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Speech Of Hon. Adam B. Schiff Of California In The House Of Represen

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  • Speech Of Hon. Adam B. Schiff Of California In The House Of Represen

    Washington: SPEECH OF HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF OF CALIFORNIA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

    US Official News
    March 5, 2014 Wednesday

    TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014

    Washington

    The Library of Congress, The Government of USA has issued the
    following Speech:

    Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the twenty-sixth
    anniversary of the pogrom against people of Armenian descent in the
    town of Sumgait, Azerbaijan, where Armenian civilians were massacred
    at the hands of the Azerbaijani regime. Beginning on February 27, 1988
    and for three days, Azerbaijani mobs assaulted and killed Armenians.

    Hundreds of Armenians were wounded, women and young girls were brutally
    raped, and many victims of all ages were burnt to death after being
    tortured and beaten. The carnage created thousands of ethnic Armenian
    refugees, who had to leave everything behind to be looted or destroyed,
    including their homes 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.

    These crimes were never adequately prosecuted by Azerbaijan
    authorities. Despite efforts by the Government of Azerbaijan to cover
    up the events which occurred in February 1988, survivors of the pogrom
    have come forward with their stories. They told of enraged mobs,
    which threw refrigerators and furniture, among other belongings 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, hatchets and knives before the victims were
    thrown into the fire.

    The Sumgait massacres led to wider reprisals against Azerbaijan's
    ethnic minority, resulting in the virtual disappearance of a once
    thriving population of 450,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan,
    and culminating in the war launched against the people of Nagorno
    Karabakh. That war resulted in thousands dead on both sides and
    created over one million refugees in both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

    In the years since the fighting ended, the people of Artsakh,
    the region's ancestral name, have struggled to build a functioning
    democratic state in the midst of unremitting hostility and threats from
    Azerbaijan, as well as incursions across the Line of Contact between
    the two sides, such as the recent murder of yet another Armenian
    soldier, Hrant Poghosyan, in an unprovoked attack by Azerbaijani
    troops against Armenian forces. Hatred towards Armenians is both
    celebrated and inculcated in Azeri youth, as exemplified by the case
    of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani army captain who had confessed to the
    savage 2004 axe murder of Armenian army lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan,
    while the latter slept. At the time, the two were participating in a
    NATO Partnership for Peace exercise in Budapest, Hungary. After the
    murder, Safarov was sentenced to life in prison by a Hungarian court
    and imprisoned in Hungary.

    In 2012, Safarov was sent home to Azerbaijan, purportedly to serve out
    the remainder of his sentence. Instead of serving out his sentence in
    an Azeri jail, he was pardoned, promoted to Major, given back pay and
    paraded through the streets of Baku in a disgusting and bloodthirsty
    welcome home.

    [Page: E294] GPO's PDF

    With these appalling acts, the Azeri state reminded the whole world
    why the people of Artsakh must be allowed to determine their own
    future and cannot be allowed to slip into Aliyev's clutches, lest the
    carnage of Sumgait 26 years ago serve as a foreshadowing of a greater
    slaughter. Mr. Speaker, the memory of the victims of Sumgait must
    not be forgotten, and it is our moral obligation to condemn crimes
    of hatred, in hope that history will not be repeated.

    For more information please visit: http://thomas.loc.gov/



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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