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The original was posted on /r/armenia by /u/ar_david_hh on 2024-02-27 03:48:10.
Original Title: New economy minister on Russia & diversification \ Armenia boycotts Russian bloc; Belarus responds \ Will Putin epstein Pashinyan? \ Civil Aviation reforms \ Another “bomb” planted \ Economy, trade, apartment boom \ Idiot arrested \ Yerevan Lake & major tree project \ Iran survey \ And more
17-minute read.
Khojaly and Stepanakert, 1992
Czech journalist Dana Mazalova recalls her interaction with Azerbaijani doctor and journalist Chingiz Mustafayev about the events in and around Khojaly.
MAZALOVA: I left Agdam to meet Chengiz. He showed me the recordings that he took in Karabakh. He was shook. “Dana, do you understand what they have done?”, he told me, adding that now there is a target on his back for making these revelations.
REPORTER: What was in those tapes?
MAZALOVA: Chingiz flew in an Azerbaijani helicopter and noticed the bodies from above. There were Azeri soldiers near the bodies; they weren’t concerned about the Azerbaijani helicopter flying around. Chingiz then filmed the victims up close. He was a doctor so he explained how they were killed. I only later learned that Armenians had given a corridor for Azeri civilians to leave Khojaly. Chingiz filmed the bodies in Azeri-controlled areas near Agdam.
Chingiz analyzed how they were killed. The victims were shot in their knees to prevent them from escaping. It must have been a slow and painful death, also a loud death, loud enough for Azeri soldiers stationed in nearby positions to hear. [shows a map] Here is the map of Khojaly, here is the corridor given by Armenians to the civilians, and here is Agdam and the area near Agdam where the bodies were filmed by Chingiz.
Chingiz was able to transport around half of the bodies to Agdam. He then returned to transfer the other bodies to discover that they were mutilated within those 2 days when he was away.
REPORTER: And this was in an Azeri-controlled area?
MAZALOVA: Exactly.
REPORTER: So it’s unlikely that Armenians came and mutilated the bodies after their death?
MAZALOVA: Correct. That would make no sense. I remember a small boy in a pink hat who was mutilated. Chingiz told me he was afraid of walking in Baku without a bulletproof vest because he documented it all.
REPORTER: So Chingiz concluded that Azeris themselves mutilated the bodies, not Armenians?
MAZALOVA: Yes.
REPORTER: Did he say why the Azeri soldiers would do that?
MAZALOVA: No. We were both shocked. The next morning I went to speak with [Azerbaijani President] Mutallibov. I had to ask him about it. Mutallibov believed the events were organized by [nationalist Azeri forces] Popular Front Party to overthrow his administration. That is what happened shortly afterward.
REPORTER: What did President Mutallibov say?
MAZALOVA: He believed it was done to create a scandal and remove him from power.
REPORTER: So the [nationalist] Popular Front Party didn’t care because the victims were ethnic Meskhetians and not Azeri?
MAZALOVA: Correct. Moreover, under the Islamic rules you are supposed to bury the body immediately but that is not what they did. They kept those bodies in Agdam in a small house. Meanwhile, I flew to Prague to prepare for a КБСЕ conference dedicated to the Karabakh conflict. Azerbaijan’s foreign minister attended it. Several weeks had passed. Azeris kept the rotting corpses for weeks to display them before the conference. My colleague and a representative of КБСЕ paid a visit around the end of March and the bodies were still kept there for display. They wanted to derail the conference. The [Azeri nationalist forces] were capable of sacrificing Meskhetians or any other ethnic group to derail the conference, which did end up being delayed. The conference was the first international probe to discuss what to do with the Karabakh conflict. They [Azeri forces] successfully stopped it. //
Comments by the Azeri doctor/journalist Chingiz Mustafayev, the colleague of Dana Mazalova who visited the aforementioned site and recorded the bodies. Note: This is not in Khojaly, this is an area between Khojaly and Agdam.
MUSTAFAYEV: I arrived in Agdam on February 28 and asked them for permission to film the tragedy. They told me the bodies were located only in Khojaly and that there were negotiations to exchange POWs and bodies. People from Khojaly then informed me that civilians came from Khojaly and hid near a farm. I requested permission to go there but was denied. The following day I convinced the pilot to change the route. When we reached the aforementioned farm I saw over 50 bodies on the ground. Around 10 Azeri soldiers were walking near the bodies. The area is 10 km from Khojaly and only 700 meters from our military outpost. This is the area I was told that I couldn’t visit due to a shootout with Armenians. We safely landed, and as soon as we did, several Azeri helicopters left the area toward Agdam, and so did the 10 soldiers who were walking near the bodies. We spent 45 minutes near the bodies and recorded them.
We later saw two vehicles of Armenian soldiers passing nearby. They spotted us so we began to walk toward Agdam. They never fired a single shot toward us. To this day I cannot wrap my head around the fact that the bodies were only 700 meters from our military position and our soldiers were freely walking there yet nobody bothered to pick them up. I have all the evidence recorded on tape but I’m under the impression that the dark forces that have masterminded all of this are plotting another crime while the investigative commission drags its foot. //
Azerbaijan’s president believed the opposition was using the Khojaly incident to overthrow him and that his orders to evacuate civilians in advance were ignored on purpose:
MUTALLIBOV: As the rescued residents of Khojaly say, it was a plot to create grounds for my resignation. I don’t think that the Armenians, who had manifested a clear and knowledgeable approach to such situations, would have allowed Azerbaijanis to obtain evidence that tied them to fascist acts. If I declare that it was the fault of the Azerbaijani opposition I could be blamed for slander. But the overall picture of the conclusions is as follows: the Armenians had, in any case, provided a corridor to let the civilians escape. Why then would they shoot? As soon as Khojaly was surrounded by tanks it was necessary to immediately lead the civilians out. Earlier I had given similar orders regarding Shushi – to evacuate women and children and to leave only men in the city. It’s one of the laws of war – civilians must be rescued. My conduct was appropriate and unambiguous – I gave such orders, but why they weren’t followed in Khojaly is not clear to me. //
Earlier in February the Armenian forces warned the Azeri units stationed in Khojaly that because of Azerbaijan’s bombardment of the Armenian capital Stepanakert, they would have to capture Khojaly to end the fire. Human Rights Watch says Azeris were using GRAD missile systems stationed in Khojaly to bombard Stepanakert, killing hundreds of Armenian civilians.
Armenians urged the Azeri army to evacuate their civilians from Khojaly ahead of the assault. The fact that Armenians warned about a possible assault was confirmed by Azerbaijani newspapers. The Human Rights Watch notes that by continuing to operate next to civilians and by continuing to wear military uniforms, the local Azerbaijani forces endangered the civilians.
SALMAN ABASOV (Azeri): Several days before the tragedy the Armenians told us several times over the radio that they would capture the town and demanded that we leave it. For a long time, helicopters flew into Khojaly and it wasn’t clear if anyone thought about our fate. We received practically no help. Moreover, when it was possible to take our women and children out of the town, we were persuaded not to do so [by Azerbaijani authorities/forces]. //
Elmar Mammadov, the Mayor of Khojaly testified that the Azerbaijani authorities knew about the planned assault but they took no measure to evacuate the civilians.
Azerbaijani filmmaker Ramiz Fataliev testified that the Azerbaijani authorities did not evacuate the civilians from Khojaly because they thought that by doing so they would “invite” the Armenians to occupy Khojaly.
Armenians launched the assault against Azeri forces in Khojaly on February 25 and the population began to march towards Azerbaijan. Several civilians were killed by the Armenian forces in Khojaly during the assault.
A group of Azeri civilians used a corridor provided by Armenian forces to flee. The second group used another route. According to HRW, a column of civilians were accompanied by Azeri soldiers. As the group and the soldiers approached the border with Azerbaijan, the nearby Armenian positions opened fire at them. Helsinki Watch says that the Azeri soldiers, still carrying their guns, were interspersed with the civilians while fleeing. According to eyewitness accounts, there was a shootout between these Azeri forces and nearby Armenian positions.
International observers say that Armenian soldiers were responsible for the deaths because they did not exercise precautionary measures to minimize civilian casualties and that the Azerbaijani side also shared responsibility for endangering its own civilians by breaching h…
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