[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 30 (Monday, February 25, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E222-E223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING THE TRAGEDY OF KHOJALY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. VIRGINIA FOXX

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 25, 2008

  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, while there has been considerable 
congressional attention to tragic events which took place in Somalia, 
Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur, and elsewhere, very little light has 
shined on what happened in 1992, less than 20 years ago in the 
Caucasus.
  Everything changed for the small, little known Azerbaijani town of 
Khojaly between February 25-26, 1992. Sixteen years later, for the 
people of Azerbaijan and the region, the word ``Khojaly'' stirs up 
memories of pain and sorrow.
  In the middle of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Armenian troops 
supported by a Russian infantry regiment razed Khojaly, brutally 
murdering 613 people, annihilating families, disabling some 1,000 
civilians, capturing 1,275 persons and leaving 150 people unaccounted 
for.
  This year, as in previous years, those residents of Khojaly, who 
survived the massacre, are appealing to hold Armenia responsible for 
this crime. ``We appeal to the international community with pain and 
hope,'' says a statement by survivors of Khojaly.
  Many human rights groups and media outlets at the time sought to draw 
attention to the events and solicit international condemnation.

[[Page E223]]

  Human Rights Watch called the tragedy at the time ``the largest 
massacre to date in the conflict.'' The extent of the cruelty of this 
massacre against women, children and the elderly was unfathomable.
  Memorial, a Russian human rights group, reported that ``scores of the 
corpses bore traces of profanation. Doctors on a hospital train in 
Agdam noted no less than four corpses that had been scalped and one 
that had been beheaded . . . . and one case of live scalping:''
  According to the British newspaper The Independent (February 29, 
1992), ``Elif Kaban, a Reuters correspondent in Aghdam, reported that 
after a massacre, Azeris were burying scores of people who died when 
Armenians overran the town of Khojaly, the second-biggest Azeri 
settlement in the area. `The world is turning its back on what's 
happening here. We are dying and you are just watching,' one mourner 
shouted at a group of journalists.''
  Nearly one month later, TIME magazine (March 16, 1992) wrote ``While 
the details are argued, this much is plain: something grim and 
unconscionable happened in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly two weeks 
ago. So far, some 200 dead Azerbaijanis, many of them mutilated, have 
been transported out of the town tucked inside the Armenian-dominated 
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh for burial in neighboring Azerbaijan. The 
total number of deaths--the Azerbaijanis claim 1,324 civilians have 
been slaughtered, most of them women and children--is unknown.''
  On November 29, 1993, Newsweek quoted a senior U.S. Government 
official describing the aftermath of Armenia's occupation, ``What we 
see now is a systematic destruction of every village in their way. It's 
vandalism.''
  Even in far-away Australia, The Age (March 6, 1992) wrote ``The exact 
number of victims is still unclear, but there can be little doubt that 
Azeri civilians were massacred by the Armenian Army in the snowy 
mountains of Nagorno Karabakh last week.''
  Every year religious leaders of Azerbaijan's Christian, Jewish, and 
Muslim communities issue appeals on the eve of the commemoration of the 
massacre of Khojaly. They urge the international community to condemn 
the February 26, 1992 bloodshed, facilitate liberation of the occupied 
territories and repatriation of the displaced communities.
  Despite the efforts by many, regrettably, the international 
community's response has not been adequate. That is why I urge Congress 
to join all Azerbaijanis in commemorating the tragedy. The world should 
know about and remember Khojaly.

                          ____________________