Armenian brutality that targeted all of humanity * By Zakir Hasimov The Hocali (khojaly) massacre has gone down as one of the worst and most striking pages in Azerbaijanian history. For 200 years the people of Azerbaijan were victims of constant nationalist, chauvinist attempts on the part of the Armenians to engage in ethnic cleansing and to carry out the politics of genocide. The Azeris were kicked out of their historic lands and forced to migrate, events which were brought about through massacres carried out by the Armenians. The forced migrations of the Azeris off their own ethnic soil continued through the Soviet era, with 150,000 Azeris being deported from Armenia between 1948 and 1953. These deportees were moved to the Kur-Araz region of Azerbaijan. In 1988, 250,000 Azeris living on their own land were forced to move from this land and, in the process, Armenia became a mono-ethnic state. The events that began in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 1988 were aimed at bringing about the ideal of an "Armenia from sea to sea" that some Armenian ideologues were proclaiming. Villages and cities were destroyed, tens of thousands of innocent people were killed and hundreds of thousands of Azeris turned into refugees, fleeing from their own lands.  In the face of all international legal norms, the Armenian state has shown that it is prepared to carry out murder and terror to unite its lands with the lands of Nagorno-Karabakh. The massacre at Hocalı was a result of this determination. This massacre was planned not just against the people of Azerbaijan, but against all of humanity. The massacre at Hocalı stands along with other terrible stains that mark human history, such as Katyn, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  What was the goal of the Armenians when they targeted Hocalı? There were two goals: One was to remove the strategically problematic presence of Azeris in the mountainous region of Karabakh, and the other was to wipe Hocalı from the face of the earth in one move. This was because Hocalı was a place that was intertwined with Azerbaijan's own history and culture. The special cultural history sheltered in Hocalı was known as Hocalı-Gedebey culture. Hocalı's antiquities were cultural examples of the special dynamic that occurs when human communities develop. These cultural monuments were destroyed by the Armenian invasion and occupation. The ancient Hocalı cemetery -- one of the oldest cemeteries in the world -- was also lost. These events were not just clear examples of Armenian vandalism, they were attacks against world culture.  On the night of Feb. 25, 1992 terrorist Armenian gangs, backed by Brigade 366 from the Soviet Union's armed forces which was based in the city of Handeki, attacked Hocalı. At that time there were 2,500 civilians living in Hocalı. The civilians planned to go straight to the city nearest them, Agdam, to escape from the heavy rocket and gun fire. But this effort turned out not to help and 613 people were massacred during this vicious attack. Of these, 63 were children, 106 were women and 70 were elderly. Eight families were completely wiped out. Also, 25 children were left orphaned, and 130 children lost at least one of their parents. At least 487 people were injured, with 76 of these being children. Also, 1,275 people were taken hostage, while there are still 150 people who are still unaccounted for. In fact, the city of Hocalı was wiped clean from the map, marking the bloodiest page in the armed struggle between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.  An Armenian writer who has revealed this massacre in all of its horror is one of the founders of the "Greater Armenia" ideology, Zori Balayan, who is still being sought by Interpol. In his book titled "Revival of Our Souls," written in Armenian in 1996, Balayan describes the viciousness and horror of the attack on Hocalı thus:  "Entering into one of the seized homes along with gang member Hachatur, we saw that our soldiers had nailed a 13-year-old Turkish child to one of the windows. In order to keep the child from screaming, Hachatur took the sliced-off breast of the child's mother and put it in the boy's mouth. Then I did to this child what his father and their like had done to our children: I flayed the skin from his stomach, head and chest. Then I looked at my clock. The child died seven minutes later from loss of blood. Later, Hachatur cut up the child's body and tossed it to dogs that came from the same roots as the child -- Turkish dogs. We did the same thing to three other Turkish children that night. My soul was filled with happiness just knowing that we had achieved 1 percent of revenge in the name of our people."  Sixteen years have passed now since the Hocalı massacre. Photographs and video images exist documenting this massacre, as do live witnesses. The Armenians are calling events which took place 90 years ago under the Ottoman Empire, which no longer exists, a "genocide." Going further, Armenian lobby groups have used pressure to force the parliaments of many nations to officially accept the events of 1915 as genocide. Armenian sources discount the research done by Turkish historians on this topic, despite the fact that these historians have referenced Armenian documents in this research. As for the incidents in Hocalı, they need no research. Just watching the video images is enough.  It is the Armenians who are creating the difficulty surrounding the question of Nagorno-Karabakh. Twenty percent of Azeri land is under Armenian occupation. There are around 1 million Azeri people who have been forced into refugee status because of this.  Unfortunately, we see that foreign politicians interested in examining events from 90 years ago from a one-sided stance continue to ignore a tragedy that occurred only 16 years ago. Still, our belief is strong and we continue to believe that justice will find its place.  Murder should not remain unpunished. The Armenians should be charged by world communities in the military-political rape they carried out against the Azeris. In addition, international organizations and world parliaments should seek justice for the murders that took place on Azeri lands in Armenia. We believe that the Turkish Parliament -- a friendly and brotherly organization -- will recognize this massacre for what it was, and that Turkish and Azeri lobbies can cooperate in letting the world know about what really happened in Hocalı. --------------------------------------- *Zakir Haşimov is Azerbaijan's ambassador to Turkey.