From Anatol Lieven in Agdam
AZERBAIJANI civilians fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh have been wantonly killed by Armenian forces, refugees arriving in the Azerbaijani regional centre of Agdam said yesterday. The claim came as the Soviet garrison in the disputed enclave was preparing to pull out yesterday on orders from Moscow. But facing an infuriated and hysterical Azerbaijani population, convinced that the Russians had a hand in the mass killings, the Russians appear to have delayed their withdrawal last night. There are fears that crossing through Agdam to the safety of their local headquarters in Ganja could lead to a clash with Azerbaijani forces.
Last night a Russian column of troops made its way to Stepanakert, the main city in the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, to help assist the former Soviet military’s 366 Motorised Infantry Regiment to leave the disputed territory. But reports reaching Agdam said that the local Armenian population there was preventing the garrison from leaving. The reports also said that there had been exchanges of gunfire in the city. One possibility is that the Armenians are hoping to extract equipment from the garrison in return for safe passage.
Before the Armenian attack and seizure of Khojaly last week, the town had a population of about 5,000. But fewer than a thousand have so far reached Agdam, local officials said. Survivors claimed that many may have been taken prisoner. Of those still alive, they said, most will eventually succumb to the lack of food in the snow-covered mountains where they had fled. Their relatives begged the West for help.
Geyush Gasanov, the deputy mayor of Khojaly, said that Armenian troops surrounded the town after 7 pm on Thursday. They were accompanied by light tanks.
”We thought that they would just bombard the village, as they had in the past, and then retreat. But they attacked, and our defence force couldn’t do anything against their tanks.”
Other survivors described how they had been fired on repeatedly on their way through the mountains to safety.
“For two days, we crawled most of the way to avoid the gunfire,” Shukru Aslanov said. His daughter was killed in the battle for Khojaly, and his brother and son died on the road.
Ramiz Mahmedov, a farmer, said that his wife was shot in both legs and had bled to death near the hilltop where I saw a litter of corpses. Others said that whenever they tried to leave the forest refuge, the Armenians would fire and drive them back again.
Reports of other atrocities abound, though they are hard to verify. The eyes of one dead man appeared to have been gouged out, although this could have been the result of a bullet through the head. The bitter cold has been the other main killer. In an improvised hospital train at Agdam station, a boy of 13 from Khojaly, Boris Hamidov, described how he had watched from the edge of the forest as his mother was taken prisoner. He spent three days in the mountains with nothing to eat.
Every Azerbaijani refugee from Khojaly I interviewed believed that Soviet troops had been involved in the mass killings. A group of Soviet deserters from the 366 Motorised Infantry Regiment said on Azerbaijan television that they had been ordered to fight for the Armenians, but when Russian journalists had interviewed them a week earlier, they had expressed their fears of “being drawn into a conflict”. The Azerbaijani government has repeatedly accused Soviet troops of involvement, possibly in the attempt to find excuses for the serious military defeat, one which could threaten the survival of President Mutalibov.
Part of the reason for the Armenian successes in the ongoing civil war lie in their better organisation, discipline and training. They have almost certainly bought most of their equipment from Soviet soldiers in return for dollars provided by Armenian diaspora. On the Azerbaijani side, the disorganisation of their forces is very apparent in Agdam, their headquarters for the eastern side of Karabakh. Different armed groups seem to obey different commanders. If and when Soviet 366 Motorised Infantry withdraws through Agdam on its way to Ganja, they will have to face Azerbaijani forces who have already taken up positions to supervise the pullout. In view of the tension, the possibility of a clash with the Russians now seems high.
Publication date 03/02/1992
Courtesy of Karabagh Truths platform
