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