Jakarta, January 21, AZERTAC
The Indonesia-based newspaper 'The Jakarta Post' published an article in connection with the 26th anniversary of January 20 tragedy.
Titled "When invader attempts to justify brutality" the article says: Twenty-six years ago, exactly on the night of January 20, 1990, 26.000 Soviet troops invaded Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. This invasion, according to the official investigation report of the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan, killed 132 people, injured 612 and led to the illegal arrest of 841 people. Hundreds of buildings were destroyed, causing both the state and its citizens to suffer amid huge material damages.
The Soviet justified its invasion by citing the necessity of evacuating Armenians from Baku. This was a lie. After the dismissal of civil authorities, the Soviet Military Commandant's office, along with the USSR military prosecutor, did not investigate the so-called massacre due to the absence of any elementary fact. The pretext was simply used to justify the invasion of Baku, the true purpose of which was the suppression of a national movement for independence and peaceful protests against the aggressive actions of Armenia, which was raising territorial claims against Azerbaijan," says the article.
"The announcement of the state of emergency in Baku and deployment of troops in the city were the biggest mistakes of my political tenure" admitted former USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev during his statement in Istanbul on April 27, 1995.
Vugar Aghayev
Special correspondent