Western Azerbaijan Community

“On the genocide of Azerbaijanis”

Decree of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

The achievement of independence by the Republic of Azerbaijan made it possible to reconstruct an objective picture of the historical past of our people. The secrets of many years, under the yoke of the prohibition of truth, are revealed, and the true essence of the facts falsified at one time is revealed. The genocide, which was repeatedly carried out against the Azerbaijani people and did not receive a proper political and legal assessment for a long time, is one of those undisclosed pages of history. The dismemberment of the Azerbaijani people and the redistribution of our historical lands began with the Gulistan and Turkmenchay treaties signed in 1813 and 1828. The continuation of the national tragedy of the divided Azerbaijani people was the occupation of their lands. As a result of the implementation of  this policy, the mass resettlement of Armenians to Azerbaijani lands was carried out in the shortest possible time. The policy of genocide has become an integral part of the occupation of Azerbaijani lands. Despite the fact that the Armenians settled in the territories of the Iravan, Nakhchivan, and Karabakh khanates were a minority compared to the Azerbaijanis living there, under the tutelage of their patrons they achieved the creation of such an administrative-territorial unit as the so-called “Armenian region”. Such an artificial territorial division essentially created the prerequisites for the implementation of the policy of expelling Azerbaijanis from their lands and their destruction. The propagation of the ideas of “great Armenia” began. In order to “substantiate” the attempts to create this far-fetched state on the Azerbaijani lands, large-scale programs aimed at creating a false history of the Armenian people were implemented. The distortion of the history of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus as a whole was an important part of these programs. Inspired by the illusions about hiding their intentions, carried out a series of large-scale bloody actions against the Azerbaijanis in 1905–1907. The atrocities of the  Armenians, which began in Baku, covered the whole of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani villages on the territory of present-day Armenia. Hundreds of settlements were destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth, and thousands of Azerbaijanis were barbarously killed. The organizers of these events, preventing the disclosure of the essence of what happened, its proper political and legal assessment, and covering up their adventurous territorial claims, formed a negative image of the Azerbaijanis. Using for their own purposes the situation after the First World War and the February and October revolutions of 1917 in Russia, the Armenians began to realize their plans under the banner of Bolshevism. The Baku commune, under the slogan of combating counter-revolutionary elements, had since March 1918 begun to implement a criminal plan aimed at eliminating the Azerbaijanis of the entire Baku province. The crimes committed by the Armenians in those days are forever imprinted in the memory of the Azerbaijani people. Thousands of peaceful Azerbaijanis were killed only because of their nationality. The Armenians set fire to houses and to living people. They destroyed national architectural treasures, schools, hospitals, mosques, and other structures and turned most of Baku into ruins. With particular cruelty, the genocide of Azerbaijanis was carried out in Baku, Shemakha, Guba districts, Karabakh, Zangezur, Nakhchivan, Lankaran, and other regions of Azerbaijan. On these lands, the civilian population was exterminated en masse, villages were burned, and national cultural monuments were destroyed. The March events of 1918 came into focus after the proclamation of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The Council of Ministers, in order to investigate this tragedy, on July 15, 1918, adopted a resolution on the creation of an emergency commission of inquiry. The commission investigated the March tragedy, first of all studying the atrocities committed by the Armenians in Shamakhi and the grave crimes committed in the Iravan province. A special structure was created under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to inform the world community about the true course of events. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic celebrated March 31 in 1919 and 1920 as a national day of mourning. In essence, this was the first attempt to give a political assessment of the policy of genocide against Azerbaijanis and the occupation of our lands that has continued for more than a century. However, the death of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic did not allow them to complete this work. The Armenians, taking advantage of the Sovietization of Transcaucasia for their vile purposes, declared Zangezur and a number of lands in Azerbaijan the territory of the Armenian SSR in 1920. Subsequently, new means began to be used to further expand the policy of deporting Azerbaijanis from these territories. To this end, the Armenians achieved the adoption of a special resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of December 23, 1947, “On the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR in the Kur-Araz lowland of Azerbaijan SSR” and the implementation at the state level in 1948–1953 of the mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from our historical lands. Beginning in the 1950s, with the help of their patrons, Armenian nationalists launched a frenzied campaign of spiritual aggression against the Azerbaijani people. In books, magazines, and newspapers periodically distributed in the former Soviet state, they sought to prove that the most outstanding masterpieces of our national culture, classical heritage, and architectural monuments belong to the Armenian people. At the same time, attempts to create a negative image of Azerbaijanis around the world intensified. Creating the image of the “unfortunate, destitute Armenian people”, they deliberately falsified the events that took place in the region at the beginning of the century: those who committed genocide against Azerbaijanis were presented as victims of genocide. From the city of Iravan, the majority of whose population at the beginning of the century were Azerbaijanis, and from other regions of the Armenian SSR, our compatriots were expelled in droves and persecuted. Armenians rudely violated the rights of Azerbaijanis, created obstacles to education in their native language, and implemented a policy of repression. The historical names of Azerbaijani villages were changed; an unprecedented process in the history of toponymy was underway, replacing ancient toponyms with modern names. In order to create a foundation and educate the Armenian youth in the spirit of chauvinism, false Armenian history was elevated to the level of state policy. Our younger generation, brought up in  the spirit of the great humanistic ideals of Azerbaijani literature and culture, found itself under fire from the persecution of the extremist Armenian ideology. The ideological basis for political and military aggression was a slanderous campaign against the spiritual values, national honor, and dignity of the Azerbaijani people. In the Soviet press, Armenians distorted historical facts, misleading public opinion. The leadership of the Republic of Azerbaijan did not timely give the necessary assessment of the anti-Azerbaijani propaganda carried out by the Armenians, using the capabilities of the Soviet regime, which has been growing stronger since the mid-80s.

A correct political assessment was not given in the republic to the expulsion, at the initial stage of the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that arose since 1988, of one hundred thousand Azerbaijanis from their historical lands. The unconstitutional decision of the Armenians on the inclusion of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of Azerbaijan into the Armenian SSR and, in fact, the withdrawal of this region from the subordination of Azerbaijan through the Committee of Special Administration established by Moscow, was met with  indignation by our people, faced with the need to undertake serious political actions. Despite the fact that the policy of seizing our lands was strongly condemned at the rallies held at that time in the republic, the Azerbaijani leadership did not abandon its passive position. It was as a result of this that troops were sent to Baku in January 1990 in order to suppress the ever-increasing popular movement. Hundreds of Azerbaijanis were killed and wounded, maimed, and subjected to various forms of physical pressure. In February 1992, the Armenians committed an unprecedented massacre against the population of the city of Khojaly. This bloody tragedy, which went down in our history as the Khojaly genocide, ended with the extermination of thousands of Azerbaijanis and their captivity; the city was wiped off the face of the earth. As a result of the adventurist policy unleashed by the Armenian national separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh, today more than a million of our citizens have been expelled by the Armenian aggressors from their homes and forced to live in tents. During the occupation by the Armenian armed forces, 20% of our territory was occupied, and thousands of our fellow citizens fell victims and became disabled. All the tragedies in Azerbaijan that occurred in the XIX - XX centuries, accompanied by the seizure of land, were different stages of the genocide policy consciously and systematically carried out by the Armenians against the Azerbaijanis. Only in relation to one of these events - the March massacre of 1918 - was an attempt made to give a political assessment. The Republic of Azerbaijan, as a dictate of history, perceives the need to give a political assessment of the events of the genocide and bring to a logical end the decisions that the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic failed to complete.

In commemoration of all the tragedies of genocide committed against the Azerbaijani people, I hereby resolve as follows:

1. Announce March 31 as the Day of the Azerbaijani Genocide.

2. Recommend to the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan to consider the issue of holding a special session dedicated to the events related to the genocide of Azerbaijanis.

Heydar Aliyev

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Baku, March 26, 1998.