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Adam Schiff: Sumgait Pogroms Were Only Part Of Anti-Armenian Activit

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  • Adam Schiff: Sumgait Pogroms Were Only Part Of Anti-Armenian Activit

    ADAM SCHIFF: SUMGAIT POGROMS WERE ONLY PART OF ANTI-ARMENIAN ACTIVITIES

    Tert.am
    29.02.12

    On the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the Armenian pogroms
    in Sumgait, US Representative Adam Schiff addressed the House on
    Monday to commemorate the innocent victims who fell victim to the
    Azerbaijani aggression.

    His full speech is provided below:

    Mr Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the scores of Armenian lives
    lost in the vicious attacks perpetrated by Azerbaijani pogroms against
    Armenian civilians in the town of Sumgait, Azerbaijan 24 years ago.

    Beginning on February 27, 1988 and for three days, Azerbaijani mobs
    assaulted and killed Armenians. Hundreds of Armenians were wounded,
    women and young girls were brutally raped, and victims of all ages
    were beaten and tortured and eventually burned to death.

    Thousands were driven from their homes and forced to become refugees.

    Armenian homes and businesses were left to be looted and destroyed.

    In the years that followed this heinous event, Armenians living in
    Kirovabad and Baku suffered a similar fate. These pogroms were only
    part of a pattern of anti-Armenian activities occurring throughout
    Azerbaijan, setting the stage for two decades of aggression during
    which the Azerbaijani government initiated a war against the people of
    Nagorno-Karabakh. Thousands of people lost their lives and hundreds of
    thousands of Armenians were displaced as a result of the fighting. A
    once thriving population of 450,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan
    virtually disappeared.

    A cease-fire agreement, brokered in 1994, remains in place today.

    However, Azerbaijan's continued war-mongering, recent cease-fire
    violations, and dramatic increase of its military budget threaten
    to destabilize the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks. In January 2008,
    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev warned Armenians living in
    Nagorno-Karabakh, "We are reinforcing our army because we must be
    ready to free our lands ..... at any moment and by any means." Such
    rhetoric is detrimental to the peace process and is further evidence
    that this conflict is ongoing and must be resolved. It is my sincerest
    hope that a democratic and peaceful resolution can be reached, and
    Nagorno-Karabakh's right to self-determination affirmed.

    This April will mark the 97th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide,
    an event the Turkish government, Azerbaijan's closest ally, goes to
    great and tragic lengths to deny. We must not let such crimes against
    humanity go unrecognized. Today, let us pause to remember the victims
    of the atrocities of the Sumgait pogroms. Mr. Speaker, it is our moral
    obligation to condemn crimes of hatred and to remember the victims,
    in hope that history will not be repeated.


    From: Baghdasarian
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