OTS: A Glance at the Tragedy of 20 January 1990 and the start of restoration...

A Glance at the Tragedy of 20 January 1990 and the start of restoration of independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan

20 January 2018 marks the 28th anniversary of the military invasion and vicious killing of civilians in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan by the forces of the Soviet Army on 20 January 1990. In response to the rising national independence movement, the Soviet leadership ordered some 26 000 troops with heavy military equipment to storm the city of Baku in an operation called "Strike".

The heavy-handed crackdown resulted in 147 civilian deaths and the injuring of around 800 people. The invasion was launched at midnight and was committed with particular violence against children, women and the elderly. The tragedy of 20 January was engraved in the history of Azerbaijan as "Black January". Nevertheless, it was a heroic page in the history of Azerbaijani people's struggle for freedom and independence. This violent suppression brought a 70-year Soviet rule in Azerbaijan to an end and led to the restoration of its national independence.

The events of 20 January were mainly provoked by the territorial claims of neighboring Armenia, requiring the annexation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) of Azerbaijan. On December 1, 1989 the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR made the unprecedented decision on "reunification" of the Armenian SSR and NKAO, and thus grossly violated the Constitution of the USSR as well as the Law "On the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast" of June 16, 1981. This decision had a very serious impact on further relations between the two peoples inflaming a mass hatred towards each other.

By that time, the entire Azerbaijani population living in Armenia had been forcibly expelled from the places of their permanent residence. In an effort to oust them from Armenia an estimated 300 000 Azerbaijanis were subjected to murder, torture and persecution and were forced to take refuge in Azerbaijan. These displaced Azerbaijanis-deprived of homes and shelters- were mainly settled in Baku and its suburbs.

This kind of illegal and hostile policy of Armenian authorities ignited anger among Azerbaijanis precipitating their mass protest against the ambiguous and negligent position of the USSR leadership in this regard. In 1989-1990, hundreds of thousands of people held demonstrations in the central square (now Freedom square) and the streets of Baku protesting the Armenia's separatist claims to tear out the Nagorno-Karabakh region from Azerbaijan and annexing it to Armenia. On January 13, 1990 at a mass rally held in Baku, the leaders of Azerbaijani opposition called for a referendum on secession of Azerbaijan from the Soviet Union. Reports about the killing and wounding of Azerbaijanis by Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh that were spread during the rally further enraged the crowd.

The Secretary General of the Communist Party of the USSR, Michael Gorbachev used the unrest and riots in Baku to justify the Soviet Army's intervention in the city. The military contingency sent to Baku consisted mainly of soldiers previously deployed in Afghanistan as well as the reservists some of whom were of Armenian origin conscripted from the Stavroplol region of Russia for a short period in January 1990. Before being dispatched to Baku they were instructed that the Islamic radicals and mojaheds took the power in the city, and the Soviet soldiers must protect the allegedly violated rights of Armenians.

However, in reality the true face of the Soviet assault was drastically different. As it was later stated by D.Yazov, then the Minister of Defense of the USSR, the use of force in Baku was intended to prevent the takeover of the power in Azerbaijan by non-Communist opposition and ensure that the Communist government remained in power.

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