Aysor, Armenia
Feb 27 2010

Sumgait Massacres: referring to documentary and foreign articles

February marks the 22nd anniversary of massacres and crimes committed
against Armenian population of Azerbaijan. During this 3-day rampage,
from February 27 to February 29 1988, Azerbaijani nationalists
committed brutal acts of crimes, which left dozens of Armenians dead,
dozens of hundreds Armenians injured, and thousands of Armenians
homeless.

Azerbaijani nationalists organized and committed mass killings of
Armenians in Azerbaijan’s capital city and other towns and villages `
Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad, Getashen, Maraga, etc.

Various media resources, including foreign ones, and international
communities repeatedly referred to the Sumgait Massacres, as mass
killings in Sumgait marked the beginning of acts of genocide against
Armenians in Azerbaijan. In relation to the Sumgait Massacres numerous
publications and materials were released.

The European Parliament in regard to the resumption of anti-Armenian
activities by the Azerbaijanis in Baku and the attacks on Armenian
villages outside Nagorno-Karabakh, such as Shaumyan and Getashen,
passed the `Resolution on recent events in Soviet Armenia’. The
Resolution refers to the basic reasons for the conflict between the
countries. In particularly, it says that the conflict is largely the
result of the dividing up the territory imposed by Lenin in
Transcaucasia, and particularly the forced integration of the
Autonomous Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, mainly populated by
Armenians, into the Muslim Republic of Azerbaijan in 1923 (Official
Journal of the European Communities, No. C 94/117, July, 1988).

In recognition of wills of people of Nagorno-Karabakh to commit to a
peaceful and fair resolution to the conflict, the U.S. Congress passed
the Joint Resolution 178 on November 6 1989. `The Soviet government
considers the February 28-29 1988 mass killings of Armenian population
in Sumgait of Azerbaijan as massacres,’ said in the Resolution.

On February 19 1990 the European Parliament urged the Soviet
government to send troops to Azerbaijan to provide the security for
the Armenian population. In a statement the EP stressed the importance
to study all the circumstances related to the massacres against
Armenians, and in particularly, the mass killings in Sumgait and
Kirovabad of Azerbaijan (Official Journal of the European Communities,
No.C 12/146, February 19, 1990).

The New York Times paper released on September 27 1990 an `Open Letter
on Anti-Armenian Pogroms in the Soviet Union’, a joint initiative of
the Helsinki Treaty Watchdog Committee of France and intellectuals
from the College International de Philosophie. The Letter was signed
by more than 150 scholars, writers, scientists, political leaders, and
artists.

`More than two years ago, active persecution against Armenians began
in Azerbaijan. The pogroms of Sumgait in February, 1988 were followed
by massacres in Kirovabad and Baku in November 1988. As recently as
January 1990, the pogroms continued in Baku and other parts of
Azerbaijan. The mere fact that these pogroms were repeated and the
fact that they followed the same pattern lead us to think that these
tragic events are not accidents or spontaneous outbursts,’ said in the
letter.

In June 1988, published in Paris `Russian Thought’ paper referred to
the Sumgait Massacres with an article. `Will these crimes remain
unpunished?’ it asked.

The Washington Times on March 2 1988 wrote: `’Ruffians’ asked people
on streets whether they are Armenians or not. Those who were Armenians
received injuries of different severity and were beat.’ Actually, the
U.S. media quoted `ruffians’, referring to the reaction of Kremlin of
the Soviet government on the Sumgait Massacres. In fact, the Soviet
government said that `the ruffians’ caused mass killings and ethnic
massacres ` this was the official concealing version of those brutal
events.

In July 1988 `The Guardian’ released an article titled
`Nagorno-Karabakh is a test that the perestroika cannot withstand’.
`After the solution by the Nagorno-Karabakh session, in February, in
Azerbaijan’s Sumgait, groups of Azerbaijani nationalists brutally
killed 26 Armenians, plunging into shock the whole country. Police of
Azerbaijan did nothing to stop all these crimes.’