European Azerbaijanis' group denounces 1918 genocide
By Sara Rajabova
The Congress of European Azerbaijanis has issued a statement over March 31, Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis.
The document is addressed to the Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament Barbara Lochbihler, President of the German Bundestag Norbert Lammert and the socio-political circles of Germany and Europe, Azertag news agency reported.
The statement says that 95 years have passed since the genocide committed by Armenian nationalists against Azerbaijanis on March 31, 1918.
"The massacre of about 20,000 innocent people - elderly, women and children - started on March 30, 1918. The genocide policy 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 on March 31. 16,000 Azerbaijanis were murdered in 162 villages of Guba. Armenian dashnaks burnt thousands of villages in Lankeran, Mughan and Nagorno-Karabakh and killed thousands of people," the statement says.
The statement also stresses that on February 25-26, 1992, an unprecedented massacre was committed against the Azerbaijani population in the town of Khojaly.
"This bloody tragedy, which became known as the Khojaly genocide, involved the extermination or capture of thousands of Azerbaijanis; the town was razed to the ground. Over the night from February 25 to 26, 1992 the Armenian armed forces with the help of the infantry regiment No. 366 of the former USSR, implemented the seizure of Khojaly - a small town situated in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan with the total area of 0.94 sq. km. and the population before the conflict of 23,757. Some 613 civilians, including 106 women and 83 children, were killed during this massacre."
The Congress of European Azerbaijanis calls on international organizations to support Azerbaijan and to reinstate the rights of one million Azerbaijani refugees displaced during the war with Armenia in the early 1990s.
On Sunday, Azerbaijani diaspora organizations and societies in Germany will organize a rally in Berlin to commemorate the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis. According to Azerbaijan's State Committee on Work with Diaspora, the rally will be held by the Azerbaijan House in Berlin, Coordination Center of Azerbaijanis in Germany and Azerbaijan-Germany Youth Association in front of the Brandenburg Gate.
The event aims to expose the injustice against the Azerbaijani people to the German community and to display unity of the Azerbaijanis.
Earlier, the Azerbaijani youth association operating in Germany appealed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over March 31, the Day of Genocide. The association called 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.
Also, US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar condemned the 1918 genocide of Azerbaijanis.
On Thusrday Morningstar visited the Guba burial, which is proof of the genocide committed by Armenians against Azerbaijanis in 1918.
According to the ambassador, all the actions that caused the killing of civilians are unacceptable. He said such events, which have brought so much pain to the Azerbaijani people, prove the importance of a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in a short period of time.
Besides, the US New Jersey state's Assembly last Friday issued a commemorative resolution that recognizes March 31 as Azerbaijani Remembrance Day marking the 95th anniversary of the Azerbaijani Genocide.
The resolution highlighted that the genocide of March 1918, in which more than 20,000 innocent Azerbaijani people lost their lives, is one of the most condemnable atrocities in world history.
The New York State Senate after the adoption of Resolution 3784 in March 2012 became the first state ever to recognize the Genocide of Azerbaijanis in law. The resolution also recognized March 31 as Azerbaijani Remembrance Day.
Besides, the US State of Nevada has twice issued a proclamation - in 2009 and 2011- on observing March 31 as a Day of Remembrance, honoring the victims resulting from the fighting that began in March 1918.
The massacre of Azerbaijanis and repressions committed against them should be considered as the bloodiest page of the world history of the 20th century. On March 31, 1918 the Baku Commune and the Armenian nationalists committed unprecedented violence in the history of mankind by perpetrating massacres and executions.
The 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 in 1991.
President Heydar Aliyev issued a decree on March 26, 1998 to commemorate March 31 as the Day of Azerbaijanis' Genocide.