Interview with Dr Adil Baguirov of the US Azeris Network (USAN).
Q: How has the 19th anniversary of the Khojaly massacre been marked in the USA?
A: Each year Azerbaijani-Americans and their organizations, including the US Azeris Network (USAN), hold a number of events to commemorate the Khojaly massacre – the largest crime against humanity in the South Caucasus committed by Armenia in the second half of the 20th century. Specifically, under the aegis of USAN, the Azerbaijani-Americans of Washington DC, where USAN is headquartered, as well as our friends from the Turkish and other communities, held the seventh annual protest action in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia.
This has become a tradition; in this respect the Azerbaijani diaspora of Washington DC sets a good example. Photos and video of the event show how well-attended it is, and how our community, led by USAN’s co-founder and member of the board of directors Bedir Memmedli, took the time to put together all the slogans and banners.
It should be noted that after our community had finished the seventh annual Khojaly protest outside the Armenian embassy, the protesters headed to the Azerbaijani embassy because we knew that the local Armenians had shamelessly decided to do hold a protest outside the Azerbaijan embassy over the Sumgayit tragedy of 28 February 1988. They try to play the Sumgayit card – a Soviet-era tragedy where a total of 32 people died, including six Azerbaijanis – to distract attention from the Khojaly massacre. Of course, the Armenian media trumpeted their protest, with carefully selected photos, omitting to mention the larger and better organized Azerbaijani-American counter-protest in front of the Armenian propagandists, as well as the earlier USAN protest outside the Armenian Embassy. That’s how Armenian propaganda works – selectively quotes and showcases photos to create false impressions and mislead the public.
In addition to all these annual protests, for the fourth year in a row, USAN held a mass letter campaign on the Khojaly massacre commemoration as well as a backgrounder on the Sumgayit tragedy. The letter campaigns target the US Congress House of Representatives and Senate, the vice president of the United States, state legislatures and media – all together well over 400 politicians and journalists with almost 4,000 letters sent. All of USAN’s letters can be sent via our action web centre. Any Azerbaijani-American, living in the US, can send those letters and join our action campaigns if they wish.
Meanwhile, aside from all this action in Washington DC, Azerbaijani-Americans in other cities were also very active – specifically, street protest actions in Houston (where a member of the USAN Board of Directors, Mehriban Afandiyeva, took an active part) and New York, as well as lectures in Houston (where, among others, USAN co-founder Yusif Babanli spoke at the University of Houston), San Francisco and Troy (Michigan). It’s also pleasing to know that Khojaly-related lectures and parliamentary events were held in the other countries of North America, specifically Canada and Mexico.
Meanwhile, our community, the USAN directors, activists and members, were also busy at two events on Nagorno-Karabakh at the George Mason University (GMU). On 24 February, USAN co-founder and treasurer Bedir Memmedli, joined by Prof. Rovshan Ibrahimov, spoke at the GMU, informing a fairly large audience of students, researchers and scholars about the origins of the Karabakh conflict, the effects of the occupation and current peace efforts.
Previously, on 17 February, Bedir Memmedli and I, along with other USAN members, some of whom are originally from Karabakh, made extensive comments and asked questions of Robert Avetisyan, the FARA-registered lobbyist (also known as a “foreign agent” in official terminology) of the Armenian government (deceptively doing business as the so-called “Office of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in the USA” and misrepresenting himself as a “diplomat” despite being unrecognized by the State Department and being instead registered by the Department of Justice as a lobbyist).
Despite the conference hall being packed with Armenian propagandists and lobbyists from all the major organizations, the Azerbaijani-Americans interfered with their propaganda, broke their plans and quickly turned “their” event against them. You can watch the short video of the event placed by the ANCA lobbyist organization on YouTube or the entire version of the event recorded by the Karabakh Foundation.
On a separate note, I would like to mention the work of the Karabakh Foundation, a charitable nonprofit organization, which also did a lot for the Khojaly commemoration, by sponsoring the making of the film Refugee by Turkish political scientist Dr Cem Oguz, and holding its premiere at the Avalon Theater in Washington DC on 24 February.
The next day, 25 February, the new film premiered in Los Angeles. You can read more about the charitable nonprofit organization at its website.
Q: Are the American political establishment, US political circles, getting better informed about the Khojaly massacre every year?
A: Definitely. This is easily proven by USAN statistics from its action campaigns, from the number of USAN articles and letters to the editor that are published every year, as well as the growing number of commentaries and reviews of USAN by the press. However, this is of course a very lengthy process and requires extensive and diligent work.
Q: In the long-run, can we expect any of the US states, and then eventually the US House of Representatives and Senate, to recognize the Khojaly massacre as a crime against humanity?
A: Absolutely, we can and should expect this to happen in future. USAN, as the largest and first Azerbaijani-American grassroots advocacy organization, has been working on this. This is all we can reveal for now.
Meanwhile, USAN already has several important achievements under its belt – for example the first-ever recognition of 31 March, which is the Day of Genocide against Azerbaijanis, as “Azerbaijani Remembrance Day” for two years in a row, 2009 and 2010, by a special proclamation of the governor of the State of Nevada.
This historic achievement infuriated the Armenian lobby and government organizations, specifically the very same Armenian government lobbyists that misrepresent themselves by doing business as the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Office to the USA”, and who tried to lobby the governor of Nevada to “explain” his decision and rescind the proclamation. Despite the fact that one of the Armenian diaspora’s funders, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian owns some 30% of the casinos of Las Vegas, but even all that money and lobbying potential was not enough to censor the truth and the Nevada governor withstood the Armenian lobbyist onslaught. Indeed, Kerkorian recently even decided to close down his foundation that helped Armenia, this experience being the final straw, as he is tired of being used as a tool for the always-hungry Armenian lobbyists, whose entire raison d’etre is spreading hate, chauvinism and misinformation.
Leyla Tagiyeva
News.Az
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