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Re: [SERDAR ARGIC] Ray Arachelian's role in massacare of 2,500,000 Moslems
Ray Arachelian <[email protected]> writes:
> On Sat, 19 Oct 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
>
> > Ray Arachelian <[email protected]> writes:
> >
> > > Vulis, grow up.
> > >
> > > =========================================================================
> > > + ^ + | Ray Arachelian |FL| KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS |==/
> > > \|/ |[email protected]|UL|__Nothing_is_true,_all_is_permitted!_|=/\
> > > <--+-->| ------------------ |CG|What part of 'Congress shall make no |=\/
> > > /|\ | "A toast to Odin, |KA| law abridging the freedom of speech'|==\
> > > + v + |God of screwdrivers"|AK| do you not understand? |===
> > > ===================http://www.brainlink.COM/~sunder/=====================
> > > If the Macintosh is a woman... Then Windows is a Transvestite!
> > > ActiveX! ActiveX! Format Hard drive? Just say yes!
> >
> > My friend and colleague, Dr. Serdar Argic, has cited the following sources
> > in reference to Ray Arachelian's criminal dandruff-covered grandparents:
>
> <48kb Spam message deleted.>
>
> The friend and colleague of your whom you know says much about you. Yet
> another Net Loon. You action of posting a 48K spam to this list in attempt
> to get me upset has resulted in a single, half-felt yawn. Others may be
> pissed at your attempt at spamming me. I give not a shit.
Dr. Serdar Argic is a world-famous historian and Ray makes mistakes in English.
> My original message to you stands: Vulis, grow up.
>
> =============================================================================
> + ^ + | Ray Arachelian |FL| KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS |==/|\==
> \|/ |[email protected]|UL|__Nothing_is_true,_all_is_permitted!_|=/\|/\=
> <--+-->| ------------------ |CG|What part of 'Congress shall make no |=\/|\/=
> /|\ | "A toast to Odin, |KA| law abridging the freedom of speech'|==\|/==
> + v + |God of screwdrivers"|AK| do you not understand? |=======
> ===================http://www.brainlink.COM/~sunder/=========================
> If the Macintosh is a woman... Then Windows is a Transvestite!
> ActiveX! ActiveX! Format Hard drive? Just say yes!
>
My good friend and colleage, Dr. Serdar Argic, has cited these additional
sources regarding Ray Arachelian's criminal dandruff-covered grandparents:
M A S S A C R E I N K H O J A L Y
While the details are argued, this much is plain: something grim
and unconscionable happened in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly
two weeks ago. So far, some 200 dead Azerbaijanis, many of them
mutilated, have been transported out of the town tucked inside
the Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh for burial in
neighboring Azerbaijan. The total number of deaths - the Azerbaijanis
claim 1,324 civilians have been slaughtered, most of them women and
children - is unknown.
Videotapes circulated by the Azerbaijanis include images of defaced
civilians, some of them scalped, others shot in the head.
_BBC1 Morning News at 07.37, Tuesday 3 March 1992_
BBC reporter was live on line and he claimed that he saw more
than 100 bodies of Azeri men, women and children as well as a
baby who are shot dead from their heads from a very short distance.
_BBC1 Morning News at 08:12, Tuesday 3 March 1992_
Very disturbing picture has shown that many civilian corpses
who were picked up from mountain. Reporter said he, cameraman
and Western Journalists have seen more than 100 corpses, who
are men, women, children, massacred by Armenians. They have
been shot dead from their heads as close as 1 meter. Picture
also has shown nearly ten bodies (mainly women and children)
are shot dead from their heads. Azerbaijan claimed that more
than 1000 civilians massacred by Armenian forces.
_Channel 4 News at 19.00, Monday 2 March 1992_
2 French journalists have seen 32 corpses of men, women and
children in civilian clothes. Many of them shot dead from
their heads as close as less than 1 meter.
_Report from Karabakpress_
A merciless massacre of the civilian population of the small
Azeri town of Khojali (Population 6000) in Karabagh, Azerbaijan,
is reported to have taken place on the night of February 28 by
the Soviet Armenian Army. Close to 1000 people are reported to
have been massacred. Elderly and children were not spared. Many
were badly beaten and shot at close range. A sense of rage and
helplessness has overwhelmed the Azeri population in face of the
well armed and equipped Armenian Army. The neighboring Azeri city
of Aghdam outside of the Karabagh region has come under heavy
Armenian artillery shelling. City hospital was hit and two pregnant
women as well as a new born infant were killed. Azerbaijan is appealing
to the international community to condemn such barbaric and ruthless
attacks on its population and its sovereignty.
_Boston Sunday Globe_ November 21, 1993
by Jon Auerbach
Globe Correspondent
CHAKHARLI, Azerbaijan -- The truckloads of scared and lost
children, the sobbing mothers, the stench of sickness and
the sea of blank faces in this mud-covered refugee camp
obscure the deeper issue of why tens of thousands of Azeris
have fled here.
_What we see now is a systematic destruction of every village
in their way,_ said one senior US official. _It's one of the
most disgusting things we've seen._
_It's vandalism,_ the US official said. _The idea that there
is an aggressive intent in a sound conclusion._
The United Nations estimates that there are more than 1 million
refugees in Azerbaijan, roughly one seventh of the former Soviet
republic's entire population. Thousands who fled to neighboring
Iran are being slowly repatriated to refugee camps already bursting
at the seams. But because of the Karabakh Armenians' policy of
burning villages, relief organizations say there is no hope that
the Azeris could return home anytime soon.
At Chakharli, about 10 miles from Iran, more than 10,000 refugees
are crammed into a makeshift tent city. Aziz Azizova, 33, arrived
in the Iranian run camp about three weeks ago, after she and her
five children were forced to flee their home in the village of
Buik-Merjan.
_I left my village with nothing, not even my shoes,_ she said. _You
see how our children are living? Some of them are living right in
the mud._
Azizova, like thousands of others, escaped by fleeing across the Arax
River into neighboring Iran. The UN estimates that around 300 Azeris,
mainly women and children, drowned in the river's currents.
One of the people who did make it across was Samaz Mamedova, a
40-year-old accountant. Sitting with friends in tent No. 566 on
a recent day, Mamedova explained how the Armenians seized her
village in less than a half hour, forcing the entire population
toward the river in a chaotic scramble for survival.
_Cebbar Leygara_ Kurdish Leader - October 13, 1992
_Today's ethnic cleansing policies by the Serbians against Croatians
and Muslims of Yugoslavia, as well as the Soviet Republic of Armenia's
against the Muslim population of neighboring Azerbaijan, are really
no different in their aspirations than the genocide perpetrated by
the Armenian Government 78 years ago against the Turkish and Kurdish
Muslims and Sephardic Jews living in these lands._
_Tovfik Kasimov_ Azeri Leader - September 25, 1992
_The crime of systematic cleansing by mass killing and extermination
of the Muslim population in Soviet Republic of Armenia, Karabag,
Bosnia and Herzegovina is an 'Islamic Holocaust' comparable to the
extermination of 2.5 million Muslims by the Armenian Government
during the WWI and of over 6 million European Jews during the WWII._
_The Times_ 3 March 1992
MASSACRE UNCOVERED
By ANATOL LIEVEN
More than sixty bodies, including those of women and children,
have been spotted on hillsides in Nagorno-Karabakh, confirming
claims that Armenian troops massacred Azeri refugees. Hundreds
are missing.
Scattered amid the withered grass and bushes along a small valley
and across the hillside beyond are the bodies of last Wednesday's
massacre by Armenian forces of Azerbaijani refugees.
In all, 31 bodies could be counted at the scene. At least another
31 have been taken into Agdam over the past five days. These figures
do not include civilians reported killed when the Armenians stormed
the Azerbaijani town of Khodjaly on Tuesday night. The figures also
do not include other as yet undiscovered bodies
Zahid Jabarov, a survivor of the massacre, said he saw up to 200
people shot down at the point we visited, and refugees who came
by different routes have also told of being shot at repeatedly and
of leaving a trail of bodies along their path. Around the bodies
we saw were scattered possessions, clothing and personnel documents.
The bodies themselves have been preserved by the bitter cold which
killed others as they hid in the hills and forest after the massacre.
All are the bodies of ordinary people, dressed in the poor, ugly
clothing of workers.
Of the 31 we saw, only one policeman and two apparent national
volunteers were wearing uniform. All the rest were civilians,
including eight women and three small children. Two groups,
apparently families, had fallen together, the children cradled
in the women's arms.
Several of them, including one small girl, had terrible head
injuries: only her face was left. Survivors have told how they
saw Armenians shooting them point blank as they lay on the ground.
THE COMMITTEE FOR PEOPLE'S HELP TO KARABAKH (OF THE) ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES OF THE AZERBAIJAN SSR - 1988
An Appeal to Mankind
During the last three years Azerbaijan and its multinational
population are vainly fighting for justice within the limits of
the Soviet Union. All humanitarian, constitutional human rights
guaranteed by the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, Helsinki Agreements, Human Problems International Forums,
documents signed by the Soviet Union - all of them are violated.
The USSR's President, government bodies do not defend Azerbaijan
though they are all empowered to take necessary measures to
guarantee life and peace.
The 240,000 strong army of Armenian terrorists with Moscow's
tacit consent wages an undeclared war of annihilation against
Azerbaijan. As a result, a part of Azerbaijan has been occupied
and annexed, thousands of people killed, thousands wounded.
Some 400,000 Azerbaijanis have been brutally and inhumanly
deported from the Armenian SSR, their historical homeland.
Together with them 64,000 Russians and 62,000 Kurds have also
been driven out, a part of them now settled in Azerbaijan.
Some 80,000 Turkish-Meskhetians, Lezghins and representatives
of other Caucasian nationalities who escaped from the Central
Asia where the President and government bodies did not guarantee
them the life and peace also suffered from these deportations.
One of the scandalous vandalisms directed not only against
Azerbaijan science but the world civilization as well is the
Armenian extremists' destruction of the Karabakh scientific
experimental base of The Institute of Genetics and Selection
of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR.
We beg you for humanitarian help and political assistance,
for the honour and dignity of 7 million Azerbaijanis are
violated, its territory, culture and history are trampled,
its people are shot. There is persistent negative image of
Azerbaijanians abroad, and this defamation is spread over
the whole world by Soviet mass media, Armenian lobby in the
USSR and the United States.
We are for a united, indivisible, sovereign Azerbaijan, we
are for a common Caucasian home proclaimed in 1918 by one
of the founding fathers of the Azerbaijan Democratic
Republic - Muhammed Emin Rasulzade.
But all these goals and expectations are trampled upon the
Soviet leadership in favour of the Armenian expansionists
encouraged by Moscow and intended to create a new '1,000
Year Reich' - the 'Great Armenia' - by annexing the
neighboring lands.
The world public opinion shed tears to save the whales,
suffers for penguins dying out in the Antarctic Continent.
But what about the lives of seven million human beings?
If these people are Muslims, does it mean that they are
less valuable? Can people be discriminated by their
colour of skin or religion, by their residence or other
attributes?
All people are brothers, and we appeal to our brothers
for help and understanding. This is not the first appeal
of Azerbaijan to the world public opinion. Our previous
appeals were unheard. However, we still carry the hope
that the truth beyond the Russian and Armenian propaganda
will one day reveal the extent of our suffering and
stimulate at least as much help and compassion for
Azerbaijan as tendered to whales and penguins.
_The Age_ Melbourne, 6/3/92
By Helen WOMACK - Agdam, Azerbaijan, Thursday
The exact number of victims is still unclear, but there can
be little doubt that Azeri civilians were massacred by Armenian
Army in the snowy mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh last week.
Refugees from the enclave town of Khojaly, sheltering in the
Azeri border town of Agdam, give largely consistent accounts
of how Armenians attacked their homes on the night of 25 February,
chased those who fled and shot them in the surrounding forests.
Yesterday, I saw 75 freshly dug graves in one cemetery in addition
to four mutilated corpses we were shown in the mosque when we
arrived in Agdam late on Tuesday. I also saw women and children
with bullet wounds in a makeshift hospital in a string of railway
carriages.
Khojaly, an Azeri settlement in the enclave mostly populated by
Armenians, had a population of about 6000. Mr. Rashid Mamedov
Commander of Police in Agdam, said only about 500 escaped to his
town. _So where are the rest?_. Some might have taken prisoner,
he said, or fled. Many bodies were still lying in the mountains
because the Azeris were short of helicopters to retrieve them.
He believed more than 1000 had perished, some of cold in temperatures
as low as minus 10 degrees.
When Azeris saw the Armenians with a convoy of armored personnel
carriers, they realised they could not hope to defend themselves,
and fled into the forests. In the small hours, the massacre started.
Mr. Nasiru, who believes his wife and two children were taken
prisoner, repeated what many other refugees have said - that
troops of the former Soviet army helped the Armenians to attack
Khojaly. _It is not my opinion, I saw it with my own eyes._
_The Washington Post_ 2/28/92
_Nagorno-Karabagh Victims Buried in Azerbaijani Town_
"Refugees claim hundreds died in Armenian Attack...Of seven bodies
seen here today, two were children and three were women, one shot
through the chest at what appeared to be close range. Another 120
refugees being treated at Agdam's hospital include many with multiple
stab wounds."
_The New York Times_ 3/6/92
_A Final Goodbye in Azerbaijan_
[Photo by Associated Press]: "At a cemetery in Agdam, Azerbaijan,
family members and friends grieved during the burial of victims
massacred by the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabagh. Chingiz Iskandarov,
right, hugged the coffin containing the remains of his brother, one
of the victims. A copy of Koran lay atop the coffin."
_The Washington Post_ 3/6/92
_Final Embrace_
[Photo by Associated Press]: "Chingiz Iskenderov, right, weeps over
coffin holding the remains of his brother as other relatives grieve
at an Azarbaijani cemetery yesterday amid burial of victims killed
by Armenians in Nagorno-Karabagh."
_The Washington Times_ 3/2/92
_Armenian Raid Leaves Azeris Dead or Fleeing_
"...about 1,000 of Khojaly's 10,000 people were massacred by the
Armenian Army in Tuesdays attack. Azerbaijani television showed
truckloads of corpses being evacuated from the Khocaly area."
_The Independent_ 2/29/92
By Helen Womack
"Elif Kaban, a Reuter correspondent in Agdam, reported that after
a massacre on Wednesday, Azeris were burying scores of people who
died when Armenians overran the town of Khojaly, the second-biggest
Azeri settlement in the area. 'The world is turning its back on
what's happening here. We are dying and you are just watching,'
one mourner shouted at a group of journalists."
_Reuters_ 2/12/92
_Armenians Burn Azeri Village_
"Armenian Army attacked a strategic Azeri village...in Nagorno-Karabagh
and burned it to the ground on Tuesday, Commonwealth television reported.
Channel one television said the village of Malybeili, in the Khodzhalin
district, was now cut off and a large number of wounded were left stranded.
Itar-Tass news agency said several people were killed and 20 wounded in
the attack on the village... Tass also said shells fired from Armenian
villages into the Azeri populated town of Susha, just 6 miles south of
Stepenakert, demolished two houses and damaged five others."
_The Washington Times_ 3/3/92
_Massacre Reports Horrify Azerbaijan_
"Azeri officials who returned from the scene to this town about
nine miles away brought back three dead children, the backs of
their heads blown off...'Women and children had been scalped,'
said Assad Faradzev, an aide to Karabagh's Azeri governor. Azeri
television showed pictures of one truckload of bodies brought to
the Azeri town of Agdam, some with their faces apparently scratched
with knives or their eyes gouged out."
_The Washington Post_ 3/3/92
_Killings Rife in Nagorno-Karabagh_
"Journalists in the area reported seeing dozens of corpses, including
some of the civilians, and Azerbaijani officials said Armenians began
shooting at them when they sought to recover the bodies."
_The Times (London)_ 3/3/92
_Bodies Mark Site of Karabagh Massacre_
"A local truce was enforced to allow the Azerbaijanis to collect
their dead and any refugees still hiding in the hills and forest.
All are the bodies of ordinary people, dressed in the poor, ugly
clorhing of workers...All the rest were civilians, including eight
women and three small children. Two groups, apparently families,
had fallen together, the children cradled in the women's arms.
Several of them, including one small girl, had terrible head
injuries: only her face was left. Survivors have told how they
saw Armenians shooting them point blank as they lay on the ground."
_The SUNDAY TIMES_ 8 March 1992
Thomas Goltz, the first to report the massacre by Armenian soldiers,
reports from Agdam.
Khojaly used to be a barren Azeri town, with empty shops and treeless
dirt roads. Yet it was still home to thousands of Azeri people who, in
happier times, tended fields and flocks of geese. Last week it was wiped
off the map.
As sickening reports trickled in to the Azerbaijani border town of
Agdam, and the bodies piled up in the morgues, there was little doubt
that Khojaly and the stark foothills and gullies around it had been
the site of the most terrible massacre since the Soviet Union broke
apart.
I was the last Westerner to visit Khojaly. That was in january and
people were predicting their fate with grim resignation. Zumrut Ezoya,
a mother of four on board the helicopter that ferried us into the
town, called her community "sitting ducks, ready to get shot". She and
her family were among the victims of the massacre by the Armenians on
February 26.
"The Armenians have taken all the outlying villages, one by one, and
the government does nothing." Balakisi Sakikov, 55, a father of five,
said. "Next they will drive us out or kill us all," said Dilbar, his
wife. The couple, their three sons and three daughters were killed in
the massacre, as were many other people I had spoken to.
"It was close to the Armenian lines we knew we would have to cross.
There was a road, and the first units of the column ran across then
all hell broke loose. Bullets were raining down from all sides. we had
just entered their trap."
The azeri defenders picked off one by one. Survivors say that Armenian
forces then began a pitiless slaughter, firing at anything moved in
the gullies. A video taken by an Azeri cameraman, wailing and crying
as he filmed body after body, showed a grizzly trail of death leading
towards higher, forested ground where the villagers had sought refuge
from the Armenians.
"The Armenians just shot and shot and shot," said Omar Veyselov, lying
in hospital in Agdam with sharapnel wounds. "I saw my wife and daughter
fall right by me."
People wandered through the hospital corridors looking for news of the
loved ones. Some vented their fury on foreigners: " Where is my daughter,
where is my son ?" wailed a mother. "Raped. Butchered. Lost."
_The Independent_ London, 12/6/92
_Painful Search_
The gruesome extent of February's killings of Azeris by Armenians
in the town of Hojali is at last emerging in Azerbaijan - about
600 men, women and children dead.
The State Prosecutor, Aydin Rasulov, the cheif investigator of a
15-man team looking into what Azerbaijan calls the "Hojali
Massacre", said his figure of 600 people dead was a minimum on
preliminary findings. A similar estimate was given by Elman
Memmedov, the mayor of Hojali. An even higher one was printed in
the Baku newspaper Ordu in May - 479 dead people named and more
than 200 bodies reported unidentified. This figure of nearly 700
dead is quoted as official by Leila Yunusova, the new spokeswoman
of the Azeri Ministry of Defence.
FranCois Zen Ruffinen, head of delegation of the International
Red Cross in Baku, said the Muslim imam of the nearby city of
Agdam had reported a figure of 580 bodies received at his mosque
from Hojali, most of them civilians. "We did not count the
bodies. But the figure seems reasonable. It is no fantasy," Mr
Zen Ruffinen said. "We have some idea since we gave the body bags
and products to wash the dead."
Mr Rasulov endeavours to give an unemotional estimate of the
number of dead in the massacre. "Don't get worked up. It will
take several months to get a final figure," the 43-year-old
lawyer said at his small office.
Mr Rasulov knows about these things. It took him two years to
reach a firm conclusion that 131 people were killed and 714
wounded when Soviet troops and tanks crushed a nationalist
uprising in Baku in January 1990.
Officially, 184 people have so far been certified as dead, being
the number of people that could be medically examined by the
republic's forensic department. "This is just a small percentage
of the dead," said Rafiq Youssifov, the republic's chief forensic
scientist. "They were the only bodies brought to us. Remember the
chaos and the fact that we are Muslims and have to wash and bury
our dead within 24 hours."
Of these 184 people, 51 were women, and 13 were children under 14
years old. Gunshots killed 151 people, shrapnel killed 20 and
axes or blunt instruments killed 10. Exposure in the highland
snows killed the last three. Thirty-three people showed signs of
deliberate mutilation, including ears, noses, breasts or penises
cut off and eyes gouged out, according to Professor Youssifov's
report. Those 184 bodies examined were less than a third of those
believed to have been killed, Mr Rasulov said.
"There were too many bodies of dead and wounded on the ground to
count properly: 470-500 in Hojali, 650-700 people by the stream
and the road and 85-100 visible around Nakhchivanik village," Mr
Manafov wrote in a statement countersigned by the helicopter
pilot.
"People waved up to us for help. We saw three dead children and
one two-year-old alive by one dead woman. The live one was
pulling at her arm for the mother to get up. We tried to land but
Armenians started a barrage against our helicopter and we had to
return."
There has been no consolidation of the lists and figures in
circulation because of the political upheavals of the last few
months and the fact that nobody knows exactly who was in Hojali
at the time - many inhabitants were displaced from other villages
taken over by Armenian forces.
_The Independent_ London, 12/6/92
Photographs: Liu Heung / AP
Frederique Lengaigne / Reuter
Aref Sadikov sat quietly in the shade of a cafe-bar on the
Caspian Sea esplanade of Baku and showed a line of stitches in
his trousers, torn by an Armenian bullet as he fled the town of
Hojali just over three months ago, writes Hugh Pope.
"I'm still wearing the same clothes, I don't have any others,"
the 51-year-old carpenter said, beginning his account of the
Hojali disaster. "I was wounded in five places, but I am lucky to
be alive."
Mr Sadikov and his wife were short of food, without electricity
for more than a month, and cut off from helicopter flights for 12
days. They sensed the Armenian noose was tightening around the
2,000 to 3,000 people left in the straggling Azeri town on the
edge of Karabakh.
"At about 11pm a bombardment started such as we had never heard
before, eight or nine kinds of weapons, artillery, heavy
machine-guns, the lot," Mr Sadikov said.
Soon neighbours were pouring down the street from the direction
of the attack. Some huddled in shelters but others started
fleeing the town, down a hill, through a stream and through the
snow into a forest on the other side.
To escape, the townspeople had to reach the Azeri town of Agdam
about 15 miles away. They thought they were going to make it,
until at about dawn they reached a bottleneck between the two
Azeri villages of Nakhchivanik and Saderak.
"None of my group was hurt up to then ... Then we were spotted by
a car on the road, and the Armenian outposts started opening
fire," Mr Sadikov said. Mr Sadikov said only 10 people from his
group of 80 made it through, including his wife and militiaman
son. Seven of his immediate relations died, including his
67-year-old elder brother.
"I only had time to reach down and cover his face with his hat,"
he said, pulling his own big flat Turkish cap over his eyes. "We
have never got any of the bodies back."
The first groups were lucky to have the benefit of covering fire.
One hero of the evacuation, Alif Hajief, was shot dead as he
struggled to change a magazine while covering the third group's
crossing, Mr Sadikov said.
Another hero, Elman Memmedov, the mayor of Hojali, said he and
several others spent the whole day of 26 February in the bushy
hillside, surrounded by dead bodies as they tried to keep three
Armenian armoured personnel carriers at bay.
As the survivors staggered the last mile into Agdam, there was
little comfort in a town from which most of the population was
soon to flee.
"The night after we reached the town there was a big Armenian
rocket attack. Some people just kept going," Mr Sadikov said. "I
had to get to the hospital for treatment. I was in a bad way.
They even found a bullet in my sock."
Victims of massacre: An Azeri woman mourns her son, killed in the
Hojali massacre in February (left). Nurses struggle in primitive
conditions (centre) to save a wounded man in a makeshift
operating theatre set up in a train carriage. Grief-stricken
relatives in the town of Agdam (right) weep over the coffin of
another of the massacre victims. Calculating the final death toll
has been complicated because Muslims bury their dead within 24
hours.
Amnesty International
International Secretariat
1 Easton Street
London WC1X 8DJ
United Kingdom
22 APRIL 1994
ARMENIA - MUSLIM PRISONERS MURDERED IN "EXECUTION-TYPE SHOOTINGS"
Forensic evidence released this month suggests that six Azerbaydzhani
prisoners of war held in Armenia were victims of "execution-type
shootings", according to a forensic expert.
Following an announcement, in February, by the Armenian Foreign
Ministry that eight Azerbaydzhani prisoners had been shot while
attempting to escape, ten bodies were transferred from Armenia
to Azerbaydzhan in March. Professor Derrick Pounder, head of the
Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Dundee,
United Kingdom, began post- mortem examinations on the bodies
at the beginning of April. The bodies had also undergone previous
examinations by both the Armenians and the Azeris.
He found that six of the men - Rustam Ramazan ogly Agev, Elehan Guseyn
ogly Akhmedov, Elman Mamed ogly Akhmedov, Kurchat Kiyaz ogly Mamedov,
Eldar Chakhbaba ogly Mamedov and Faig Gabil ogly Guliyev - had been
murdered by a single gunshot wound to the head. He also found that
in three of the six cases the muzzle of the gun had been in contact
with the head at the time the shot was fired. It was not possible
to determine the range at which the shot had been fired in the other
three cases owing to earlier removal of physical evidence.
Professor Pounder concluded that the pattern of gunshot wounds was
not consistent with allegations that the six men had been shot while
attempting to escape, and said that the common pattern of the wounds
was "strongly suggestive of execution-type shootings".
Amnesty International is urging the Armenian authorities to conduct
a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the deaths of
these six men, to make the findings public, and to bring to justice
any perpetrators of execution-style killings, within the bounds of
international law.
The human rights organization is also urging the Armenian authorities
to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the remaining
four men whose bodies were returned, in order to determine if criminal
proceedings are necessary in their cases also.
Professor Pounder found that one of these had wounds to the throat in
a pattern of injury consistent with suicide, one died of a single gunshot
wound to the chest, and in two instances the cause of death could not
be determined.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH HELSINKI
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MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, TEL and FAX(7095)265-4448
MARCH 2, 1994
PRESIDENT LEVON TER-PETROSSIAN
MARSHAL BAGRAMIAN PROSPECT,26
375019 YEREVAN
BY FAX:52-15-81
DEAR PRESIDENT TER-PETROSSIAN,
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH\HELSINKI (Formerly Helsinki Watch) is the
largest human rights organisation in the United States. We have
closely followed the Armenian massacre of the Azeri people in
Nagorno Karabakh, and have published two reports on violations
of the Geneva Conventions.
I am writing you to express our organisation's deep concern
about the deaths of Azerbaijani prisoners of war in Armenia.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the
following men were shot to death in an Armenian detention camp
in Sritak in late January or early February:
Rustam Ramazan-oglu Agaev,(birthdate unknown), from Masalin
District
Elman Mamed-oglu Akhmedov,b. 1961,from Yevlakh District
Elshan Hussein-oglu Akhmedov,b.1974, from Saatlin District
Bakhram AKIF-oglu Giiasov,b. 1972,from Siazan
FAIG Gabil-oglu Guliev,b.1969,from Baku
Enver Asker-oglu Jafarov,b.1972,from Sumgait
Eldar Shahbaba-oglu Mamedov,b.1966,from Baku
Girshad Kniaz-oglu Mamedov,b.1974 from Yevlakh
I thank you for your attention to this matter and look forward
to learning the results of the investigation.
Yours sincerely,
Jeri Laber
Executive Director
_Newsweek_ November 29, 1993, p. 50
_For the past seven months Armenian troops and tanks have swept
across Azerbaijan -- a land grab exceeded only by what the Serbs
have accomplished in Bosnia in the past year...Last month they
pushed south all the way to the Iranian border, driving more
than 60,000 Azerbaijani civilians across the Araks river into
Iran -- and looting and torching vacant villages in their wake._
Christopher Walker, _Armenia_ New York (St. Martin's Press), 1980.
This generally pro-Armenian work contains the following information
of direct relevance to the Nazi Holocaust:
1) Dro (the Butcher), the former dictator of ex-Russian/Soviet Armenia
and the architect of the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million Muslims in
Russian Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, the most respected of Nazi Armenian
leaders, established an Armenian Provisional Republic in Berlin during
World War II;
2) this _provisional government_ fully endorsed and espoused the social
theories of the Nazis, declared themselves and all Armenians to be members
of the Aryan _Super-Race_;
3) they published an Anti-Semitic, racist journal, thereby aligning
themselves with the Nazis and their efforts to exterminate the Jews;
and,
4) they mobilized an Armenian Army of up to 30,000 members which fought
side by side with the Wehrmacht.
_San Francisco Chronicle_ (December 11, 1983)
(Editor's Mailbox - Section B)
_We have first hand information and evidence of Armenian
atrocities against our people (Jews). Members of our family
witnessed the murder of 148 members of our family near Erzurum,
Turkey, by Armenian neighbors, bent on destroying anything and
anybody remotely Jewish and/or Muslim...Armenians were in league
with Hitler in the last war, on his premise to grant themselves
government if, in return, the Armenians would help exterminate
Jews. Armenians were also hearty proponents of the anti-Semitic
acts in league with the Russian Communists._
Signed Elihu Ben Levi, Vacaville, California.
The Armenian publication in Germany, Hairenik (an official mouthpiece
for the ex-Soviet Armenian Government), carried statements as follows:[*]
_Sometimes it is difficult to eradicate these poisonous elements [the
Jews] when they have struck deep root like a chronic disease, and when
it becomes necessary for a people [the Nazis] to eradicate them in an
uncommon method, these attempts are regarded as revolutionary. During
the surgical operation, the flow of blood is a natural thing._[**]
[*] James G. Mandalian, _Dro, Drastamat Kanayan,_ in the 'Armenian
Review,' a Quarterly by the Hairenik Association, Inc., Summer:
June 1957, Vol. X, No. 2-38.
[**] Quoted by James Mandalian: _Who Are The Dashnags?_ Boston,
Hairenik Press, 1944, pp. 13-4.
_These European Armenians, with headquarters in Berlin, appealed
to, and bargained with Hitler's emissaries for an 'independent'
Armenian state. That they had to bootlick Nazi masters goes without
saying. That, as potential officials of a puppet Nazi state, they
would have assumed the infamous roles of the Paveliches, Antonescus,
Lavals, Tisos or Vidkun Quislings was also a foregone conclusion.
Once committed to it, there was no alternative to the price for
'independence' except subservience to Hitler._[*]
[*] Arthur Derounian under the pseudonym 'John Roy Carlson,'
_Armenian Affairs_ a Quarterly Journal of Armenian Studies,
Winter 1949-50, p. 18.
'After all, who remembers today the extermination of the Tartars?'
(Adolf Hitler, August 22, 1939: Ruth W. Rosenbaum)
_The Muslim Holocaust - Musluman Soykirimi_ p. 213.
_Thursday, August 2, 1984 issue of 'Armenian Reporter'_
In fact, by 1942, Nazi Armenians in Europe had established a vast
network of pro-German collaborators, that extended over two continents.
Thousands of Armenians were serving the German army and Waffen-SS in
Russia and Western Europe. Armenians were also involved in espionage and
fifth-column activities for Hitler in the Balkans and Arabian Peninsula.
They were promised an 'independent' state under German 'protection' in
an agreement signed by the 'Armenian National Council.' (A copy of
this agreement can be found in the 'Congressional Record,' November 1,
1945; see Document 1.) On this side of the Atlantic, Nazi Armenians
were aware of their brethrens alliance. They had often expressed
pro-Nazi sentiments until America entered the war.
In 1941, while the Jews were being assembled for their doom in the
Nazi concentration camps, the Nazi Armenians in Germany formed the
first Armenian battalion to fight alongside the Nazis. In 1943, this
battalion had grown into eight battalions of 30,000-strong under the
command of Dro (the butcher), who was the former dictator of x-Soviet/
Russian Armenia and the architect of the cold-blooded genocide of 2.5
million Muslim people between 1914-1920. An Armenian National Council
was formed by the notorious Dashnak Party leaders in Berlin, which was
recognized by the Nazis. Encouraged by this, the Armenians summarily
formed a provisional government that endorsed and espoused fully the
principles of the Nazis and declared themselves as the members of the
Aryan super race and full participants to Hitler's policy of extermination
of the Jews.
This Armenian-Nazi conspiracy against the Jews during WWII was an
"encore" performance staged by the Armenians during WWI when they
exterminated 2.5 million Muslim and Jewish people.
As early as 1934, K. S. Papazian asserted in _Patriotism Perverted_ that
the Armenians
_lean toward Fascism and Hitlerism._[1]
At that time, he could not have foreseen that the Armenians would
actively assume a pro-German stance and even collaborate in World
War II. His book was dealing with the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million
Muslim and Jewish people in Eastern Anatolia and Russian Armenia.
However, extreme rightwing ideological tendencies could be observed
within the Soviet Armenian Government long before the outbreak of the
Second World War.
In 1936, for example, O. Zarmooni of the _Tzeghagrons_ was quoted
in the _Hairenik Weekly_ (an official mouthpiece for the ex-Soviet
Armenian Government):
_The race is force: it is treasure. If we follow history we shall
see that races, due to their innate force, have created the nations
and these have been secure only insofar as they have reverted to
the race after becoming a nation. Today Germany and Italy are
strong because as nations they live and breath in terms of race.
On the other hand, Russia is comparatively weak because she is
bereft of social sanctities._[2]
[1] K. S. Papazian, _Patriotism Perverted_ (Boston, Baikar Press
1934), Preface.
[2] _Hairenik Weekly_ Friday, April 10, 1936, 'The Race is our
Refuge' by O. Zarmooni.
The Armenian fascism traditionally employed extreme means for the
sake of Armenian cause, including massacres and genocide. In World
War I, Russian Armenian Government annihilated the entire Muslim
population of Russian Armenia and exterminated millions of Muslim
and Sephardic Jews in Eastern Anatolia. While having collaborated
with the Nazis against Stalin during the Second World War, Nazi
Armenians changed their policy after Hitler's defeat. They now
backed Stalin's claims on Eastern Turkish provinces, hoping that
these would be annexed to Soviet Armenia and their Muslim population
would be exterminated again. Stalin played on Armenian national
sentiments to enlist the support of Armenians in the USSR and
America for his imperial ambitions.[1] Stalin's ultimatum to the
Turkish government led Truman to formulate his famous Doctrine.
[1] Walter Kolarz, _Religion in the Soviet Union_ (London, Macmillan &
Co Ltd; New York, St Martin's Press 1961), pp. 160-164.
Nazi Germany had shown interest in nationalities, as a tool to
dismember the Russian empire, back in World War I. In the time
between the two World Wars, expelled leaders of Soviet nationalities
were lobbying the capitals of European powers to gain support for
their respective causes. Already in 1936, the SS Headquarters
(Reichssicherheitshauptamt) had created bureaus (Vertrauensstellen)
to contact emigrants and oversee their activities. The Vertrauensstellen
for the Caucasus was led by the Armenian Deirajr Froundjian and the
Georgian Lado Achmeteli.[1]
Shortly after the occupation of Warsaw and Paris, the German Abwehr
(Secret Service) assumed ties with exiled leaders of diverse Soviet
nationalities, among them Russian Armenian Government officials.[2]
One of the leaders of the ex-Soviet Armenian Government, the aforementioned
General Dro (the butcher), who was the chief architect of the Armenian
genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people in Russian Armenia and Eastern
Anatolia between 1914-1920. An Armenian National Council was formed
by the notorious (Drastamat Kanajan) began working relationship with
the Nazis around that time.
[1] Patrick von zur Muhlen (Muehlen), _Zwischen Hakenkreuz und
Sowjetstern_ (Droste Verlag Duesseldorf 1971), p. 37.
[2] Ibid., p. 84.
In April 1942, Hitler was preparing for the invasion of the
Caucasus. A number of Nazi Armenian leaders began submitting
plans to German officials in spring and summer 1942. One of
them was Souren Begzadian Paikhar, son of a former ambassador
of the Armenian Republic in Baku. Paikhar wrote a letter to
Hitler, asking for German support to his Armenian national
socialist movement Hossank and suggesting the creation of an
Armenian SS formation in order
_to educate the youth of liberated Armenia according to the
spirit of the Nazi ideas._
He wanted to unite the Armenians of the already occupied territories
of the USSR in his movement and with them conquer historic Muslim
homeland. Paikhar was confined to serving the Nazis in Goebbels
Propaganda ministry as a speaker for Armenian- and French-language
radio broadcastings.[1] The Armenian-language broadcastings were
produced by yet another Nazi Armenian Viguen Chanth.[2]
[1] Patrick von zur Muhlen (Muehlen), p. 106.
[2] Enno Meyer, A. J. Berkian, _Zwischen Rhein und Arax, 900
Jahre Deutsch-Armenische beziehungen_ (Heinz Holzberg
Verlag-Oldenburg 1988), pp. 124 and 129.
A genocide is a deliberate and organized massacre of people
in an attempt to exterminate a race. This is the worst crime
in history. It happened to the Muslims in Russian Armenia and
Eastern Anatolia. 2.5 million Muslims were killed by Armenians
in the worst ways imaginable. It is sickening to think that
the human race is capable of such actions, but there is no
denying the fact that the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million
Muslims happened.
Furthermore, the establishment of Armenian units in the German
army was favored by General Dro (the Butcher), the architect
of the Armenian genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people. He played
an important role in the establishment of the Nzi Armenian _legions_
without assuming any official position. His views were represented
by his men in the respective organs. An interesting meeting took
place between Dro and Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler toward the
end of 1942. Dro discussed matters of collaboration with Himmler
and after a long conversation, asked if he could visit POW camp
close to Berlin. Himmler provided Dro with his private car.[1]
A minor problem was that some of the Soviet nationals were not
_Aryans_ but _subhumans_ according to the official Nazi philosophy.
As such, they were subject to German racism. However, Armenians
were the least threatened and indeed most privileged. In August
1933, Armenians had been recognized as Aryans by the Bureau of
Racial Investigation in the Ministry for Domestic Affairs.
[1] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., pp. 112-113.
Altogether 30,000 Nazi Armenians served in various units in
the German Wehrmacht, according to Ara J. Berkian. 14,000
in predominantly Armenian army units, 6,000 in German army
units, 8,000 in various working units and 2,000 in the
Waffen-SS.[1]
A number of these Nazi Armenians were volunteers from France and
Greece who had chosen to commit themselves to the extermination
of the European Jewry. Derounian says that
_Nazi Armenians from France bore the mark 'Legion Armenienne.'_[2]
That Nazi Armenians like Dro 'the Butcher', Armenian architect
of the genocide of 2.5 million Muslim people, and Nezhdeh sided
with the Germans probably had an impact on the decision of
Armenians who overwhelmingly opted for armed service.
[1] Enno Meyer, A. J. Berkian, _Zwischen Rhein und Arax, 900
Jahre Deutsch-Armenische beziehungen_ (Heinz Holzberg
Verlag-Oldenburg 1988), pp. 118/119.
[2] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), ibid., p. 19.
In fall 1942, the Armenian infantry battalions 808 and 809 were formed,
to be followed by battalions 810, 812 and 813 in spring 1943. In the
second half of 1943 infantry battalions 814, 815 and 816 were created.
These battalions together with other indigenous Caucasian units were
attached to the infantry division 162. Also attached to ID 162 were
the field battalions II/9, I/125 and I/198 which were formed between
May 1942 and May 1943. Altogether twelve Armenian battalions served
the Nazi army, if battalion II/73, which was not employed at any time,
is to be included.[1] Most battalions were commanded by Nazi Armenian
officers. Armenians wore German uniforms with an armband in the Dashnag
colours red-blue-orange and the inscription _Armenien._
[1] Joachim Hoffmann, _Dies Ostlegionen 1941-1943, Turkotataren,
Kaukasier und Wolgafinned im deutschen Heer_ (Verlag Rombach
Freiburg 1976), p. 172.
The Armenian SS unit was formed following a directive of Himmler in
the beginning of December 1944.[1] The Armenian Liaison Staff actively
recruited volunteers[2] and by February 1945 a cavalry formation of
twenty thousand Armenians was integrated into the larger Caucasian
Waffen-SS unit. The Armenian SS formation was employed last in
Klagenfurt.[3] In addition to this exclusively Armenian unit, Nazi
Armenians also served in the thirty eight other SS divisions, one
of them even in the elite _Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler._[4]
[1] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., pp. 136-137.
[2] United States National Archives, T-175, Roll 167,
pp 2700157/2700158, SS-Headquarters, Amtsgruppe D - Oststelle,
see _Documents 3 and 4._
[3] Georg Tessin, _Verbaende und Truppen der deutschen Wehrmacht und
Waffen-SS im zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-1945,_ (Frankfurt am Main
1965-1980), Volume 14, Armenian Legion/Waffen SS.
[4] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 119.
Derounian says that
_Greece was honeycombed with Armenians serving as Nazi spies._[1]
Many Nazi Armenians were arrested by the British and sentenced by
the Greek government as collaborators in espionage.[2] In Rumania
many Nazi Armenians were found in Antonescu's Iron Guard during
arrest of members after the war. Bulgaria was the operational base
of Tzeghagrons-founder Garagin Nezhdeh, who commanded a network of
espionage from there.
[1] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), ibid., p. 20.
[2] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 150.
In Russia General Dro (the Butcher), the architect of the Muslim
Holocaust in ex-Soviet/Russian Armenia and Eastern Anatolia, was
working closely with the German Secret Service. He entered the war
zone with his own men and acquired important intelligence about the
Soviets. His experience with the Muslim Holocaust in ex-Soviet/Russian
Armenia and Eastern Anatolia made him an invaluable source for the
Germans.[1]
[1] Meyer, Berkian, ibid., p. 113; Patrick von zur Muehlen,
ibid., p. 84.
Numerous articles in major newspapers (London Times) and periodicals
(Newsweek) during the war, had suggested the existence of a significant
collaboration between Armenians and the Nazis. Arthur Derounian deserves
credit for being the first person to deal with this issue extensively.
Derounian's motives were twofold: his deeply held democratic convictions
gave him a sense of duty and he felt obliged to shed light on this yet
another dark chapter of Armenian history. Concurrently, Derounian embarked
on what one would call _crisis control_ or face-saving. In order to
forestall any potential attacks on the larger Armenian community in
the United States, he marginalized collaboration as deplorable but
insignificant.[1]
[1] John Roy Carlson (real name Arthur Derounian), _The Plotters_
E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., New York 1946, p. 182.
Also, it is not surprising that the Armenians collaborated with the Nazis.
_Wholly opportunistic the Armenians have been variously pro-Nazi,
pro-Russia, pro-Soviet Armenia, pro-Arab, pro-Jewish, as well as
anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, anti-Communist, and anti-Soviet - whichever
was expedient._[1]
[1] John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian), _Cairo to Damascus_
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1951, p. 438.