Ottawa – Eighteen years have passed since the February 26 Khojalou alleged massacres. Today, Baku tries to use those events to conceal the pogroms that took place in Sumgait during February 1988.
However, of the many international neutral press reports, several are noteworthy.
In a Rossiskaya Gazeta article, “How ‘Thousands Were Killed in Khojali,” French television correspondent Florence David said television reports picturing thousands of Azerbaijanis' bodies allegedly massacred in Khojali are “just a trick pure and simple.”
According to her, the reports were filmed on March 1, 1992, when Armenian and Azerbaijan were exchanging their dead under an agreement brokered by the Iranian Red Crescent Society. A witness to the exchange, the French journalist maintains that those corpses were of Armenians as well as Azerbaijanis killed at “various times and places in Nagorno Karabagh.”
Furthermore, according to a March 26, 2002 article by the Bilik Dunyasi news agency in Baku, “Azerbaijani Opposition MPs refuse to Vote for the Azerbaijani Genocide Bill,” it was mainly Azerbaijanis themselves who are to blame for the Xocali (Khojalou) tragedy and the Azerbaijani so-called genocide.
Accordingly, responding to the question of Czech journalist Jana Marzolova, Ayaz Mutalibov, the President of Azerbaijan during that time, said, “Those residents who survived the Khojali incidents have stated that whatever happened there was orchestrated (by the Azeri opposition) to create the scenario for my resignation.”
In an interview with the Azeri online newspaper, Real Azerbaijan (www.realazer.com), Rahim Ghaziev, one of the former Azeri defence ministers at the time, stated that the Khojalou event was a trap set for President Mutabilov by the opposition in order to remove him from power.
“It is very questionable indeed,” stated Dr. Girair Basmadjian, the President of the Armenian National Committee of Canada, “that a Republic of 7-8 million with resources and foreign assistance was subjected to such so-called crimes by an enclave of 150,000 people whose own survival was under jeopardy.
“However, concluding from the international press of the period, we can ask why, if this was such a major crime, why do those who had a role in it remain free? The answer is simple. Baku tries to use the Khojalou events for political gain and most importantly, to conceal the butchery that took place in Sumgait from February 25-28, 1988.”
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