“POLITICAL SCIENTISTS AGAINST
THE POLICY OF XENOPHOBIA OF THE HEAD OF THE AZERBAIJANI STATE. WHO IS BURIED – AS A MATTER
OF FACT – IN GUBA?”
Dr. Hayk Kotanjian
The proposal to publish the address
of Political Science Association of Armenia was made by its Chairman,
Hayk Kotanjian, Doctor of Political Sciences (RF), Distinguished Visiting
Faculty at INSS, NDU (US). The following is the text
of the address:
ADDRESS TO THE PRESIDENT OF
THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF AZERBAIJAN REGARDING THE PROPOSAL TO
EXAMINE THE DISCOVERED BURIAL SITE IN GUBA - AIMING FOR ITS OBJECTIVE
SCIENTIFIC IDENTIFICATION
Recently, the Azerbaijani
mass media has engaged in the dissemination of information on plans to build a
memorial to the genocide victims on the mass burial site in Guba, a town in northern Azerbaijan, initiated by the Heydar
Aliyev Foundation.[1]
The construction of the memorial started in 2010 in compliance with the order of
the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.[2] This
fact is becoming a point for political manipulation targeting an escalation of
xenophobia and cultivating anti-Armenian sentiment. As a result of the visits
at the given burial site by the President of Azerbaijan interspersed with
Armenophobic comments, it is becoming a visiting site for foreign delegations in
accordance with official state protocol.[3]
Meanwhile, in terms of contradictory information on the examination of the
cemetery, the very fact of burial and the objectivity of its identification
requires international scientific review. The neighbouring country authorities’
official version actively circulating over the burial site is that the remains
belong to the victims of the genocide allegedly committed in 1918 by the Armenians
against the Jews living in Guba at that time. However, as the documents of the
Central State Historic Archive of Russia attest, at that time, relations
between the Armenians and the Jews were marked by exceptional friendliness and
mutual trust: cases were observed when the Jews, in order to avoid persecution within
the Russian Empire, expressed a “strong will to adopt Christianity according to
the Armenian rite,” some of whom, thereby, under the cover of the Armenian
Apostolic Church, besides protection from persecutions in Russia’s territory were
also given an opportunity to covertly maintain their identity as well.[4]
Before the campaign for
engaging the Jewish Diaspora organizations in the political manipulation over
the discovered remains there appeared a version that the discovered remains
belong to Muslims. “Anthropological studies have confirmed that these people
are Muslims,” according to an Azerbaijani source, Maisa Rahimova, the head of
the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
of Azerbaijan said. She confirmed that the discovered burial site was evidence
of atrocities committed by the Armenians in Guba in 1918.”[5] In these terms, Dr. Asker Aliyev, PhD in
History, having participated in the expedition attests to the fact that “among
a great number of skulls and child’s bones only 35 undamaged skeletons were
found. No hair, remnants of clothes or things were found in the pits.”[6] Namely, the
Azerbaijani participant of the expedition affirms that there are not any
archaeological facts which could be indicative of relevant
religious-confessional features of the buried people. Thus, the version of
Muslim victims which has no archaeological grounds is released. The given
unproven hypothesis was adapted with time to the version of victims from the
Jewish inhabitants of Guba. Lately, information was made public about the visit
at the mentioned mass burial site by the delegation of the Council of Representatives
of the Jewish Institutes of France which was on a visit to Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, there are also
other versions explaining the discovered burial site. In the view of the president
of the NAS of Azerbaijan, the remains discovered in Guba may be the result of
both a mass destruction of people and an epidemic.[7] The
authoritative “Britannica Encyclopaedia,” in the article “Azerbaijan,” refers to the 1918 expedition
of Turkish forces of Nuri Pasha fighting their way forward with the locals to Baku which in September of the
same year ended with a massacre of thousands of Baku Armenians.[8] As
follows from the Turkish sources, Khalil Pasha having participated in the seizure
of Baku confesses in his memoirs that the atrocities of Nuri Pasha against the
Armenians, mass executions and massacres stirred up the resentment of the
German officers serving in the Turkish army who described the actions of the
Turkish command as “a mass massacre of Armenians,” and unwilling to be involved
in it they resigned and returned to Tiflis.[9] The people
of Guba could become victims of this military expedition during which in August
of 1918 the Turkish forces seized Guba inhabited mostly by non-Turkic peoples of
different faiths: Lezgins, Khinaligs, Krizes, Budugs (Muslims); Armenians and
Udins (Christians); Mountain Jews (Judaists); Tats (Muslims, Christians,
Judaists); and Molokans. [10]
The “Guban” impulse of
xenophobia in relation to the Armenians, endeavouring to manipulatively involve
the Jewish Diaspora in the process of intensifying anti-Armenian sentiment, as evidenced
by the Azerbaijani sources, is set by the head of our neighbouring state, whose
order to build a memorial of the genocide virtually canonizes the unverified
version concerning the culprits of mass death of people buried in the excavated
graves in the north of Azerbaijan as well as their ethnic confessional features.
These days, the policy of stirring up anti-Armenian sentiment among the
Azerbaijani people is becoming more and more evident, especially after the
cynical acquittal and rewarding of the murderer of his sleeping colleague
during the NATO training program, which aroused the indignation and criticism
of leaders of numerous states and international organizations.[11] The
policy of xenophobia in reference to the Armenian nation, widely cultivated by
the head of the Azerbaijani state, who publicly announced to the world that
Armenians as the enemies of Azerbaijan, not even being squeamish about
falsifying the genuine history of the relationship between the nations,
including the Armenians and the Jews, is now trying to draw the international community
into the orbit of political manipulation.[12]
In January 2012, Professor
Levon Yepiskoposyan, Doctor of Biological Sciences, aiming to academically establish
the truth about the Guba mass graves, sent a letter to the President of the NAS
of Azerbaijan, Academician Mahmud Kerimov. Professor Yepiskopsyan, as the Academic
Head of the Group of Human Genetics of the Institute of Molecular Biology of the NAS of the Republic of Armenia and as the President of the
Armenian Anthropological Society made a proposal to initiate a qualified
international expert review of the human remains found in Guba. Unfortunately,
up to this day that letter has received no responded.
In assistance to its
colleague, in his address to the President of the NAS of Azerbaijan, the Political
Science Association of Armenia feels compelled to render to the international
community the full text of Professor Yepiskopsyan’s letter seeking an objective
expert examination of facts aimed at unveiling the truth and to put an end to
the xenophobic speculations on Guba burial site.
PROFESSOR YEPISKOPSYAN’S
LETTER TO M. K. KERIMOV,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
Yerevan
11 January 2012
To Academician M. Kerimov,
President of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Azerbaijan
Honorable Mr. Kerimov!
Once again I am requesting
you to initiate a joint examination of human remains found recently in the mass
grave in the north-western part of Azerbaijan to be conducted by Azerbaijani
and Armenian experts (with possible involvement of experts from other
countries).
What I mean is the discovery
of the two wells with buried bodies in Guba town in April 2007. At that time
Professor M. Rahimova, the head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the
National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Azerbaijan, announced that “the
anthropological studies confirm that those people were Muslims.” In your turn,
on 18 April 2007, you declared that Azerbaijani scientists were to
carry out a preliminary expert review of the remains found. It was also noted
by you that the “remains found in Guba might be either the result of a mass
massacre of people, or an epidemic.” That was a pure academic evaluation of the
problem, and relevant experts were to be charged with its solution.
Unfortunately, the results of
the expected research, if they actually were carried out, were not published.
Instead, some people, very far from of the academic science, undertook the
political exploitation of this topic. Without any grounds the remains found
were ascribed to the culprits of the punitive acts by the Baku Council, namely
to Hamazasp’s unit, and as for the graves, depending on situation, they were
acknowledged either Azeri, or Jewish, or Lezgin.
Today guests hosted in Azerbaijan are led to the graves found,
and they are told about “the Armenians’ atrocities towards the Azerbaijanis.”
On 30 December 2009, the president of the Azerbaijani Republic issued a decree on the
construction of the Genocide Memorial Complex in Guba. This order by the Head
of the state formally legitimated the politically engaged version of the cause
of the people’s death, which was neither verified by independent experts, nor
sustained by scientific research.
On 10 February 2010, I addressed to you and the Head of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the
National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan with a proposal to let our
experts participate in the joint anthropological and genetic examination of the
remains found in Guba. Alas, there was no answer.
We have all the grounds to
presume that this very examination of the human remains found in Guba either
was not carried out, or its results were not made public. Taking into account
the consequence of future politicization of that problem, I again turn to you
requesting to allow our specialists-anthropologists and genetics, highly
experienced in the world’s leading laboratories, take their part in the
examination of the remains found in Guba. I am quite sure that the results
(whatever they may be) of an impartial joint scientific research will unveil
the genuine cause and circumstances of the people’s tragic mass death which
took place almost a century ago.
Yours faithfully,
Levon Yepiskoposyan,
Doctor
of Biological Sciences,
Academic Head of the Group of the Human Genetics of the
Institute of Molecular Biology
of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia,
President of the Armenian
Anthropological Community.
[1] “Французские евреи испытали ужас от массового захоронения в Губе”. 27 октября 2012 АзерТАдж: - http://news.day.az/politics/363021.html.
[2] Французские евреи сравнили массовое захоронение в
Губе с музеями Холокоста. Aze.az. 27 октября 2012: - http://aze.az/news_francuzskie_evrei_sravnil_83886.html
[3] “Президент посетил место захоронения жертв геноцида в Губе”. AZE.az, 18 сентября 2009: -
“Делегация Ирака
посетила массовое захоронение жертв геноцида в Губе”: -http://vesti.az/news.php?id=120848
“Группа депутатов и журналистов
посетила в Губе место массового захоронения жертв армянского геноцида”,
azeri.ru, 31 марта 2009 : - http://azeri.ru/papers/news-azerbaijan/42414/
“Молодежь Литвы посетила место
массового захоронения жертв геноцида в Губе”, ilk10.az, 28 Авг. 2012: -
[4] “Почему и как Российские евреи принимали
христианство по армянскому обряду (1910-1915гг.)”. Документы и материалы Центрального Государственного Исторического Архива России. Подборка.
Составитель и автор введения академик НАН РА Вардгес Микаелян, Ереван, “Наири”
1999.
[5] “Комиссия, исследовавшая массовое захоронение в
Губе, подтвердила принадлежность останков жертвам геноцида азербайджанцев в
1918 году”. Day.az, 13 апреля 2007: -
http://news.day.az/politics/76285.html.
[6] Там же. “: - http://news.day.az/politics/76285.html
[7] “Махмуд Керимов: «Пока рано делать выводы по выявленному массовому захоронению в Губе”: -
http://news.day.az/politics/76866.html.
[8] «Allied with the advancing Turkish
army, in September 1918 the Azerbaijani nationalists secured their capital, Baku, and engaged in a
massacre of the Armenians.» Independent
Azerbaijan, Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/46781/Azerbaijan/44298/Russian-suzerainty.
[9] Halil Pasa, Ittihat ve Terakki’den Cumhuriyet’e
Bitmiyen Savas, Istanbul, 1997, ss. 227-230.
[10] Sevket
Sureyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam, Istanbul, 1997,
ss. 310-321
“BAKU
EXPEDITION OF 1917–1918: A STUDY OF THE OTTOMAN POLICY TOWARDS THE CAUCASUS.”
CHAPTER IV: THE BAKU OPERATION BY CAUCASUS ISLAM ARMY (JUNE 1918-OCTOBER 1918)”
by YALÇIN MURGUL, the Department of History Bilkent University, Ankara,
September 2007, p. 113-209: - http://www.thesis.bilkent.edu.tr/0003428.pdf.
[11] “President Obama is deeply concerned by today’s announcement that the President of Azerbaijan has pardoned Ramil Safarov following his return from Hungary”. The White House. Office of the Press Secretary. Statement by NSC Spokesman Tommy Vietor on Azerbaijan’s Decision to Pardon Ramil Safarov, August 31, 2012: -
[12] “First, our
main enemies are Armenians of the world…”. Ilham Aliev, President of
Azerbaijan, CLOSING SPEECH
BY ILHAM ALIYEV AT THE CONFERENCE ON THE RESULTS OF THE THIRD YEAR INTO THE “STATE
PROGRAM ON THE SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF DISTRICTS FOR 2009-2013”, 28
FEBRUARY 2012: - http://en.president.az/articles/4423
