Vahan Hovhannisyan: children must understand the power of solidary Armenianhood

PanARMENIAN.Net - It's with great delay that we launched activities to explain what happened in Baku in January 1990. Still, it's better late than never, ARF Dashnaktusyun parliamentary group leader Vahan Hovhannisyan said.



As he stressed upon completion of a meeting with the students of N187 school where he conducted a model lesson on 1990 Armenian pogroms in Baku, "Children have to understand why we were able to resist 1905 and 1918 Baku pogroms, and failed to resist that of 1990. Children must understand the power of solidary Armenianhood."



RA Science and Education Minister Armen Ashotyan, for his part, stated that the initiative gives an opportunity to establish a dialogue between generations, as children must be informed about the history of their nation.



20 years ago the Azerbaijani authorities instigated the Armenian pogroms in Baku. Some 400 Armenians were killed and 200 thousand were exiled in the period of January 13-19, 1990. The exact number of those killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried out into the crimes.



On January 13, a crowd numbering 50 thousand people divided into groups and started "cleaning" the city of Armenians. On January 17, the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign Ministers and European Council to protect Armenians and render assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of U.S. Senators sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns over the violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and called for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.