Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.17
By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:
The Hill newspaper, which is the most influential publication of the US Congress, which is constantly read by senators, congressmen, experts of foreign policy and the general public, published an article by the Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev in its January 16 issue, the consulate said.
The article "Black January and an unwarranted Nobel Peace Prize" tells about the events of January 20, occurred 25 years ago, and the struggle of the Azerbaijani people for their freedom.
Heydar Aliyev, who would become later the founder of the modern Azerbaijan, came to Soviet Azerbaijan's Permanent Mission in Moscow and fiercely denounced the bloodshed, said the author, talking about the fact that a lot of innocent people were brutally killed by the Soviet troops during these events.
The consul general said that on October 15, 1990 the Nobel Peace Prize Committee announced probably one of its most unusual decisions. Michael Gorbachev, then President of the Soviet Union, was awarded the highly coveted Nobel Peace Prize, he said.
The author said that the committee, which has "forgotten" the murders in Baku during the "Black January," committed by the order of Gorbachev 10 months prior to the awarding, rewarded a man whose hands were stained with the blood of hundreds of innocent Azerbaijanis.
Ironically, Alfred Nobel would not have been able to establish the Nobel Prize in 1901, had it not been the immense fortune he and his brothers made with oil development in Baku, Aghayev said.
"And Alfred Nobel would not have been able to even dream that his Prize would one day be awarded to a man who turned the very city of Baku into a bloodbath," the consul general said.
The article can be found on the link:
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/229674-black-january-and-an-unwarranted-nobel-peace-prize
Overnight from Jan. 19 to Jan. 20, 1990, the Soviet army began military action against Azerbaijan without declaring an emergency situation.
The investigation found out that 132 people were killed, 612 injured and 841 illegally arrested and hundreds of buildings destroyed as a result of this perpetration, according to official data from the General Prosecutor's Office of Azerbaijan.
This crime also inflicted huge material damage to the state and its citizens.