Word: armenians
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...ordered to hand over all my papers and valuables, including my wedding rings," she said. "I refused, and they dragged me off the train by my hair." Herded through the streets of Baku, Chobanyan and several other passengers were finally rescued by Interior Ministry troops. As an elderly Armenian, his cheeks wet with sorrow, put it after being spirited to Moscow, "There are more than 100 nationalities living in this country. Why does it always have to be us? Haven't we suffered enough...
...perhaps grazhdanskaya voina -- civil war. That certainly was how the hostilities were seen by the 13,000 Armenians who were forced to flee their homes in the embattled southern republic of Azerbaijan last week, first crossing the Caspian Sea by ferry to Turkmenistan, then flying on to Moscow or the Armenian capital of Yerevan. Many of those who landed in Moscow huddled around the building that houses Armenia's representational office, transforming the quiet street into an encampment of shock, grief and rage. As a refugee put it, "What civilized country would allow its own people to be murdered...
...matchstick that ignited the powder was struck the previous Saturday when a rally, staged in Baku by Azerbaijanis demanding independence from the Soviet Union, gave way to anti-Armenian rioting. Marauding bands of Azerbaijanis armed with guns and makeshift weapons ransacked Armenian homes, beating and sometimes killing the residents. Within days, vigilante groups from both sides were organized and dispatched to assist their ethnic brethren in the contested autonomous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and along the border with Armenia...
...most recent round of fighting began in February 1988, when ethnic hatreds erupted in the port town of Sumgait, north of Baku, resulting in an official death count of 32, most of them Armenians. Over the next two years, more than 220,000 Armenians fled Azerbaijan. Those who remained behind in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh have lived under a virtual state of siege, relying on supplies airlifted from Armenia. Last month the Supreme Soviet voted to return administrative control over the region to the Azerbaijanis. Enraged, the Armenian parliament voted two weeks ago to include Nagorno-Karabakh...
...caught unawares, but it might be more accurate to say that officials turned a blind eye. Last August, for instance, the Central Committee responded to peaceful protests in the Baltics with stern warnings. But the simultaneous railroad blockade of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijanis met with official silence. Armenian activists in Moscow claim that in the weeks leading up to the crisis, they bombarded Gorbachev, the KGB and the Interior Ministry with telegrams and letters warning of an imminent...