Letter: Medzorian: Saribekyan Story Distorted by Kidnappers

Dear Editor,

On Sept. 30, I returned from a month long trip to Armenia, and on Oct. 5 was heart sickened to see a clip on YouTube falsely portraying Manvel Saribekyan as a saboteur who had crossed the border to blow up a school in the Azerbaijani village of Zamanli.

On Sept. 17, with my husband Jack, we visited the Chambarak town hospital located in the Gegharkunik district in Armenia, on the Azerbaijan border. The purpose of that visit was to assess the need for medical aid. Being interested in women’s issues, I videotaped an interview with three hospital nurses who gave me alarming eyewitness accounts of their experiences starting from 1992 until Sept. 11, 2010—when Manvel was kidnapped.

In May 2010, Manvel had served his two years in the army and was now a civilian. He was the elder son of an impoverished family, leaving two brothers, a sister, mother, and father. My plans were to take the case to Amnesty International upon my return.

The catastrophe started on Sept. 11 when Manvel joined his neighbor Sasoon Hairabetyan to prepare for the winter. While Sasoon was using his chainsaw in a wooded area to cut logs for winter fuel, Manvel volunteered to bring Sasoon’s cows home because night was fast falling and a heavy fog was enveloping the area. Sasoon related that Manvel said to him, “Your father is elderly, I will help bring the cows back,” whereupon Sasoon told him that if he should get disoriented in the fog, to listen for the sound of his electric saw to guide him. The Azeris spotted Manvel in the fog, pounced on their prey, kidnapped, drugged and beat him, before taking him to Baku. After he served their ulterior purposes, they killed him, and then said he had hung himself. His body has not been released to his family.

The carefully crafted story about Manvel by Azerbaijan for YouTube was full of distortion, deception, and intrigue, created to justify to the world their case, to show Armenia as an aggressive country. For the past 20 years there has been a blitz of outrageous misinformation spread throughout the world by Azerbaijan. This is another perfect example.

I am in the process of producing a short video documentary of the nurses’ interviews, which will soon be available to the public.

Eva Medzorian
Winchester, Mass.