Armenians of Los Angeles hold protest in front of Azerbaijani consulate
Yesterday, the representatives of the Armenian community in the U.S. held a protest at the Azerbaijani Consulate General in Los Angeles in connection with the 26th commemoration of the Sumgait massacre and the 10th anniversary of the axe murder of Gurgen Margaryan, reads the "Asbarez" publication.
The rally was organized by the Unified Young Armenians and aimed to inform the international community about the horrors inflicted on Armenians by the Azerbaijanis. Anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan hadn’t stop since Sumgait pogroms, and glorification of Gurgen Margaryan’s murderer – Ramil Safarov, is a proof for this.
One of the speakers, David Arakelyan, condemned the Azerbaijani authorities for anti-Armenian policy, and the international community for its silence, which allows Azerbaijan to continue its aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, "Asbarez" writes.
On 26-29 February 1988 in terms of actual complicity of local authorities and inaction of the USSR government mass pogroms of civilians were organized in Sumgait city of Azerbaijani SSR, accompanied with unprecedented brutal murders, violence and pillaging against the Armenian population of the city. Armenian pogroms in Sumgait were carefully organized. At the meetings, which began on February 26 in the central square, city leaders openly called for violence against the Armenians.
On February 27 protests which were attended by hundreds of rioters turned into violence. Armed with axes, knives, specially sharpened rebar, rocks and cans of gasoline and with the pre-compiled lists of apartments where Armenians lived the rioters broke into the houses, turning everything upside down there and killing the owners. In the same time, people were often taken out to the streets or to the courtyard for jeering at them publicly. After painful humiliations and torture the victims were doused with gasoline and burnt alive.
On February 29 army troops entered Sumgait but without an order to intervene. Only in the evening, when the mad crowd began to attack the soldiers the military units took up decisive steps.
The exact number of victims of Sumgait pogroms is still unknown. According to official data, 32 people were killed; however there is ample evidence that several hundred Armenians have been killed in the city in three days. There is also evidence that the riots were coordinated by KGB in Azerbaijan. Executioners of Sumgait were subsequently declared as national heroes of Azerbaijan.
Documentary “Ordinary Genocide: Sumgait 1988.”
In 2004, Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan was taking part in a three-month English course of NATO “Partnership for Peace” in Budapest. Early in the morning of February 19 he was murdered. The murderer – Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov - delivered 16 blows of ax to the face of the sleeping Armenian officer. As a result, the Hungarian court found him sane and sentenced him to life imprisonment without a right of pardon for 30 years. The news about the extradition of Ramil Safarov to his homeland and pardon by the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev broke out on August 31.
The pardoned murderer Ramil Safarov was greeted as a hero in Azerbaijan; he was given an apartment and was paid an officer salary for 8 years spent in detention. Moreover, Safarov was breveted Major by the Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan, who also wished him "every success."
Because of Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan announced the suspension of diplomatic relations with Hungary. Safarov’s extradition, pardon, and glorification in Azerbaijan was condemned by the US president Barack Obama, US State Department, Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Russia and France, Secretary General of Council of Europe, Secretary General of CSTO, NATO, and international human rights organizations. In addition to that, European Parliament adopted a condemning resolution on September 13, 2012.
On February 19, is the 10th anniversary of commemoration of Armenian officer’s death. To the 10th anniversary of Gurgen Margaryan’s murder in the frameworks of the "Ordinary Genocide" project a video-footage has been prepared called "Azerbaijan: Racism without borders." The video footage is in English , Russian and Hungarian. It concisely presents the history of the murder that had stunned the world, as well as the programs following the incident and Safarov’s glorification in Azerbaijan.It is significant that the authors chose Symphony number 7 ("Leningrad") by Dmitri Shostakovich known as "the invasion of the Nazis" as a soundtrack for the footage.
The "Ordinary Genocide" project is being implemented by the Information and Public Relations Center under the RA President’s administration.