OSCE mission interviews locals on their life in Karabakh – Armenian TV

Public Television of Armenia, Yerevan
2 Feb 05

[Presenter] The OSCE fact-finding mission has thanked the Nagornyy
Karabakh authorities for helping their mission. However, the
co-chairmen of the [OSCE] Minsk Group and the members of the
fact-finding mission are not pleased with their visit because the
facts that have been discovered and the documents presented to them in
Baku are not identical. Stepanakert [Xankandi] has repeatedly stated
that it has nothing to hide. This group, which is looking for people
who have settled there, covered a long distance to meet them.

The members of the mission visited Dadivank, one of the medieval
Armenian temples in Kalbacar District, and lit a candle
there. Incidentally, we should point that the US co-chairman of the
Minsk Group, Steven Mann, has already returned from Stepanakert and
left for Washington. The members of the mission visited Agdam without
Mann and saw for themselves that there is no state-run settlement
programme there.

[Correspondent over video of Agdam District and OSCE mission] The OSCE
fact-finding mission has visited Agdam District and several
residential areas around it. The convoy of vehicles first pulled over
near the Agdam mosque. The members of the mission looked at the
surrounding territory from the minaret of the mosque. It was difficult
to say what the mission was looking for in the rubble. They met a few
people who are barely surviving in Agdam. Saying that the
participation of non-authorized personnel was hampering their work,
the experts expressed their desire to talk to residents privately.

[Local resident Levon Arutyunyan] They asked where I was during the
conflict. I said I was in Armenia and then I came here. Then they
[the OSCE mission] wondered about our life here.

[Correspondent] The area where the Arutyunyan family are living at the
moment is called Nor Maraga. The residents of two villages of the
Leninavan state farm, which was one of the biggest and richest state
farms of Karabakh, settled here after they were forced to leave their
place of residence in 1992.

[Local resident Susanna Markosyan] We left our homes, came here and
now live in their flattened houses. Let them return our houses so that
we can go back and live there.

[Unidentified local resident] I am not receiving help from anywhere,
but they think we are getting help.

[Correspondent] The former Maraga residents told the experts about the
atrocities of the Azerbaijani OMON [Special Purpose Police Detachment]
in their village in April 1992. They said that 200 civilians were
brutally killed. A total of 194 people were taken captive and more
than 30 civilians were wounded. Only 400 of Maraga’s 5,000 residents
have settled in this liberated territory. The remaining Maraga
residents went to other countries like the residents of other villages
forced out of Azerbaijan. The members of the fact-finding mission
encountered the same situation in other settlements controlled by
Karabakh.

The head of the mission, Emily Margarethe Haber, answered journalists’
questions after that.

[Haber] I think that all conditions have been created for us to
accomplish our mission.

[Correspondent] Narine Agabalyan and Benik Garakhanyan, “Haylur”,
Stepanakert.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress