More Important to Address Domestic Issues: Opinion from Armenia on Khojaly Massacre

The failures recorded till today in the matter of the Khojaly Massacre are the flaw of Armenia’s propaganda machine, said political analyst Alexander Manasyan, speaking to journalists in the Armenian capital today on public awareness of the incidents in Karabakh’s Azerbaijani-populated village of Khojaly whereby hundreds of its civilian residents died on Feb. 26, 1992, when the village was captured by Armenian and CIS forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

“Azerbaijan spares no effort in spreading misinformation, and when not defended, the truth is lost. We’ve done a lot in the Khojaly issue, but we haven’t given it momentum; it hasn’t become a topic of widespread propaganda, and we have a lot to do. We have to take Azerbaijan to court for Khojaly — it will have resonance. In the matter of Khojaly, we have to win in the entire Internet; we have to be able to apply journalistic tricks to bring this matter to a successful conclusion,” said Manasyan, referring to Azerbaijan’s statements that Armenians committed genocide in capturing Khojaly in 1992, killing hundreds of peaceful residents. Karabakh authorities, however, reject this view, saying that forces provided a corridor for peaceful residents to leave Khojaly and that the massacre was in fact organized by Azerbaijan, in order to overthrow then president of Azerbaijan Ayaz Mutalibov.

In Manasyan’s opinion, the Armenian public is not fully involved in the Karabakh conflict. According to him, everything changed after armistice was declared.

“On the battlefield, we’re lions; after armistice [was declared], it seemed to us that war is over. How many positions we have lost during times of peace. We are just now realizing that there’s an information war, in which we’ve fallen behind, because we didn’t give it any importance. That we’re falling behind in propaganda is obvious,” he said.

Another speaker at today’s press conference, Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex Principal Ashot Bleyan, however, disagreed, saying despite the importance of such issues, we cannot make them a priority.

In his opinion, to completely focus on, for example, recognizing the Armenian Genocide will distract people from important issues within the country.

“Eventually, we have to act as a living society and to get to the reality of recognizing the Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] issue we have to solve several issues inside the country. If you completely focus on the [Armenian] Genocide or the Artsakh massacres, you forget about today’s Armenia. In the last 4–5 years, there’s an objective indicator that can’t divert me — that which is happening with society in today’s Armenia. If the number of those wanting to leave the country isn’t going to decrease, if the birth rate — having a child in Armenia, keeping her and raising her — isn’t going to increase, the number of suicides isn’t going to decrease drastically (people are now committing suicides in pairs)… then what is the public’s struggle and all this work for? It’s not enough that our forefathers perished, now we’re killing ourselves,” said Bleyan.