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REMEMBERING SUMGAIT: 26 YEARS ON, ARMENIA STILL TO PUT ETHNIC KILLINGS IN AZERBAIJAN INTO 'LEGAL FRAMEWORK'
http://armenianow.com/karabakh/52308/armenia_sumgait_genocide_1988_massacres_karabakh_a zerbaijan
KARABAKH | 27.02.14 | 09:45
Photo: www.panorama.am
Marina Grigoryan (center), Larisa Alaverdyan (right) / Archive photo
By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Twenty-six years have passed since the Sumgait pogroms in Azerbaijan
and despite numerous facts and evidence about the ethnic killings of
Armenians the Armenian side has still been unable to put this issue
in the legal framework.
In late February 1988, when rallies for Karabakh's unification with
Armenia were taking place in Stepanakert and Yerevan, Armenians learned
about Sumgait, a town not far from Baku that became synonymous with
ethnic cleansings and the start of a bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict. Eyewitnesses say frenzied mobs of Azeris armed with sticks,
axes and iron rods attacked Armenians in the town, broke into their
homes and brutally killed them only because of their ethnicity.
According to official data, more than three dozen Armenians were
killed in the massacres that began on February 26 and lasted till
March 1. Hundreds were killed, according to the unofficial death toll.
Marina Grigoryan, head of the Ordinary Genocide project, being carried
out by the Armenian Presidential Administration's Public Relations
and Information Center with the purpose of studying the 1988-1992
acts of genocide, creating films and websites, said during a meeting
with journalists on Wednesday that they are preparing a second book
with accounts by about 50 eyewitnesses who shed light on a number of
previously unknown circumstances of the Sumgait massacres. The first
volume of the book with eyewitness accounts was published back in 1989,
by Samvel Shahmuradyan, who also planned continuation of the book,
but was killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Grigoryan says that although it is widely believed that the Sumgait
genocide took place on February 26-29, people's accounts suggest that
the killings continued up until April 1988.
"There are numerous accounts by Armenians who looked for their
relatives at morgues... For example, Geghetsik Kocharyan said that
her 78-year-old mother-in-law was brutally murdered and when he went
to the morgue, she saw a great many dead bodies there and she was
given two lists in one of which her mother-in-law was under number
31. In the other list she was under number 155. It turns out that
there were official and unofficial lists," said Grigoryan.
According to Grigoryan, a lot more is known about the Sumgait pogroms
than the pogroms in Baku in January 1990, as at that time many facts
were not yet hidden and even the death certificates issued for the
killed people mention the real causes of death - beatings and torture.
Meanwhile, in the case with Baku massacres, the certificates mention
heart attacks, strokes or other illnesses as causes of death. Besides,
investigation was carried out following the Sumgait events, there
are lots of documents, trials took place.
Many observers believe that it is because of its political passivity
that the Armenian side has not been able to use these arguments.
NGO Against Violation of Law head Larisa Alaverdyan remembers that
back in 1989 Soviet Armenia provided certain materials to the United
Nations, even a meeting took place, but later this issue was pushed
to the background by the liberation movement.
"Since 1992 the political elite has been trying to push all that to
the background, perhaps hoping that democratic Azerbaijan and Armenia
can take another path. Unfortunately, that policy was continued
also under the second president. Luckily for all of us, if not the
policy, then at least the information policy has changed today," says
Alaverdyan. She adds, however, that a state approach is needed. She
says that the 1915 experience shows that for a period of 100 years
Armenians have not been able to insert the case into a legal framework,
but have remained primarily in the political and historical domain.
http://armenianow.com/karabakh/52308/armenia_sumgait_genocide_1988_massacres_karabakh_a zerbaijan
KARABAKH | 27.02.14 | 09:45
Photo: www.panorama.am
Marina Grigoryan (center), Larisa Alaverdyan (right) / Archive photo
By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Twenty-six years have passed since the Sumgait pogroms in Azerbaijan
and despite numerous facts and evidence about the ethnic killings of
Armenians the Armenian side has still been unable to put this issue
in the legal framework.
In late February 1988, when rallies for Karabakh's unification with
Armenia were taking place in Stepanakert and Yerevan, Armenians learned
about Sumgait, a town not far from Baku that became synonymous with
ethnic cleansings and the start of a bloody Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict. Eyewitnesses say frenzied mobs of Azeris armed with sticks,
axes and iron rods attacked Armenians in the town, broke into their
homes and brutally killed them only because of their ethnicity.
According to official data, more than three dozen Armenians were
killed in the massacres that began on February 26 and lasted till
March 1. Hundreds were killed, according to the unofficial death toll.
Marina Grigoryan, head of the Ordinary Genocide project, being carried
out by the Armenian Presidential Administration's Public Relations
and Information Center with the purpose of studying the 1988-1992
acts of genocide, creating films and websites, said during a meeting
with journalists on Wednesday that they are preparing a second book
with accounts by about 50 eyewitnesses who shed light on a number of
previously unknown circumstances of the Sumgait massacres. The first
volume of the book with eyewitness accounts was published back in 1989,
by Samvel Shahmuradyan, who also planned continuation of the book,
but was killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Grigoryan says that although it is widely believed that the Sumgait
genocide took place on February 26-29, people's accounts suggest that
the killings continued up until April 1988.
"There are numerous accounts by Armenians who looked for their
relatives at morgues... For example, Geghetsik Kocharyan said that
her 78-year-old mother-in-law was brutally murdered and when he went
to the morgue, she saw a great many dead bodies there and she was
given two lists in one of which her mother-in-law was under number
31. In the other list she was under number 155. It turns out that
there were official and unofficial lists," said Grigoryan.
According to Grigoryan, a lot more is known about the Sumgait pogroms
than the pogroms in Baku in January 1990, as at that time many facts
were not yet hidden and even the death certificates issued for the
killed people mention the real causes of death - beatings and torture.
Meanwhile, in the case with Baku massacres, the certificates mention
heart attacks, strokes or other illnesses as causes of death. Besides,
investigation was carried out following the Sumgait events, there
are lots of documents, trials took place.
Many observers believe that it is because of its political passivity
that the Armenian side has not been able to use these arguments.
NGO Against Violation of Law head Larisa Alaverdyan remembers that
back in 1989 Soviet Armenia provided certain materials to the United
Nations, even a meeting took place, but later this issue was pushed
to the background by the liberation movement.
"Since 1992 the political elite has been trying to push all that to
the background, perhaps hoping that democratic Azerbaijan and Armenia
can take another path. Unfortunately, that policy was continued
also under the second president. Luckily for all of us, if not the
policy, then at least the information policy has changed today," says
Alaverdyan. She adds, however, that a state approach is needed. She
says that the 1915 experience shows that for a period of 100 years
Armenians have not been able to insert the case into a legal framework,
but have remained primarily in the political and historical domain.