Azerbaijan remembers

On the night of Jan. 19-20, 1990, Azerbaijan was invaded by 26,000 Soviet troops. After blowing up the national television transmission block and imposing an immediate informational blockade on the entire republic, the Red Army rolled its tanks through the streets of Azeri capital Baku indiscriminately firing at everything that moved. Official count puts the death toll at 140 civilians killed, with more than 700 wounded. The images of streets full of massacred civilians were reminiscent of the Red Army’s crimes perpetrated against civilians in Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968.

In a report titled “Black January in Azerbaijan,” Human Rights Watch stated that the violence used by the Soviet Army on the night of Jan. 19-20 constituted an “exercise in collective punishment.”

These tragic events known to the world as the “Black January” marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet rule in Azerbaijan, and eventually caused cracks in the foundations of the Soviet statehood. Twenty-seven years later, there is no sign of “Black January” declining in significance. Millions of Azerbaijanis and friends of Azerbaijan visit Martyrs’ Alley in the Azeri capital Baku on Jan. 20 to pay tribute to the memory of the victims who laid their lives for the country’s independence. My family and I are joining the U.S. Azeris Network in commemorating the tragedy and its victims, and we ask for your support by also commemorating the victims with a minute of silence. Mohammad Nosrati, Katy