From: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish,talk.politics.mideast,talk.politics.soviet,soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.europe,soc.rights.human
Followup-To: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: "igc.terror" defending the rights of the criminals.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 21:21:12 EDT
Reply-To: sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic)
Distribution: world

In article <1476700629@igc.apc.org> Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org> writes:

>/* Written 10:13 am  Oct 13, 1992 by geonet@gn.apc.org in igc:omct.sostortur */

It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Source: The Times, 2 March 1992.

             CORPSES LITTER HILLS IN KARABAKH

ANATOL LIEVEN COMES UNDER FIRE WHILE FLYING WITH AZERBAIJANI FORCES TO 
INVESTIGATE THE ALLEGED MASS KILLINGS OF REFUGEES BY ARMENIAN TROOPS...

As we swooped low over the snow-covered hills of Nagorno-Karabagh we saw 
the scattered corpses. Apparently, the refugees had been shot down as 
they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew over, shown to 
journalists afterwards, showed DOZENS OF CORPSES lying in various parts 
of the hills.

The Azerbaijanis claim that AS MANY AS 1000 have died in a MASS KILLING 
of AZERBAIJANIS fleeing from the town of Khodjaly, seized by Armenians 
last week. A further 4,000 are believed to be wounded, frozen to death 
or missing... 

Seven of us squatted in the cabin of an Azerbaijani M24 attack helicopter 
as we flew to investigate the claims of the mass killings. Suddenly there 
was a thump against the underside of the aircraft, a red flash of tracer 
ripped past the starboard wing, and the helicopter rocked sharply. We 
swung round, and there was a deafening burst of fire from the cannon 
under our wing as the helicopter crew returned fire.

We had been fired on from an Armenian anti-aircraft post. We swung round 
again, tipped to starboard and appeared to dive straight down into a 
valley. The brown earth swooped around our heads, the helicopter swung 
round again and followed the contours of the ground. Our cannon fired 
repeated blasts.

Later it emerged that a civilian helicopter that we had been escorting 
had landed successfully at Nakhichevanik in the east of the disputed 
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, to pick up some of the dead. We had, in 
fact, been attacked both by ground fire and by an Armenian helicopter. 
I had seen the Armenian helicopter intermittently through the window, 
its cannons firing, but had thought - mistakenly - that it was on 
"our side". Our group of Western journalists had embarked on a 
search-and-rescue flight that had become a combat mission.

Our flight consisted of the civilian passenger helicopter and two 
M24 Soviet attack helicopters in the Azerbaijani service, nicknamed 
flying crocodiles for their armour. Our party was in the second 
crocodile. The civilian helicopter's job was to land in the mountains 
and pick up bodies at sites of the mass killings. The attack helicopters 
were there to give covering fire if necessary.

The operation showed a striking sign of the disintegration of the Soviet 
armed forces because our pilot was a Russian officer. An Azerbaijani 
official told us that there were now five former Soviet military 
helicopters -and their pilots- fighting for Azerbaijan. "They have 
signed contracts to fly for us," he said. The helicopter we engaged 
in combat was most probably flown by a brother-officer of our Russian 
pilot, but fighting for the Armenians.

We had taken off just before 5pm on Saturday from Agdam airfield, an 
heated for the Armenian-controlled mountains of Karabakh, a sheer 
white wall in the distance. The civilian helicopter picked up four 
corpses, and it was during this and a previous mission that an 
Azerbaijani cameraman filmed the several the several dozen bodies 
on the hillsides. We then took off again in a hurry and speed back 
towards Azerbaijani lines. Azerbaijani gunners on the last hill before 
the plain - and safety - gazed up at us as we passed.

Back at the airfield in Agdam, we took a look the bodies the 
civilian helicopter had picked up. Two old men a small girl were 
covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor 
mortis. They had been shot.

What did our Russian pilot think of the tragedy, our close shave, 
and the war in Nagorno-Karabakh? He gave us CHEERFUL GRIN, POLITELY 
DECLINED TO ANSWER QUES TIONS, AND MARCHED OFF TO HIS DINNER.

Serdar Argic

                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)