Wednesday, February 28, 2007

DAY OF GRIEF

2007-02-28
DeFacto

The Armenian nation is celebrating a mournful day – the Day of the memory of the victims of the Armenian pogroms in Soumgait.

February 26-29, 1988 the Azeri nationalists’ disorderly crowds were committing outrages in the Soumgait streets. Their goal was to destroy the town’s Armenian population. The facts that the lists of the flats, where Armenians lived, were made beforehand, the telephones were turned off in the Armenians’ houses and the weapons were prepared testify that the action on the Armenians’ destruction was carefully elaborated. Armed with knifes and traditional axes, the Azeri pogrom-makers burst into the Armenians’ flats. They spared neither children, nor old people and women. The Armenians could not give an effective rebuff. How could they resist numerous groups of bandits? During three days of pogroms the Azeri authorities did nothing to save the Armenian population, which also testifies to the fact that they were implicated in the crime. Tens of people were killed and hundreds were injured as a result of the pogroms. Thousands of people, who were saved by a miracle, became refugees, leaving their homes forever. The pogroms in Soumgait initiated the process of the Armenians’ physical liquidation from Azerbaijan.

The pogrom’s culprits have not been punished and the international community has not given a proper appreciation of the events. ‘’The memory of the Victims of violence in Soumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, Nakhijevan obliges us to strive for the punishment of both the atrocities’ immediate participants and the Republic of Azerbaijan – a state, which propagates, cultivates violence and misanthropy’’, the Network of the Civil Society ‘’Refugees and international Law’’ statement made in connection with the 19th Anniversary of the pogroms in Soumgait runs. In its turn, the NGO of the NKR Refugees in its address notes, ‘’the condemnation of the fact of the Armenian Genocide by the civilized world will prevent the continuation of such atrocities in future and will make Azerbaijan repent, reconsider its policy towards Armenians’’. The Russia’s Armenians also urged the international community to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Today a procession devoted to the memory of the victims of the Armenian pogroms in Soumgait will be held in Yerevan. The participants will walk from the Sport and Concert Complex after Karen Demirchyan to the Memorial of the Armenian Genocide’s victims – Tsitsernakaberd, where they will lay flowers and wreaths. The measures, including round tables and press conferences, arranged for the tragic date will be held in the capital city of Armenia.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

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