17th ANNIVERSARY OF KHOJALY MASSACRE

February 25, 2009

AZERBAIJANI-, TURKIC-AMERICANS COMMEMORATE THE 17th ANNIVERSARY OF KHOJALY MASSACRE, CALL FOR JUSTICE

SAN FRANCISCO, LOS ANGELES, HOUSTON, WASHINGTON, NEW YORK – Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) and Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) join Azerbaijani-American community in commemorating the massacre which took place during the night of February 25-26, 1992 near the town of Khojaly in Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. On this frosty night, Armenian forces surrounded and attacked the Azerbaijani-populated town, brutally massacring its fleeing residents. As the Newsweek magazine reported about Khojaly on March 16, 1992: “Many were killed at close range while trying to flee; some had their faces mutilated, others were scalped”. 613 people, including 106 women and 63 children, were tortured and maimed to their deaths in freezing temperatures, with hundreds more missing. Over 1,000 people received permanent health damage, 1,275 people were taken hostage, 8 families were fully destroyed. A total of 25 children lost both of their parents and 130 children lost one of them. According to the Human Rights Watch, Khojaly Massacre was “the largest massacre to date in the conflict” over Nagorno-Karabakh (Human Rights Watch / Helsinki. Azerbaijan: Seven Years of Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York. 1994)
Despite some adverse attempts to deny the fact of Khojaly Massacre, Monte Melkonian, the graduate of UC Berkeley, ASALA member, Armenian National Hero and a field commander during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, provided the following account of the aftermath of an Armenian assault on Khojaly:“By the morning of February 26, the refugees had made it to the eastern cusp of Mountainous Karabagh and had begun working their way downhill, toward safety in the Azeri city of Agdam, about six miles away. There, in the hillocks and within sight of safety, Mountainous Karabagh soldiers had chased them down… fighters had then unsheathed the knives they had carried on their hips for so long, and began stabbing..” (Markar Melkonian. My Brother’s Road: An American’s Fateful Journey to Armenia. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005, p. 213).   For 17 years since this massacre, no proper legal evaluation was given to the event. The facts and evidence of Khojaly Massacre, an act of war crime which preceded Srebrenica Massacre, were never completely pursued by the relevant international bodies. Many of those suspected of perpetrating the massacre still remain inside Armenia and the occupied regions of Azerbaijan. The ongoing occupation of Azerbaijani territories despite 4 UN Security Council resolutions (#822, 853, 874, 884) seriously impedes the efforts of international community to bring lasting peace to the region. According to the incumbent president of Armenia, Serzh Sarkissian, a participant of Nagorno-Karabakh war: “before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype].” (Thomas De Waal. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War, NYU Press, 2004).
This year, several Azerbaijani- and Turkic-American organizations initiated the “Justice for Khojaly“ remembrance week in the United States, as part of a global campaign of justice for Khojaly victims led by international youth organizations.  As emphasized by the AAC Board member, Professor Thomas Goltz of Montana State University, who also witnessed the aftermath of Khojaly Massacre and documented it in his “Azerbaijan Diary”, many more facts of this war crime are still unknown to international community. Therefore, within the scope of U.S. campaign, discussion panels and public remembrance ceremonies are held in San Francisco (UC Berkeley), Los Angeles, Houston, Washington and New York. While we are concerned by some defensive attempts to prevent even the remembrance of Khojaly Massacre, we would like to remind that the psychological damage inflicted by this massacre and lack of justice over it remain to be one of the major obstacles for reconciliation between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Public awareness and debates held in a civil discourse about the facts of Nagorno-Karabakh war will only help to open the way for healing between the two nations and bring about a just settlement of the conflict.

AAC and ASA call for all relevant U.S. and international bodies to properly investigate the facts of Khojaly Massacre and to help bring those responsible to justice. May the souls of all victims of Khojaly and Karabakh conflict rest in peace.

Copyright 2009 Azerbaijani American Council and Azerbaijan Society of America