Eyruz Mammedov is an author of full-length film titled “Sumqayıtın əks-sədası” (Repercussion of Sumgait), documentary “Sumqayıtın əks-sədası-2” (Repercussion of Sumgait-2) and books “28-dən 29-na keçən gecə”(Over the night from 28 to 29th of February) and “Sumqayıtım mənim” (My Sumgait) and a co-author of a book “Sumqayıt 1988: Cinayət və cəza” (Sumgayt 1988: Crime and punishment) which was translated to many foreign languages.
- Mr. Mammedov, did you expect that this kind of provocation could happen in Sumgait in the beginning of 1988?
- We did not expect any provocations. Soviet Armed Forces were deployed in the different parts of Sumgait 4 days before the events. In the middle of February, Colonel Poponin and 30 employees from the USSR Committee for State Security (KGB) came to Sumgait. Approximately 40 members of extremist group entered Sumgait. Moscow prohibited the Sumgait Security Service to intervene the events. Curfew could not be announced in the city. Tragic events happened in Sumgait on 27-29 February and 32 people were killed. 26 of them were Armenians and 6 were Azerbaijanis.
These tragic events were carried out by active members of the Soviet KGB, the special services of Armenia and Dashnak party.
Later, we have thoroughly studied the extremists who came to Sumgait. Each of them had to carry out predefined instructions. For example, Albert Grigorian dealt with the distribution of drugs among the young. Eduard Mosesov, a correspondent of an Armenian communist newspaper which was published in Yerevan tape-recorded the Sumgait events. Grigori Agadjanian, an employee of communist newspaper took photos during the events. We can prolong this list.
-In that period, Grigori Serchen, a former employee of the Azerbaijan State Security Committee said in his statement during the investigation: `Armenians installed cameras in the third micro-district of the city prior to the Sumgait events. I appealed the Soviet KGB regarding this issue. However, I did not get any response to my appeal. ` First Deputy Chairmen of the Soviet KGB visited Baku after those events. He denied conducting research on the events to Serchen during his conversation with the employers of the KGB in Baku. In the other words, the events were a part of scenario planned in advance.
- What happened to the extremists sent to Sumgait? Were they arrested?
- According to the archival materials, 6 Armenian extremists who participated in the Sumgait Events were arrested. Right after their arrest Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR received complaint telegrams saying that Azerbaijanis were investigating their cases. Therefore Armenian investigators working in various parts of Russia were sent to Azerbaijan on official visit. Afterwards, they began to investigate the case taking it from Azerbaijanis. However, they left the investigation incomplete. After a week, those six Armenians were liberated and went to their homelands.
- Are there any secret moments about the Sumgait Events that must be investigated?
- As everybody knows, the Sumgayit Events were committed with support of USSR State Security Committee. Grigorian was an executor. I knew him well. He was an idler. He had been arrested twice. It means that such person could not organize the Sumgait Events by himself. 30 State Security Committee members who came from Moscow left Sumgait promptly. Then they got promotion. Even one of them became a minister of internal affairs during Yeltsin’s presidency. The orderers sat in Kremlin but executors were in Sumgait. In Bayil prison I spoke with people arrested for Sumgayit Events. I understood that in fact these people were coaxed and used with the help of alcohol and drugs.
- As long as I know, you had a conversation with Grigorian after the events…..
- He had been sentenced to 12 years in Azerbaijan. Afterwards pro-Armenians succeeded to take him to Stovropol province claiming that he exposed to torture there. When he was in Stovropol, he received an order to speak with no one. Nevertheless we went to Stovropol for shooting a documentary on the Sumgait Events. We wanted to interview Grigorian. We had to lie for our job. We said that we came from ‘Ostankino’ channel of Moscow for shooting a documentary about the intense parts of the former USSR.We said to him, we had been in Moldova, in Nagorno-Karabakh, in Tbilisi and in Vilnius. We tried to persuade him saying that when we were in Sumgait, people talked about him as an interesting person and that`s why we wanted to take interview from him. Consequently, he believed in us. He thought that we came from Moscow.
He was strongly backed. All conditions have been created for Grigoryan in the prison. 2 times in a month he was allowed to spend a night with his wife Rita. In his interview Grigoryan refused to take a responsibility for the Sumgait pogroms. Now, he lives in a town around Moscow and he is an unemployed. He lives under the control of the Security Services. The opposite side is afraid of him confessing everything. According to the information I got from a secret source, Grigoryan met with Serj Sargsyan, the current President of the Armenian Republic on February 1988 in Stepanakert. Sargsyan gave him definite instructions and the list of Armenians to be killed. It is obvious that Sargsyan is one the perpetrators of the Sumgait Event. Therefore, they don`t let Grigoryan contact with anyone.
- If the organizers are afraid of him telling the truth, why they don`t finish him off?
- There was only a reason of bandying his name about in public. The main goal was to distract the investigators of the Sumgait events from the real perpetrators. In other words, they want to mislead investigators about the incidents. They intend to lay the blame on Grigoryan. If Grigoryan had been killed, we would pay utmost attention towards then security bodies.
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