Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the massacres of Armenians in Baku: Aliyev aims to ethnically cleanse Artsakh, expert says

Armenian expert Tatev Hairapetyan wrote on her Telegram channel: "Today marks the 33rd anniversary of the massacres perpetrated against Armenians in Baku. From January 13 to 19, 1990, more than 200,000 Armenians left Baku due to the violence. Baku became a continuation of the tragic events in Sumgait and Ganja. Everything was repeated according to the same scenario, calls for the extermination of Armenians, followed by the pre-planned actions of the marauders. Armed with the addresses of Armenian homes and a city map, the Azerbaijani marauders quickly found Armenian houses and brutally murdered individuals for their national identity."

In this context, Komsmolskaya Pravda reports: "The assembled crowd had lists with addresses of Armenians, and Baku exploded... An anti-Armenian hysteria had intensified in the city, with calls to unite against a common enemy ringing out." On the eve of the massacre of Baku's Armenian community, on January 12, a National Defense Council (Milli Müdafia Şurası MMŞ) was formed under the program of the People's Front, supposedly to be dispatched to the military conflict zone in Nagorno-Karabakh, but it remained in Baku. Everything was premeditated and pre-planned to cleanse Baku of Armenians.

Years later, in 2012, the vice president of MMŞ, Nuraddin Khojai, confessed during an episode of the Azerbaijani ANS TV program Ən Yeni Tarix, dedicated to the events of January 1990, that the People's Front indeed had a clear plan to cleanse Baku of Armenians: "Removing Armenians from Baku was justified; they were a slow-acting bomb... Armenians posed a danger to us..." It is noteworthy that 33 years later, by blockading the Lachin corridor, Aliyev is saying the same thing: their aim is to remove Armenians from Artsakh. They did not succeed through the 44-day war; now they are trying through other methods. The goal remains the same, the methods are variable. Unfortunately, we do not learn lessons from our history, which is why we face new trials once again."