1988 Earthquake (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1995), p. 89
[23] Donald E. Miller “The Role of Historical Memory in Interpreting Events in the Republic of Armenia”, Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) Remembrance and Denial: The Case of Armenian Genocide (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1998) pp. 192-195
[24] Ibid., pp. 196-197
[25] Ibid., pp. 197-199
[26] Richard G. Hovannisian “Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide”, George J. Andreopoulos (ed.) Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press,1994) p.117