New York Times. Nationalism at its nastiest
During the genocide of Armenians in Baku on January 19 an article was published at the New York Times under a very eloquent title "Nationalism at its nastiest ", excerpts of which are presented below. It should be mentioned that the data in the article feature the bloody events of January 13-19, and the entrance of the Soviet troops on January 20 - the date that is exposed in Baku hypocritically as a “tragedy of the struggle for independence” - and today sound adequately and timely.
New York Times, January 19, 1990
Azerbaijan is no Lithuania. True, resurgent nationalism arouses people in the Caucasus just as it arouses the Baltic republics. But there the comparison ends – and the trouble for Moscow begins.
Nationalists in Lathuania are struggling to wrest independence from Moscow by nonviolent, political means. Nationalists in Azerbaijan also talk of independence, but their protest includes bloody pogroms against their Armenian neighbors. Nor do Azerbaijani nationalists limit their actions to Soviet Azerbaijan. They transgress the border with Iran to make common cause with Azerbaijan there.
Mikhail Gorbachev seems prepared to bargain with Lithuania’s nationalists. But Azerbaijan’s violent nationalists leave him no choice but to send in the troops.
(...) This week’s massacre in Baku, of predominantly Christian Armenians by Muslim Azerbaijanis, shows nationalism at its nastiest. Generations of religious hatred erupted in spasmodic violence two years ago as Armed Azerbaijanis rampaged through the town of Sumgait and slaughtered 32 people, mostly Armenians. After the 1988 earthquake that killed 25.000 Armenians, Azerbaijanis blocked railways to Armenia, holding up aid. Now the rivals vie for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave that Stalin incorporated into Azerbaijan.
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