Azerbaijan mourns Black January Martyrs

In the first hours of January 20, 1990, Soviet troops stormed Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. The indiscriminate use of force and heavy military equipment against civilians was the Soviet authorities' response to popular demands for independence and an end of Communist regime. In his Decree on 11th anniversary of the "Black January," Azerbaijan's President Heydar Aliyev, who described the actions of the Soviet military as "an act of mass terror against the people of Azerbaijan," stated: "The totalitarian Soviet regime committed an unprecedented crime on January 20, 1990 in order to humiliate the national spirit and break the will and faith of the Azerbaijani people, who rose in defense of justice." There were no armed people among more than 130 civilians killed and 700 wounded by the troops.

January 20, 1990, became a national tragedy, victims of which represented Azerbaijan's diverse and multi-cultural society. Among them were a 7-year old boy, a newly married couple, an 80-year old man, a 16-year old girl, a young doctor shot in an ambulance while helping another victim, and many others.

According to "Black January in Azerbaijan", a report by Human Rights Watch, "Among the most heinous violations of human rights during the Baku incursion were the numerous attacks on medical personnel, ambulances and even hospitals." The report concluded that: "The punishment inflicted on Baku by Soviet soldiers may have been intended as a warning to nationalists, not only in Azerbaijan, but in other Republics of the Soviet Union. " The curfew and repression, which followed January 20, only strengthened determination of the people for independence.

In 1991, Azerbaijan became independent and in April of 1993 the first among the former Soviet republics with no foreign military bases on it soil. President Aliyev, who was among the many Azerbaijanis whose lives changed on January 20, 1990, as they have become united in their effort to tell the truth about the tragedy, strongly condemned the Soviet leadership for this invasion at an improvised news conference in Moscow on January 21, 1990.

/ANS/