Calculated silence

2026-03-03 - 12:54

The following remarks were delivered at the AYF-led protest in front of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Washington, D.C., held on Feb. 28, 2026, commemorating Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian massacres in Sumgait, Baku, Maragha and Kirovabad (1988-1992), along with demanding justice for the 2023 Artsakh Genocide and the release of Armenian prisoners of war. Just 38 years ago, mass violence erupted in Sumgait. Twenty thousand Armenians were torn from their homes, and some 200 tragically lost their lives. In a horrifying fit of hysteria, Azerbaijani mobs broke into homes, dragged people onto the streets, and brutally beat and disfigured victims in a targeted campaign of ethnic cleansing. Why was it that Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union maintained a calculated silence while the blood was still fresh? Even when they finally spoke, systematic atrocities were reduced to the work of “mere hooligans,” criminally understating a massacre. Now, Azerbaijan blames Armenians for their own slaughter, in a trend of victim-blaming that unfortunately has carried over to today. This perversion of reality is not just offensive — it is very dangerous. Aliyev and his government assert a discredited lie that “Armenian nationalists” incited violence among themselves to hurt the reputation of Azerbaijan. But the photos are irrefutable. Images of charred apartments and mutilated bodies do not lie. When truth is replaced with propaganda, injustice is repeated. This blatant fabrication of heavily documented events echoes the genocidal rhetoric the Turks used to justify their atrocities a century ago. How many times must the truth be buried before the world chooses to see it? And how many Armenians must suffer before denial is recognized as a continuation of the very crime itself? History has shown us a clear pattern: violence followed by denial, and suffering followed by silence. Every time the world ignores the truth, the door is left wide open for Azerbaijan or anyone else to commit the next atrocity. The response is never accountability, and America, especially, continues to appease a regime built not on the values of democracy but on the foundations of authoritarian greed and state-sponsored cultural erasure. We are gathered here today not to forget these victims of inhumanity and to reinforce our stance that we will not tolerate the falsification of history and erasure of our struggle. The moment we do, we dishonor the souls of those we lost in Sumgait, in Artsakh and throughout our ancestral homeland. Memory is not an act of revenge; it is an act of justice. Silence compounds injustice. We see this far too often. We saw it when Azerbaijan denied the existence of prisoners of war, and we saw it when the world turned a blind eye to the use of white phosphorus on our soldiers and our land. But let it be known that our presence here serves as our refusal to forget. For the martyrs of Sumgait, of Baku, of Kirovabad, of Maragha and Artsakh — and the future of a free, independent and united Armenia — we will remain vocal, we will remain vigilant, and we will hold the perpetrators of these atrocities accountable.