Burton In House: Khojaly "ethnic Cleansing"

Slimebag Dan Burton is at it again, commemorating the "ethnic cleansing" in Khojaly and denying the Armenian Genocide.

REMEMBERING THE TRAGEDY OF KHOJALY -- (Extensions of Remarks - February 18, 2005)

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SPEECH OF
HON. DAN BURTON
OF INDIANA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2005

* Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, for years a number of distinguished Members of this House have come to the Floor of this Chamber every April to commemorate the so-called Armenian Genocide--the exact details of which are still very much under debate today almost 90 years after the events. Ironically and tragically, none of these Members has ever once mentioned the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Armenians during the Armenia-Azerbaijan war which ended a mere decade ago.

* Khojaly was a little known small town in Azerbaijan until February 1992. Today it no longer exists, and for people of Azerbaijan and the region, the word ``Khojaly'' has become synonymous with pain, sorrow, and cruelty. On February 26, 1992, the world ended for the people of Khojaly when Armenian troops supported by a Russian infantry regiment did not just attack the town but they razed it to the ground. In the process the Armenians brutally murdered 613 people, annihilated whole families, captured 1275 people, left 1,000 civilians maimed or crippled, and another 150 people unaccounted for in their wake.

* Memorial, a Russian human rights group, reported that ``scores of the corpses bore traces of profanation. Doctors on a hospital train in Agdam noted no less than four corpses that had been scalped and one that had been beheaded....... and one case of live scalping:''

* Various other witnesses reported horrifying details of the massacre. The late Azerbaijani journalist Chingiz Mustafayev, who was the first to film the aftermath of the massacre, wrote an account of what he saw. He said, ``Some children were found with severed ears; the skin had been cut from the left side of an elderly woman's face; and men had been scalped.''

* Human Rights Watch called the tragedy at the time ``the largest massacre to date in the conflict.''

* The New York Times wrote about ``truckloads of bodies'' and described acts of ``scalping.''

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* This savage cruelty against innocent women, children and the elderly is unfathomable in and of itself but the senseless brutality did not stop with Khojaly. Khojaly was simply the first. In fact, the level of brutality and the unprecedented atrocities committed at Khojaly set a pattern of destruction and ethnic cleansing that Armenian troops would adhere to for the remainder of the war. On November 29, 1993, Newsweek quoted a senior US Government official as saying ``What we see now is a systematic destruction of every village in their (the Armenians) way. It's vandalism.''

* This year, as they have every year since the massacre, the leaders of Azerbaijan's Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities issue appeals on the eve of commemoration of the massacre of Khojaly urging the international community to condemn the February 26, 1992 bloodshed, facilitate liberation of the occupied territories and repatriation of the displaced communities.

* And every year, those residents of Khojaly, who survived the massacre--many still scattered among one million refugees and displaced persons in camps around Azerbaijan--appeal with pain and hope to the international community to hold Armenia responsible for this crime.

* I am pleased to say that on January 25, 2005 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe overwhelmingly adopted a resolution highlighting that ``considerable parts of Azerbaijan's territory are still occupied by the Armenian forces and separatist forces are still in control of the Nagorno-Artsax region.'' It also expressed concern that the military action between 1988 and 1994 and the widespread ethnic hostilities which preceded it, ``led to large-scale ethnic expulsion and the creation of mono-ethnic areas which resemble the terrible concept of ethnic cleansing.''

* Mr. Speaker, this is not the ringing condemnation that the survivors of Khojaly deserve but it is an important first step by an international community that has too long been silent on this issue. Congress should take the next step and I hope my colleagues will join me in standing with Azerbaijanis as they commemorate the tragedy of Khojaly. The world should know and remember.

END

http://zena.securefo...arrissept97.htm

Where’s There’s Smoke...
Someone’s Getting Burned

By Bob Harris

...

Donations

The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is investigating the thousands of dollars in Asian contributions to the White House. Never mind the millions that Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator of the Philippines, poured into recent GOP administrations.

It turns out, that the guy spearheading the Clinton investigation has some explaining to do as well. Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana has accepted thousands of dollars from foreign lobbyists, and subsequently given those donors access to his office and staff to promote their causes.

Burton’s friends don’t play nice. We’re talking brutal dictatorships and police states—Turkey, Pakistan, Guatemala, Zaire, and apartheid South Africa—using him to buy access to the floor of Congress.

For example, when Turkey’s terrible human rights record (think Midnight Express and the war against the Kurds) posed a threat to its U.S. aid money, Burton recited the Turkish lobbyist’s rebuttal into the record as his own words.

Burton has also spouted propaganda straight from Pakistani flacks, defended the death squad dictatorship of Guatemala, and shared speechwriters with Joseph Mobutu, the deposed dictator who stole $5 billion from what used to be Zaire.

In his defense, the Congressman’s spinmeisters claim that none of the money from Mobutu or the guys who imprisoned Mandela had any effect on his policies, that Burton was always acting his conscience.

Do these guys realize what they’re saying? That Dan Burton has a moral need to defend murderers, thieves, and racists?

...

You know what Domino, that helps me take it less personally... what we have here is just a corrupt Republican hack who sells himself out to the worst of folks to make a quick buck (or hundreds of thousands of them).

This man has not a shred of dignity.

By the way, this lying sack of garbage also had the nerve to call Clinton a "scumbag" for the Lewinsky scandal, while Burton later admitted that he (oops) had fathered an illegitimate child as a result of an extramarital affair in the 1980s.

More of those Republican values...

http://www.tylwythte...ies/burton.html

Edited by wh00t, 19 February 2005 - 08:37 PM.

That article is crazy stuff. This man is a whore for representing himself again.

From other articles I have found, he is a known corrupted fool.

This statement smacks of "black gold." Burton is interested in oil interests. This follows the Atkinson report, another oil related proclamation.

The Turkish government is terrified and they are grasping at straws, using the Azeri situation.

Burton has a long and soiled history. Perhaps we should work to see him defeated next time around. His seat comes up every two years, you know.

Unfortunately in the 2004 election, Burton was re-elected by the highest margin of all the 9 Indiana House seats.

Things change. If he is targeted with a sweep of media stories abbout his extra-marital affairs, it will have a negative effect on his numbers in his conservative district.

The media didn't touch the story when he was one of the top conservatives on Clinton's ass during the scandal.. they didn't touch him at the height of his hypocrisy, I sadly can't see them doing anything about it now. It's that crazy liberal media at play again.

Former Congressman Quits Promoting
Azerbaijan's Interests in Washington

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

Here is news that you don't hear every day: a former Congressman stops
working for a foreign client after not receiving his pay for a year!
This is exactly what happened to Cong. Dan Burton (Republican-Indiana) who
quit last week as chairman of Azerbaijan America Alliance, a powerful Azeri
propaganda outfit in the United States, after waiting a whole year to get
paid.
What were his Azeri masters thinking? How could they cheat one of their
agents in Washington? This is a good way to get your lobbyist turn against
you!
Lobbyists promote a client's interests, not because they support its cause,
but to make money. Personal financial gain was the only reason why Cong.
Burton was backing one of the world's most repressive and corrupt
governments. When the money stopped, there was no longer a reason for him
to promote Pres. Aliyev's dictatorial regime.
The Azerbaijan America Alliance was founded by tycoon Anar Mammadov, a
34-year-old billionaire playboy. Interestingly, Republican Presidential
candidate Donald Trump had lent his name for a substantial fee to a
luxurious hotel built by Mammadov's company in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Reporter Carl Schreck and Radio Free Europe & Radio Liberty (RFE/RL)
obtained a copy of the e-mail Cong. Burton sent on March 1, 2016 to James
Fabiani whose Washington-based firm does lobbying work for the Azerbaijan
America Alliance. `As I have not heard from you or Anar, and have not been
paid for a year, please consider this e-mail as a letter of resignation as
Chairman of the Azerbaijan America Alliance,' Cong. Burton wrote.
Here are further details from this scandalous affair disclosed by RFE/RL:
`Burton's resignation follows months of speculation about the fate of the
Azerbaijan America Alliance, a prominent pillar of a broader Azerbaijani
lobbying campaign in the United States to portray Azerbaijan as a stable
energy and security partner for the West. The lobby involves both private
and state money.'
`Baku's detractors accuse President Ilham Aliyev's government and its
proxies of trying to paper over an abysmal human rights record with `caviar
diplomacy,' using gifts, vacations, and other expensive incentives
to gain
friends and curry favor with foreign officials.'
`Aliyev recently removed broad powers from the Transport Ministry,
overseen
by Mammadov's father, suggesting the family's influence in
the government
is waning.'
`Several reports in the Azerbaijani media since August have cited
unidentified sources as saying that Mammadov planned to shutter the
Azerbaijan America Alliance due to financial difficulties amid the broader
economic crisis Azerbaijan is grappling with due to plunging energy prices.'
`Over the past five years, the Azerbaijan America Alliance has poured a
total of $12.3 million into U.S. lobbying efforts, according to the
public-interest website Opensecrets.org, having wined and dined
Washington's elite and pushed Baku's interests in meetings with senior
members of Congress.'
`The organization, which is not formally affiliated with the Azerbaijani
state but has hewn closely to the Aliyev government's line, has continued
this spending, paying $1.46 million for U.S. lobbying services in 2015,
most of which went to Fabiani & Company, according to public lobbying
disclosures.'
`The group spent $430,000 for its 2012 dinner, which was attended by
then-House of Representatives speaker John Boehner and 15 other members of
Congress, including Burton, according to a 2013 filing under the U.S.
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).'
`Burton was named chairman of the Azerbaijan America Alliance in February
2013, a month after he left office after a 30-year career in Congress. He
told RFE/RL this week that Fabiani introduced him to Mammadov, chairman of
Garant Holding, a conglomerate with interests that include construction
firms, hotels, and insurance companies.'
`Investigations by RFE/RL have previously revealed that Anar Mammadov's
business interests are tied to the ministry overseen by his father, Ziya
Mammadov.'
`Burton said that he did not engage in lobbying during his time with the
Azerbaijan America Alliance, but that he would occasionally invite members
of Congress to `social functions' staged by the group. He also published
opinion articles supporting the Azerbaijani government.'
Last May, I ran into Cong. Burton in the lobby of a New York hotel. I
complained to him about his ongoing efforts on behalf of Azerbaijan and his
votes against resolutions on the Armenian Genocide during his tenure in
Congress. He gave me his business card, asking me to contact him....
I did
not, and have no plans to do so now that he is no longer working as a
propagandist for Azerbaijan!