accounts of anti armenian human rights violations in azerbaijan accounts of anti armenian human right violations in azerbaijan prelude to current events in nagorno karabakh i said that on february when those people were streaming down our street they were shouting long live turkey and glory to turkey and during the trial i said to that ismailov what does that mean glory to turkey i still don t understand what turkey has to do with this we live in the soviet union that turkey told you to or is going to help you kill armenians i still don t understand why glory to turkey i asked that question twice and got no answer no one answered me deposition of emma setrakovna sargisian born cook sumgait emergency hospital resident at building apartment block sumgait azerbaijan to this day i can t understand why my husband an older man was killed what was he killed for he hadn t hurt anyone hadn t said any word he oughtn t have why did they kill him i want to find out from here from there from the government why my husband was killed on the th when i returned from work it was a saturday my son was at home he doesn t work i went straight to the kitchen and he called me mamma is there a soccer game there were shouts from lenin street that s where we lived i say i don t know igor i haven t turned on the tv he looked again and said mamma what s going on in the courtyard i look and see so many people it s awful marching marching there are hundreds thousands you can t even tell how many there are they re shouting down with the armenians kill the armenians tear the armenians to pieces my god why is that happening what for i had known nothing at that point we lived together well in friendship and suddenly something like this it was completely unexpected and they were shouting long live turkey and they had flags and they were shouting there was a man walking in front well dressed he s around or in a gray raincoat he is walking and saying something i can t make it out through the vent window he is walking and saying something and the children behind him are shouting tear the armenians to pieces and down with the armenians they shout it again and then shout hurrah the people streamed without end they were walking in groups and in the groups i saw that there were women too i say my god there are women there too and my son says those aren t women mamma those are bad women well we didn t look a long time they were walking and shouting and i was afraid i simply couldn t sit still i went out onto the balcony and my azerbaijani neighbor is on the other balcony and i say khalida what s going on what happened she says emma i don t know i don t know i don t know what happened well she was quite frightened too they had these white sticks each second or third one had a white rod they re waving the rods above their heads as they walk and the one who s out front like a leader he has a white stick too well maybe it was an armature shaft but what i saw was white i don t know my husband got home or minutes later he comes home and i say oh dear i m frightened they re going to kill us i bet and he says what are you afraid of they re just children i say everything that happens comes from children there had been and year kids from the technical and vocational school don t fear he said it s nothing nothing all that bad he didn t eat he just lay on the sofa and just then on television they broadcast that two azerbaijanis had been killed in karabakh near askeran when i heard that i couldn t settle down at all i kept walking here and there and i said they re going to kill us the azerbaijanis are going to kill us and he says don t be afraid then we heard from the central square there are women shouting near near the stage well they re shouting different things and you couldn t hear every well i say you speak azerbaijani well listen to what they re saying he says close the window and go to bed there s nothing happening there he listened a bit and then closed the window and went to bed and told us come on go to sleep it s nothing sleep what did he mean sleep my son and i stood at the window until two in the morning watching well he s sick and all of this was affecting him i say igor you go to bed i m going to go to bed in a minute too he went and i sat at the window until three and then went to bed things had calmed down slightly the th sunday was my day off my husband got up and said come on emma get up i say today s my day off let me rest he says aren t you going to make me some tea well i felt startled and got up and said where are you going he says i m going out i have to i say can you really go outside on a day like today don t go out for god s sake you never listen to me i know and you re not going to listen to me now but at least don t take the car out of the garage go without the car and he says come on close the door and then on the staircase he muttered something i couldn t make it out he probably said coward or something i closed the door and he left and i started cleaning picking things up around the house everything seemed quiet until one o clock in the after noon but at the bus station my neighbor told me cars were burning i said khalida was it our car she says no no emma don t be afraid they were government cars and zhigulis our car is a gaz volga and i waited it was four o clock five o clock and when he wasn t home at seven i said oh they ve killed shagen tires are burning in town there s black smoke in town and i m afraid i m standing on the balcony and i m all my whole body is shaking my god they ve probably killed him so basically i waited like that until ten o clock and he still hadn t come home and i m afraid to go out at ten o clock i look out across from our building is a building with a bookstore and from upstairs from the second floor everything is being thrown outside i m looking out of one window and igor is looking out of the other and i don t want him to see this and he as it turns out doesn t want me to see it we wanted to hide it from one another i joined him mamma he says look what they re doing over there they were burning everything and there were police standing there or of them maybe twenty policemen standing on the side and the crowd is on the other side and two or three people are throwing everything down from the balcony and one of the ones on the balcony is shouting what are you standing there for burn it when they threw the television wow it was like a bomb our neighbor on the third floor came out on her balcony and shouted why are you doing that why are you burning those things those people saved with such difficulty to buy those things for their home why are you burning them and from the courtyard they yell at her go inside go inside instead why don t you tell us if they are any of them in your building or not they meant armenians but they didn t say armenians they said of them she says no no no none then she ran downstairs to our place and says emma emma you have to leave i say they ve killed shagen anyway what do we have to live for it won t be living for me without shagen let them kill us too she insists saying emma get out of here go to khalida s and give me the key when they come i ll say that it s my daughter s apartment that they re off visiting someone i gave her the key and went to the neighbor s but i couldn t endure it i say igor you stay here i m going to go downstairs and see maybe papa s papa s there meanwhile they were killing the two brothers alik and valery albert and valery avanesians see the accounts of rima avanesian and alvina baluian in the courtyard there is a crowd near the building they re shouting howling and i didn t think that they were killing at the time alik and valery lived in the corner house across from ours when i went out into the courtyard i saw an azerbaijani our neighbor a young man about years old i say madar uncle shagen s gone let s go see maybe he s dead in the garage or near the garage let s at least bring the corpse into the house he shouts aunt emma where do you think you re going go back into the house i ll look for him i say something will happen to you too because of me no madar i m coming too well he wouldn t let me go all the same he says you stay here with us i m go look he went and looked and came back and said aunt emma there s no one there the garage is closed madar went off again and then returned and said aunt emma they re already killed alik and valery s there wheezing madar wanted to go up to him but those scoundrels said don t go near him or we ll put you next to him he got scared he s young and came back and said i m going to go call maybe an ambulance will come at least to take alik maybe he ll live they grew up together in our courtyard they knew each other well they had always been on good terms he went to call but not a single telephone worked they had all been shut off he called and called and called and called nothing i went upstairs to the neighbor s igor says two police cars drove up over there their headlights are on but they re not touching them they are still lying where they were they re still lying there we watched out the window until four o clock and then went downstairs to our apartment i didn t take my clothes off i lay on the couch so as not to go to bed and at six o clock in the morning i got up and said igor you stay here at home don t go out don t go anywhere i m going to look i have to find papa dead or alive let me go i ve got the keys from work at six o clock i went to the emergency hospital the head doctor and another doctor opened the door to the morgue i run up to them and say doctor is shagen there he says what do you mean why should shagen be here i wanted to go in but he wouldn t let me there were only four people in there they said well they must have been awful because they didn t let me in they said shagen s not here he s alive somewhere he ll come back it s already seven o clock in the morning i look and there is a panel truck with three policemen some of our people from the hospital were there with them i say sara baji sister sara term of endearment go look they ve probably brought shagen i said it shouted it and she went and came back and says no emma he has tan shoes on it s a younger person now shagen just happened to have tan shoes light tan they were already old when they said it like that i guessed immediately i went and said doctor they ve brought shagen in dead he says why are you carrying on like that dead dead he s alive but then he went all the same and when he came back the look on his face was i could tell immediately that he was dead they knew one another well shagen had worked for him a long time i say doctor is it shagen he says no emma it s not he it s somebody else entirely i say doctor why are you deceiving me i ll find out all the same anyway if not today then tomorrow and he said i screamed right there in the office he says emma go go calm down a little another one of our colleagues said that the doctor had said it was shagen but in hideous condition they tried to calm me down saying it wasn t shagen a few minutes later another colleague comes in and says oh poor emma when she said it like that there was no hope left that day was awful they were endlessly bringing in dead and injured people at night someone took me home i said igor papa s been killed on the morning of the st i left igor at home again and went to the hospital i had to bury him somehow do something i look and see that the hospital is surrounded by soldiers they are wearing dark clothes hey citizen where are you going i say i work here and from inside someone shouts yes yes that s our cook let her in i went right to the head doctor s office and there is a person from the city health department there he used to work with us at the hospital he says emma shagen s been taken to baku in the night they took the wounded and the dead all of them to baku i say doctor how will i bury him he says we re taking care of all that don t you worry we ll do everything we ll tell you about it where did you spend the night i say i was at home he says what do you mean you were at home you were at home alone i say no igor was there too he says you can t stay home we re getting an ambulance right now wait just one second the head doctor is coming we re arranging an ambulance right now you put on a lab coat and take one for igor you go and bring igor here like a patient and you ll stay here and we ll se later what to do next his last name is kagramanov the head doctor s name is izyat jamalogli sadukhov the ambulance arrived and i went home and got igor they admitted him as a patient they gave us a private room an isolation room we stayed in the hospital until the th some police car came and they said emma let s go and the women our colleagues then they saw the police car became anxious and said where are you taking her i say they re going to kill me too and the investigator says why are you saying that we re going to make a positive identification we went to baku and they took me into the morgue i still can t remember what hospital it was the investigator says let s go we need to be certain maybe it s not shagen and when i saw the caskets lying on top of one another i went out of my mind i say i can t look no the investigator says are there any identifying marks i say let me see the clothes or the shoes or even a sock i ll recognize them he says isn t they re anything on his body i say he has seven gold teeth and his finger he only has half of one of his fingers shagen was a carpenter he had been injured at work they brought one of the sleeves of the shirt and sweater he was wearing they brought them and they were all burned when i saw them i shouted oh they burned him i shouted i don t know i fell down or maybe i sat down i don t remember and that investigator says well fine fine since we ve identified that these are his clothes and since his teeth since he has seven gold teeth on the th they told me emma it s time to bury shagen now i cried how how can i bury shagen when i have only one son and he s sick i should inform his relatives he has three sisters i can t do it by myself they say ok you know the situation how will they get here from karabagh how will they get here from yerevan there s no transportation it s impossible he was killed on february and i buried him on march we buried him in sumgait they asked me where do you want to bury him i said i want to bury him in karabagh where we were born let me bury him in karabagh i m shouting and the head of the burial office i guess says do you know what it means take him to karabagh it means arson i say what do you mean arson don t they know what s going on in karabagh the whole world knows that they killed them and i want to take him to karabagh i don t have anyone anymore i begged i pleaded i grieved i even got down on my knees he says let s bury him here now and in three months in six months a year if it calms down i ll help you move him to karabagh our trial was the first in sumgait it was concluded on may at the investigation the murderer tale ismailov told how it all happened but then at the trial he tried to wriggle he tried to soften his crime then they brought a videotape recorder i guess and played it and said ismailov look is that you he says yes well look here you re describing everything as it was on the scene of the crime right he says yes and now you re telling it differently he says well maybe i forgot like that the witnesses and that criminal creep himself said that when the car was going along mir street there was a crowd of about people shagen had a volga gaz the people surrounded his car and all of them were involved one of them was this ismailov guy this tale they it s unclear who started pulling shagen out of the car well one says from the left side of the car another says from the right side they pulled off his sports jacket he had a jacket on well they ask him what s your nationality he says armenian well they say from the crowd they shouted if he s an armenian kill him kill him they started beating him they broke seven of his ribs and his heart i don t know they did something there too it s too awful to tell about anyway they say this tale guy he had an armature shaft he says i picked it up it was lying near a bush that s where i got it he said he picked it up but the witnesses say that he had already had it he said i hit him twice he said once or twice on the head with that rod and he said that when he started to beat him shagen was sitting on the ground and when he hit him he fell over he said i left right nearby they were burning things or something in an apartment killing someone he says and i came back to look is that shagen alive or not i said you wanted to finish him right and if he was still alive you came back to hit him again he went back and looked and he was already dead after that that bastard tale said after that i went home i said you you little snake i said are you a thief and a murderer shagen had had money in his jacket and a watch on his wrist they were taken he says he didn t take them when they overturned and burned the car that tale was no longer there it was other people who did that who it was who turned over the car and who burned it that hasn t been clarified as yet i told the investigator how can you have the trial when you don t know who burned the car he said something but i didn t get what he was saying but i said you still haven t straightened everything out i think that s unjust when they burned the car he was lying next to it and the fire spread to him in the death certificate it says that he had third degree burns over percent of his body and i ask again why was he killed my husband was a carpenter he was a good craftsman he knew how to do everything he even fixed his own car with his own hands we have three children three sons only igor was with me at the time the older one was in pyatigorsk and the younger one is serving in the army and now they re fatherless i couldn t sit all the way through it when the procurator read up to years deprivation of freedom i just i went out of my mind i didn t know what to do with myself i said how can that be you i said you are saying that it was intentional murder and the sentence is years deprivation of freedom i screamed i had my mind i said let me at that creep with my bare hands i ll a relative restrained me and there were all those military people there i lest i said this isn t a soviet trial this is unjust that s what i shouted l said it and left i said that on february when those people were streaming down our street they were shouting long live turkey and glory to turkey and during the trial i said to that ismailov what does that mean glory to turkey i still don t understand what turkey has to do with this we live in the soviet union that turkey told you to or is going to help you kill armenians i still don t understand why glory to turkey i asked that question twice and got no answer no one answered me may 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 how do we explain turkish troops on s d p a center for regional studies the armenian border when we can t p o box even explain cambridge ma turkish mp march
