Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #011
                 Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh

        +-------------------------------------------------------+
        |                                                       |
        |   "Right, we should slaughter the Armenians!" and     |
        |    "There's no need to be afraid, all of Moscow is    |
        |    behind us." I even heard that: "All Moscow is      |
        |    behind us." Well I watched and listened in and     |
        |    realized that this was no joke.                    |
        |							|
        +-------------------------------------------------------+

DEPOSITION OF YURI VAGARSHAKOVICH MUSAELIAN

   Born 1953
   Line Electrician
   Sumgait Streetcar and Trolleybus Administration

   Resident at Building 4/21, Apartment 29
   Block 14, Narimanov Street
   Sumgait [Azerbaijan]


I spent almost all of February doing overhaul. The 27th was a short day at
work, we worked until eleven or eleven-thirty and left for home. I decided
to go for a short walk. I went to Primorsky Park. I walked past the Eternal
Flame and saw a group of about 8 to 10 people standing there. When I had
walked another 15 to 20 yards I heard the screech of automobile brakes
behind me. I turned my head toward the sound. It was a light blue GAZ-24
Volga. I see that the people who were standing there have gone over to the 
car. A man and a woman get out. The man is expensively dressed, in a suit,
and the woman has a raincoat on. She doesn't have anything on her head, and 
her hair is let down, sightly reddish hair, a heavy-set woman. They're 40 to 
45 years old. They get something out of the trunk. The people start to help
them. I become curious just what are they pulling out of there?

When I got up close I heard them turn something on. I didn't see what it was, 
but it was probably a tape recorder. They put it on the ground near the 
Eternal Flame honoring the 26 Baku Commissars and formed a tight circle
around it. I ask, "What's going on?" Someone tells me, "Come listen." Well
they were Azerbaijanis, I had asked in Azerbaijani. I hear appeals: "Brother
Muslims, our time has come . . . " and something else along that line. I
didn't understand what it was all about. I walked around the group trying to 
get a look at the owner of the tape recorder. But the circle drew in tighter. 
New people started coming from various directions, five here, seven there. And
the comments started: "Right, we should slaughter the Armenians!" and "There's
no need to be afraid, all of Moscow is behind us." I even heard that: "All 
Moscow is behind us." Well I watched and listened in and realized that this 
was no joke. I quietly left and went home.

Now before that at work I had heard that something was going on in Karabagh, 
that there were demonstrations there. Well, people were saying all kinds of 
things, but I didn't have any idea what was really going on.

My wife and son were at home, but my daughter was at my aunt's house in Baku. 
I didn't say anything to my wife. We sat and drank tea. Sometime around two
o'clock right behind our house suddenly there is noise, whistling, and 
shouting. I looked out the window and saw a crowd. The crowd is moving slowly,
like they show on TV when blacks in South Africa are striking or having a 
demonstration and move slowly.

My wife asks what's going on out there. I say I don't know. I put on some
outdoor clothes and went out to find out what it was all about. In the crowd
people are shouting "Down with the Armenians!" and "Death to the Armenians!" I
waited for the entire crowd to pass. At first they went down Narimanov Street 
on the side with the SK club and the City Party Committee; then they turned 
and went against the traffic--it's one way there--down the Street of the 26 
Baku Commissars toward the streetcar line. I went home and told my wife there 
was a demonstration going on. In fact I thought that we were having the same 
kind of demonstrations that they had had in Yerevan and in Karabagh. Aside 
from the things they were shouting, I was surprised that there were only young
people in the crowd. And they were minors, under draft age.

My wife and son wanted to go upstairs to visit a friend, but I was kind of
uneasy and said, "No, let's stay at home instead." An hour went by, or maybe 
an hour and a half. Well, I wasn't keeping track of the time, I can't say
exactly how long it was. I look and see another crowd on Narimanov, but now on
the side with the microdistricts, the bazaar, and the Rossiya movie theater.

I put outside clothes on and went out again. There's noise, an uproar outside,
and the crowd has grown. There are more people. And whereas the first time 
there were individual shouts, this time they are more focused, more 
aggressive. No, I think, something's wrong here, this isn't any demonstration.
They would run, stop, then walk quickly and make sharp dashes, and then run 
again. I was walking along the sidewalk and they were in the street. I 
followed them. I was thinking I'd just watch and see. Who knew where this was 
leading? We came out on Lenin Square. At the square the SK club is on one 
side, and the City Party Committee is on the other. I went toward the square 
and heard noise and shouting, as though the whole town had turned out. There 
was some sort of a rally going on. I go closer and hear exclamations, appeals.
I heard both anti-Armenian and anti-Soviet appeals. "We don't need 
perestroika, we want to go on living like we have been." Now what did they 
mean by "living like we have been?" The Azerbaijanis work like everyone else. 
But too many people live at the expense of the government and at the expense 
of others. Speculation, theft, and cheating go on all the time. And not just 
in Azerbaijan, everywhere, in all the republics, but I've never seen it 
anywhere else like I have in Azerbaijan.

Now at this rally someone says that they should go around to the Armenians' 
apartments and drive them out, beat them and drive them out. True, I didn't 
hear them say "kill them" over the microphone, I only heard "beat them and 
drive them out." I stayed at the square a few minutes longer. First one, then
another are going up onto the stage, and no one tries to stop the crowd. Off
to the side of the crowd there were small groups of three or four people, and 
I think they were MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] or State Security KGB.
There were also uniformed policemen there, but I didn't see any of them try 
to pacify the crowd. New people kept coming up onto the stage.

Well I had finally decided that this could end badly: This was no
demonstration, and I had to protect my family.

I left the Square to return home and suddenly noticed a truck. It was next
to the City Party Committee, on Narimanov Street, it stood next to the tai-
lor's shop there, a low truck, and it had low, wooden panels. I see that some-
thing is being unloaded, crates of some sort. I decided to go look because
after all those appeals I was apprehensive and thought there might be weapons
in there. They pulled the crates out onto the square, not toward the City 
Party Committee, but toward the SK club. And when I went right up to them I 
saw that they were cases of vodka. There were two people handing down the 
cases from the bed of the truck, and on the ground there were many people, 15 
to 20. They were handing them down from the truck and each case was carried 
off by two people. Two people, one case of vodka. And there was a man standing
right next to the truck and he was handing out roundish black lumps, maybe 
about the size of a fist, maybe a little bigger or smaller. It was anasha. 
When I passed next to that person, he stood with his side to me. There was 
about a yard and a half between us, and two people were standing near him. He 
has a package in his hand, and he's pulling out anasha and handing it out. I 
have never smoked it myself. Once I tried it for fun, but I've seen a lot of 
people smoke it, I've seen it many times, and I know what it is. I strolled 
around and no one asked me who I was or what I was doing there.

Before I got to the Glass Bazaar I heard more howling, more warlike shouting. 
I turned around and saw them running. Well I'll just keep on going like I am, 
I thought. When they caught up with me I saw that they were carrying flags. 
And I recognized the person who was carrying the flag on my side of the 
street. He's a young guy, 21 or 22 years old. He was carrying a red flag, 
which had "Ermeni oryum" written on it in Azerbaijani, that means "Death to 
Armenians!" That guy used to live off the same courtyard as us. I don't really
know what his name is, but I know his father very well. His father's name is
Rafik; he used to be a cook, and then became head chef. He used to have a dark
blue Zhiguli van, then he sold it and now he has a white Zhiguli 06. His 
family, as I said, lived on the same courtyard as we did. Our building was on 
Narimanov Street, and theirs was on the Street of the 26 Baku Commissars; 
their apartment was in the far entryway, on the fifth floor, the door on the 
left. Now Rafik's little brother lives there, and he, Rafik, I heard, got a 
new apartment either in the forth or eighth microdistrict. In a word, his son 
was carrying a flag that said "Death to Armenians!" I was surprised because 
before this I had gotten the impression that all of this nonsense was being 
done not by people from Sumgait, but by Azerbaijanis from Agdam and Kafan.

Well anyway I went home. My wife was upset. I told her, "It's OK, it'll pass, 
they're young kids, they've just gotten all whooped up." Naturally I didn't 
want her to get overly upset. After a while a new surge of crowd went by. And 
this time they were breaking glass. I could hear it breaking, but I couldn't 
see where. Well I think, here we go, the machine's in motion. They weren't 
handing out that vodka and anasha for nothing. I didn't see people drinking 
and smoking on the spot, but they certainly hadn't unloaded the vodka and 
hashish to put in a store window!

So the thought flashed through my head that the machine was running, no one 
would stop them now, they weren't even trying, although, I'll say it again, 
the police were there, I saw them. And it's not just that the police weren't 
breaking them up, they were joking with them, they were having a good time. 
True, at the time I couldn't even imagine that under our government, our much-
vaunted leadership--and I'm not afraid to say these words: so many people 
died, So many women were abused, and how many abominations there were!--I 
couldn't imagine that under our much-vaunted authorities, and if I were to be 
specific, I would say under the much-touted authorities in our city of 
Sumgait, I couldn't imagine that such things could take place.

When they started breaking glass I told my wife and son: "Let's go upstairs." 
We went to our neighbors, the Grigorians, on the fourth floor. And in the 
evening, when those crowds started going past again, I went outside once more.
I stopped at "The Corner," a place called that right next to the bazaar. I 
look and see a crowd on the run. And there, a few yards from the entrance to 
the bazaar, are three respectable-looking men of around, say, 50 years old. 
The crowd was running and one of the three waved with his arm and pointed 
toward the bazaar. And then the whole crowd, as though it were one person, 
wheeled and raced toward the bazaar. And not a soul went past those three, as 
though it were off limits! Well everything got all churned up, there was more 
noise, and the glass was flying again.

We spent the night at the neighbors'. My apartment was on the first floor,
there was really no way to defend yourself there.

In the morning I went out to buy bread and to see what was happening in town. 
On the way I saw someone hunched up, still. I never found out who it was or 
what happened to him. There were 10 to 15 people standing near him. I got the 
bread and on my way back, they had gathered around the person who was lying 
there hunched up, sort of enclosing him; because of the way they were standing
you couldn't even see him.

That was on the morning of February 28. Everyone knows the rest.

   May 17, 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 161-164

