LOS ANGELES—Pogroms, beatings, and ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Azerbaijan escalated to inconceivable measures 24 years ago, on February 27, 1988, in Sumgait. UYA has organized a protest to mark the anniversary of the Sumgait massacres and call for an end to Azerbaijan’s state sponsored campaign of hatred targeting populations of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
On Monday, February 27 at 10 a.m., UYA has planned a protest at the Azerbaijan Consulate, located at: 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.
The Sumgait tragedy and its bloody repetitions in Azerbaijan, lasting through the years of 1988 to 1991, led to the disappearance of 450,000 inhabitants living in an established Armenian community in Azerbaijan. It stimulated the military aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 until 1994, as the latter pushed for peaceful demands for self-determination.
Dozens of Armenians were killed, majority of whom were set on fire alive, after being beaten and tortured. Hundreds of innocent people recieved injuries of varying severity. Women, among them minors, were raped.
In his address to the Supreme Council of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Region, a leader of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Hidayat Orujev, stated days before the massacre of Armenians in Sumgait: “If you do not stop campaigning for the unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia, and if you do not sober up, 100,000 Azeris from neighboring districts will break into your houses, torch your apartments, rape your women, and kill your children.” This same Orujev is currently the Chairman of the State Committee for Work and Religious Organization for the Republic of Azerbaijan
The most important Azeri target in the NKR is the Mardakert region because it has oil deposits. NKR forces need to put in thick anti-tank mine fields at the line of contact in the Mardakert region. It is important to note that the 2 major skirmishes in 2008 and 2009 occured in the Mardakert region because the Azeris want to test Armenian defenses and their primary goal is to take Mardakert for it’s oil. Member of the Armenian National Assembly Larisa Alaverdyan stated that the Maragha massacre (which is a town in Mardakert region ) occured because the Azeris wanted to kill off the Armenians to get their hands on . Oil towers were located few kiliometers from the village of Maragha ( http://aisor.am/en/news/2010/10/21/maragha/?sw.html.){http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/politics/news/66841/.html)
We must be far more remonstrative in exposing those beasts to the world than we have been. Their oil money cannot counter our intense demonstrations on how they continue to act like true to the Turks of the past when presebt dat Turks themselves have long stopped acting in savagery like these.
We must be far more remonstrative in exposing those beasts to the world than we have been. Their oil money cannot counter our intense demonstrations on how they continue to act true to the Turks of the past when even our present day Turks have long stopped acting in this kind of savagery .