AGBU Hosts Commemorative Event on 25th Anniversary of Sumgait Massacres

Armenian Representative to the UN Garen Nazarian and Nagorno-Karabakh Representative Robert Avetisyan Speak During Film Screening and Photo Exhibit

Twenty-five years ago, the Armenian community experienced yet another dark chapter in its history: the Sumgait Massacres, which claimed the lives of scores of civilians in Azerbaijan and threw the region into tumult. The brutal manner of the attacks against the ethnic Armenian citizens of this Azerbaijani industrial town on the shores of the Caspian Sea was reminiscent of those of the Ottoman Empire in 1915.  The anti-Armenian riots arose at the onset of the national liberation movement, when the legislative body of Nagorno Karabakh demanded peaceful secession of the region from Azerbaijan and reunification with Armenia, which eventually sparked a full-blown war in the region.

On Wednesday, February 27, 2013, AGBU honored the Sumgait victims and celebrated the rich cultural legacy of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) at a special commemorative event, “Nagorno-Karabakh: From Sumgait Memories to Independent State,” which was hosted at the AGBU Central Office in New York.

Coordinated by AGBU University Outreach in partnership with the Armenian Center for Development Programs and the Armenian Society of Columbia University, the evening featured a screening of the documentary “The Ordinary Genocide: Sumgait, February 1988,” as well as a collection of photos that capture the beauty of NKR and the everyday lives of its citizens – before, during and after the war. The film, jointly produced by veteran journalist Marina Grigoryan and Armenian lawmaker Larisa Alaverdyan, included eyewitness testimony from victims, survivors, crime scene images as well as documents from the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, which showed that the Sumgait attacks were both well-orchestrated and largely tolerated by local authorities. Together with the photography exhibit, the documentary served as a harrowing reminder not only of the crimes committed against the Armenian people, but also of the unrelenting pursuit of justice.

The decades-long struggle to achieve peace and stability was the focus of remarks by Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Garen Nazarian, the event’s featured speaker along with NKR Representative to the United States, Robert Avetisyan. Amb. Nazarian stressed the need to respect international law and end impunity for crimes perpetrated against Armenians.

Mr. Avetisyan joined to call for accountability and reconciliation. “The event organized by AGBU is very important, we must pay tribute, keep alive Sumgait’s innocent victims’ memory and remember our history,” he said. “We must continue to raise awareness of the tragedy of Sumgait and build a strong and prosperous Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh that is capable of protecting its population’s security and dignity.” 

While Ambassador Nazarian and Mr. Avetisyan discussed the challenges of informing overseas audiences about the Sumgait Massacres and demanding justice for the victims, Svetlana Amirkhanian focused on the needs of the Sumgait and NKR refugee community in New York. In the aftermath of the war, Dr. Amirkhanian –Chair of Brooklyn’s St. Gregory the Illuminator Mission Parish Council– recounted to the event’s attendees how Manhattan’s St. Vartan Cathedral and St. Illuminator’s Church were overwhelmed with displaced families. Both churches provided those men, women and children, who were coping with trauma and struggling to support themselves, with a range of social services, resettling many in the predominantly Russian-speaking neighborhoods of Brooklyn where they could assimilate more easily. By 2000, they formed their own Parish, which assists more than 500 families today.

Dr. Amirkhanian helps organize the Parish’s weekly language, history and culture classes for children, as well as programs for adults and cultural events. St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Mission Parish is currently raising funds to buy a building and school to call their own. To learn more and contribute, please visit their website: http://www.armeniansny.org.

To watch the documentary “The Ordinary Genocide: Sumgait, February 1988,” which contains graphic scenes that some viewers may find disturbing, please visit here.