SYDNEY: The Armenian National Committee of Australia has circulated a statement to Local, State and Federal Government representatives, calling for the recognition and denouncement of the Sumgait Massacre.
On February 27-28 1988, thousands of Azerbaijani hoodlums marched into the Sumgait region in broad daylight; torching, raping and massacring hundreds of Armenian men, women and children.
Days before the Sumgait Massacre, an official threat was made against Armenians “campaigning for the unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia†by a leader of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Mr. Hidayat Orujev.
Unfortunately, while a few criminals were convicted, but later amnestied, the organisers of the anti-Armenian pogroms were not brought to justice.
Nobel Prize laureate and Soviet peace activist, Andrei Sakharov has commented: “We need a fair trial for the Sumgait Massacre perpetrators not only to save Azerbaijani SSR from disgrace, but we need it to save the future of the whole country.â€
Instead of fair trial, the Sumgait Massacre heralded more pogroms and ethnic cleansing on the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan and the Armenians of Nagorno Karabagh.
To this day, there continues to be an organised effort to destroy historically sacred Armenian sites by the government of Azerbaijan. Recently, there has been a documented video, evidencing the systematic destruction of a more than 1000-year-old Armenian cemetery and historic carved stone crosses in the southern Nakhichevan region of Djulfa.
On the day which marked the 19th anniversary of the Sumgait, ANC Australia called for an official and accurate “recognition and denouncement†of the Sumgait Massacre by Government representatives.
Along with their statement, the Armenian-Australian community’s peak public affairs body also provided Fact Sheets on the Nagorno Karabagh region and the Sumgait Massacre, as well as a CD-ROM documentary about the event.
