2022-01-20

Azerbaijan remembers Black January tragedy - Embassy's Press Release

PR/001/2022
 
Press Release of the Embassy of Republic of Azerbaijan on the occasion of 20 January – National Mourning Day
 
January 20, 2022 marks the 32nd anniversary of the Black January tragedy, military invasion and indiscriminate killing of civilians in the city of Baku by the Soviet troops on January 19-20, 1990. In response to the rising national independence movement, the Soviet leadership ordered some 26000 troops equipped with heavy military equipment such as tanks, in an operation called "Strike" (Udar), to storm the city of Baku. The heavy-handed crackdown resulted in indiscriminate killing of some 137 civilians with more than 800 injured and many others went missing. The Soviet army also attacked the state TV building, cutting off the power supply in an attempt to prevent the dissemination of news to the international community.

The day the tragedy took place later came to be known as Black January or Black Saturday, widely commemorated in Azerbaijan and by Azerbaijani communities around the world. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis visit the Martyrs Lane, where the victims of Black January lay buried, to pay respects to the victims. 20 January is a national mourning day in Azerbaijan with nationwide commemorations taking place and the national flag flying at half-mast over the public buildings and diplomatic missions abroad. Though it was a tragic and sad day, the 20 January events are also considered a milestone on the road to Azerbaijan’s independence from the Soviet Union. It weakened the Soviet rule in Azerbaijan and led to the regaining of independence of Azerbaijan on October 18, 1991.

In its report dedicated to the Black January, Human Rights Watch notes: "Indeed, the violence used by the Soviet Army on the night of January 19–20 was so out of proportion to the resistance offered by Azerbaijanis as to constitute an exercise in collective punishment. ............the punishment inflicted on Baku by Soviet soldiers may have been intended as a warning to nationalists, not only in Azerbaijan, but in the other Republics of the Soviet Union.

The Wall Street Journal editorial of January 4, 1995 stressed that the then Soviet leader Gorbachev chose to use violence against "independence-seeking Azerbaijan."
 
In 2007, The Honourable Peter Mackay, then Foreign Minister of Canada, sent a letter to the Federation of Azerbaijani Societies of Canada on the occasion of the commemoration of the 20 January tragedy. He remarked that the historical notes of the tragedy illustrate that armless civilians were massacred by security forces of the former Soviet Union. Also written in the letter he said, "These events are one of the black pages of Azerbaijani history. The victims of the January 20th event, who demonstrated heroism for the independence of the country, should not be forgotten.”
 
 
January 20, 2022
OTTAWA

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