The Khojaly Appendix

Khojaly Appendix

Quotes from independent sources including “Azeri” reporters, survivors, even their presidents Mutalibov and Heydar Aliev, have confirmed that the whole thing was nothing more than a smear campaign against the Armenians. The unscrupulous Thomas Goltz also licked up the filth he had thrown at the Armenians, this time blaming the media created, classic “enemy” of the west, the Russians.

Heydar Aliyev, (Aliev I, the founder of the only “Azeri” dynasty in history, succeeded after his death by his warmongering whelp Ilham) the president of fake “Azerbaijan” from 1993 to 2003 admitted in April 1992, just a month after the insignificant Khojaly incident that “The bloodshed will do us good. We shouldn't interfere in the course of events”. (Bilik-Duniasi News Agency)

Ayaz Mutalibov the “Azeri” president in time of the event that led to his fall said in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta: “however, the Armenians had left a corridor for the escape of the people.” (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 2, 1992) And in another in Novoye Vremia Magazine he confirmed his statement made nine days earlier: “It was evident that some people had organized the shooting for shifting the power in Azerbaijan”. (Novoye Vremia, March 6, 2001)

Elman Mamedov, the mayor of Khojaly: “We knew that the corridor was left for the exit of the peaceful people”. (Russkaya Misl 03.03.1992, quoting Bakinskie Rabochiy newspaper)

M. Safaroghli, an Azerbaijani journalist admits: “Khojaly was located in an important strategic position. Losing control over Khojaly would mean a political fiasco for Mutalibov”. (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, February, 1993)

Arif Yunusov, “Azeri” human rights activist thought: “The officials in Baku did not try to hide their awareness, including Ayaz Mutalibov the president of Azerbaijan …the offense on Khojaly was not a surprise” (Ogoniok Magazine, N 14-15, 1992). “The town itself and its population are willingly sacrificed for the political purposes, i.e., prevent the National Front of Azerbaijan from coming to power”. (Zerkalo, July, 1992)

R. Gajiyev, member of the Operating Committee of Aghdam Branch of NFA (National Front of Azerbaijan): “We could have helped the people of Khojaly because we had the resources and means. However, the authorities of the republic wanted to demonstrate to the people of Azerbaijan that they are not able to do so and ask for the assistance of the CIS Army and with the help of the latter also neutralize the opposition”. (Izvestia, April, 1992)

Tamerlan Karayev, the former Chairman of the Supreme Council of “Azerbaijan” testifies: “The tragedy was perpetrated by the Azeri authorities”, in particular, “some of the top officials”. (Mukhtalifat, April 28, 1992)

Megapolis-Express wrote: “It is impossible not to admit that if the National Front of Azerbaijan had in fact defined far-reaching goals, it succeeded in addressing them. Mutalibov is compromised and forced out of his post, the international community is in shock, the Azeris and their brotherly Turks believe in the so-called “genocide of the Azerbaijani people in Khojaly”.” (Megapolis-Express, N17, 1992)

Letter from Eurasia: The Hidden Russian Hand by Thomas Goltz (the scambug with a Turkish wife who invented the Khojaly hoax) Foreign Policy, No. 92 (autumn, 1993), pp. 92-116 doi:10.2307/1149147 This article consists of 25 page(s).

Far from admission to forgery or an attempt to silence his guilty conscience (if he has any) the villain tries to implicate the Russians in the perpetration of the alleged carnage. He does not miss a chance to degrade Armenia to a weak puppet of Russia and attributes the success of the Armenians to ruthless Russian mercenaries alone. Interestingly enough he shuts his muzzle regarding the Afghan mujahedin, Al Qaeda and Chechen terrorists, Ukrainian and other Slavonic mercenaries, etc., used by the “Azeris” against the Armenians nor does he want to remember the Ring Operation where the Russian army helped the “Azeris” to force the peaceful inhabitants of 24 Armenian villages out of their homes, the true beginning of “Azeri” war on Artsakh, a full year before the Khojaly incident scam.

“Finding a smoking gun is difficult, though there are bullet casings lying all around. The most celebrated case to date is that of six Russian nationals who were picked up by Azerbaijani security forces while on a surveillance mission in Karabakh in September 1992… They said they had nothing personal against the citizens of Azerbaijan, but rather had been tempted by cash bonuses offered by Armenians and were fighting in FOREIGN POLICY Karabakh for nothing less than the love of money.

The personal histories of the six, too, seem identical: Sons of typical working-class homes scattered across the Russian steppe, they were all drafted in late 1991, just as the USSR was falling apart and morale in the former Soviet armed forces was at an all-time low. Desertions--especially by non-Russians---grew to an all-time high. I saw many such youths pass through Balm during the late fall of 1991 and spring of 1992, making their way from units in Karabakh to their homes in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.

Finding a smoking gun is difficult, though there are bullet casings lying all around. But these six were Spetmaz, not deserters from their units in Karabakh; they had formed a new unit to fight there after having departed their usual barracks on the base of the Russian 7th Army in Yerevan. It is at that point that the connections become interesting but murky.

According to the testimony of the six before and during their trial, their unit was commanded by a Captain Katanja, reportedly a relative of Major General Nevorov, second in command of the 7th Army. The 7th's chief then was General Theodor Rayut. Rayut is now in charge of all Russian forces based in the Caucasus; his headquarters are in Georgia--a republic currently beset by its own problems with "rogue" Russian soldiers.

According to the trial testimony of the men, in the spring of 1992 Captain Katanja introduced the recruits to a Colonel Jena, a Russian Spetmaz officer who had served in the 366th Motorized Rifle Regiment that had been based in Stepanakert. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia accused that regiment of taking sides according to the political winds blowing from Moscow during the early days of the Karabakh conflict.

The 366th was officially withdrawn from Karabakh after a massacre in the Karabakh town of Khodjali, on February 26, 1992, when up to 1,000 Azeri residents were killed (according to which proof? H.) and other Azeri civilians effectively cleansed from the disputed area (not a word about the Grads that were being fired from Khojaly destroying hospitals, kindergartens, schools and houses, nor Sumgait, Baku, Gandzak, Martunashen, Getashen, Shahoomian, Maragha, etc., massacres, nor mention of 400,000 Armenians “cleansed” from all over “Azerbaijan” before the “Azeris” instigated the war. H.). The Khodjali massacre was a turning point in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, marking the end of what had largely been a guerrilla struggle between inimical neighbors and the beginning of something more like a conventional war between armies. But many points remain unanswered---especially the role of the 366th.

A half-Armenian, half-German photographer traveling with Armenian units on patrol the night of February 25-26, 1992, told me that the participation of dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) of the 366th in the attack on Khodjali was a surprise, if a welcome one for the Armenians; two Turkmen deserters from the 366th I interviewed (why only Turkmen? H.), who escaped to the Azeri town of Agdam with survivors from Khodjali, likewise confirmed that their former unit spearheaded the attack.

Even more bizarre was the grisly aftermath, when fleeing civilians were cut down and then mutilated in the no-man's land between the two sides (you rascal! They were mutilated after February 29 by the “Azeris” to quench Turkish sadism and to prevent their bodies from being recognized, because they were slaughtered Armenian hostages. H.). The Azeris, quite naturally, accused the Armenian forces of perpetrating a massacre; the Armenians replied that their forces had merely flushed the Azeris out of Karabakh and that the subsequent massacre of civilians must have occurred at the hands of the Azeris themselves.

While horrific brutality and the cynical sacrifice of one's own people by both sides (??? H.) are hardly strangers to the Karabakh conflict (are you talking from your rectum or defecating from your muzzle? H.), there is a third possibility: that the massacres and mutilations in the no-man's land were carried out by others determined to make Khodjali a point of no return in the escalation of hatred between the two peoples (aren’t you withholding information, scumbag? Weren’t you present on both shows on February 29 when there were no mutilated bodies and March 2 when they were the 32 or so mutilated corpses of the Armenian hostages? H.).

The evidence for that interpretation is thin, but tantalizing (so why on earth are you concealing vital evidence? H.): Two days after the massacre, Azerbaijani authorities managed to acquire a Russian military helicopter to ferry international journalists to the killing grounds. Before they could set down among hillocks littered with dead bodies, they were engaged by another military helicopter and driven away under fire.

Neither the Azerbaijani nor the Armenian forces operating in the area were known to control such aircraft at the time. So what is left is the strange conclusion that Russians were shooting at--or playing with--other Russians in the sky, possibly to prevent the passengers aboard the first craft from observing the activities of the rogue Russians on the ground. After Khodjali, the 366th was officially removed from Karabakh, but many of its soldiers and officers--as well as most of its equipment--stayed behind.”