Azerbaijanis spread propaganda under a veil of trade

February 25, 2012 - 11:44 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Armenian community in Prague, Czech Republic, gave a proper response to the event organized by Azerbaijanis on the 20th anniversary of the “Khojalu massacre”.

Azerbaijan’s embassy, with support of Azerbaijani businessmen and Heydar Aliyev Foundation organized an event on February 24 on a Prague square dedicated to the so-called “Khojalu genocide”. Organizers of the event placed a tent in the square with Azerbaijan’s flag beside it. The event aimed at spreading Azerbaijan’s position on Khojalu events, says the report received by PanARMENIAN.Net

During the event free foodstuff was distributed in the tent and Azeri souvenirs and carpets were being sold. In addition to propaganda materials, the tent also hosted restaurant advertisements, as the event supporters demanded. Sponsors also insisted that the organizers get a permission qualifying it as an ad and trade event and not a propaganda action.

The report says that 6-7 students in the tent were distributing propaganda materials to passers-by. The Armenian community in Czech Republic could not remain indifferent to such initiative of Azerbaijanis. From the very beginning of Azeri action, Armenian were spreading Czech-language leaflets to passers-by refuting Azerbaijan’s misinformation. Coming as a surprise for Azerbaijanis, Armenian activists entered the very tent and distributed their brochures inside as well.

Armenian activists spread a total of 300 leaflets and 50 brochures.

Ambassador of Turkey to Czech Republic, Cihad Erginay also arrived on the scene. The ambassador’s speech was suddenly disturbed by a rally of Krishna supporters that passed by with loud drum-roll and singing.

Military operation in Khojalu

The events in Khojalu, which led to the deaths of civilians, were the result solely of political intrigues and power struggle in Azerbaijan. The real reasons are most convincingly reflected in the accounts of Azerbaijanis themselves — as participants in and eyewitnesses of what happened — as well as of those who know the whole inside story of the events in Baku. Khojalu, along with Shushi and Agdam, was one of the main strongholds from which Stepanakert, the capital of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, was shelled continuously and mercilessly for the three winter months of 1991/92 with artillery, missiles and launchers used for targeting cities. Knocking out the weapon emplacements in Khojalu and thus freeing the airport were the only way for the Nagorno Karabakh Republic to ensure the physical survival of its population condemned by Azerbaijan to complete annihilation. The daily shelling of Stepanakert from nearby Khojalu took the lives of hundreds of peaceful inhabitants — women, children and old people.

Then-President of Azerbaijan, Ayaz Mutalibov, has stated that “the assault on Khojaly was not a surprise attack”. In an interview in 1992 with the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta he emphasized that “a corridor was kept open by the Armenians for people to leave”. However, a column of civilians was fired on by armed units of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan on the approaches to the Agdam district border, a fact later confirmed by Ayaz Mutalibov, who linked this criminal act to attempts by the opposition to remove him from power, and blamed it entirely for what happened. In his interview with the Russian magazine, Novoye Vremya, Mutalibov stated that “the shooting of the Khojalu residents was obviously organized by someone to take control in Azerbaijan”.

According to Azerbaijani journalist M. Safarogly, “Khojalu occupied an important strategic position. The loss of Khojalu was a political fiasco for Mutalibov”.

Furthermore, there is a statement by an Azerbaijani journalist, Arif Yunusov, which clearly states: “The town and its inhabitants were deliberately sacrificed for a political purpose — to prevent the Popular Front of Azerbaijan from coming to power”. In this case, though, the Azerbaijanis themselves are named as the perpetrators of the tragedy.

It is already obvious for everybody that the «genocide» of Azerbaijanis in Khojalu is a myth created still by Heydar Aliyev and taken up by his throne-successor, Aliyev-junior, in order to draw the international community's attention away from the massacre of Armenians in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, and many other populated-by-Armenians settlements, as well as to conceal the political, humanitarian, military, economic, and other penal offences of the Azerbaijani leadership against Armenian civilians and against its own people.