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Regular Session, 2014 ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 166
BY SENATOR MURRAY
A RESOLUTION
To express sympathy in support of the families of victims of massacres and atrocities
perpetrated against the Armenian people in Azerbaijan.
WHEREAS, the Armenian populated area of Nagorno-Karabakh is located between
the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan; and
WHEREAS, in 1920 the Soviet Union forcibly established control over the areas of
Armenia and Azerbaijan; and
WHEREAS, the Soviet Union created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
within Azerbaijan in 1923 and this region became a source of dispute between Armenia and
Azerbaijan; and
WHEREAS, in 1988, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh peacefully demonstrated
against Azerbaijan for the right of self-determination and individual freedom from repression
and discrimination; and
WHEREAS, in February 1988, in the seaside town of Sumgait in Soviet Azerbaijan
a pogrom targeted the Armenian population when mobs composed of largely ethnic
Azerbaijans formed groups which attacked and killed hundreds of Armenians on the streets,
in their apartments in a situation that was allowed to continue by Soviet and Azerbaijan
officials for three days before government forces imposed a state of martial law and curfew
bringing the crisis to an end; and
WHEREAS, the crimes committed against Armenians in Sumgait remain unpunished
thereby opening the door for similar atrocities against the Armenian people starting in the
capital Baku and spreading to other areas of Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh; and
WHEREAS, Azerbaijan seeks to avoid responsibility for the violence and atrocities
by falsifying historical events and by portrayin g the involvement of Soviet troops to Baku
to restore order on the seventh day of the Armenian atrocities as a crackdown on the alleged
independence movement in Azerbaijan; and SR NO. 166 ENROLLED
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WHEREAS, it is well known that there was no large scale movement for
independence in Azerbaijan due to the fact in a March 1991, referendum that more than 94%
of the Azerbaijan constituencies favored preserving the Soviet Union; and
WHEREAS, Azerbaijan continues to distort events of other atrocities, including the
events in the village of Khojaly in which Azerbaijan troops fired on their own population
and the deportation of Armenian villages in Nagorno-Karabakh.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana
does hereby express sympathy in support of the families of victims of massacres and
atrocities perpetrated against the Armenian people in Azerbaijan.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Senate requests that the President of the
United States and the Congress exert all available influence on the government of Azerbaijan
to cease the falsification of the historical facts and bring those in Azerbaijan who are
responsible for the Armenian massacres in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad, Maragha, Nagorno-
Karabahk, and of the citizens of Khojaly.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution shall be transmitted
to the President of the United States of America, the secretary of the United States Senate,
the clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and each member of the Louisiana
delegation to the United States Congress.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE