March 31 - Commemoration of the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis

USAN PRESS RELEASE
March 31, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: info[AT]usazeris.org

The U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) joins the Azerbaijani-American communities across the country, as well as all Azerbaijanis and their friends across the globe and in the Republic of Azerbaijan, in commemorating the great tragedy that has befallen on the people of Azerbaijan through the 20th century, and specifically during the "March days" of 1918. The USAN is expressing its deep sorrow to all the victims and their families.
On those tragic days in March and April 1918, the Armenian Dashnak forces have committed the biggest genocidal act of the time in the region, by slaughtering no less than 12,000 Azerbaijanis in Baku alone, and later continuing these acts in Guba, Shemakha, Shusha, Naxcivan and other cities across Azerbaijan, increasing the total of deaths to 30,000. This act, explained in vivid details by a major British journalist and historian Peter Hopkirk, was described by him as "genocidal" ("Like hidden fire. The Plot to bring down the British Empire", Kodansha Globe, New York, 1994, pp. 281-287). To commemorate that and other Armenian atrocities against innocent Azerbaijani civilians, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), which was the first Parliamentary democracy in the Muslim world, observed March 31 as the Day of Massacres in 1919 and 1920, thus being the very first political, legal and historical assessment of the tragedy, and preceeding by several decades the politicised counter-acts by other people. Taking into the account that since 1948, the largest crimes against humanity have been defined as "genocide", on the 80th anniversary of the March Massacres that tragedy, along with similar massacres in 1905, 1947-1953, and 1992, were named as the day of the Azerbaijani Genocide.
In light of this, the U.S. Azeris Network launched a campaign of commemoration and recognition of the Azerbaijani genocide. Since the initiation of the USAN campaign on the commemoration and recognition of March 31 as the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis, between March 14-31, the members of the U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) have sent out a total of 2,627 emails and faxes to their elected officials and media. Of the total of 295 distinct recipients from among the elected officials and media, along with the U.S. President and Vice President, 80 were members of the U.S. House of Representatives (Congress), 44 were members of the Senate, and 168 were newspapers across the United States.

The U.S. Azeris Network is committed to its founding principles and goals, and will continue its campaign of public education and grassroots advocacy.

The U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) (www.USAzeris.org), is a registered 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.

Azerbaijan is strategic U.S. ally, and deserves U.S. aid

Narguiz Birk-Petersen: Azerbaijan is strategic U.S. ally, and deserves U.S. aid

Letter to the editor — 4/01/2008 8:35 am

Dear Editor: I am an Azerbaijani-American who is concerned on the matters related to the Caucasus and Caspian regions. I recently found out a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee is under intense pressure from pro-Armenian groups to disregard the president's 2009 budget request.
I urge Congress to retain or increase programs that give $23.4 million in aid to Azerbaijan, which is a strategic ally for the U.S. with peacekeeping troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and keep economic aid to Armenia at $24 million.
Moreover, absolutely no direct aid whatsoever should given to the Armenia-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
It should be stressed that direct U.S. assistance to the NK region would exacerbate concern in Azerbaijan and especially among the Azerbaijani-Americans and their friends. Any direct assistance would inspire speculation that the United States is taking sides with Armenia. The NK region, occupied by Armenia in the early 1990s, is recognized by the U.S., the U.N. and other nations as an integral part of Azerbaijan.
I urge Congress to keep or increase the need-based amounts of aid for Azerbaijan, so that our troops could do their job more effectively with the Azerbaijani military. Doing otherwise undermines U.S. national security, and creates a very bad image of the U.S. in the Muslim world in general and in particular in Azerbaijan, its only predominantly Shiite but secular ally.

Narguiz Birk-Petersen

Fitchburg

Pasadena Star-News: Aid to Azerbaijan

PASADENA STAR-NEWS
Pasadena, California

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/letters/ci_8642859

Aid to Azerbaijan
Article Launched: 03/20/2008 07:41:48 PM PDT

When Armenia established its independence in the aftermath of the Soviet
break-up, the U.S. undertook massive financial aid and assistance to
that nation. From day one, Armenia became the second largest per capita
recipient of U.S. aid in the world.

Since 1992, Armenia has received over $1.77 billion in aid. Armenia has
received $225 million in cumulative U.S. foreign assistance for
democratization (about 13 percent of all aid to that nation) from 1992
to 2006. These figures do not include millions in additional
democratization aid budgeted for 2008. Did the U.S. taxpayers and
American hopes and expectations bear fruit?

As all the elections in Armenia have shown, most vividly last month's
presidential elections and its violent aftermath, U.S. efforts have
failed and money was all but wasted: at least eight people killed, over
a hundred wounded, tanks and army patrolling the streets of the capital,
full-scale government censorship of all communications for at least 20
days, and main opposition contender under house arrest.

Armenia is also militarily occupying 16 percent of neighboring
Azerbaijan, displacing 800,000 ethnic Azeris in the process, placing an
even harder moral and financial burden on its population to sustain and
support its military machine.

Compare this with Azerbaijan, a victim of occupation and ethnic
cleansing by Armenia, yet has received only $746 million in cumulative
budgeted foreign assistance from the U.S. (from
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1992 to 2008), of which only about $75million were for democratization.

Thus, larger Azerbaijan, a strategic US ally, has received four times
less aid than a smaller but more aggressive Armenia.

Furthermore, when comparing to a similar presidential election that was
held 5 years ago in Azerbaijan, when two people unfortunately died,
dozens were wounded, yet tanks and army were not deployed, and no
censorship or emergency rule imposed, Armenia's record looks even more
deplorable. Thus, despite being born with a silver spoon in its mouth
and more than generously funded by U.S. taxpayers, Armenia, the second
largest aid recipient in the world, ended up having markedly worse
elections than Azerbaijan.

This is the wrong message to send; we should not be rewarding a corrupt
and militaristic regime, which is not only occupying its neighbors'
lands, conducts ethnic cleansing and engages in crimes against humanity
(e.g., Khojaly Massacre), but also violently kills its own citizens
during its elections and conducts markedly worse elections than its
neighbors.

It's grand time we ask Kocharyan and his regime the age-old question -
Where's the money?!

Arzu Aghayeva

Long Beach

March 31 -- the Day of the Genocide of Azerbaijanis

March 31 is known as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis, referring to the tragic events that happened on March 31-April 1, 1918. In one of the first comprehensive scholarly studies of the tragedy, Prof Firuz Kazemzadeh wrote: "This three-day massacre by Armenians is recorded in history as the "March Events" and thousands of Muslims [Azeris], old people, women and children lost their lives" ("The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917-1921", New York, 1951, p. 69).

Another distinguished professor was even more blunt: "From 30 March to 1 April 1918, the Tatars [as Azerbaijanis were sometimes called] were attacked. Almost half of the Muslim population of Baku was compelled to flee the city.. Between 8,000 and 12,000 Muslims were killed in Baku alone.." (Justin McCarthy, "Death and Exile. The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims 1821-1922", Darwin Press, Princeton, NJ, 1995, p. 214).

Continues Prof Kazemzadeh: "The truth is that the Armenians, under the guise of Bolshevism, rushed on the Muslims and massacred during a few frightful days more than 12,000 people, many of whom were old men, women, and children.The March Events, as this episode became known to history, touched off a series of massacred all over Azerbaijan."

Rear-Admiral Mark L. Bristol, US High Commissioner (Ambassador) in Istanbul, wrote: "While the Dashnaks [Armenians] were in power [1918-1920] they did everything in the world to keep the pot boiling by attacking Kurds, Turks and Tartars [Azeris]; by committing outrages against the Moslems; by massacring the Moslems; and robbing and destroying their homes. During the last two years the Armenians in Russian Caucasus have shown no ability to govern themselves and especially no ability to govern or handle other races under their power" (US Library of Congress, "Bristol Papers," General Correspondence Container #34). Rear-Admiral Bristol continues, "I have it from absolute first-hand information that the Armenians in the Caucasus attacked Tartar [Azeris] villages that are utterly defenseless
and bombarded these villages with artillery and they murder the inhabitants, pillage the village and often burn the village" ("Bristol Papers", General Correspondence: Container #32: Bristol to Bradley Letter of September 14, 1920).

After the proclamation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic (ADR) on May 28, 1918, the "March Events" were investigated by ADR Government. In 1919-1920, the ADR observed March 31 as a national day of mourning. This was the first-ever genuine attempt to give political and legal assessment of the policy of genocide against Azeris. No other nation has commemorated genocide as early as 1919 but the Azeris, the first victims of the crimes against humanity.

Being unable to commemorate the tragedy during Soviet years, observation of March 31 was re-established since, to commemorate not just that particular massacre, but the policy of genocide against Azeris carried out since the 19th century and throughout the entire 20th century, with the final act being the Khojaly Massacre of 1992.

The position of Azerbaijani-Americans is that close to a million Azeris have been massacred in the 20th century as the result of Armenian genocidal campaign. This makes for a total of 2,5 million Azeris, Turks, Kurds, Jews, Georgians, Circassians, Tats, Talysh, Lezgins and other people who fell victim to the Armenian policies of ethnic cleansing for the creation of their state, which was supposed to stretch from the Black sea to the Caspian to the Mediterranean.

We are asking to join the Azerbaijani-American and other communities, and the US Azeris Network (USAN), in commemorating the Azerbaijani Genocide by making a statement for the record in your committees, legislature or newspaper column or Congressional Record. Thank you!

Congress should Condemn Armenia's Flawed Presidential Election and hold Hearings

USAN Action Letter: Congress should Condemn Armenia's Flawed Presidential Election and hold Hearings

On February 19, Armenia held its controversial presidential elections. On March 1, peaceful protest demonstrations of Armenian opposition, that drew tens of thousands, have been dispersed with extreme violence and brutality by Armenian security forces which killed 8 people on the streets of Yerevan. A 20-day complete censorship and state of emergency were imposed, making all but impossible to get truthful coverage and information on casualties, which are claimed to be far higher.

The former war lord and incumbent Prime Minister, Serzh Sarkisian, assisted by state media and various manipulations and fraud (e.g., the vote count in 16% of precincts was "bad or very bad" according to international observer mission of OSCE/ODIHR, OSCE/PA and PACE), won 53% of the vote - just enough to deny a recount, and strikingly similar to the disputed 1996 election, in which the current second-place contender, Levon Ter-Petrossian, got almost 52%. Seems like nothing has changed in Armenia.

In between these rough 12 years between one disputed election to this one (in both cases a runoff, second round, was needed), Armenians endured a coup d'etat in 1998 that forced its president into retirement and takeover of presidency by another war lord Kocharyan, then a 1999 crisis from gunmen assassinating the popular Prime Minister Sargsyan, Speaker Demirchiyan, and several more officials in broad daylight in the nation's Parliament. Not the least among flagrant violations of law in Armenia is the continued military occupation of 16% of Azerbaijan, ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Azerbaijani civilians and crimes against humanity in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

What is also deplorable, however, is that in all this time and with all these egregious violations of international obligations and human rights, the US Congress, and specifically the US Helsinki Commission (CSCE), has never held any hearings on elections and democratization in Armenia - despite US taxpayers footing well over $1,7 billion dollars in aid since 1992 to the corrupt military regime in Armenia that is committing massive violations against its own citizenry as well as citizens of its neighbor.

Whilst in the same time frame, the US Helsinki Commission held numerous hearings on Armenia's neighbors, Azerbaijan and Georgia, but never done so on Armenia and Armenian elections, democratization and human rights.

Such a reaction, or lack thereof, which can be called as "Magna Silencia", is unacceptable. What message does it send to everyone, from peaceful protestors in Armenia, to innocent civilians in Azerbaijan whose homes are destroyed and held by Armenian military regime, to US taxpayers who have been duped into thinking that their money is democratizing Armenia. This is not acceptable for anyone who believes in democracy, and not acceptable to US taxpayers.

The Helsinki Commission along with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee should initiate urgent hearings, and invite their colleagues from the EP, OSCE and PACE to also hold their hearings on the Armenian elections, its short-term and long-term impact on regional security in the Caucasus region, the waste of generous aid to Armenia, and the burden of military occupation which is not allowing Armenia to break away from its inherently undemocratic status. For the people in the region it is important to see a clear and firm position of the US on the situation in Armenia.

You can find bellow some articles and video materials about bloody events in Armenia:

1) Bloodshed in Armenia (The Economist):
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10809006

2) Silence on Armenia (article appeared in Washington Post). By Levon Ter-Petrossian (opposition leader):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030402329.html

3) This video shows how Armenian security forces kill innocent citizens in Yerevan: http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhKq-0zKXg

Failed democratization of Armenia – a heist worth $2,6 billion dollars to US taxpayers

When Armenia established its independence in the aftermath of the Soviet break-up, US undertook massive financial aid and assistance to that nation. From day one, Armenia became the second largest per capita recipient of US aid in the world.

Since 1992 Armenia has received over $1,777 billion in US aid, plus $236 million for 5 years in MCC funds. Incidentally, in years 1918-1920, Armenia received over $50 million in US loans, which in 2008 dollars is worth $623,121,387.28. This is for a grand total of $2,636 billion.

According to CRS calculations, Armenia has received $225 million in cumulative US foreign assistance for democratization (about 13 percent of all aid to that nation) from FY92 through FY06 (RS22675, Jun 8, 2007, p. 6). These figures do not include millions in additional democratization aid budgeted in FY07 and FY08. Did the US taxpayers' and American hopes and expectations bear fruit?

As all the elections in Armenia have shown, most vividly the Feb'08 presidential elections and its violent aftermath, US efforts have failed and money was all but wasted. Consider the official facts (independent and opposition report offer far higher figures): at least 8 people killed, over a hundred wounded, tanks and army patrolling the streets of the capital, full-scale government censorship of all communications for at least 20 days, and main opposition contender under house arrest.

Additionally according to the CIA World Factbook, Armenia is also militarily occupying 16% of neighboring Azerbaijan (including the NK region), displacing 800,000 ethnic Azeris in the process, placing an even harder moral and financial burden on its population, to sustain and support its military machine. Indeed, Congress and CRS note, "Armenia's shift away from a war footing would also further US interests in Armenia's economic development and improved standards of living (Congressional Budget Justification for Foreign Operations, FY2007)" (RL30679, Updated Jan 31, 2008, p. 29).

Compare this with Azerbaijan, a victim of occupation and ethnic cleansing by Armenia, yet has received only $746 million in cumulative budgeted US foreign assistance from FY92 through FY08, of which only about $75 million were for democratization. No other loans, grants or MCC compacts were given to Azerbaijan. Thus, larger Azerbaijan, a strategic US ally, has received some 4 times less aid than a smaller but more aggressive Armenia. As the CRS report notes, "The United States has provided most assistance for democratization to Armenia, and somewhat less for Georgia. U.S. aid for democratization in Azerbaijan was explicitly permitted by Congress [only] in FY1998 and thereafter" (ibid., p. 48).

Furthermore, when comparing to a similar presidential election that was held 5 years ago in Azerbaijan, when two people unfortunately died, dozens were wounded, yet tanks and army were not deployed, and no censorship or emergency rule imposed, Armenia's record looks even more deplorable. Thus, despite being born with a silver spoon in its mouth and more than generously funded by US taxpayers, Armenia, the second largest aid recipient in the world, ended up having markedly worse elections than Azerbaijan, which is suffering from occupation of its lands and has to grapple with 10% of its population being displaced. This shows that the US democratization aid to Armenia has been ineffective and failed (which was in line with the signs that the MCC, the Freedom House and others have started to
notice years ago).

This is the wrong message to send - we should not be rewarding a corrupt and militaristic regime, which is not only occupying its neighbor's lands, conducts ethnic cleansing and engaged in crimes against humanity (e.g., Khojaly Massacre), but also violently kills its own citizens during its elections and conducts markedly worse elections than its neighbors. It's grand time we ask Mr Kocharyan and his regime the age old question - "Where's the money?!"

USAN CONDEMNS THE STATEMENT BY SAMANTHA POWER AGAINST SEN. CLINTON, COMMENDS SEN. OBAMA FOR FORCING DR. POWER’S RESIGNATION AS HIS ADVISOR

USAN CONDEMNS THE STATEMENT BY SAMANTHA POWER AGAINST SEN. CLINTON, COMMENDS SEN. OBAMA FOR FORCING DR. POWER’S RESIGNATION AS AN ADVISOR TO HIS CAMPAIGN

In a predictable turn of events, Ms. Samantha Power, who served as an advisor to the Presidential Campaign by Sen. Barack Obama, has resigned from that position today, on Friday, March 7, 2008, after a string of upsetting and ill-serving advice to Sen. Obama, and culminating in making several disparaging public comments against Sen. Hillary Clinton in her interview with The Scotsman.

In the interview, also published today, Ms. Power labeled Sen. Clinton as a “monster”, resorting to “deceit”, “stooping to anything”, and “you just look at her and think, ‘Ergh’”. Such disparaging remarks are consistent with the generally extremely biased worldview and intolerance toward anyone with a dissenting opinion concerning historic and contemporary events, that Ms. Power, a Pulitzer-prize winning author and Harvard professor, displayed over and over again.

Earlier in the year, on January 25, 2008, the USAN has protested <http://www.usazeris.org/usanpr3.htm> the highly deplorable and unfortunate statement posted on Sen. Obama’s campaign website, about matters concerning Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Armenia, specifically about crimes against humanity, aggression, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and embargoes. The statement was the result of Dr. Power’s ill-served advice, which completely overlooked geopolitical and historic facts in favor of pleasing the Armenian special interest lobby groups.

Ironically, despite making this unfortunate statement, which was presumably calculated to attract supposedly active Armenian-American voters, it failed its objectives completely, by showcasing the greatly exaggerated ability to influence voter turnout attributed to the Armenian-American lobby, while at the same time only galvanizing the Azerbaijani-American and Turkish-American voters to get out the vote and show their unity against such unacceptable and appalling remarks. As USAN’s February 6, 2008 press release <http://www.usazeris.org/usanpr5.htm> observed in the aftermath of the Super Tuesday voting: “[Obama] campaign actually suffered more decisive losses in the states with a large portion of Armenian-American voters, such as California, New Jersey, Massachusetts and, earlier, in Michigan, as well as the state of New York with a large Turkic-American population. USAN views this failure as a result of miscalculation on behalf of policy advisers for Senator Obama, who tend to place the limited agenda of ethnocentric political groups over the interests of the United States.”

Furthermore, USAN remarked, “On behalf of Azerbaijani- and Turkic-American voters, who were deeply offended by Senator Obama's remarks, USAN encourages his campaign to take a more sensitive stance properly reflecting the interests of American people and the position of the United States as a fair broker of the international conflicts.”

USAN welcomes the resignation of Dr. Power and hopes she will do-away from her bias mixed with insufficient knowledge of facts and selective approach in treating historic and contemporary events in the Caucasus and Anatolian regions. Likewise, USAN commends Sen. Obama and his campaign staff for making the right decision quickly and hopes he will become more open for correct assessment of issues relevant to the Turkic-American communities.

The U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) is a registered 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. Through the auspices of the U.S. Azeris Network, the voice of the Azerbaijani-Americans is becoming unified and strengthened. USAN is the first nationwide grassroots organization uniting Azerbaijani-Americans, conducting successful fundraisers and being created by the grassroots, for the grassroots.