[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 2, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E281]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    COMMEMORATING THE SUMGAIT POGROM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 2, 2010

  Mr. SCHIFF. Madam Speaker, this past Sunday marked the twenty-second 
anniversary of the pogrom against Azerbaijanis of Armenian descent in 
the town of Sumgait, Azerbaijan. The 3-day massacre in the winter of 
1988 resulted in the deaths of scores of Armenians, many of whom were 
burnt to death after being brutally beaten and tortured. Hundreds of 
others were wounded. Women and girls were brutally raped. The carnage 
created thousands of ethnic Armenian refugees, who had to leave 
everything behind to be looted or destroyed, including their homes, 
cars and businesses.
  These crimes, which were proceeded by a wave of anti-Armenian rallies 
throughout Azerbaijan, were never adequately prosecuted by Azerbaijan 
authorities. Many who organized or participated in the bloodshed have 
gone on to serve in high positions on the Azeri government. For 
example, in the days leading up to the massacre, a leader of the 
Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Hidayat Orujev, warned Armenians in 
Sumgait: ``If you do not stop campaigning for the unification of 
Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia, if you don't sober up, 100,000 Azeris 
from neighboring districts will break into your houses, torch your 
apartments, rape your women, and kill your children.'' Orujev is 
currently the State Advisor for Ethnic Policy to Azeri President Heidar 
Aliyev.
  Despite efforts by the Government of Azerbaijan to cover up the 
events of February 1988, survivors of the pogrom have come forward with 
their stories. They told of enraged mobs, which threw furniture, 
refrigerators, television sets and beds from apartment balconies and 
set them afire. Armenians were dragged from their apartments. If they 
tried to run and escape, the mob attacked them with metal rods, knives 
and hatchets before the victims were thrown into the fire. One witness 
said of a victim, ``He was still moving, trying to escape from fire, 
but five young men were pushing him hack into the fire with metal 
rods.'' Others told of Interior Ministry troops, who stood by doing 
nothing.
  The Sumgait massacres led to wider reprisals against Azerbaijan's 
ethnic minority, resulting in the virtual disappearance of Azerbaijan's 
450,000-strong Armenian community, and culminating in the war launched 
against the people of Nagorno Karabakh. That war resulted in almost 
30,000 dead on both sides and created more than one million refugees in 
both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
  This April will mark the 95th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a 
crime that Azerbaijan's ally and protector Tukey has devoted enormous 
political resources to deny. Just as we cannot allow the first genocide 
of the Twentieth Century to fade into history, the memory of the 
victims of Sumgait must not be forgotten either.

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