From: dbd@urartu.sdpa.org (David Davidian)
Subject: Eyewitness Accounts of Anti-Armenian Pogroms in Azerbaijan #019
Summary: Azerbaijani Barbarians 
Keywords: the poisoning of Armenian children 
Organization: S.D.P.A. Center for Regional Studies
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 06:16:14 GMT


     Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #019
                 Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh

       +-----------------------------------------------------------------+
       |                                                                 |
       | I can only attest that they tried to poison my child of two and |
       | a half..An Azerbaijani poisoned him, and Azerbaijanis saved him |
       |							         |
       +-----------------------------------------------------------------+

In Turkish Historical Revision <1992Jun18.054838.19984@ddsw1.mcs.com> via its
servile dolt hbm@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Hasan B. Mutlu) responded to <4272@unixhub.
SLAC.Stanford.EDU> vadim@thnext.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Vadim Kaplunovsky) who 
wrote:

[Vadim] The big deal was the oil-exploration machinery made in Baku -- that 
[Vadim] city was the Soviet equivalent of Houston.  I say was, because that 
[Vadim] industry went down the pipes after the pogrom of 1988 (or was it 
[Vadim] 1987?).

[(*] Where shall I begin? Here we are, almost at the end of the 20th century, 
[(*] and a whole community, the Azeri Turks of x-Soviet Armenia and Karabag, 
[(*] is facing forced assimilation, torture and murder on one hand and 
[(*] forced exodus, expulsion and genocide on the other, all because 
[(*] of their ethnic and religious background. And one should ask herself: 
[(*] is the world community really so powerless? Where are all those human 
[(*] rights advocates? Where are all the decent people? Are we going to 
[(*] let this human tragedy go on and do nothing about it? The number
[(*] of Azeris murdered by the terrorist Armenian army and its savage
[(*] gangs is increasing. On the one hand they wish to distort the truth
[(*] and on the other, they beg mercy from Turkiye.

The following is part of a series of eyewitness accounts of anti-Armenian
human rights violations -- outright barbarism -- in Azerbaijan.


DEPOSITION OF GARNIK SHAGENOVICH NERSESIAN

  Born 1957
  Driver
  Azerbaijani Tube-Rolling Plant

  ZHANNA RAZMIKOVNA NERSESIAN
  His wife

  Born 1961
  Chemist-Technician
  Left the work force to care for the children

  Residents at Building 2, Apartment 54
  Block 2
  Sumgait [Azerbaijan]


-Zhanna: I have often heard and read in the papers that young children did not
suffer in the slaughter. I'm not sure, maybe they suffered, maybe they 
didn't--people say different things. I have heard from relatives and loved 
ones that they didn't, and I can't speak with certainty. I can only attest
that they tried to poison my child of two and a half.

It happened on February 26, somewhere around two o'clock in the afternoon. My 
boys--the older one, David, is five, and the younger, Christopher, is two and 
a half--were outside in the yard. There was unrest in the city that day. We 
live downtown, right near the City Party Committee. People were starting to go
around in groups shouting, "Karabagh is ours!" Who would have thought that
soon they would start killing? At the time they only went around shouting. How
could I know what they were capable of and that I mustn't allow my children to
go outside? Every five minutes I went out on the balcony and looked, and the 
children were just playing. Then I started doing the wash. I went out onto the
balcony and saw my youngest lying on the pavement in the middle of the street.
I ran downstairs and took him into my arms, and he was barely breathing. He's 
sleeping, I think. Well I thought that he had just tired himself out running
around. I brought him into the house, undressed him and put him to bed. An 
hour goes by, then two, then three, and he still didn't wake up. Meanwhile my 
mother-in-law had come over. I said, "Mamma, there's something suspicious 
here, the child is sleeping and won't wake up. I try to waken him and can't 
rouse him." She became anxious: "What do you mean?" Together we try waking 
him, slapping his cheeks and lifting him up; he doesn't move, he's like a 
noodle, and we open his eyes, and they close again. His pupils were so big you 
could only see the whites of his eyes.

We called an ambulance and they took the child to the hospital. I stood crying
at the admissions desk with him in my arms, and my mother-in-law was crying, 
too. The doctor, a young Azerbaijani woman, was in Admissions. She showed me a
small room and says, "Go in there and wait." She came back ten minutes later. 
They wouldn't let my mother-in-law in with me, they told her she had to wait 
in the hall. I had given them my passport, the doctor knew we were Armenians. 
Every few minutes I would walk out of the room crying, "Doctor, my child is 
dying, do something!" She answered, "Go in there and sit, it'll just be a 
minute." I sat there for nearly half an hour and she ignored me completely.

I sat there with my child in my arms crying, not knowing what to do. Finally 
the doctor asked the orderly, "Where is Movsesian?" There is a good Armenian 
pediatrician in that hospital by the name of Movsesian, everyone goes to him. 
He was on the third floor. The doctor tells the orderly to get him. She 
herself, apparently, doesn't know anything. She started irrigating his 
stomach, and she didn't even know how to hold the needle. She got a tube and 
stuck it into his nose. She tried to put in a manganese mixture with the
syringe, and she couldn't do it. A doctor! This was passing for a doctor! I 
can imagine how she managed to graduate from the medical institute. The
orderly--an older woman who had obviously worked for a long time in the 
hospital--took the needle from her and started the infusion herself. They
give him five syringes full. He was still unconscious. The doctor said, "He
should vomit, but he can't." Then they put a tube into him, and fluid started
backing up the tube. Really clear fluid, there was nothing else there. She
said, "Take him to Baku. Find a taxi and get him to Baku."

It was already midnight. I say, "Where will we find a taxi at this hour? How 
will I get him there? Something will happen to him before I cam get him 
there." And she says, "And us? What can we do? Go look for a taxi." My mother-
in-law said, "Call an ambulance." "No," she said, "no ambulance will come."

Just then Movsesian arrived. He came and started to examine the child. My
mother-in-law pleaded with him [to do everything possible to save the child].

He says, "I understand, let's see the child." He examined him and said, "I am 
90 percent sure what he has been poisoned with, but I don't want to risk it. 
Take him to the main hospital in Baku, let them examine him and do a blood 
analysis. We don't have the proper medications here."

We have our own car, but my husband was at our dacha. My mother-in-law cried, 
"Where will we find a car in the middle of the night?" And Movsesian says, 
"Why do you need a car? I'll call an ambulance." And we said, "The doctor told
us that we had to find one ourselves." He said, "Nonsense, sit here and I'll 
summon one immediately." Movsesian gave us shots to calm us. "Don't worry," he
said, "nothing will happen to the child in two hours."

About half an hour later the ambulance arrived. Our way happened to take us 
right near our dacha. My mother-in-law said, "Please stop there, I'll get out 
and tell my son." Garnik ran up and we all went to Baku together.

-Garnik: Mother didn't want to tell me that something had happened to the 
child, she said that my wife had cut her hand and had to be taken to Baku 
immediately. I came out and looked and my wife was sitting there with 
something wrapped up in a blanket. "What's going on? How did you cut yourself? 
What have you gut all wrapped up there?" She says, "Our son." "What do you 
mean, our son? What's wrong with him?" "He's been poisoned, they can't treat 
him. 'Take him to Baku immediately,' they told me." I said, "What do you mean 
poisoned, with what?" I touched the child and he was cold and pale. I held his
head and raised it up slightly, and he was limp, like a rag. "Go quickly," I 
tell the driver, "pour on the gas!"

I drove in our Moskvich. The trip took about half an hour. We arrived in Baku,
at the Semashko Hospital, Toxicology Department. It was late--one o'clock or 
one-thirty in the morning. It was already February 27. I say, "Here's what 
happened: the child has been poisoned. Please, I beg of you, help him!" They 
looked at him and said, "Yes, yes." I spoke with them in Azerbaijani because
the situation, you know, was bad. The nurse started signing him in. She wrote 
down, "City of Sumgait, Block 2," well she wrote down our address. As soon as 
I said our last name--Nersesian--the young woman suddenly said, "Why did you 
bring your son here? Why didn't you take him to Yerevan for treatment?"

-Zhanna: She said, "Aren't you afraid that we'll kill him?" Just like that. 
And my husband said, "What do you mean, kill him?! And are you going to take 
responsibility for it later?" She says, "The child is in serious condition."
And my husband says, "If you harm one hair on his head, just one, I will blow 
up this place. Nothing will be left of this hospital." And she says, "Now why 
are you taking all this so seriously?"--she smiles--"I was just kidding." And 
my husband says, "You're just joking and I'm telling you straight: the life of
my child means more to me. If anything happens to him, it's all over!"

-Garnik: I didn't have time to fool around with that nurse. I had her summon a
doctor. The doctor on duty came and said the same thing, "Aren't you afraid to
bring an Armenian, all the more so a child, to this hospital?" I said, "What 
are you saying? How am I supposed to take that?" I just lost it and was ready 
to hit him or do something to him. But I got myself under control and put up 
with it. I took him off to one side. I started to threaten him: "If you don't 
give my child back to me alive, you won't walk out of this hospital." Then I 
asked, "When will you return my child to me?" He said, "I'll return your child
to you alive in three hours." I say, "If you give me the child back alive I'll
know to thank you and do everything that should be done. But make sure that 
nothing happens to him." He said, "Don't worry, everything will be fine."

Three hours passed and he came and said, "It can't be done that quickly, we 
need more time." I say, "How much?" He answers, "Till morning."

-Zhanna: When we arrived in Baku the boy's condition was like before: he 
didn't respond to anything, he was almost dead. He was virtually unconscious 
for three days. They couldn't bring him around for three days. He was on an 
IV, they had him on artificial life support. They cleaned his blood for three 
days. The entire time we asked, "How is the child?" and always got the same 
answer: "In bad condition" or "In serious condition." Only after three days 
did they tell us, "Slightly improved."

-Garnik: They wouldn't allow me near the child. That's understandable, in 
cases like that they don't even let the mothers in to see them. The boy was
in intensive care on the first floor. They said, "As soon as his condition is 
better we'll move him to the second floor."

-Zhanna: On February 27 we left the child in the hospital and returned to
Sumgait, planning to go back to see him the next day. We drove into town
and saw a raging crowd and four fire trucks. There's a big artistic composi-
tion there, and the emblems of the 15 republics. And I look and see that
insane crowd pull down the Armenian emblem and tread on it with their feet, 
pick it up, and hurl it to the pavement. They threw rocks at the firemen who 
were standing there. At this time they apparently hadn't yet thought of the 
passports, of checking people's documents to see if they were Armenians or 
not. It was later that they stopped people and checked. Well we just slid
through, through that crazed mob, to our house.

-Garnik: When we got home I called the City Party Committee. The person on 
duty or someone, I didn't ask the name, answered the phone. I called them up 
and said, "Listen, what's going on? It's peacetime and there are all kinds of 
atrocities going on. Just where is the Soviet government, what is it doing?
All the police are just standing around, they're huddled in groups, and no one
is doing anything. Something has to be done so there are no victims in 
Sumgait. There's swearing, wrecking, and shouting going on everywhere. I have 
a suggestion," I tell them. "What's your suggestion?", they ask. "I suggest 
that those fire trucks that are standing there hose down the mob with water, 
it's winter time and they'll all run home." And he says, "What age is this 
that we hose people down with water?!" I say, "What age is this that in the 
Soviet Union something like this is going on in peacetime in our city?! What 
are the police doing?"

-Zhanna: He said that they were doing something, that it was none of our
business. He hung up. And on the 28th, at five o'clock in the morning, we left
for Baku again. It was quiet at five, we were able to leave without any 
problem. The gangs were probably taking a breather. They had carried on the 
whole night and probably decided to relax for an hour or two. That was the day
our child finally started to get better.

What had happened to him? He was poisoned in our yard. My oldest son, David, 
was right there with him. He's five, he's still a child. He can't say exactly 
what happened. First he says that there were people there who came up to them.
Then he says it was Christopher who went up to them himself. You can't get it 
straight--he's a child. Apparently they figured out he was an Armenian child. 
I already said that there were crowds going about town. Apparently one of 
those groups of animals came into our yard, found out that he was an Armenian,
and gave him some tablets. In the medical report it says clearly that he was 
given narcotic tablets. Narcotic tablets are not something a child can pick up
on the street. Our neighbors said, "Maybe he picked them up off the ground." 
Who throws narcotics onto the ground? Addicts pay fantastic sums for them. Do 
they throw them on the ground? No.

(David's account: There were some men in the yard. They said it was candy. 
Kidato [Christopher] takes them, he took them and ate them. Then I told him, 
"That's bad medicine." He said, "No, it's candy." Then he ate them. And
later, later he lay on the bench and slept.)

(David's later account: Those men had yellow medicine. They said, "Kida, come 
here." He ran over and said, "What?" The man said, "I'll give you some candy."
And he said, "Give it to me!" And he gave him the medicine. Then he took it 
and brought it and showed it to me, here, the man gave me some candy. And I 
said, "That's not candy, that's medicine, it's yellow and round." He said, 
"No, it's candy," and ate it right up.)

-Zhanna: At first I had doubts, how could he take medicine and eat it? He must
have known that it was medicine. Maybe it's my fault: we often bought the 
children vitamins from the pharmacy, yellow ones, white ones, vitamin C, for 
their appetites, and they got used to taking them. Maybe the boy thought
that's what they were, the color was probably the same. If I hadn't taught 
them to take vitamins, maybe he wouldn't have swallowed them, wouldn't have 
taken them. I don't know: could they even kill a child? It's just so 
far-fetched. I just can't get it through my head. A small child, two and a half
years old. What does he know? What did he do, bad or good? He's just started 
his life. How can you kill a child? But on the other hand, of course, we want 
to thank the doctors. No matter what they said at the beginning, that he was 
an Armenian and we should take him to Yerevan, all the same they saved the ]
child. We didn't have any faith that they would save him. We thought that's 
it, we're going to lose him. We cried from morning to night. But nonetheless, 
great thanks go to those doctors. An Azerbaijani poisoned him, and
Azerbaijanis saved him.

-Garnik: I left my wife in Baku because the situation in Sumgait was bad, and 
went home. I found out that everyone in our families was alive and well, and 
spent the night there. The next morning when I was leaving I could only think 
of getting to where my child was as soon as possible. Driving away from the 
building I saw that a crowd had already gathered. It was impossible to even 
drive out onto the road. There was only one way to get out. Then I found a way
to make my way out through the courtyards, so as not to land in that crowd. 
That was on February 29.

I wanted to drive out past the old railway station, where the commuter trains 
used to go, and saw that they were checking people. That mob of animals was 
stopping cars and checking documents. If it was an Armenian they burned the 
car on the spot, beat the people on the spot. Then I wanted to drive toward 
the Sputnik, and come out on the lane near the knitwear factory, but that was 
blocked too. There was one light left before I was out of there. There were 
three cars ahead of me: the first one I noticed was a Zhiguli, they had set 
it on fire, it was already aflame, and they had stopped the other two and were
checking documents to see if they were Armenians.

When I noticed that I didn't lose my head, I turned the car around on the side
of the road and went back the other way taking turns so as to get away from 
that crowd. I think, I'll go through Saray. But before I had reached 
Microdistrict 8 I see that there's another crowd there, they had surrounded a
woman and were tormenting her in different ways. She was lying right out
in the street near the bus station. I had one thought in my mind: to escape
that mob. I thought I would turn around, but it was already too late. I
thought I'd go on straight ahead. There were two buses there, they had been
stopped. They got onto the buses and started checking for Armenians. There
was some space between the buses. I drove up very slowly and then took off
sharply, punched the accelerator and roared out ahead. I drove through 
Microdistrict 9, but before I reached No. 12 I saw another crowd had formed, 
they were smashing up cars and overturning them. I turned around to go the 
other way, toward the sea, thinking I would try to get through via Nasosny. I 
drove fast down Samed Vurgun Boulevard, and there were people there too, but 
not many. I no longer cared: if anyone tried to stop me I wouldn't surrender. 
I drove at top speed. I reached the taxi lot, there the road turns off toward 
Kotteja. There were two streetcars there: the first, which goes toward 
Sumgait, was destroyed, completely smashed, and the second was on the tracks. 
They had left some space left between them so that drivers approaching the 
streetcars could be stopped and checked. And what they did when they found 
Armenians--I had just seen that myself. Now this time, to be honest, I didn't 
know what to do, and was getting ready to turn around and then I looked and 
saw that there were already crowds ahead of me and behind me. No, I thought, 
that's the only way out, between those streetcars. I stayed stopped for a 
moment and then I saw a fire truck coming. There was a chance: I could drive 
through on its tail. The fire truck was driving through at top speed, and I
drove up right behind it and raced through without stopping. I noticed that 
one car on the side had already been overturned, and was lying there smashed. 
Having escaped I set off for Baku, to my child.

  June 7, 1988
  Shushan Boarding House
  Near the Village of Arzakan
  Hrazdan District

  APPENDIX TO THE ACCOUNT OF GARNIK AND ZHANNA NERSESIAN

   MEDICAL REPORT

   Name: NERSESIAN, Christopher Garnikovich
   Age: 3 years
   Date of Admission: February 26,198
   Date of Discharge: March 13,1988
   Clinical Diagnosis: Acute oral poisoning with psychotropic substances


Condition upon admission was serious. Stupor was alleviated, cries in response
to noxious stimulus. Pupils equally round and reactive to light and
accommodation . . . Child released in satisfactory condition, symptoms of 
acute poisoning passed. The child was discharged. There were no complications 
of infection.

   Department Head: A. A. Ibragimov [signature]
   Attending Physician: A. N. Bagirov [signature]
   [seal of Semashko Clinical Hospital No. 1]


		     - - - reference - - -

[1] _The Sumgait Tragedy; Pogroms against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan,
    Volume I, Eyewitness Accounts_, edited by Samuel Shahmuradian, forward by
    Yelena Bonner, 1990, published by Aristide D. Caratzas, NY, pages 275-281


-- 
David Davidian dbd@urartu.sdpa.org "It has been ever thus in all things, son, 
SDPA Center for Regional Studies    Whatever we thrash we give to the wind, 
P.O. Box 382761                     We too have been blown by the world's wind
Cambridge, MA 02238                 The chaff is gone but the grain remains."