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Azerbaijani Diaspora in US to educate US media and politicians on facts surrounding tragic events in Sumgait

10 February 2010 13:54 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. Isabel Levine - APA. The Azerbaijani Diaspora in US has decided to educate the US media and politicians on the facts surrounding the tragic events of February 28, 1988 in the city of Sumgait.
According to APAâ€™s Washington correspondent, the members of Diaspora started sending letters to fundamental US broadcasting and print services and politicians on the subjects of Sumgait, March Massacres (day of Genocide against Azerbaijanis) and the Armenian issue of 1915.
â€œIt is important to set the record straight on the issue to better understand the turbulence of the time, complexity of the Caucasus region and how rapidly can relations between two communities of people deteriorate, leading one to an aggressive, expansionist behavior, occupying lands (e.g., 16% of Azerbaijan), carrying out ethnic cleansing (e.g., 800,000 Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs), and committing crimes against humanity (e.g, Khojaly)â€ â€“Diaspora stated on February 10th.
According to the Azeri Diaspora, â€œfor over two decades, the Armenian lobby and propaganda have been using Sumgait events to lambast Azerbaijan and to justify their actions against the people of Azerbaijanâ€.
The authors are reminding that, "Sumgait Pogroms" refer to tragic events which took place in the era of â€œperestroikaâ€ in the waning days of the Soviet Union, in the economically-depressed and poverty-stricken Azerbaijani industrial town of Sumgait (pop. 300,000). As a result of the unfortunate provocations, according to official data, a total of 32 people were killed (26 ethnic Armenian, 6 ethnic Azerbaijani), many more were wounded, substantial private and public property damage occurred due to vandalism and looting.
â€œThis was the first instance of what was labeled as an inter-ethnic strife in an otherwise multi-cultural, ethnically and religiously diverse, and historically tolerant Azerbaijan, but was quickly picked up by Armenian nationalists and propaganda, with heavily inflated casualty figures, as an example of large-scale massacre and perhaps even "genocide". Before too long, the tragedy of Sumgait Pogroms was spiraled out of control, and became accepted as an example of persecution of Armenians, and the cause of Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) war between then-Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan. Such allegations are still made by Armenian nationalist circles, including in the United States, where they take advantage of their numerical strength and overwhelm the U.S. public opinion with false propaganda claimsâ€ â€“ the letter says.