Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #013
                 Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh

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   |                                                                     |
   | I said that on February 27, when those people were streaming down   |
   | our street, they were shouting, "Long live Turkey!" and "Glory to   |
   | Turkey!" And during the trial I said to that Ismailov, "What does   |
   | that mean, 'Glory to Turkey'?" I still don't understand what Turkey |
   | has to do with this, we live in the Soviet Union. That Turkey told  |
   | you to or is going to help you kill Armenians? I still don't        |
   | understand why "Glory to Turkey!" I asked that question twice and   |
   | got no answer . . . No one answered me . . .                        |
   |                                                                     |
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DEPOSITION OF EMMA SETRAKOVNA SARGISIAN

   Born 1933
   Cook
   Sumgait Emergency Hospital

   Resident at Building 16/13, Apartment 14
   Block 5
   Sumgait [Azerbaijan]


To this day I can't understand why my husband, an older man, was killed. What 
was he killed for. He hadn't hurt anyone, hadn't said any word he oughtn't 
have. Why did they kill him? I want to find out--from here, from there, from 
the government--why my husband was killed.

On the 27th, when I returned from work--it was a Saturday--my son was at home.
He doesn't work. I went straight to the kitchen, and he called me, "Mamma, is 
there a soccer game?" There were shouts from Lenin Street. That's where we 
lived. I say, "I don't know, Igor, I haven't turned on the TV." He looked 
again and said, "Mamma, what's going on in the courtyard?!" I look and see so 
many people, it's awful, marching, marching, there are hundreds, thousands, 
you can't even tell how many there are. They're shouting, "Down with the 
Armenians! Kill the Armenians! Tear the Armenians to pieces!" My God, why is 
that happening, what for? I had known nothing at that point. We lived together
well, in friendship, and suddenly something like this. It was completely 
unexpected. And they were shouting, "Long live Turkey!" And they had flags,
and they were shouting. There was a man walking in front well dressed, he's 
around 40 or 45, in a gray raincoat. He is walking and saying something, I 
can't make it out through the vent window. He is walking and saying something,
and the children behind him are shouting, "Tear the Armenians to pieces!" and 
"Down with the Armenians!" They shout it again, and then shout, "Hurrah!" The 
people streamed without end, they were walking in groups, and in the groups I 
saw that there were women, too. I say, "My God, there are women there too!" 
And my son says, "Those aren't women, Mamma, those are bad women." Well we 
didn't look a long time. They were walking and shouting and I was afraid, I 
simply couldn't sit still. I went out onto the balcony, and my Azerbaijani 
neighbor is on the other balcony, and I say, "Khalida, what's going on, what 
happened?" She says, "Emma, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know what 
happened." Well she was quite frightened too. They had these white sticks, 
each second or third one had a white rod. They're waving the rods above their 
heads as they walk, and the one who's out front, like a leader, he has a white
stick too. Well maybe it was an armature shaft, but what I saw was white, I 
don't know.

My husband got home 10 or 15 minutes later. He comes home and I say, "Oh 
dear, I'm frightened, they're going to kill us I bet." And he says, "What are 
you afraid of, they're just children." I say, "Everything that happens comes 
from children." There had been 15- and 16-year kids from the Technical and 
Vocational School. "Don't fear," he said, "it's nothing, nothing all that 
bad." He didn't eat, he just lay on the sofa. And just then on television they
broadcast that two Azerbaijanis had been killed in Karabakh, near Askeran. 
When I heard that I couldn't settle down at all, I kept walking here and 
there and I said, "They're going to kill us, the Azerbaijanis are going to 
kill us." And he says, "Don't be afraid." Then we heard--from the central 
square, there are women shouting near near the stage, well, they're shouting
different things, and you couldn't hear every well. I say, "You speak
Azerbaijani well, listen to what they're saying." He says "Close the window
and go to bed, there s nothing happening there." He listened a bit and then 
closed the window and went to bed, and told us, "Come on, go to sleep, it's
nothing." Sleep, what did he mean sleep?  My Son and I stood at the window
until two in the morning watching. Well he's sick, and all of this was
affecting him. I say, "Igor, you go to bed, I'm going to go to bed in a minute
too." He went and I sat at the window until three, and then went to bed. 
Things had calmed down slightly.

The 28th, Sunday, was my day off. My husband got up and said, "Come on, Emma, 
get up." I say, "Today's my day off, let me rest." He says, "Aren't you going 
to make me some tea?" Well I felt startled and got up, and said, "Where are 
you going?" He says, "I'm going out, I have to." I say, "Can you really go 
outside on a day like today? Don't go out, for God's sake. You never listen to
me, I know, and you're not going to listen to me now, but at least don't take 
the car out of the garage, go without the car." And he says, "Come on, close 
the door!" And then on the staircase he muttered something, I couldn't make it
out, he probably said "coward" or something.

I closed the door and he left. And I started cleaning . . . picking things up
around the house . . . Everything seemed quiet until one o'clock in the after-
noon, but at the bus station, my neighbor told me, cars were burning. I said,
"Khalida, was it our car?" She says, "No, no, Emma, don't be afraid, they
were government cars and Zhigulis.'' Our car is a GAZ-21 Volga. And I waited,
it was four o'clock, five o'clock . . . and when he wasn't home at seven I
said, "Oh, they've killed Shagen!"

Tires are burning in town, there's black smoke in town, and I'm afraid, I'm 
standing on the balcony and I'm all . . . my whole body is shaking. My God, 
they've probably killed him! So basically I waited like that until ten 
o'clock and he still hadn't come home. And I'm afraid to go out. At ten
o'clock I look out: across from our building is a building with a bookstore,
and from upstairs, from the second floor, everything is being thrown outside. 
I'm looking out of one window and Igor is looking out of the other, and I 
don't want him to see this, and he, as it turns out, doesn't want me to see 
it. We wanted to hide it from one another. I joined him. "Mamma," he says,
"look what they're doing over there!" They were burning everything, and there 
were police standing there, 10 or 15 of them, maybe twenty policemen standing 
on the side, and the crowd is on the other side, and two or three people are 
throwing everything down from the balcony. And one of the ones on the balcony 
is shouting, "What are you standing there for, burn it!" When they threw the 
television, wow, it was like a bomb! Our neighbor on the third floor came out 
on her balcony and shouted, "Why are you doing that, why are you burning those
things, those people saved with such difficulty to buy those things for their 
home. Why are you burning them?" And from the courtyard they yell at her, "Go 
inside, go inside! Instead why don't you tell us if they are any of them in 
your building or not?" They meant Armenians, but they didn't say Armenians, 
they said, "of them." She says, "No, no, no, none!" Then she ran downstairs to
our place, and says, "Emma, Emma, you have to leave!" I say, "They've killed
Shagen anyway, what do we have to live for? It won't be living for me without 
Shagen. Let them kill us, too!" She insists, saying, "Emma, get out of here, 
go to Khalida's, and give me the key. When they come I'll say that it's my 
daughter's apartment, that they're off visiting someone." I gave her the key 
and went to the neighbor's, but I couldn't endure it. I say, "Igor, you stay 
here, I'm going to go downstairs, and see, maybe Papa's . . . Papa's there."

Meanwhile, they were killing the two brothers, Alik and Valery [Albert and 
Valery Avanesians; see the accounts of Rima Avanesian and Alvina Baluian], in 
the courtyard. There is a crowd near the building, they're shouting, howling, 
and I didn't think that they were killing at the time. Alik and Valery lived
in the corner house across from ours. When I went out into the courtyard I saw
an Azerbaijani, our neighbor, a young man about 30 years old. I say, "Madar, 
Uncle Shagen's gone, let's go see, maybe he's dead in the garage or near the 
garage, let's at least bring the corpse into the house. "He shouts, "Aunt 
Emma, where do you think you're going?! Go back into the house, I'll look for 
him." I say, "Something will happen to you, too, because of me, no, Madar, 
I'm coming too." Well he wouldn't let me go all the same, he says, "You stay 
here with us, I'm go look." He went and looked, and came back and said, "Aunt 
Emma, there's no one there, the garage is closed. "Madar went off again and 
then returned and said, "Aunt Emma, they're already killed Alik, and Valery's 
there . . . wheezing."

Madar wanted to go up to him, but those scoundrels said, "Don't go near him, 
or we'll put you next to him." He got scared--he's young--and came back and 
said, "I'm going to go call, maybe an ambulance will come, at least to take 
Alik, maybe he'll live . . . " They grew up together in our courtyard, they 
knew each other well, they had always been on good terms. He went to call, but
not a single telephone worked, they had all been shut off. He called, and 
called, and called, and called--nothing.

I went upstairs to the neighbor's. Igor says, "Two police cars drove up over 
there, their headlights are on, but they're not touching them, they are still 
lying where they were, they're still lying there . . . "We watched out the
window until four o'clock, and then went downstairs to our apartment. I didn't
take my clothes off. I lay on the couch so as not to go to bed, and at six
o'clock in the morning I got up and said, "Igor, you stay here at home, don't
go out, don't go anywhere, I'm going to look, I have to find Papa, dead or
alive . . . let me go . . . I've got the keys from work."

At six o'clock I went to the Emergency Hospital. The head doctor and another 
doctor opened the door to the morgue. I run up to them and say, "Doctor, is 
Shagen there?" He says, "What do you mean? Why should Shagen be here?!" I 
wanted to go in, but he wouldn't let me. There were only four people in there,
they said. Well, they must have been awful because they didn't let me in. They
said, "Shagen's not here, he's alive somewhere, he'll come back."

It's already seven o'clock in the morning. I look and there is a panel truck
with three policemen. Some of our people from the hospital were there with
them. I say, "Sara Baji ["Sister" Sara, term of endearment], go look, they've
probably brought Shagen." I said it, shouted it, and she went and came back
and says, "No, Emma, he has tan shoes on, it's a younger person." Now Shagen 
just happened to have tan shoes, light tan, they were already old. When they 
said it like that I guessed immediately. I went and said, "Doctor, they've 
brought Shagen in dead." He says, "Why are you carrying on like that, dead, 
dead . . . he's alive." But then he went all the same, and when he came back 
the look on his face was . . . I could tell immediately that he was dead. They
knew one another well, Shagen had worked for him a long time. I say, "Doctor, 
is it Shagen?" He says, "No, Emma, it's not he, it's somebody else entirely." 
I say, "Doctor, why are you deceiving me, I'll find out all the same anyway, 
if not today, then tomorrow." And he said . . . I screamed, right there in the
office. He says, "Emma, go, go calm down a little." Another one of our 
colleagues said that the doctor had said it was Shagen, but . . . in hideous 
condition. They tried to calm me down, saying it wasn't Shagen. A few minutes 
later another colleague comes in and says, "Oh, poor Emma!" When she said it 
like that there was no hope left.

   That day was awful. They were endlessly bringing in dead and injured 
people.

At night someone took me home. I said, "Igor, Papa's been killed."

On the morning of the 1st I left Igor at home again and went to the hospital: 
I had to bury him somehow, do something. I look and see that the hospital is 
surrounded by soldiers. They are wearing dark clothes. "Hey, citizen, where 
are you going?" I say, "I work here," and from inside someone shouts, "Yes, 
yes, that's our cook, let her in." I went right to the head doctor's office
and there is a person from the City Health Department there, he used to
work with us at the hospital. He says, "Emma, Shagen's been taken to Baku.
In the night they took the wounded and the dead, all of them, to Baku." I
say, "Doctor, how will I bury him?" He says, "We're taking care of all that,
don't you worry, we'll do everything, we'll tell you about it. Where did you
spend the night?" I say, "I was at home." He says, "What do you mean you
were at home?! You were at home alone?" I say, "No, Igor was there too." He
says, "You can't stay home, we're getting an ambulance right now, wait just
one second, the head doctor is coming, we're arranging an ambulance right
now, you put on a lab coat and take one for Igor, you go and bring Igor here
like a patient, and you'll stay here and we'll se~ later what to do next ..."
His last name is Kagramanov. The head doctor's name is Izyat Jamalogli
Sadukhov.

The "ambulance" arrived and I went home and got Igor. They admitted him as a 
patient, they gave us a private room, an isolation room. We stayed in the 
hospital until the 4th.

Some police car came and they said, "Emma, let's go." And the women, our 
colleagues, then they saw the police car, became anxious and said, "Where are 
you taking her?" I say, "They're going to kill me, too . . . " And the
investigator says, "Why are you saying that, we're going to make a positive
identification." We went to Baku and they took me into the morgue . . . I
still can't remember what hospital it was . . . The investigator says, "Let's 
go, we need to be certain, maybe it's not Shagen." And when I saw the caskets,
lying on top of one another, I went out of my mind. I say, "I can't look, no."
The investigator says, "Are there any identifying marks?" I say, "Let me see
the clothes, or the shoes, or even a sock, I'll recognize them." He says, 
"Isn't they're anything on his body?" I say he has seven gold teeth and his 
finger, he only has half of one of his fingers. Shagen was a carpenter, he had
been injured at work . . .

They brought one of the sleeves of the shirt and sweater he was wearing, they 
brought them and they were all burned . . . When I saw them I shouted, "Oh, 
they burned him!" I shouted, I don't know, I fell down . . . or maybe I sat 
down, I don't remember. And that investigator says, "Well fine, fine, since 
we've identified that these are his clothes, and since his teeth . . . since
he has seven gold teeth . . . "

On the 4th they told me: "Emma, it's time to bury Shagen now." I cried, "How, 
how can I bury Shagen when I have only one son and he's sick? I should inform 
his relatives, he has three sisters, I can't do it by myself." They say, "OK, 
you know the situation. How will they get here from Karabagh? How will they 
get here from Yerevan? There's no transportation, it s impossible."

He was killed on February 28, and I buried him on March 7. We buried him in 
Sumgait. They asked me, "Where do you want to bury him?" I said, "I want to 
bury him in Karabagh, where we were born, let me bury him in Karabagh," I'm 
shouting, and the head of the burial office, I guess, says, "Do you know what 
it means, take him to Karabagh?! It means arson!" I say, "What do you mean, 
arson? Don't they know what's going on in Karabagh? The whole world knows that
they killed them, and I want to take him to Karabagh, I don't have anyone 
anymore." I begged, I pleaded, I grieved, I even got down on my knees. He
says, "Let's bury him here now, and in three months, in six months, a year, 
if it calms down, I'll help you move him to Karabagh . . . "

Our trial was the first in Sumgait. It was concluded on May 16. At the
investigation the murderer, Tale Ismailov, told how it all happened, but then
at the trial he . . . tried to wriggle . . . he tried to soften his crime. 
Then they brought a videotape recorder, I guess, and played it, and said, 
"Ismailov, look, is that you?" He says, "Yes." "Well look, here you're 
describing everything as it was on the scene of the crime, right?" He says, 
"Yes." "And now you're telling it differently?" He says, "Well maybe I 
forgot!" Like that.

The witnesses and that criminal creep himself said that when the car was going
along Mir Street, there was a crowd of about 80 people . . . Shagen had a 
Volga GAZ-21. The 80 people surrounded his car, and all 80 of them were 
involved. One of them was this Ismailov guy, this Tale. They--it's unclear
who--started pulling Shagen out of the car. Well, one says from the left side
of the car, another says from the right side. They pulled off his sports 
jacket. He had a jacket on. Well they ask him, "What's your nationality?" He 
says, "Armenian." Well they say from the crowd they shouted, "If he's an
Armenian, kill him, kill him!" They started beating him, they broke seven of
his ribs, and his heart . . . I don't know, they did something there, too 
. . . it's too awful to tell about. Anyway, they say this Tale guy . . . he 
had an armature shaft. He says, "I picked it up, it was lying near a bush, 
that's where I got it." He said he picked it up, but the witnesses say that he
had already had it. He said, "I hit him twice," he said, " . . . once or twice
on the head with that rod." And he said that when he started to beat him 
Shagen was sitting on the ground, and when he hit him he fell over. He said, 
"I left, right nearby they were burning things or something in an apartment,
killing someone," he says, "and I came back to look, is that Shagen alive or
not?" I said, "You wanted to finish him, right, and if he was still alive, you
came back to hit him again?" He went back and looked and he was already dead.
"After that," that bastard Tale said, "after that I went home."

I said, "You . . . you . . . little snake," I said, "Are you a thief and a 
murderer?" Shagen had had money in his jacket, and a watch on his wrist. They
were taken. He says he didn't take them

When they overturned and burned the car, that Tale was no longer there, it was
other people who did that. Who it was, who turned over the car and who burned
it, that hasn't been clarified as yet. I told the investigator, "How can you 
have the trial when you don't know who burned the car?" He said something, but
I didn't get what he was saying. But I said, "You still haven't straightened 
everything out, I think that's unjust."

When they burned the car he was lying next to it, and the fire spread to him. 
In the death certificate it says that he had third-degree burns over 80
percent of his body . . .

And I ask again, why was he killed? My husband was a carpenter; he was a good 
craftsman, he knew how to do everything, he even fixed his own car, with his 
own hands. We have three children. Three sons. Only Igor was with me at the 
time. The older one was in Pyatigorsk, and the younger one is serving in the 
Army. And now they're fatherless...

I couldn't sit all the way through it. When the Procurator read up to 15
years' deprivation of freedom, I just . . . I went out of my mind, I didn't
know what to do with myself, I said, "How can that be? You," I said, "you are 
saying that it was intentional murder and the sentence is 15 years' 
deprivation of freedom?" I screamed, I had my mind! I said, "Let me at that
creep, with my bare hands I'll . . . " A relative restrained me, and there
were all those military people there . . . I lest. I said," This isn't a 
Soviet trial, this is unjust!" That's what I shouted, l said it and left . . .

I said that on February 27, when those people were streaming down our street, 
they were shouting, "Long live Turkey!" and "Glory to Turkey!" And during the 
trial I said to that Ismailov, "What does that mean, 'Glory to Turkey'?" I 
still don't understand what Turkey has to do with this, we live in the Soviet 
Union. That Turkey told you to or is going to help you kill Armenians? I still
don't understand why "Glory to Turkey!" I asked that question twice and got no
answer . . . No one answered me . . .

   May 19, 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 178-184

