“I mind February 20 to be considered the launching day of the Artsakh movement, because since February 13 it had already become pan-national”, Arkady Karapetyan, the first commander of the self-defense forces of Artsakh, told Aravot.am.
“In general, preparations are being carried out before any events. Until 1988, we were doing all this secretly”, he noted.
According to him in the Soviet times, Armenians of Artsakh tried to do something every decade, but their attempts have been counteracted. And the years of Gorbachev’s restructuring policy were appropriate for the completion of the work. “When the Crimean Tatars raised their issue in July 1987, we thought that their issue would be resolved and we would be left behind. And we started to speed up our steps. Already in October 1987, our separate secret groups united and started coordinating our activities. We had established contacts with our supporters in Armenia. Our movement had already gained an impetus”, he recalls, adding that assemblies were being organized in different collectives, signature-collections were being carried out, and before February 1988, two delegations had already left for Moscow.
“In February 1988, the Azerbaijanis invited a meeting of the Bureau of the Regional Committee, decided to hold sessions of party activists in the regions, to condemn the ongoing events and adopt a decision that the movement was not of pan-national nature but was an attempt of some extremists. However, the tendency of an irreversible struggle was growing in the people. On February 12, we organized rallies in the regions, which went as they were planned. And noticing that the sessions planned in the regions were failing, Azerbaijanis decided to adopt the decision only on the basis of the general regional committee. The demand for holding a rally was growing. The collectives were ready.
It was February 13. A group of students from the Pedagogical Institute (current Artsakh State University), who worked with us, was ready. But we faced some problems: the teaching staff hindered them from leaving for the march. We went to the street with the student staff of the agricultural college, marching towards the square. The Askeran group more than 400 people-was waiting for us there. During that time, the group of students from the Pedagogical Institute managed to join us with a delay. We entered the square together. Other collectives were also joining us. We made speeches and our speech was from the bottom of the heart of the people. On February 15, the next delegation returned from Moscow (the third one), after which the rallies continued every day. When we were acting secretly, we realized that the end of all this would be a war. This was not the case for all the people perhaps, but we were getting ready and armed
David ABAGHYAN
