The script of the documentary film / karabakhrecords.info /
This film is an accusation. A charge of genocide perpetrated in one of the villages of Nagorno-Karabakh, Maragha. Mrs. Caroline Cox, Vice Speaker of the House of Lords of Great Britain who went there two days after the tragedy, called it a contemporary Golgotha several times repeated.
It is the New Maragha, inhabited by only 60 families, survivors of the contemporary Golgotha who remained living in Nagorno-Karabakh. Maragha was one of the most prosperous Armenian villages in the Martakert region, rich in renowned vineyards.
The oil towers rubbed shoulders and an oil pipeline passed through the village … Maragha was not far from the administrative center, Mir Bashir, oil town. Nobody would have thought that this dangerous neighborhood would become fatal for this village.
The village of Maragha was founded on the territory of an ancient Armenian dwelling. In the middle of the 19th century Armenian immigrants from Persia settled there. In the early 1990s, the population of Maragha reached 6,500 people, including survivors of the massacres and deportees following the Armenian pogroms of Azerbaijani cities from 1988 to 1991.
This is the path that the inhabitants of Maragha often took in their life of yesteryear. They reached the fork and then turned right to continue towards the village. Now they can not take this path anymore, because their village is in occupation and remains beyond the border cutting the present of the past. What they can do now is to contemplate their village from afar.
Spring 1992 was the most active period of Azerbaijani aggression against the Nagorno-Karabakh blockaded. Parallel to the collapse of the Soviet state, all the military potential of the Soviet army located in the region, barracks, equipment, etc., passed into the hands of the army of the new Republic of Azerbaijan, bands Azerbaijanis, the National Front and the detachment of the militia specializing in paramilitary operations.
At the same time the disarmament of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh was continuing. On 19 March 1991 the newspaper “Hayastani Hanrapetoutyun” published data on the distribution of arms by the Transcaucasian Department of Military Equipment and Equipment Supply of the Ministry of the Interior between the Soviet Republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh was experiencing a real humanitarian catastrophe. Blockade, shortage of electricity, water and food products, epidemics … Bombings, hundreds of victims. Armenian villages emptied, Armenian refugees by the thousands, prisoners of war, and hundreds missing, following the cruel operation called “Koltso”. Communications cut with the outside world, war. This is the reality in which Nagorno-Karabakh lived in the years 1991-1992. But for the inhabitants of Maragha and for those of many other villages the war had begun long before: after the Sumgait pogroms of 1988.
All the villages of Nagorno-Karabakh, bordering on Azerbaijan, were regularly attacked by gangs of robbers. Unpunished assassinations of the inhabitants of these villages or their kidnapping, hostage-taking, torture and humiliation, cattle removal, theft, looting and massacres … Terrorist policy conducted by the Azerbaijani authorities and obvious support of the bandits by the Kremlin and personally by Mikhail Gorbachev. Silence of the international community … But nothing could force the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to leave their homes. They continued to live and work and were forced to take weapons in their hands to defend their right to live and work in their homeland. In the summer of 1994 the Secretary of State of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mrs. Lala Gadjieva declared: “For more than a hundred days we were bombarding Stepanakert with different positions, but the Armenians did not want to leave their homes”.
On the night of February 26, 1992 the village of Maragha was attacked. This unprecedented attack was distinguished by its strength and organization.
The testimonies of the inhabitants of Maragha remove all ambiguity and confirm that the crimes committed on the tenth of April were scheduled for the 26th of February.
On the night of 26 February 1992 another crime was committed by Azerbaijan near Aghdam, but this time against its own citizens who had left Khodjaly by the humanitarian corridor left by the Armenians. There is a very close connection between these two crimes.
The only airport in Nagorno-Karabakh, one of the military positions, as well as one of the largest military bases of the Azerbaijani army, was in Khodjaly. For Nagorny Karabakh in full blood the suppression of this position and the breakthrough of the air blockade were of fatal importance. Azerbaijan was well aware of the operation that the Nagorno-Karabakh defense forces were preparing for the existence of the humanitarian corridor left by the Armenians for the inhabitants of Khodjaly, who remained at the heart of the military actions. The inhabitants who had been able to leave Khodjaly were then shot cynically near Aghdam by their own compatriots.
The political authorities of Azerbaijan thus made a double mistake with the sole purpose of compromising Armenians and carrying out anti-Armenian propaganda not only within their own country and in the region, but also throughout the world.
The target not being reached the Azerbaijani authorities undertook a second attack. A small group of inhabitants of Maragha defended the village. Contemporary Golgotha occurred on April 10 early in the morning.
Maragha was doomed. Maragha was sentenced to death because of two factors: anti-Armenian politics and oil interests. These two factors were at the very origin of the formation and development of the Azerbaijani state since 1918. In April 1992 the Armenian population of Maragha was sacrificed to the global energy interests, for one reason only to be in an oil zone.
One of the members of the presidency of the Supreme Council of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 to 1995, Mr. Valéry Ghazaryan mentions this last factor in his article published in the monthly “Aniv”, number 2, 2010. “The problem and the conflict had ceased. to be of local importance, because Armenians should not be allowed to exercise control over the oil town of Mir Bashir, “he writes.
For several hours in a row the Azerbaijani pseudo-soldiers were thrown into a bloody bacchanal. But around midnight the village was released. The people who came to liberate him and the miraculously rescued inhabitants discovered a hell on earth. The next day the victims were buried.
We will find few similar episodes in Maragha throughout the history of humanity. All the cruelty and hate accumulated after the genocides of Baku and Sumgait, the resistance of the Armenians not wanting to leave their lands, the intention to exterminate the Armenians as soon as possible and to occupy their territories provoked the tragedy of Maragha in the form of unimaginable tortures, assassinations, humiliations … To spare the viewer even today, after 18 years, we will not present the most cruel cases of torture and assassination of old people, women and children. But even eyewitness accounts can be unbalanced.
Razmik and Sveta Movsisyan, husband and wife. Their destiny strikes everyone with fear. The spouses were taken hostage, the deputy director of the prison of Mir Bashir held them on a leash, like dogs, and forced them to move on all fours. He did not give them food. Then the executioners deprived of human traits killed the woman and tried to feed her husband …
The fate of the Poghossyan family is no better. Sisters Zarine and Karine were taken hostage with their grandchildren. Their husbands are still missing.
Alvina Baghdasaryan, teacher. She was tied with a rope against the chair, tortured, humiliated and burned alive.
The village of Maragha, April 10, 1992, is the story of families who have been exterminated or taken hostage. Manya Aghadjanyan was taken hostage with his three sons. Only one of his sons managed to escape. He told how his brother Gaguik died.
Oulyana and Liana Barseghyan, two sisters of 6 and 8 years old. They were separated from their parents and have been held hostage for more than 2 years.
The entire Aghadjanyan family was taken hostage and exterminated.
On April 10, 1992, in the village of Maragha in the Martakert region of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a genocidal act was carried out. People were killed solely for their national belonging. Those who escaped death were held hostage with their entire family, including children. The children were separated from their parents and they were held in different places. This tragic day of contemporary Golgotha 50 out of 118 villagers were killed, more than 60 were taken hostage. A tragic perspective of torture, humiliation and an uncertain future was emerging for them. Those who were subsequently released had, for the most part, psychic disabilities and lived only one or two years after release.
According to eyewitnesses, one in ten Azerbaijani soldiers possessed not only a firearm, but also a yatagan, a saber used by Turkish executioners in the early 20th century to carry out the genocide of the Armenian people.
The Maragha massacres proved that the leaders of Azerbaijan tended to exaggerate the religious aspect of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Unable to practice any religion, the Azerbaijani authorities tried to attribute a religious reason to the bloody massacres. The Azerbaijani barbarians left cuts or burns in the form of crosses on the bodies of Armenians living or killed to show that they, the Azerbaijanis, were in the front line to fight against the infidels, giaours. In fact, it is the desire to solidarize the Muslim world around their crimes that hides behind all this. The Azerbaijani authorities are trying to disseminate in the Muslim world the slogan “Death to Armenians” chanted in Sumgait, for its support in pursuing the Turkish policy of the Armenian genocide.
Maragha is yet another crime against humanity accomplished by Azerbaijan that has never been punished or sentenced. The efforts of Baroness Caroline Cox and the organization “Solidarité Chrétienne Internationale” to draw the attention of the press and the international community to the Maragha massacres collided with the solidarity of all those who shared oil interests. This solidarity has pushed and still pushes Azerbaijan to continue its aggressive anti-Armenian policy.
On one of the well-known social networks Azerbaijanis have posted a video that shows the barbarities exerted by the tormentors on April 10, 1992 in Maragha. Criminals who executed elderly people, women and children were subsequently decorated by the Azerbaijani state. The glorification of the executioners and their recycling into national heroes is becoming a tradition in present-day Azerbaijan where the assassination of the Armenian in the middle of the night is a feat and the destruction of the Armenian cultural heritage – a national policy.
The New Maragha is a Karabakh village like the others. It is here that many former inhabitants of Maragha, deprived of their little homeland, started a new life. Most of them have no news of their loved ones or compatriots taken hostage 18 years ago. The memory of contemporary Golgotha is embodied in this modest monument. Flowers are deposited here in memory of the victims of April 10, 1992 whose graves remained with the old Maragha. This film is a tribute to dozens of residents of Maragha tortured or massacred, who remained forever hostage …
Such crimes as Maragha’s do not have a prescription. This film is an appeal to the international community, a reminder that the impunity of crimes against humanity entails their repetition. The Armenians of Nagorny Karabakh paid with their blood and thousands of lives for their freedom and their right to build their own independent state. The tragedy of Maragha is convincing proof that oil is the only value for Azerbaijan and Armenophobia is his true religion. Both politicians who insist on the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan and the oil companies who turn a blind eye to the crimes of Azerbaijan in favor of their profits must know this.
Maragha is still waiting for her legal and political assessment.
ORIGINE SOURSES- karabakhrecords.info/french_maragha.html
