| Nagorno-karabakh War |
Website Links For War |
Information AboutNagorno-karabakh War |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT NAGORNO-KARABAKH WAR | |
| wars involving armenia | |
| wars involving azerbaijan | |
| nagorno-karabakh | |
The Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict that began in the latter half of 1991 and raged on until 1994 in the Caucasus region between mostly Christian Armenia and its eastern neighbor, predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan . The undeclared war was waged, however, for a small enclave in southwestern Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh , populated by an ethnic Armenian majority. Interethnic fighting between the two broke out shortly after the Armenian Chamber of Deputies of the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to unify the region with Armenia on February 20 1988 . Full-scale fighting erupted in the winter of 1992 and by the end of the war in 1994, the Armenians were in firm control of not only the mountainous region but also held and currently hold approximately 14% of Azerbaijan's territory. A Russian -brokered Cease Fire was signed in 1994 and peace talks have been held since. Still, both sides have been unable to resolve their differences and relations remain tense. ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT See Also: Nagorno-Karabakh The territorial ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh today is still a heavily disputed issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Called Artsakh by Armenians, referring to the name it went by under the rule of Armenians meliks {Link without Title} during the Medieval era, its rich history spans several centuries, although controversy is mired mainly in the aftermath of World War I . Shortly before the Ottoman Empire 's capitulation in the war, the Russian Empire collapsed in November 1917 and fell into the control of the Bolsheviks . The three nations of the Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia , previously under the rule of the Russians, declared their independence and formed the short-lived Transcaucasian Federation . Fighting soon broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in three specific regions: political party who sided with unifying with Armenia and Bolsheviks who seeked closer ties to Azerbaijan so as to placate the region from hostilities. According to British Journalist Thomas De Waal , who wrote a comprehensive study on the conflict, "...both groups were killed or expelled when an Armenian rebellion was brutally put down in March 1920." Two months later, the 11th Soviet Red Army invaded the Caucasus and in November 1920, the three Caucasus republics placed by Russia in the Soviet controlled Transcaucasian Republic . The Bolsheviks created a seven-member committee, the Kavburo , who under the supervision of the future Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin , then the acting Commissar of Nationalities, was tasked to head up matters in the Caucasus. Although the committee voted 4-3 in favor of allocating Karabakh to the newly created Soviet Republic of Armenia, protestations made by Azerbaijani leaders including the Communist Party leader of Azerbaijan Nariman Narimanov and an anti-Soviet rebellion in the Armenian capital Yerevan in 1921 embittered relations between Armenia and Russia. These factors lead the committee to reverse its decision and award Karabakh to Soviet Azerbaijan in 1923 , leaving it with a 94% Armenian population. The capital was moved from Shusha to Khankendi where it was later renamed Stepanakert . There has been speculation that this was a complotted attempt in accordance to the theory of " which is separated by Armenia but belongs to Azerbaijan. Armenia has always refused to recognize this land grant and continued to protest the legality in the ensuing decades under Soviet rule. FEBRUARY 1988: THE KARABAKH ISSUE REVIVED As the new and Glasnost , thus granting more freedom to Soviet citizens. Capitalizing on this, the leaders of National Council of Karabakh voted in favor of unifying the autonomous region with Armenia on February 20 , 1988 . Ethnic strife soon broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in Karabakh. This aggrandizing sentiment galvanized as Armenians began to protest in Yerevan demanding for a reunification with the enclave. In turn, Azeris launched counter-protests in Baku . On 24 February 1988, a direct confrontation between Azerbaijanis and Armenians near Askeran (in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the road Stepanakert - Agdam ) degenerated into a skirmish. During the clashes, which left about 50 Armenians wounded, a local policeman, reportedly an Armenian, shot dead two Azerbaijanis – Bakhtiyar Guliyev, 16 and Ali Hajiyev, 23. On 27 February 1988, while speaking on Central TV , the USSR Deputy Prosecutor General A. Katusev mentioned the nationality of those killed. Within hours, a Pogrom against Armenian residents began in the city of Sumgait, 25 km north of Baku, where many Azerbaijani refugees resided, creating further animosity between the two republics. As the violence escalated, Gorbachev finally decided to send in Soviet Interior troops to Armenia in September 1988. By October 1989 , over 100 people were estimated to have been killed since the revived idea of reunification with Karabakh in February 1988. The issue temporarily absolved as a devastating earthquake hit the Armenian city of Leninakan on December 7 1988 and killed over 25,000 people. Gorbachev's attempts to stabilize the region were to no avail as both sides were equally intransigent. Armenia refused to allow the issue to subside despite concessions made by Gorbachev including a promise of $400 million rubles for the recovery effort in the aftermath of the Leninakan earthquake. Azerbaijan was unwilling to cede any territory to Armenia. Furthermore, the newly formed Karabakh Defense Committee , which comprised of eleven members including the future president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan , were jailed by Moscow officials in the ensuing chaos after the quake. Such actions polarized relations between Armenia and the Kremlin ; Armenians lost faith in Gorbachev and despised him even more in his handling of the earthquake and uncompromising stature in regards to Nagorno-Karabakh. Interethnic strife began to take a toll on the respective populations, forcing most of the Armenians in Azerbaijan to flee back to Armenia and most of the Azeris in Armenia to Azerbaijan. In January 1990 , another pogrom against Armenians in Baku forced Gorbachev to declare a state of emergency and sent MVD troops to restore order. A curfew was established and violent clashes between the soldiers and the surging Azerbaijan Popular Front were common, including one that resulted in the deaths of over 120 Azeris and eight MVD soldiers. In the summer of 1989, Popular Front leaders and their ever-increasing supporters managed to pressure the Azeri SSR to instigate a Railway and Air Blockade against Armenia, effectively crippling Armenia's economy as 85% of the cargo and goods arrived through rail traffic. In turn, Armenia closed the railway to Nakhichevan, thereby strangling the exclave's only link to the rest of the Soviet Union. In the spring of 1991, President Gorbachev held a special referendum called the Union Treaty which would decide on the USSR's future. Newly elected leaders had come into place in the Caucasus including the staunch anti-communist Levon Ter-Petrosyan of Armenia and Ayaz Mutalibov of Azerbaijan. Armenia and several other republics boycotted the referendum (Armenia would hold its own referendum and declared its independence from the USSR on September 21 1991 ); Azerbaijan voted in agreeance to the Treaty. As many Armenians and Azeris in Karabakh began an arms build up (by acquiring weaponry located in caches throughout Karabakh) in order to defend themselves, Mutalibov touted support from Gorbachev in launching a joint military operation (in this case, the Azeri Paramilitary force called the OMON ) in order to disarm Armenian militants in the region. The assault however was perceived by both Soviet officials from the Kremlin and from the Armenian government as a method of intimidating the Armenian populace to giving up their demands for reunification. OPERATION RING Although most media sources commonly refer to the beginning of the war in 1988, actual hostilities involving the Armenian, Azeri, or Russian militaries can be said to have begun with Operation Ring. General Secretary Gorbachev had approved of the operation prior to its commencement and was set to begin on April 10 , 1991. Armored vehicles from the predominantly Azeri 23rd Division of the Soviet 4th Army and the Azeri OMON converged towards the towns of Getashen and Martunashen of the Shaumian region populated primarily by Armenians. Soviet Army officers would use loudspeakers and order villagers to abandon their homes and after a given ultimatum, would shell the town with artillery. Initial resistance by the Armenian Fedayeen , the Arabic derived name given to the irregulars, in the villages was disorganized but proved elusive. Even with the presence of armored vehicles, Armenian militiamen managed to escape capture for several weeks. Allegations of abuse and maltreatment by the Azeri OMON against the civilian populace began to surface: "The OMON raided and looted houses and attacked many of the inhabitants....many were in their eighties and nineties". The claims were then confirmed by media sources. Moscow based Pravda described the tactics as "customs that came from the Dark Ages....Who could conceivably mistake an 82-year-old man for a hit man? Nevertheless, he was riddled with bullets in his own bed". Those who did flee were flown to Stepanakert and subsequently to Armenia. A second military assault was planned on either May 6 or 7, this time in a small town in northern Armenia called Voskepar but was later scrapped as several Russian parliamentary members intervened on Armenia's behalf and traveled to Shaumian to investigate the aftermath of the assault. The presence of Russian officals thus halted any further assaults. However, a week later, hostilities brewed up once more and an estimated 5,000 Armenian inhabitants were deported out of Hadrut and Shusha by the Azeris. As De Waal notes the commencement of "Operation Ring marked the beginning of the open, armed phase of the Karabakh conflict." Azeri political officials defended the use of force and furthermore justified the deportations, going so far as claiming that they were made on a voluntary basis by the Armenian inhabitants of Karabakh. Russian involvement was similarly dubious. By taking a role in Operation Ring, Soviet officials, including those who eventually overthrew Gorbachev, sought to quash the Armenian successionist movement and keep their influence in the region. However, the events were counterproductive to what the operation had originally sought to accomplish. The initial resistance put up by Armenians managed to recruit more irregulars from Armenia and only reinforced the conclusion to Armenians that the only solution to the Karabakh conflict was through an out-right armed conflict. Monte Melkonian , an Armenian-American who had served in revolutionary groups and fought in the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s and would later ascend to be perhaps the most famed commander of the war, argued that Karabakh be 'liberated' and contended that if it remained in Azeri hands, the region of Zangezur would then be annexed by the Azeris and Armenia itself would follow thereafter, concluding "the loss of Artsakh [the Medieval Armenian name of the region] could be the loss of Armenia." SOVIET COLLAPSE AND EARLY WEAPONS ACQUIREMENT As the disintegration of the USSR became a reality for Soviet citizens in the autumn of 1991, both sides sought to acquire weaponry from military caches located throughout Karabakh. The initial advantage tilted in Azerbaijan's favor. During the Cold War , the Soviet military doctrine for the Caucasus had outlined a strategy where Armenia would be a combat zone in the case NATO member Turkey invaded from the west. Thus the Armenian SSR had only three Division s and no Airfields while the Azeri SSR had a total of five divisions and five military airfields. Furthermore, Armenia had approximately 500 Railroad Cars of Ammunition , dwarfing the Azeris' 10,000. Sporadic fighting took place in villages such as Bozluk , Karachinar, in the Shaumian region. As MVD forces began pulling out, they bequeathed the Armenians and Azerbaijanis a vast arsenal of ammunition and stored Armor vehicles. The government forces initially sent by Gorbachev three years earlier, were from other republics of the USSR and hence had no wishes to remain any longer. Most were young and poor Conscript s and many simply sold their weapons to both sides, some even trying to sell Tank s and APC s; with a majority of them being bought by Azeris.. In November 1993 , the Azeri Foreign Ministry reported that they had acquired 286 tanks, 842 armored vehicles, and 386 Artillery pieces in May 1992 . Further evidence also showed that Azerbaijan received substantial military aide and provisions from Iran , Israel , Turkey , and numerous Arab countries. Soldiers in the 4th Red Army in Ganja and the 366th Motorized Regiment in Stepanakert began to help and organize the Azeris and the Armenians, respectively. The Armenian Diaspora also managed to donate a significant amount of money to be sent to Armenia and even managed to push for legislation in the United States Congress to pass a Bill entitled Section 907 in response to Azerbaijan's blockade against Armenia; restricting military aide to Azerbaijan in 1992. While Azerbaijan charged that the Russians initially were helping the Armenians it was believed that "it the Azeri fighters in the region who [were far better equipped with Soviet military weaponry than their opponents." With Gorbachev resigning as President on December 26 , 1991 the remaining republics including the Ukraine and Russia declared their independence and the Soviet Union ceased to exist on December 31 , 1991. This dissolution gave way to any barriers that were keeping Armenia and Azerbaijan from waging a full scale war. One month prior, on November 21 , the Azerbaijani Parliament rescinded Karabakh's status as an Autonomous Oblast and renamed it Stepanakert Khankendi. The following month, on December 10 , a referendum was held in Karabakh, with the local Azeri community boycotting it, the Armenians voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence. Interestingly enough, an Azeri Helicopter carrying a special delegation made up of Russian and Kazakh officials who had constructed a peace deal with the backing of future Russian President Boris Yeltsin , crashed in the hills of Karabakh while en route to finalize the deal, purportedly shot down by Armenian militiamen. THE TRAGEDY AT KHOJALY The withdrawal of the Soviet interior forces from Nagorno-Karabakh in the Caucasus region was only temporary. By February 1992, the former Soviet forces, now consolidated as the CIS , moved in and established its capital at Stepanakert and took up a slightly more active role, incorporating old units including the 366th Motorized Regiment and 4th Army, both which desperately attempted to keep the peace between the warring factions. About 1,400 CIS troops were stationed in the capital of Stepanakert and slated for withdrawl in late Feburary. Officially, the newly created Republic Of Armenia denied any involvement in providing any Weapons , Fuel , Food , or other Logistics to the successionists in Nagorno-Karabakh even though the exact contrary was occurring. Armenia was currently facing a debilitating blockade by the now Republic Of Azerbaijan and pressure coming from all sides, including Turkey which had a close relationship to Azerbaijan. The only land connection Armenia had with Karabakh was through the Lachin corridor between which could only be reached by helicopters; whereas Azerbaijan had the advantage of undisrupted logistical supplies. The only airport that existed in Karabakh was in the small town of Khojaly , about 7 Kilometers north of Stepanakert with an estimated population of 6,000-10,000 people. See Also: Khojaly massacre By late February, Khojaly had largely been encircled. On February 26 , Armenian forces, with the aide armored vehicles in the 366th, mounted an offensive to capture the city of Khojaly. While the circumstances of the reason to take the city is lightly disputed, what is mired in greater debate is what entailed after the successful Armenian offensive. According to the Azeris and the affirmation of other sources including Human Rights Watch and Moscow based human rights organization, Memorial , Armenian forces massacred several hundred Civilians in the town of Khojaly. The town's population had drastically declined prior to the attack to about 6,000 civilians and 120 Azeri soldiers. Prior to the attack, Armenian forces had stated they would attack the city. When it finally came, Armenian forces easily overwhelmed the defenders who along with the civilians attempted to retreat north to the Azeri held city of Agdam. The attacking forces then purportedly went on to open fire upon them, killing scores of civilians. While the exact death toll is unknown, estimates have ranged from as little as 150 people to over several thousand. A video shot several days later showed the corpses of both women and children, some burned and mutilated to an unrecognizable degree. Visits by foreign reporters also counted similar fates of Azeri soldiers. While the charges flared, Armenian government officials denied the occurance of a massacre and pointed out that Khojaly served as an artillery platform used to shell the city of Stepanakert and that the shelling and had since stopped. They alleged that the mutilations had been done by the Azeris themselves and that the Azeris had been doing the same to Armenians since the conflict began. The Azeri government went so far as charging the Armenian government with outright Genocide . The 366th, which after the attack was suspended from withdrawing, also faced scathing criticism and denied participating in the attack. An exact bodycount was never ascertained but sources have placed the number to 485. Subtle admissions of some guilt later laid blame on Armenian irregulars, two groups of which identified as the "Aramo" and the "Arabo". Others also pointed out that many of fighters had fled from Baku and Sumgait and that Armenians were typically viewed by Azeris as weak people and so the attack was, in a way, a form of intimidation. The aftermath of the attack erupted in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan's President, Ayaz Mutalibov was called to step down from his post by many, perhaps the most vocal being members of the Popular Front. Mutalibov was charged for failing to protect the civilians in Khojaly and on March 6 was forced to resign amid the hail of criticism. THE SIEGE OF STEPANAKERT AND THE CAPTURE OF SHUSHA In the ensuing months following the capture of Khojaly, Stepanakert was continuously shelled by Azeri forces in the nearby town of Shusha by the notoriously inaccurate BM-21 "GRAD" mobile artillery platform, the successor variant to its World War II cousin " Katyusha ". The shelling took a severe toll and killed scores of civilians in the city, killing many everyday. Shusha itself was situated on the top of a mountain and although the rockets often missed and soared over the city, the damage done to the city was devastating, leaving the town without running water, electricity, or telephone services for over three months. By the height of the seige in April 1992 , the population of Stepanakert, once 70,000, had declined to 50,000. THE AIR WAR OVER KARABAKH The air war in Karabakh involved primarily Fighter Jets and attack helicopters. The primary transport helicopters of the war were the Mi-8 "Hip" and its cousin, the Mi-17 "Hip-H" ( NATO Codenames ) and were used extensively by both sides. The Armenian air force consisted of only two SU-25 ground support bombers, one of which was, ironically, accidently shot down by the Armenians themselves. FOOTNOTES |
|
|