The following remarks were delivered at the AYF-led protest in front of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington D.C., held on February 22, 2025, commemorating Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian massacres in Sumgait-Baku-Maragha-Kirovabad (1988-1992), along with demanding justice for the 2023 Artsakh genocide and release of Armenian prisoners of war.
Today, we once again gather to mark the anniversary of the Baku, Sumgait, Maragha and Kirovabad massacres. Year after year, we have come before this embassy, before the world, to shout out that our people deserve recognition. That we deserve dignity. That we deserve the same human rights as anyone else. However, I must also note that we come not out of blind national chauvinism nor care only for Armenians. We come to ensure that, as the chant goes, genocide denied does not become genocide continued. So recently, so sadly, that has indeed been the case. And so often, genocide continued spreads—from one part of the world to the next.
Nearly two years ago, I said that “we have come to honor those lost, to seek restitution for those who survived and to fight for those under brutal siege.” I, for one, am proud that we showed up and spoke out. I am proud that in the face of a world that sought to forget and to erase, we stood steadfast. But I have come to deliver a hard truth: there is much more work to do. That starts with a clear diagnosis of how we got to this crossroads and a plan for action.
In February 1988, 37 years ago, the Artsakh liberation movement began. Instead of allowing the people of Artsakh their rights to self-determination and self-government, officials in the Azerbaijani SSR responded with fanning the flames of hate. On February 27, 1988, rioters fueled by poison from local Azeri authorities began a brutal two-day riot in Sumgait. Thereafter, that unpunished and unadulterated violence spread to Kirovabad. 100,000 people fled for their lives. Then, in Baku, the quarter million strong and centuries old Armenian population faced increasing discrimination. Although many left, authorities yet again sought to erase the Armenian population from existence there. For nearly a week, violence spread unabated.
In the years since, we have seen Azerbaijan escalate this violence again and again. In Maragha, more innocent civilians were massacred in 1992. In the second Artsakh war, we saw illegal cluster munitions deployed. We saw videos and pictures of civilians beheaded, of service women’s bodies desecrated, of prisoners of war being executed. Then, in September 2023, we were forced to watch over 120,000 innocent men, women and children be forcibly removed from their homeland. Their leaders have been kept as hostages for show in kangaroo courts. It was painful. It was cruel. It was wrong.
Yet, the people of Artsakh, strong and resolute, are not yet confined to the pages of history books. Families who found love and joy in Stepanakert still live. Babies born in a free Shushi still are diligent scholars and playful children. Veterans who fought for the right to live in peace and with self-determination still fill our churches and community centers. It is our obligation to stand in solidarity with them now and forever.
However, we also come before this embassy for the people of Azerbaijan, who still have their doubts, fears and frustrations with a dictatorship funneled into hate for their fellow man. To them, I ask: is your child happier than they were before the war? Are you more free than before your government initiated a genocide in Artsakh? Do you have more opportunities to lead a dignified life? Has this filled the gap that Ilham Aliyev has burned into the heart of your country?
To the previous Department of State, to USAID, to the former Biden administration, I must ask: was it worth turning your backs on human rights? Was it worth sacrificing credibility and faith in the United States? The promise of a rules-based order with guarantees of dignity, self-determination and freedom for all lay as homeless as the thousands of refugees forced to flee in the face of annihilation; they lay buried under the rubble of bombed out buildings and shelters.
To those who opine that losing Artsakh was somehow necessary to the survival of the Armenian nation, I ask, do you feel safer now than you did in 2018? Do you feel more confident in the security and future of the Armenian state? How much of Armenia are you prepared to give up? How much do you think Aliyev, Erdogan and their enablers will be satiated by? Are we content with accepting injustice and appeasement instead of fighting for collective liberation?
We must recognize as well that this struggle is not an Artsakhtsi struggle. It is not an Armenian struggle. It is not an Azeri or Turkish struggle. Rather, it is a critical juncture for human rights and collective power. The unpunished, unrecognized and unfinished genocide of the Armenian people continues to serve as an example to autocrats and racists around the world. The words of Adolf Hitler asking “who remembers the Armenians?” before embarking on a war of catastrophe for the world echo in the tragedies of today.
So, we come here to shout back. To say that there is another way. And as I said before and as I say now, that way is solidarity. Solidarity is strength. Solidarity is power. Solidarity is love. Our binding stretches across generations, across oceans, across mountains through which armies of empires have marched and who have always—always—fallen to our collective strength. That is what is needed: a commitment to a common cause and a shared future. For in the end, we are one people with one homeland and one history.
The beauty of today is that such a history is one on which the ink has not yet dried. We, together, are masters of our own fates. So, let us love our people enough to remember the taste of blood every time we bite into an apricot. Let us love our people enough to hear the ringing of church bells of Van in our music. Let us love our people enough to feel the warmth of children’s smiles playing in liberated Shushi in the sun that shines on our faces. A better world is possible, my friends. But we must choose that today.
We must choose to take our energy today and come back tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, and every day until we have breathed our last. But most of all, let us do it together. For I still believe that while the weight of destiny rests upon us, below us, we stand on the shoulders of giants. Let us not let them down now.
Matthew Girardi
Latest posts by Matthew Girardi (see all)
- Artsakh’s history is yet to be written - February 24, 2025
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- Let us love our people enough - February 27, 2023
