[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 28 (Monday, February 28, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E326-E327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  23RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE POGROM AGAINST ARMENIANS LIVING IN SUMGAIT, 
                               AZERBAIJAN

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 28, 2011

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the tragic 
massacre of Armenian civilians at the hands of the Azerbaijani regime. 
Next week will mark the twenty-third anniversary of the pogrom against 
Armenians living 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. The Sumgait Pogroms were 
part of an organized pattern, and were proceeded by a wave of anti-
Armenian rallies throughout Azerbaijan, which culminated in the 1990 
Pogroms in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital city.
  These crimes 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 Sumgait massacres, 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 later 
became the State Advisor for Ethnic Policy to former 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 back into the fire with metal 
rods.'' Others told of Interior Ministry troops, who stood by doing 
nothing.

[[Page E327]]

  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.
  A cease-fire agreement was brokered in 1994 and remains in place. 
However, Azerbaijan's ongoing war-mongering, recent cease-fire 
violations, and dramatic escalation of its military budget threaten to 
destabilize the Nagorno Karabakh peace talks. It is my hope that a just 
and peaceful resolution can be found that takes into account Nagorno 
Karabakh's right to self determination.
  Mr. Speaker, 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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