Appeal to the US Congress -Feb 28 2005

[Armenian Genocide]

APPEAL TO THE CONGRESS OF THE USA

The appeal we present bellow was published by publicist Zori Balayan and read out during national rally against Azeri pogroms in Sumgait in 1988 and Baku in 1990. Later on it was handed to the US embassy in Yerevan.

Recently the member of the commission of the Congress of the USA Dan Burton appealed to colleagues to discuss the so-called question of Khojalu. It goes without saying, the discussion deals with the firm right of each to voice openly his point of view on any question, moreover, if it deals with human rights, crimes against humanity. It is for sure that no one can take away this right from the Congressman Barton. However, there are such questions, which cannot be discussed and even dangerous to be presented one-sidedly, ignoring the main principle of the jurisprudence: "to listen to other side!" And we, participants of the meeting are gathered here at the symbolic monuments - khachkars, established in the memory of the victims of slaughter, organized pogroms by Azerbaijan in Sumgait in 1988, and in Baku in 1990, not only to bow before the blessed memory of our compatriots, but to urge the Congress of the USA and Dan Burton, personally, to listen to the other side.

Together with the present message we attach send the official documents, confirming that Khojalu for four years was an ominous fire spot, which brought death into the capital of Stepanakert, to the region center of Askeran, to the villages of Noragyukh, Aygestan, Badara, Shosh, Krasni, etc. It was implemented not only with the connivance of Azerbaijani authorities, which today flatteringly promise the world to guarantee safety to Armenian population and in this case they promise autonomy, but also under the direct management of Baku. Thousands of innocent Armenian civilians of Karabakh were killed and injured, thousands of public institutions destroyed only from Khojalu. Hope that the Soviet regime or the world community would restrain the murderous formations armed to the teeth was reduced to zero. Thus Armenians were forced to defend themselves from such attacks. In reality, there were no innocent civilians. The video materials testify that in Khojalu there were armed bands, and just several families, which served them. The fact that there could not have been any pogroms was confirmed by the Azerbaijanis themselves, including Ayaz Mutalibov, then-President of Azerbaijan, who was best informed about the situation which arose, and whose interview in Moscow "Independent Newspaper" is attached

We just refer to facts. However, even if falsifiers from Azerbaijan were right at least for one percent, and even though opponents should refer to logic. It is not by chance that both the House of Commons of USA, and the UN Security Council, were guided, first of all by logic, when after the tragedy of 11th September 2001 liquidated, actually, weapon emplacements and the lair of the main terrorist who sat down in Afghanistan. Children, and women, and elders died there, leaving aside destroyed historical monuments.

We'd like to ask the Congressmen of USA whether they are familiar with the situation preceding Khojalu? Even if we believe in fiction spread by Azerbaijani propaganda, do they ask had happened, four years earlier in Sumgait? Or two years later in Baku? Do they know how many innocent civilians died on the approaches to Stepanakert in Karintak, Askeran? Isn't it obvious, that Armenians defended themselves and secured their own safety only by paying the high price of their own blood, by the price of enormous losses. In fact Armenian settlements were shot from rocket installations raining like hailstones. They were shot at not only from Khojalu, but from Agdam, Melibeylu, tens of other weapon emplacements as well. Do they know at least one example, a tragedy, which happened in Sumgait, about which a strictly confidential document was prepared in the Politbureau of the CC CPSU? We'll present this terrible document to the Congress of the USA, which explains, in sordid detail, what proceeded to what today is called "Khojalu"?

For three days and three nights in the city of Sumgait, where tens of thousands of Armenians lived from the day of its base, in the city, where state and power structures were stationed, a massacre of the Armenian population took place with impunity. At session mentioned above the Politbureau of the CC CPSU it was told that in Sumgait Armenians were not simply killed, but "Armenians' heads were cut off", " women breasts were cut out ", "stripped the skin of girls", "threw out alive people from the windows of multistoried houses", "burnt alive". All this occurred not in the Middle Ages, nor in the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Ottoman Empire executed 1.5 million Armenians in a genocidal plan. Nor did it happen in the years of World War II, but in 1988. These atrocities have been registered quite completely in the official document of the Politburo, which is also attached to the present message.

18 thousand Armenians of Sumgait lost many relatives and homes, and were deprived of the status of citizens not only of Azerbaijan, but also of the Union, and the world remained silent. Nobody was punished. Even though courts in 12 cities of USSR bore verdicts against the organizers and the executors of Sumgait pogroms, no one was called to account. Specifically, this unprecedented lawlessness and this aggressive cynicism led to what happened two years later in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, in January 1990 when about a quarter of a million of Armenians were attacked, some mutilated, and all violently deported. There are no Armenians left in Baku today.

And again no one was punished, as a result, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were evicted from their historical native land in the shortest time, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes built by hand, by their ancestors. In completion to everything, the Azerbaijani authorities, using a situation connected with collapse of the USSR, have appropriated all arsenal and all arms of IV army of Armed forces of the USSR, 75-th division, towers and trunks of the Caspian flotilla and together with the Chechen insurgents, Afghani modzhaheds have imposed unprecedented war to small Christian island - Karabakh

We, representatives of general public of Armenia, we, refugees from Sumgait, Baku Gandzak, Nayishezhansk autonomous republic, Gardmank, Shahumian region would like to ask the respected Congressmen of the USA to at least trace the chronology of events, which later occurred in the region. Before mentioning geographical name Khojalu, it is necessary, first to know, what there happened actually, and secondly, when it occurred.

The whole world well knows, how ended for the Soviet Union the interminable provocations of Azerbaijan organizing with impunity interminable "Sumgaits" all over the country. Great many times they attempted to give to this conflict a religious nature, trying to set entire Islamic world against us. However, being located on the historical and geopolitical crossroad of caravans, Armenia has decisively rejected ethnic and religious intolerance. It goes without saying that neither anti-Semite, nor Slavophobe, neither anti-westerner, nor religious fanatic will ever appear in Armenia. For millennia Armenians like people all over the world, have honored justice, which is highest of all virtues. As Armenians say, "injustice, admitted in respect to one nation, is a threat for others."

Indeed it is so unfair, when the whole nation, who suffered horrors of Sumgait and Baku, lost opportunity to live normal life, was deprived of the possibility to bring flowers to the graves of ancestors, and in the completion to everything it suffers humiliations and insults. In this case warmongers and the organizers of pogroms, having lost in the war imposed by them, living in the houses of their victims, blow to the whole world, that they, are the victims side, and have many unhappy refugees. But who sleeps on millions of beds, belonging quite recently to Armenians? And who will build and construct the destroyed Armenian houses, razed to the ground by rockets and gun shells from Khojalu?

We, participants the meeting, dedicated to the memory of victims of Sumgait, Baku, Budapest, the memory of those who perished from the hands of the carriers of racial, chauvinistic, misanthropic spirit, assure the world, that we'll never stay silent. Never we shall allow executioners to subject victims to malignant gossip. We also assure, that in the information war imposed on us, we are able repulse falsifiers of history. Addressing to the Congress of the USA, in connection with last statement of Congressman Burton, we at the same time want to address our alarm to parliaments of other countries with an urgent appeal not to yield to provocations of Azerbaijani politicians.

Memory of the fair person cannot become accustomed to the principle of the double standard. Armenians, with an identical pain and compassion remember both the victims of Sumgait and Baku, New York and Beslan and victims in many other tragic points of the earth. By the price of lives of thousands, Armenian and Azerbaijan peoples live in peace for already eleven years. And now effective universal memory should not allow, that by a drop of ink Evil, which always generates only evil will lift its head again. We trust, that the feeling of anxiety for the future of our children will not allow the Congress, the Duma, any parliaments of the world to be deceived. For this purpose it is necessary to remember, that quite often evil is created under a false pretext of Good.

Respectfully, Participants of the meeting devoted to the memory of victims of Armenian genocide in Sumgait and Baku

AZG Armenian Daily #038, 03/03/2005