Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #014
                 Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh

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         | 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!"                                      |
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DEPOSITION OF ZAVEN ARMENAKOVICH BADASIAN

   Born 1942
   Employed
   Sumgait Bulk Yarn Plant

   Resident at Building 34, Apartment 33
   Microdistrict No. 12
   Sumgait [Azerbaijan]


On February 27 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 80 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 35.
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 1 we went to hide at School 
No. 33, which is in Microdistrict 13. There were two other Armenian families 
there with us. There were 13 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 1st, 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. 33, 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 100 to 120 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 1, 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 30 kopeks or 40 kopeks, a package of cookies that cost 26 kopeks was being
sold for 50, 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 8, 1988
   Yerevan

		     - - - 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 185-186

