Assessment
A special session of the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR was held on January 22, 1990 at the request of the public and by initiative of a group of MPs. It tried to initially assess the January 20 events and adopted some documents condemning the crackdown operation by Soviet army.
The Memorial Society and Helsinki Watch reported in May 1991 that they had found compelling evidence that the imposition of the state of emergency had led to an unwarranted breach of civil liberties and that Soviet troops had used unjustified force resulting in many deaths. This includes the usage of armoured vehicles, bayonets and firing on clearly marked ambulances.
The Human Rights Watch report entitled "Black January in Azerbaijan" states: "Indeed, the violence used by the Soviet Army on the night of January 19–20 was so out of proportion to the resistance offered by Azerbaijanis as to constitute an exercise in collective punishment. Since Soviet officials have stated publicly that the purpose of the intervention of Soviet troops was to prevent the ouster of the Communist-dominated government of the Republic of Azerbaijan by the nationalist-minded, noncommunist opposition, the punishment inflicted on Baku by Soviet soldiers may have been intended as a warning to nationalists, not only in Azerbaijan, but in the other Republics of the Soviet Union."
"The subsequent events in the Baltic Republics - where, in a remarkable parallel to the events in Baku, alleged civil disorder was cited as justification for violent intervention by Soviet troops - further confirms that the Soviet Government has demonstrated that it will deal harshly with nationalist movements", continues the Human Rights Watch report.
The Wall Street Journal editorial of January 4, 1995 claimed that Gorbachev chose to use violence against "independence-seeking Azerbaijan." When a year later the world press criticized Gorbachev for violent massacres of civilians in Lithuania and Latvia, Azerbaijani public was embittered for the silence of the world media on Gorbachev's orders a year earlier, during Black January.
Read more about this topic: Black January
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