“The Director-General did not visit any monument in Baku celebrating the participants [in] pogroms against Armenians. In the morning of Thursday 29 July, Mrs Bokova visited the place called Shahidlar Khiyabani (Martyrs’ Alley) which commemorates the Soviet military crackdown of 19-20 January 1990,” Bernard Giansetto, UNESCO, Bureau of Public Information, told NEWS.am, responding to the agency’s written inquiry and commenting on Mrs. Irina Bokova’s visit to the Alley of Martyrs in Baku, the burial place of the organizers of and participants in the Armenian pogroms on January 13-19, 1990.

NEWS.am drew the attention of the readers and international community to the fact that the Director-General of such an authoritative international organization as UNESCO paid homage to the memory of the people that murdered, raped and tortured the Armenian residents of Baku, then the capital of Soviet Azerbaijan.

In connection with Mr. Bernard Giansetto’s reply, NEWS.am gives a reminder that on January 13, 1990, the Popular Front of Azerbaijan (PFA) instigated Armenian pogroms in Baku. The pogroms were accompanied by mass rapes, torture and murders. According to the official reports of the then Azerbaijani authorities, more than 90 Armenians were murdered. The pogrom-makers attacked Russian residents as well. The local authorities were paralyzed. Chanting such slogans as “making a second Ararat out of Armenian heads” the PFA supporters surrounded all the government offices and military units of the USSR army, including the Salyansk barracks. There were also victims among Russian servicemen’s families. The PFA members attacked the ammunition depots and formed groups that murdered Armenians and drove them out of their flats. Any Azerbaijani intellectuals that called for an end to the atrocities were physically attacked.

Well-known dissidents, Soviet public shocked by the vandalism and murders, and international organizations, including the European Parliament (requisition of January 18, 1990) condemned the USSR leadership for failing to take necessary measures against the bloodthirsty criminals. It was only due to the belated entry of Soviet troops to Baku on the night of January 20, 1990, that the extermination of the city’s Christian population was prevented. It was the organizers of and participants in the Armenian pogroms that were killed during the state of emergency and were later turned into national heroes and buried in the Şəhidlər Xiyabanı (Alley of Martyrs).

Considering the above, NEWS.am draws UNESCO’s attention to the need to examine the resolutions of international organizations that demanded the introduction of Soviet troops to Baku in January 199o, the reports by the Western press, RFE, Voice of America and BBC. We hope that, after doing this, the UNESCO leaders will free themselves from the captivity of Azerbaijan’s state propaganda, which is cynically claiming the participants in Armenian pogroms to be “victims of the totalitarian Soviet regime.” We also understand the UNESCO leadership’s intimate terms with Azerbaijan’s First Lady Mehriban Alieva, who was proclaimed a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO. However, we would like to ask Mrs. Bokova, besides admiring the achievements of totalitarian Azerbaijan, to thoroughly study the history of the tragic events before taking part in such political events as visits to the Alley of Martyrs in Baku. Otherwise, we have to admit that the UNESCO leaders prefer their personal relations with the Presidents or First Ladies of certain states to the principles of preserving the international cultural heritage.