accounts of anti armenian human right violations in azerbaijan accounts of anti armenian human right violations in azerbaijan prelude to current events in nagorno karabakh i asked what s going on he says what s the matter can t you see they ve overturned a car and they re killing armenians deposition of zaven armenakovich badasian born employed sumgait bulk yarn plant resident at building apartment microdistrict no sumgait azerbaijan on february my wife and i went to baku to go shopping and returned to sumgait at around five in the evening we ran into one of my relatives at the bus station and got to talking a lot of people had gathered not far away near the store well at first we didn t know what was happening and then a fellow i know comes up to me an azerbaijani guy and says what are you standing here for go home immediately i asked what s going on he says what s the matter can t you see they ve overturned a car and they re killing armenians he helped me catch a cab and we got home safely we sat at home for two days during that time a gang of bandits came into our courtyard but the neighbors wouldn t let them in the building there were about of them they had sticks and pieces of armatures in their hands they were shouting something but you couldn t understand it it wasn t one voice or two all of them were shouting in a chorus they turned toward building they went up to the third floor and we see that they re breaking glass and throwing things out the window after a while they come out the entryway one has a pair of jeans in his hands another has a tape recorder and a third a guitar they went on toward the auto parts store we had to save ourselves after midnight on march we went to hide at school no which is in microdistrict there were two other armenian families there with us there were of us altogether out of all of them i had only known ernest before he had moved to sumgait from kirovabad the azerbaijani guard at the school let us in at first he didn t want to but there was nowhere else for us to go we had to plead with him and talk him into it we were told that on that day the st there would be an attack on our microdistrict we went upstairs to a classroom on the second floor on the city radio station they announced three telephone numbers that could be used to summon assistance or communicate anything important i called one of them and the first secretary of the sumgait city party committee answered i asked him for assistance i say we re in school no we need to be evacuated well he says got it wait there i m sending out help now i know his voice the first secretary had been to our plant i had spoken with him personally when i called he said muslimzade here about two hours after the call we heard shouts near the school we looked out the window and about to people were outside saying armenians come out we re here to get you they have clubs axes and armature shafts in their hands the guard sat there with us and asked where should i go i say if your life is of any value to you you ll go down there and say that the armenians were here and that they left that s what he did he went down there and said the armenians were here he said i let them out the back door they went that way and pointed with his hand and with shouts and noise the mob set off in the direction he had pointed so the assistance we had been promised did come they sent us help all right instead of sending real soldiers he had sent his own i am positive that muslimzade did that no one had seen us entering the school no one knew that we were there in any case we stayed at the school until seven in the morning and no soldiers of any sort came to our aid in the morning we went to my relative s in microdistrict and the soldiers took us to the sk club from there the club was jammed with people and there were lots of people ahead of us there was no space available one small boy about three months old died right in my arms there wasn t a single doctor nothing the boy was uninjured there were no wounds or bruises on him he was just very ill they gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation they did everything they could under the circumstances but were unable to save him and his mother and father a young armenian couple were right there on the floor i searched for a spot for us in the sk we have a small child of our own i wanted to find a room or something to put my family in i went up to the third floor there were a lot of soldiers up there bandaged with canes limping with their heads broken open they were a terrible sight young guys all of them there were a lot of bandaged armenians too everyone had been beaten everyone was crying wailing and calling for help i think that the city party committee ignored us completely true there was a snack bar a sausage was kopeks or kopeks a package of cookies that cost kopeks was being sold for a bottled soft drink cost a ruble but there was no way to get the things any cheaper i met my old uncle aram mikhailovich there he saw me and tears welled up in his eyes my whole life he had told me that we were friendly peoples that we worked together he always had azerbaijanis over at his house and now he saw me and there was nothing he could say he just cried you can understand his feelings of course april yerevan reference the sumgait tragedy pogroms against armenians in soviet azerbaijan volume i eyewitness accounts edited by samuel shahmuradian forward by yelena bonner published by aristide d caratzas ny pages david davidian dbd urartu sdpa org armenia has not learned a lesson in s d p a center for regional studies anatolia and has forgotten the p o box punishment inflicted on it cambridge ma late turkish president turgut ozal
