Nevada Governor Proclaims 31 March Azerbaijani Remembrance

Nevada Governor Proclaims 31 March Azerbaijani Remembrance
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 05:30

The proclamation is available below as well as directly from Nevada Governor’s official government website.

USAN is proud to announce that Nevada governor did it once again: proclamation of 31 March as the first-ever official US government recognition, designation as Remembrance Day of the 1918 massacres of Azerbaijani civilians.

Washington DC and Carson City, Nevada – To commemorate 31 March the “Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis”, which is officially observed in Azerbaijan since 1919 from the days of the first Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), activists from USAN have sought and received the first-ever formal recognition of this special date and the tragedy by any US government authority in 2009. The crucial outreach and coordination efforts were spearheaded and led by a USAN Board of Directors member, the Director for the Western Region, himself based in the great State of Nevada. This year, under the relentless guidance and leadership, USAN did it again — the Governor of the State of Nevada issued a second proclamation, designating March 31, 2010 as the “Azerbaijani Remembrance Day”.

The proclamation is available below as well as directly from Nevada Governor’s official government website:

USAN decided to announce this historic event on the New Year Eve and the Azerbaijani Solidarity Day to mark new times and new beginning for our community, and as homage to all of the Azerbaijani patriots in U.S. and worldwide.

This unmatched achievement by USAN that started in 2009 and repeated this year, continues to be the first-ever official government recognition by any high-ranking state authority, outside of Azerbaijan, of March 31 as a day of commemoration of the national tragedy that befell on Azerbaijanis. As such, the Azerbaijani-American and Turkic-American community make an important step forward in having the terrible plight of their ancestors to be properly recognized and acknowledged.

The historic first-ever 2009 proclamation is also available from Nevada Governor’s official website:

The Governor of Nevada is that state’s highest elected official. Nevada has a total land area of 286,367 sq. km., and a GDP of about $130 billion dollars, making it about three times larger than the Republic of Azerbaijan on both counts.

The Governor of Nevada, Mr. Jim Gibbons, and his office, after a thorough check of all the facts, have once again issued an official proclamation (full text and links to the proclamation included with this PR), which commemorates the “deaths of tens of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians”, victims of the genocidal policy pursued by Armenian forces during the “March Massacres” of 1918 in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan. The proclamation by the Nevada Governor also emphasizes the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan by stipulating that the Karabakh region is a U.S.-recognized part of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that last year, in 2009, the Armenian lobby attempted to discredit the historic proclamation by claiming that it was “fake” and a product of Photoshop. Hundreds of telephone calls, e-mail messages, faxes and even telegraphs from all over the country had flooded Gov. Gibbon’s office, often resorting to threats, intimidation and aggressive language. Undoubtedly, this will happen this year, too.

Previously, over the years, the U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) and its grassroots activists have sought and received dozens of proclamations from Governors and Mayors across the United States (Washington D.C., State of Virginia, City of Alexandria, Country of Arlington, City of Philadelphia, State of Pennsylvania, State of Wisconsin, State of North Carolina, as well as Texas, California, Missouri and others) on the National Day of Azerbaijan (May 28) and Independence Day of Azerbaijan (October 18), which have always stressed the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan by specifically mentioning the Armenia-occupied Karabakh region. To view most of the proclamations received by USAN, please visit out website:

To promote greater knowledge and understanding of the March 1918 events, the USAN and its activists have spearheaded the distribution to the leading public libraries, of the 1951 edition of the Yale University History Professor Emeritus Dr. Firuz Kazemzadeh’s book “Struggle for Transcaucasia (1917-1921)”, London: Anglo Caspian Press, 2008, 440 pp. The book was distributed to all the participants at the USAN conference in Washington DC in October 2008, as well as in Azerbaijani and Turkic diaspora conferences and events in Los Angeles and Houston.

USAN expects that this latest result of diligent work and grassroots activism will become a positive example for an even larger number of Azerbaijani-American and Turkic-American grassroots, who will seek and receive an increasing number of proclamations from their cities and states. USAN stands ready to help facilitate and coordinate such efforts by the community.

Both originals of the historic first-ever proclamation of March 31 as “Azerbaijani Remembrance Day” will be donated as valuable exhibits to the planned Museum of Azerbaijani Genocide. Until then they will remain in possession and on display of USAN.

Full text of the proclamation

State of Nevada
[The Great Seal of the State of Nevada]

A Proclamation by the governor

Whereas, the Republic of Azerbaijan has an area of 33,440 square miles, including the Karabakh region, situated in the South Caucasus region, southeastern Europe; and

Whereas, the territorial integrity, state sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan is supported by the United States and its citizens; and

Whereas, in March 1918, ethnic and religious tensions grew and the Armenian-Azeri conflict in Baku began; and

Whereas, as a result of the conflict, the region suffered thousands of casualties in Baku, Shemakha, Guba, Shusha, including the deaths of tens of thousands of Azerbaijani civilians; and

Whereas, every year since 1918, Azerbaijanis and many people around the globe, observe March 31 as a Day of Remembrance, to honor the victims resulting from the fighting that began in March 1918; and

Now, therefore, I, Jim Gibbons, governor of the state of Nevada, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2010 as

AZERBAIJANI REMEMBRANCE DAY

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Nevada to be affixed at the State Capitol in Carson City, this 3rd day of August, 2010

[signed] Jim Gibbons – Governor

[signed] Ross Miller – Secretary of State

[Seal of the State of Nevada]

Some helpful background materials, memos, quotes and reports:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Decree_of_President_of_Republic_of_Azerbaijan_about_genocide_of_Azerbaijani_people

The U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) ) is a registered 501(c)4 non-profit, non-partisan, non-sectarian genuine grassroots advocacy and voter education network that is facilitating political activism and efforts by the Azerbaijani-Americans and other Turkic-Americans and their associations, organizations, councils, conferences, and other formal, semi-formal and informal groups, on federal, state and local levels. USAN is the first nationwide grassroots organization uniting Azerbaijani-Americans, being created by the grassroots, for the grassroots.

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