Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims
64
tion conducted by the Ad Hoc Investigation Commission was over,
and draft resolutions were passed over to the Supreme Court of Jus-
tice. By that time, a number of persons charged with involvement in
the March events in Baku and Shemakha were provisionally arrested,
more than 100 detainees were ethnic Armenians. Investigation initi-
ated by the AHIC got a broad response, with the Armenian commu-
nity and press outraged and the whole campaign against the AHIC
launched by Dashnaktsutyun party in the Azerbaijani Parliament. (177)
One can only assume whether the Armenian public figures were
aware of D.Ghelovani’s testimonies charging Armenians with massa-
cring Muslims and naming the major masterminds and perpetrators
starting with Shaumyan and Amamzasp and all the way down to the
Armenian military officers and Dashnaktsutyun party’s rank-and-file.
Could that be the rationale of his assassination? Bearing in mind the
political and legal implications of AHIC’s activities this option is not
excluded at all. It is also possible that it was D.Ghelovani’s coopera-
tion with the Ad Hoc Investigation Commission that won him such
an unflattering reference of his former aide M.Baghirov in later years.
This way or another, a nobleman by birth, a Social Democrat
(Menshevik) by his political views David Alexandrovich Ghelovani,
upon joining the Bolsheviks and collaborating with ultranationalist
Armenians (Dashnaktsutyun members) ended up being everyone’s
outcast. The reason of his being named as “provocateur” by his former
political comrade-in-arms Mirjafar Baghirov is still unknown, whereas
his murder committed by a tribesman of his former Dashnaktsutyn
Armenian fellow-fighters speaks for itself.
Lack of further investigation and judicial files pertaining to the
events in Guba gives no grounds to figure out whether the persons
mentioned in the AHIC Resolution of November 1919 were held re-
sponsible for the devastation of Guba and massacre of its Muslim
population. (178) What is clear so far is that on January 29, 1920, “the
AHIC files regarding the devastation of the town of Guba and villages
in Guba Uyezd were handed over by the Supreme Judicial Court of
Azerbaijan to the Attorney of the Baku District Court for further pro-
ceedings. Three volumes attached to the files included:
1) Devastation of the Town of Guba,
2) Devastation of Villages in Davachi and Mushkur Precincts,
3) Devastation of Villages in Gusar, Fethibey No.5, and Other