MONITORING MISSION VISITING ZANGELAN

Azg/arm
5 Feb 05

The OSCE monitoring mission made its way to the bank of Araxes
River. They visited every house and interrogate everyone they met in
the towns of Mijnavan (formerly Minchevan) and Kovsakan (formerly
Zangelan).

Incessant mission was in full swing. They will leave Nagorno Karabakh
in few days to make a report for the Minsk group. The monitoring
mission was provided with everything necessary for a fruitful work

Emily Haber, head of the monitoring mission, met Artur Balasanian, 38,
in the main street of Mijnavan. He lost his home and property that
were in Getashen as a result of the war. Artur looks 50. He moved to
Mijnavan in 1996. Two of his four sons were born here. Before moving
to Mijnavan, Artur and his old parents were given a shelter in the
Hrazdan resort house and Njuvadi village in Meghri. The life in
Mijnavan is not the last station for him, as he will leave for another
place if possible – a place with no name for him. He wishes he could
return to Getashen but realizes that new dwellers have already found
his two-storied house.

Vladimir Gasparian, 25, and his family left Armenikend, a Baku borough
where the Armenians used to live, when he was 9. He left Baku by car,
moved to Ghubatlu then to Kapan. After living in one of the hostels of
Kapan for tenyears, they moved to Mijnavan in 1998.

“There are five children in our family and I am the eldest. We go to
other people’s fields to work there, gathering the harvest and
fertilizing the earth. We will leave this place if it is possible,”
Vladimir said and added that there are other 5-6 cities in the city
that fled from Baku.

Mamikon Yavrumian was born in Kirovabad. He has to live in Kovsakan
town. Mamikon works in the field and is engaged in cattle breeding.
Mamikon and Arpine, his wife, are teachers. They met in Kovsakan and
got married. They have an infant that was born two months ago.

“The life makes us live here, as we have no house in Armenia. We have
no drinking water there are a lot of snakes all around here. We can’t
let our children walk freely in this territory,” he says.

Zangelan administratively belonged to Azerbaijan, formerly. No
wintertime comes here. The weather is mild. It seldom snows
here. Zangelan is the smallest territory under the control of Karabakh
forces. It is situated in the lower parts of the Voghji, the Tsav and
the Hakari rivers.

The OSCE monitoring mission spent a whole day in these places and
spoke with people they met on their way and visited their houses. They
were putting down all the things these people said, so that they can
summarize their statements and find out who are the dwellers of these
territories, when and where they came from.

The official Baku keeps saying that Armenia and NKR are conducting an
official policy of inhabiting and using the territories they control.
While Yerevan and Stepanakert deny this, by stating that no official
inhabiting policy is being conducted there. The Armenians that had to
flee from Azerbaijan and lost their homes there came and inhabited
these regions by their own decision.

By Tatoul Hakobian