The anniversary of 20 January tragedy was commemorated in the US Congress. Representative of the working group on Azerbaijan issues in the House of Representatives, the democrat Congressman from Tennessee State, Steve Kohen, made a statement. He stated that though the date of 20 January coincide with the inauguration day in the USA every 4 year, Azerbaijani nation remembers this day as the day when the people confronted the Soviet troops becoming martyrs for freedom. The fate of the Soviet empire was solved on January 20, 1990, in Baku, the Congressman said.
According to ex-President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachov’s declaration about putting in force the law of state of emergency, 26 thousand military were brought to Azerbaijan at midnight from January 19 to 20. Although the intervention was intended to suppress the spirit of independence of the nation, the result was quite opposite. It inflamed Azerbaijani nationalism and hastened the destruction of the Soviet Union. On the pretext of restoring the law, the Soviet soldiers killed 140 innocent people, wounded over 700, arrested 841 and 5 persons got missing during those incidents.
Despite the economic and social problems inherited from the Soviet time, as well as the occupation of 20% Azerbaijani territories by Armenia, the Republic of Azerbaijan has maintained its independence, S.Kohen emphasized. Azerbaijan is a flourishing state with the high economic growth today. This is owing to the freely elected president and the parliament, free market reforms carried out in the energy sector, and, the most important, no foreign troops are deployed in the Azerbaijan territory today.
The 19th anniversary of black January was broadly commemorated by the Diaspora organizations functioning in the USA as well. The US Azerbaijanis’ network called on in their statement to remember the victims of the bloody events with a silence minute.
At the same time, the Azerbaijani Trade and Culture Centre together with the Azerbaijani Embassy to the USA reanimated the bloody January before American audience by the documentary film “The way leading to Black January” made by the Lider TV in Washington.
AzerTAg
