In recent days, due to the violation of verbal agreement of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan, the losses of this country’s military force is traditionally concealed but the information on some killed soldiers, however, appear on the social networks. Thus, Elmar Mammedov (in the photo), a soldier of Azerbaijani Armed Forces is destructed in the Tartar region, who has already been buried in Baku. This was told by the expert on Azerbaijani studies, Ashot Movsisyan, in an interview with Aravot.am. “After the four-day war in April and in these days, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry has not yet issued any real facts about its losses and continues to conceal the true number. A few days after the four-day war, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported about 3 dozen victims and some material damage which could be simply naïve to believe it,” he said.
As described by Movsisyan, the reality is different on social networks and some social media platforms, “Until now, the identity of about 100 deceased soldiers is already known. It should be noted that even in this case, there has been no official statement. In other words, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry does not deny these data by maintaining a criminal silence. A variety of methods are used by the rival’s propaganda machine to conceal the losses: suicide, violation of safety rules when handling with weapons, accidents and so on. This means that an attempt is made to create a stereotype that allegedly the Armenian armed forces are unable to pierce the Azerbaijani soldiers, therewith trying to present the “weakness” of the Armenian army. The anti-Armenian campaign in Azerbaijan continues to proceed in the highest level. First, it is preached that the “perpetrators” in the four-day war are Armenians and the Armenians have resumed hostilities. This fallacy is said even by the person who has given the command to start a war.”
As asked Movsisyan whether there are facts indicating that a substantial part of the losses refer to the indigenous peoples of Azerbaijan, “During the four-day war and the subsequent days, the names of conscripted and killed soldiers from ethnic Talysh, Tat, Lezgi, Udi, trophy and other indigenous have become known. If we compare the number of these people and the soldiers killed, we can understand that their presence in more dangerous zones of the front line cannot be accidental. While in the rear units, we can see only Azerbaijanis, I mean Turkish-Azerbaijanis.”
Our interlocutor stated that since the origin of the Artsakh conflict, the authorities of the Republic of Azerbaijan are trying to instill hatred with false facts against Armenians among the indigenous peoples, including Tats, Talysh, Udi and others, “The “Shirvan Liberation Front” has come up with Armenophile statement on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and called on the Tats and Iranian-speaking mountain Jews not to participate in the war instigated by the Aliyev regime. In authoritarian and dictatorial country like the Republic of Azerbaijan, organizing anti-government protests, at least today, I think is not real. In this country, regular, even non anti-government small rallies are immediately dispersed, which are even followed by arrests. I do not think that in the near future an anti-government demonstration or a rally may arise.”
To the question about the vision of the liberation struggle of indigenous against the background of the escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the expert in Azerbaijani studies replied, “The four-day war showed that in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict we first of all need to rely on ourselves and solve our problem from our front. Certainly, it would be very desirable that it is done by other fronts too but in general, the idea of a national liberation struggle for the indigenous peoples has not yet developed. I am not talking about individuals or organizations.” Pertaining to the sentiment of Azerbaijani society about Aliyev’s policy against Nagorno-Karabakh, Ashot Movsisyan said, “The sentiments of the society are different but often complaints and discontents are voiced addressed to Aliyev’s policy. After the four-day war, the Azerbaijani society becoming a victim of anti-Armenian propaganda, seem to understand that they have many casualties and great material damages but have nothing in return. Especially, there are a lot of talks that this was a “political game” and Aliyev had no intention to launch a full-scale war.”
Luiza SUKIASYAN,
Photo from Ashot Movsisyan’s Facebook page
