Map Close  
Person info Close  
Information Close  
Source reference Close  
  Svenska
 
Previous page Page 504 Next page Smaller font Larger font Print friednly version  
After the event at Sumgait, the peaceful transfer of Karabakh to Armenia became impossible. Through the next year, while Moscow hesitated to tale decisive action, Armenians increasingly grew disillusioned with Gorbachev and the program of perestroika, and Azerbaijanis organised into a powerful anti-Armenian nationalist movement. In May 1988 Demirchian was replaced as Armenians party chief by Suren Haroutunian, but the Communist Party's authority continued to decline rapidly. The popular movement, led by the Karabakh Committee in Yerevan and the Krounk (Crane) Committee in Stepanakert, continued to grow until its leaders were effectively the most popular and influential political forces among the Armenians. In July demonstrators attempted to take over Erebouni airport outside of Yerevan, and one young man was killed. Sporadic fighting broke out in and around Karabakh, and in the fall hundreds of thousands of Armenian and Azerbaijani refugees fled (or were forced to move) to their native republics. A special commission set up by Moscow to govern Karabakh proved unable to contain the continuing crisis.

On December 7, 1988, a massive earthquake devastated northern Armenia, killing at least 25,000 people and rendering hundreds of thousands homeless. World attention focused here for several weeks, and aid poured in from many countries. Gorbachev flew to Armenia to survey the damage, but he was received hostilely because of his Karabakh policies. Even as the country lay crippled by the earthquake, the party decided to arrest the Karabakh Committee members and place the region under the direct administration of Moscow.

Through 1989 relations between the peoples of Transcaucasia grew worse. The arrests of the Karabakh leaders and the January decision to set up a special administration for Karabakh not only engendered Azerbaijani resistance but made governance of Armenia by the local party nearly impossible. Shootings were a daily occurrence in Karabakh. Soviet troops were intensified in enforcing peace, though they stood between the hostile nationalities to prevent further bloodletting.

In Armenia the attempt by the Communist Party to rule without the popular representatives of the national movement only worsened the political crisis. In March 1989 many voter boycotted the general elections. Massive demonstrations started up again in early May, demanding the release of the members of the Karabakh Committee, and in the elections to the Congress of People's Deputies in May, Armenians chose people identified with the Karabakh cause. Finally, on the last day of May, the Karabakh Committee members were released to the cheers of demonstration who greeted their arrival in Yerevan.

For the next six months the Armenian Communist leadership and the national movement worked as uncomfortable allies. Already emerging as the most important of the movement's leaders, the philologist Levon Ter-Petrosian made it clear that the Committee had a broader vision than merely the solution of the Karabakh question. Ultimately determined to bring full democracy and independence to Armenia, the trajectory of the movement would bring it into head-on collision with the party. In June the mushrooming unofficial organisations joined together to form the Pan-Armenian National Movement (Hayots Hamazgayin Sharzhoum, HHSh), and the government gave them official recognition.