“What does it mean when four Turks come from 200 meters away, they say, guys, come here, there is something to talk about and you get up, and the 32 of you go?” he says.
“Aliyev has brutally oppressed our captives. And now Aliyev’s “spies” are our media here. What I said is conveyed to Aliyev,” Gagik Melkonyan, former deputy defense minister and member of the Civil Contract, told Aravot about the fate of the Armenian captives in Azerbaijan. According to him, Aliyev doesn’t care that he has hundreds of corpses in our borders. He made himself look like a humanitarian and allegedly worries about why the Armenian captives were detained.
“We are ready to do everything until the last captive and the body of the deceased. We also gave them the maps of the mines. We gave them to receive our captives or the bodies of the victims. They never think of returning the remains of their parents. They have not raised the issue even once. If they did, we would gladly give the bodies to them without asking for anything.”
According to Melkonyan, if the captive surrendered themselves to an Azerbaijani, they will be punished. “What does it mean? I have entrusted my homeland to you because before you I kept those borders sacred and handed them over to you. What right do you have to surrender those borders and be taken captive? You imprison the entire state with you, and the Turks do anything they want to this state. And now they become humanitarians. They say, ‘We’ll give them to you, you can go and sentence them.’ We asked if all this could not be organized in silence; it is a procedure that should be done normally without “bells and whistles.”
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Gagik Melkonyan answered, “Who is doing it? The authorities? The whole media is doing it. Nikol Pashinyan stated that we are bringing back the prisoners and there should be an investigation. If the prisoner was unconscious, wounded, and taken prisoner, it is clear that they are a prisoner. As for the person who raised their hands and was taken prisoner, 7 people went and took 60 people captive, how can we understand that? Are they heroes now? I ask you, are those 60 people heroes? Are they or not?” In response to the question about why he only blames the soldier, what about those who imposed those circumstances on them, Melkonyan countered, “There is no soldier there, wait a second! Forget the word ‘soldier.’
When they were taken prisoner, they were our border guard, they were our army. The soldier must guard your border, who else will guard it? They have to pay their debt and come back, that’s how those borders remain impregnable.” In response to the question about if there was an order not to shoot, how could they ignore the order of their superior, and why hasn’t a single general been arrested so far when the prisoners were arrested, Melkonyan answered, “The prisoner must speak. They must say so in order for us to go after the generals, strip them of their positions, and arrest them. Then they must prove that because there were 60 of them. Those 60 people must say the same thing: did their commander give that order or not? If the commander did, they would be released. After the Patriotic War, all those who were taken prisoner were deported to Siberia without trial, all were deported. During our four-day war, how many boys blew themselves up to avoid being taken prisoner?” In other words, do you believe that it is better to kill yourselves than to be taken prisoner?
Gagik Melkonyan answered, “Of course. Of course. We must encourage the Armenian boys to think of something: his sister is behind him, his sister will be raped, he must keep that border sacred. That is what we should encourage, not say, what would an 18-year-old do there? An 18-year-old child does not have a pocket or a piece of wood in his hand. He has weapons with which he can defend himself. We have weapons of different calibers there. What does it mean when four Turks come from 200 meters away, they say, guys, come here, there is something to talk about and you get up, and the 32 of you go? The investigation should determine whether that happened or if our commanders ordered them not to shoot and they left and fled, leaving these people without a commander. Let’s wait for that.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
