A scientific conference on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Armenian pogroms in Baku, Azerbaijan, was held at the Armenian National Academy of Sciences in Yerevan on January 19. A documentary entitled “Baku. January, 1990: nothing but genocide” was shown during the conference.

The author, journalist Marina Grigoryan said that the aim of the documentary is not sowing hatred, but telling the truth about the Armenian pogroms in Baku in January 1990. “This is the first documentary of the series entitled ‘Nothing but genocide’,” Grigoryan said. The 40-minute documentary was created by the Public Relations and Information Center, RA Presidential Administration.

The documentary contains Armenian and Russian residents’ stories, quotes from the reports by central Soviet newspapers and western media outlets, telling about the brutal and horrific murders committed for ethnic and religious reasons.

The viewer can first see pictures of modern-day Baku, with an off-screen commentary telling that the citizens of modern-day Azerbaijan do not want to remember the native Armenians that played a crucial role in the country’s socio-economic development and were then forcibly displaced from their homes. “Few can imagine today that blood was streaming down the streets 20 years ago, and brutal murders were being committed,” the commentary says.

The authors state that after 5:00 p.m. on January 13, 1990, about 50,000 brutalized Azeris, with Armenian residents’ addresses at their disposal, were ready to go to murder, plunder and rape. The documentary contains numerous quotes of the Soviet and western press, which prove that horrific murders were committed in Baku January 13 to 19, with Armenians’ dead bodies shown.

Director of the Institute Museum of the Armenian Genocide Hayk Demoyan pointed out that the Armenian people’s genetic memory made them draw parallels with the tragic events in the Ottoman Turkey in 1915.

The authors paid great attention to the background to the Armenian pogroms, namely, the bloody Armenian pogroms in Baku in 1905-1906, 1918, and in Sumgait and Kirovabad in 1988.

The documentary informs the viewer that over the last 20 years Azerbaijan has been pursuing a policy of lie about the events in Baku in January 1990. The State Television of Azerbaijan shows the world the so-called “Shahids’ lane”, the burial place of the thugs killed by the Soviet troops introduced into the city to prevent further brutal murders of Armenians.

The documentary end with pictures of the Memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, “Tsitsernakaberd”, and the authors express hope for a Nuremberg trial of the masterminds behind and participants in the Armenian pogroms, who have so far remained unpunished.

T.P.