By Ivan Gharibyan

As a rule, it is in the latter half of every January that Azerbaijani mass media let their fevered imagination run riot. The reason is quite clear: Azeri journalists are faced with a formidable, almost impracticable task – in defiance of all the evidence presenting the tragic events in Baku in January 1990 the wrong way about.

The further are the “masterworks” of the Azeri state propaganda from the truth, the sheerer is the idiocy shown by the small fry at the service of the Aliyev clan. And when it comes to the Armenian pogroms in Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad, the Azeri mass media, which are fully controlled by the authorities, resort to such a blatant lie that an ordinary Azerbaijani will never believe them; or they just pass the facts over in silence.

Everything is much more apparent with the Armenian pogroms. First the “national leader” Heydar Aliyev and then his son and “heir to the throne” Ilham could think of nothing better than holding back the truth about the Armenian pogroms in Baku on January 13-19, 1990. At the same time, they spare no efforts to advocate the so-called “January 20 tragedy”, the entry of Soviet troops to Baku to prevent the annihilation of all the Christian population in the once multinational city.

But the state television channel AzTV, which is immediately controlled by the Azeri presidential administration, is showing firm leadership in making the Azerbaijani people lose their memory and turning them into “humble servants” for the Aliyev clan. So on January 19 the “Habarlar” (News) TV program did its best to “expose the monstrous terrorist act against the Azerbaijani people.” And the word “monstrous” was quite to the point, as so much monstrous lie was told on the air that no normal person would swallow it.

The leading reporters of the main news program provided comprehensive coverage of the events “in commemoration of the Shahids, who heroically defended Azerbaijan’s independence and territorial integrity” arranged by the ruling party Yeni Azerbaijan (New Azerbaijan). The heroes are, of course, the participants in the Armenian pogroms, the “humans” that had robbed, raped and murdered hundreds of Armenians in Baku before Soviet troops entered the city.

U.S. Charge d’Affaires Donald Lu “came to the aid” of Azeri journalists. With passion he was speaking about the monstrous Soviet troops that entered Baku on the night of January 20, 1990. Was not the American diplomat, with his ideas of pan-human values, indignant at the brutal crimes against the Armenian population in Baku?

However, the state TV of Azerbaijan was not content with all that. The AzTV channel decided to emphasize the “inhumanity” of the Russian people. A three-minute story was about Russian servicemen that allegedly did not allow doctors to help the injured lying on the streets. This information policy pursued by the main TV channel at the Aliyev clan’s service must be in harmony with the Azerbaijani authorities’ policy of strategic partnership with Russia.

But the most “moving” was the story about the “attack on Baku the Soviet army launched by first occupying the Azerbaijani television.” So it turns out that, in those tragic days, AzTV was “the mouthpiece for the people” rather than a source of nationalist propaganda (the Baku TV center was actually out of the Azeri authorities’ control and was broadcasting on behalf of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan). That is why, according to official Baku’s propaganda, a KGB task group blew up the power unit of the Azerbaijani Television. At this point too the “Habarlar” staff surpassed themselves: the TV channel has been developing into “a mouthpiece for the people” over the last 20 years! Indeed! We can do nothing but feel sympathy for the Azerbaijani people. If AzTV, which has “beaten”, say, the Armenian Public TV at disinforming the public, is the “mouthpiece for the people”, things are really bad with our neighbors.

Of course, we might as well have not watched and listened to that idiotic piece of “news,” but it is better to know your neighbors, isn’t it?

T.P.