Back

Khojaly: The Moment of Truth

[March 5, 2007]

We are pleased to publish excerpts from Tatul Hakobyan's upcoming book, with the working title Artsakh Diary , which deals with the tragedies of February 25-26, 1992 in Khojaly and of March 10, 1992 in Maragha, Nagorno Karabakh. “ The first casualty when war comes is truth.” These words said of World War I can be applied to Khojaly and Maragha as well.

As military operations between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan continued, several countries and organizations offered their mediation in settling the conflict, and in working out a truce first of all. Iran was especially active. The OSCE and Russia began showing a serious interest as well.

On February 25, 1992 Yerevan launched a political initiative. President Levon Ter-Petrossian appealed to the heads of 14 states asking to prevent further escalation of the situation which would only lead to a full-scale war. “The heads of states and international organizations should restrain Azerbaijan by consistently condemning the militarization of that country and any actions that might upset the relative balance of powers in the region… as well as influence the leaders of Russia and the CIS to hinder Azerbaijan by all means from obtaining and using CIS armaments.” The Armenian leader stressed that “we view the Nagorno Karabakh issue as an internal political conflict which should be solved exclusively through negotiations between the Azerbaijani government and the newly-elected leadership of Nagorno Karabakh, bearing in mind that Armenia has no territorial claims on Azerbaijan.”

Ter-Petrossian urged the CIS, the OSCE, the UN, the European Union, and other organizations interested in establishing stable peace in the region to expedite the steps aimed at creating an efficient mediation mechanism for the Nagorno Karabakh conflict that would result in designing a comprehensive peace plan supported by all the interested parties. The Armenian leader emphasized that “Turkey should continue to maintain its neutrality and try to alter Azerbaijan's discrepant stance toward Armenia by using its good offices with the Azerbaijani government and political forces.” In exchange “Armenia will use its influence on Nagorno Karabakh to persuade its leadership into unilaterally ceasing military operations for 24 hours effective the moment the Azerbaijani government assumes the obligation to halt military operations in the region for the same period of time.”

Armenian special envoy at the time David Shahnazaryan says that at first the West, and the United States in particular, didn't show serious interest in mediation. “Their policy at the time differed substantially from their present policy. They were not ready or even didn't want to assume any independent or active role. Their mission limited itself to the activity within the Minsk Group. At the time Russia was more active than the OSCE format in two ways – through the ministry of defense and the ministry of foreign affairs,” Shahnazaryan says.

However, the high-level Armenian-Azerbaijani meetings and numerous intermediary missions and visits were unable to prevent bloodshed between the two neighbouring peoples. Moreover, strange as it may sound, the most tragic events would usually take place at times of active international mediation. One such instance was Khojaly; another was Maragha.

“The moment of truth”

"The first casualty when war comes is truth." These words uttered by a US senator following World War I might be also applied to the Karabakh war and, in particular, to Khojaly. What really happened in the second-largest Azerbaijani settlement in Nagorno Karabakh, Khojaly, and the adjacent territories on February 25-26, 1992 when the civilian population fled to Aghdam through the corridor provided by the Karabakh forces remains one of the most debatable and unclarified issues of the Karabakh war. At least two things are clear – the Karabakh forces left a corridor, and the civilian population suffered and a tragedy occurred.

When in 1994 Russian journalist Andrey Karaulov, the host of the TV program The Momemt of Truth asked then-Chairman of the State Defence Committee of Nagorno Karabakh Robert Kocharyan about the Khojaly tragedy, he responded, “I would put next to this tragedy a series of other tragedies that would perhaps surpass the Khojaly tragedy in scale. These are the Sumgait and the Baku massacres, the depopulation of 28 Armenian villages, and the tragedy of the village of Maragha.”

“But, apparently, Khojaly requires a separate explanation. That is to say, this was the village that found itself in the thick of military operations. As I see it, the warring parties should be very careful in using human settlements for military purposes and this is exactly what had happened in Khojaly. There were four GRAD flamethrowers stationed inside the village which were systematically firing upon Stepanakert. And when a place turns into a position for firing GRAD missiles then, naturally, it draws enemy fire. For that reason a situation emerged in Khojaly where heavy battles for the settlement took place and, the fact was, during these battles the civilian population suffered,” Kocharyan said.

When British journalist Thomas de Vaal asked Serge Sargsyan to tell him about the seizure of Khojaly the Armenian minister of defense responded, “We prefer not to talk about that out loud.” As for the number of losses, Sargsyan insisted that many things had been exaggerated and the retreating Azerbaijanis had manifested strong military resistance. “But I think that the principal issue was completely different. Before Khojaly, Azerbaijanis thought that they could trifle with us; they thought Armenians were incapable of raising a hand against a civilian population. We were able to break this stereotype. This is what happened. And also we must take into consideration that among these men there were those who had escaped from the Baku and the Sumgait massacres,” Sargsyan said.

In order to lend credence to assertions that the Karabakh forces had opened frontal fire on the fleeing civilian population and the Azerbaijani special platoon accompanying them from the Armenian village of Nakhichevanik, Thomas de Vaal quoted what Police Major Valery Babayan had told American reporter Paul Quin-Judge. Babayan had expressed the view that the main motive for these events was personal vengeance and that many of the participants of the attack on Khojaly “were from Sumgait and other places like that.”

Samvel Babayan, who was at the center of the events, has a completely different interpretation. “During the Khojaly operation I was in charge of holding the Aghdam front and providing for a secure corridor along the river current so that the civilians could exit, and I accomplished that mission. The corridor was provided, but a strange thing happened. We were attacked from the direction of Aghdam. The population was supposed to pass through our positions and enter Aghdam. Among the Azerbaijani forces in Aghdam, the impression emerged that the Armenians were making a sally. The violence was committed by the Azerbaijani forces, whether wittingly or not, I don't know. We did not attempt at the destruction of the population. Generally, during the war we had always allowed the civilian population to leave. We were in a position to block the roads and annihilate 60,000 people in Kelbajar, but we purposefully postponed military operations and provided free passage. It was the same road that we had taken under our control in one stroke in 1994.”

To be continued…

Tatul Hakobyan