|
Operation Ring (; (アルメニア語:«Օղակ» գործողություն, ''Oghak gortsoğut'yun'')), known in Azerbaijan as the Chaykend Operation ((アゼルバイジャン語:Çaykənd əməliyyatı)) was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by Soviet Internal Security Forces and OMON units in the northern regions (Shahumyan, Shusha, Martakert and Hadrut) of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan SSR and in a number of bordering regions of the Armenian SSR (Noyemberyan, Goris and Tavush). Officially dubbed a "passport checking operation," the ostensible goal launched by the Soviet Union's internal and defense ministries was to disarm Armenian militia detachments that had been organized in "() armed formations."〔De Waal, Thomas. ''Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War''. New York: New York University Press, 2003, p. 114. ISBN 0-8147-1945-7.〕 The operation involved the use of ground troops who accompanied a complement of military vehicles, artillery and helicopter gunships to be used to root out the self-described Armenian ''fedayeen''. However, contrary to their stated objectives, Soviet troops and the predominantly Azerbaijani soldiers in the AzSSR OMON and army forcibly uprooted Armenians living in the 24 villages strewn across Shahumyan to leave their homes and settle elsewhere in Nagorno-Karabakh or in the neighboring Armenian SSR.〔Gokhman, M. "Карабахская война," (Karabakh War ) ''Russkaya Misl''. 29 November 1991.〕 British journalist Thomas de Waal has described ''Ring'' as the Soviet Union's first and only civil war.〔De Waal. ''Black Garden'', p. 120.〕 Some authors have also described the actions of the joint Soviet and Azerbaijani force as ethnic cleansing.〔Melander, Erik in "State Manipulation or Nationalist Ambition" in ''The Role of the State in West Asia'', eds. Annika Rabo and Bo Utas. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006, p. 173. ISBN 91-86884-13-1.〕 The military operation was accompanied by systematic and gross human rights abuses.〔Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (1994). ''Azerbaijan: Seven years of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh''. New York: Human Rights Watch, p. 9.〕 ==Background== (詳細はGeneral Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. The demands to annex the region came in the middle of Gorbachev's reform policies, Glasnost and Perestroika. First implemented in 1985, when Gorbachev came into power, the liberalization of political and economical constraints in the Soviet Union gave birth to numerous nationalist groups in the different Soviet republics who insisted that they be given the right to secede and form their own independent countries.〔De Waal. ''Black Garden'', p. 39.〕 By late 1989, the Communist Parties of the republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had largely been weakened in power. In Nagorno-Karabakh, the intercommunal relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis had worsened due to violence and pogroms.〔Kaufman, Stuart. ''Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War''. New York: Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, 2001, pp. 49–66. ISBN 0-8014-8736-6〕 Gorbachev's policies hastened the collapse of the Soviet system and many Armenians and Azerbaijanis sought protection by arming themselves with Soviet military weaponry. His preoccupation in dealing with the numerous demands by the other republics saw the disappearance of vast amounts of assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and other small arms munitions stored in caches throughout Armenia and Azerbaijan.〔Smith, Hedrick. ''The New Russians''. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, pp. 344–345. ISBN 0-380-71651-8.〕 Foreseeing the inevitable conflict that would unfold after the Soviet Union disintegrated, Armenian volunteers from both the Republic and the Armenian diaspora flocked to the enclave and formed detachments of several dozen men. Gorbachev deemed these detachments and others in Karabakh as illegal entities and banned them in a decree in July 1990.〔Croissant, Michael P. ''The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Causes and Implications''. London: Praeger, 1998. p. 41. ISBN 0-275-96241-5.〕 Despite this promulgation, these groups continued to exist and actively fought against Azerbaijani "special-purpose" militia brigades.〔Croissant. ''The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict'', p. 41.〕 The volatility of the attacks led the Soviet government to position military units in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and along the five-kilometer gap between the Armenian border and Nagorno-Karabakh. Shahumyan had a population of about 20,000, of whom 85 percent were ethnic Armenian.〔Melkonian, Markar. ''My Brother's Road: An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia''. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005. p. 186 ISBN 1-85043-635-5〕 While the Armenian volunteers pledged to defend and protect civilians living in Shahumyan from Azerbaijani incursions, many of them were told to stay away by the inhabitants themselves to save the villages and the entire district from violence.〔Melkonian. ''My Brother's Road'', p. 185.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Operation Ring」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|