From Sumgait to Artsakh: The unbroken struggle for Armenian survival

2026-03-11 - 17:05

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. Today we gather in remembrance — and to recommit. We remember the community in Sumgait, persecuted for being Armenian in February 1988 — when Armenians were hunted in their homes while authorities looked away. We remember Kirovabad, where Armenians were driven out through violence and terror. We remember Baku, January 1990 — a community that helped build that city, erased in presence and in footprint. And we remember Maragha, April 1992 — civilians murdered, a village destroyed, families shattered. These were not isolated outbursts. They were not spontaneous riots. They were part of a systemic campaign of ethnic cleansing — the revival of a familiar method: dehumanize, terrorize and expel. For Armenians, that method is not new. In 1915, Turkey sought to solve what it called the “Armenian question” by eliminating Armenians from their ancestral lands — through massacre, deportation, starvation and exile — a blatant genocide. In 1988, that same logic resurfaced in Sumgait. Armenians were again targeted not for what they had done but for who they were. Again, mobs were incited. Again, authorities stood aside. Again, the goal was clear: make Armenian life impossible. The pogroms of 1988-1992 were not an aberration of Soviet collapse. They were the reappearance of genocidal intent — testing whether Armenians could once again be removed with impunity. However, the pogroms, much like the Armenian Genocide, did not shatter our people. They ignited them. Our fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles in Artsakh saw what was happening in Sumgait and understood that living under a dictatorial government like Heydar Aliyev’s regime, fueled by anti-Armenian hatred, meant eventual annihilation. And so, on Feb. 13, 1988, the Artsakh Liberation Movement was born. A movement grounded in democratic will. Calling for union with Armenia. Calling for independence to ensure survival. It was driven by the valor of thousands who fought not for conquest but for existence — for the right to live freely on their ancestral land, worship openly as the first Christian nation and to pass their identity to their children. No one spared sacrifice. Everyone believed in the fight for independence. And they won. Many here know this history. But it warrants repeating — because genocide does not always arrive at once. It advances in stages. It tests the silence of the world. And when our people faced destruction, death and deportation, they did not cower. They did not bend. They did not break. They fought. They defended their homeland — and their very existence. And yet the pattern did not end. What began in 1915 continued in 1988. What began in 1988 reached its next chapter in 2023. The regime of Ilham Aliyev, behind me, completed what pogroms began: the removal of an entire Armenian population from Artsakh. Months of blockade. Hunger used as a weapon. Medical supplies denied. Children rationing bread. Then a military assault. Then a forced exodus under threat. When 150,000 Armenians are driven from their ancestral homeland because their presence is deemed unacceptable — that is not merely a military outcome. It is a chapter of genocide. Genocide is not only mass killing. It is the intentional destruction of a people’s ability to exist in their homeland — through starvation, terror, forced displacement and cultural erasure. And we have seen this before. The world said “never again” in 1915. It looked away in 1988. And in 2023, it watched. This is what happens when the international community treats evil lightly — when it mistakes appeasement for “peace.” Yet the valor and courage of our brothers and sisters in Artsakh did not cease to exist, despite what Azerbaijan desired. After the 2020 war, Davit Babayan, foreign minister and adviser to the president of Artsakh, flew to D.C. and met with every single politician – raising the alarm and providing eyewitness testimony to the war crimes committed by Azerbaijan. He argued that impunity would lead to further destruction. In the final days of the genocidal exodus, Davit Ishkhanyan, president of the Artsakh National Assembly and a leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, secured transport for every Artsakh Armenian who needed help. He not only made sure human life was saved but he rescued as much cultural heritage as he could, sending paintings, taraz and Khatchkars along with the caravans. Ruben Vardanyan — who came to Artsakh with a vision for its flourishing future, who from his jail cell and sham trails fearlessly continues to proclaim that Artsakh was, is and will be again. All these brave men and others are imprisoned today for life in Azerbaijan — prisoners of war for their belief and actions to stand courageously against the aggressor. They did not bend, they did not break, and their survival is their resistance movement. As Armenian Americans, we must understand this: indifference, ignorance and fear are the three allies of injustice. If we do nothing, aggression grows. If we do not learn, we cannot act. If we are afraid to speak, the persecutor wins without resistance. We are not generations removed from our ancestors who survived genocide. We are living their truth at this moment. I am the granddaughter of genocide survivors, the niece of Baku pogrom survivors and the wife of an Artsakh refugee who fought for his homeland and would do it again in a heartbeat. We are today the frontline in the survival of our nation. Armenian Americans have power — not just sentimental power, but civic power. We vote. We advocate. We educate. We organize. We build coalitions. We demand that American leadership be measured not by speeches but by deeds. So let us speak honestly about what we are witnessing — not only in Artsakh, not only in Azerbaijan and Turkey, not only in Syria and Jerusalem — but in the mounting pressures within Armenia itself. When faith is targeted, when the Armenian Apostolic Church is attacked, when journalists and political opposition are silenced, the message is unmistakable: control the conscience and you control the nation. Turkey and Azerbaijan are not only pressuring Armenia from the outside; they seek to shape its future from within — imposing demands, rewriting priorities, unlawfully dictating the constitution and history of our nation and presenting submission as “peace.” But a peace built on the erasure of a people and the demise of Armenian statehood is not peace. It is surrender disguised as diplomacy. To my fellow Armenian Americans: we must never become complicit — Not through silence. Not through exhaustion. Not through the temptation to move on because it is too painful. Complicity is what allows genocidal policies to mature from rhetoric into reality. So today we recommit ourselves: to speak for the victims of Sumgait, Kirovabad, Baku and Maragha — and for the displaced Armenians of Artsakh. We recommit to demanding: The unconditional release of Armenian POWs and civilian hostages held in Baku. The safe and dignified right of return for the Armenians of Artsakh with their fundamental rights intact. The protection of Armenian cultural and religious heritage — because destroying churches and cemeteries is not collateral damage; it is an attempt to erase evidence that we were ever there. Real accountability — because impunity is the oxygen of genocide. Let our message be unshakable: The Armenian Genocide did not end in 1915. It evolved. It resurfaced. And in 2023, it revealed itself again. But so, too, did Armenian resistance. We are not here to transfer ashes. We are here to transfer fire. May the memory of our martyrs strengthen our courage. May the pain of our people sharpen our clarity. And may our unity turn remembrance into action — until justice is secured, Armenian survival is never again treated as negotiable and the future of the Armenian nation is secured.