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Azerbaijani youth appeals to UN chief over 1918 genocide

20 March 2013 02:05 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijani youth appeals to UN chief over 1918 genocide

By Sara Rajabova

The Azerbaijani youth association operating in Germany has appealed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over March 31, the Day of Genocide.

The appeal describes the policy of genocide and deportation carried out by the Armenians against Azerbaijanis throughout centuries, the murder of 700,000 Azerbaijanis by Armenian dashnaks (nationalists) in 1918-1920, as well as the destruction of Azerbaijani villages and cities, Azerbaijan's State Committee for Work with Diaspora said Monday.

The association calls on the UN and other international organizations to acknowledge the fact of genocide against Azerbaijani civilians that occurred in the early 20th century and support the fair position of Azerbaijan by rejecting the policy of double standards.

The members of the Armenian Dashnak party in concert with the Soviet Bolsheviks massacred about 20,000 innocent Azerbaijani people, including the elderly, women and children, starting on the night of March 30, 1918.

Armenian Bolshevik troops led by Stepan Shaumyan massacred thousands of people, burnt Islamic shrines and confiscated the 400-million-manat estate of Baku residents. Tezepir Mosque was bombed, and one of the magnificent architectural buildings, Ismailiyyeh, was burnt down.

The genocide policy pursued against Azerbaijanis was not limited to Baku. Armenian dashnaks killed 8,027 Azerbaijanis, including 2,560 women and 1,277 children in 53 villages of Shamakhy, 110 km west of Baku, on March 31. Also, 16,000 Azerbaijanis were murdered in 162 villages of Guba, northern Azerbaijan. The Armenian dashnaks burnt thousands of villages in Lenkeran, Mughan and Nagorno-Karabakh as well and killed thousands of people there. Special Investigation Commission set up by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic on July 15, 1918 collected a great number of documents and submitted them to the government. In 1919, the Azerbaijani parliament made a decision on marking March 31 as the day of Azerbaijanis' genocide.

Though this date was essentially forgotten during the Soviet times, relevant investigations on the tragedy were carried out and books were published after Azerbaijan gained independence from the USSR.

President Heydar Aliyev issued a decree on March 26, 1998 to commemorate March 31 as the Day of Azerbaijanis' Genocide.

Since then, every year Azerbaijanis living in countries around the world mark March 31as the Day of Genocide.

The Azerbaijani youth also urged the world community and relevant international organizations to impose tough sanctions against the Armenian invaders to achieve their withdrawal from the occupied Azerbaijani territory, restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, reinstatement of the violated rights of over a million Azerbaijani refugees and displaced persons, and release of captives and hostages.

The two South Caucasus countries for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenia's withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

A precarious cease-fire was signed in 1994. However, units of the Armenian armed forces commit armistice breaches on the frontline almost every day.

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