Arabo’s Fate: Is it early yet to put a full stop?

Enemy soldiers advancing and indifferently sidestepping the bodies of dead soldiers in trenches lying in different poses – poses in which death came upon them, the faces of some can be seen, others lying with their backs up…

Presumably, these are the volunteer fighters of the legendary Arabo detachment of the Artsiv military unit that went missing in the Karabakh conflict zone in June 1992.
  Today, this gruesome footage is available to all who visit the worldwide web’s YouTube site (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9RF4f5UUBE)
  Sixteen years have passed since that time. The authenticity of this footage is called into doubt by many; others ask why and who needed to upload this 9 minute, 30 second video depicting a grisly scene of more than 50 dead soldiers on the web.
  This week there was at least one report confirming that the video clip presents members of Arabo and other Artsiv detachments. Their former commander Manvel Yeghiazaryan said at a press conference that he recognized many of his comrades-in-arms who went missing in June 1992 during the battles near the Karabakh village of Hasan-Ghaya (currently in the neutral zone).
  According to Yeghiazaryan, the video footage indeed depicts 79 Armenian soldiers among whom are also members of his detachment.
  “The guys died like heroes, they fought till the last bullet. They were facing onslaughts from the front, from the right and left flanks. They could escape by running back or surrender and be taken prisoners, but they stood their ground till the end and were killed,” Yeghiazaryan said.
  The commander also said that three hours after the end of the battle they went out to inspect the positions of the company and found 25-30 dead bodies in one of the trenches. They did not then look into the other trench. The following day, they saw the Azeris filling the trenches with earth with the use of an excavator. Several hours later they managed to come close to the trenches and dig out another eight bodies, three of them were later taken to Armenia. The commander also named the volunteer detachments whose fighters presumably appear on the footage: Arabo, Zeytun, Hoktemeryan Eagles, and another 19 people from Artsakh (Karabakh).
  While it seems that the fate of the detachment members and other freedom-fighters is clarified and now it is necessary to seek the reburial of the remains of the heroic soldiers, specialists advise against hurrying and recommend a thorough examination of the video footage.
  “First, the bodies of the men are recognized only visually, on the screen. Secondly, a question arises: why has this footage appeared only today, 16 years after the event? Who placed it on the internet and for what purpose?” says former Executive Director of the NGO Against Violation of Law, first Ombudsperson of Armenia and currently member of the Heritage parliamentary faction Larisa Alaverdyan, who has been engaged in issues of POWs, hostages and missing persons since 1990.
  The key question, according to Alaverdyan, is the authenticity of the video footage. She thinks that there is no guarantee that the footage is genuine as modern technologies provide lots of tools for falsification. “Especially that we have a sad experience of the Khojalu events when literally within one day the Azeri side replaced real footage with an edited piece, which to date has been used as the main evidence of the ‘guilt’ of Armenians,” Alaverdyan adds.
  Armen Kaprielyan, Secretary of the State Commission on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons Affairs, agrees that nothing can be stated for sure until a special expert examination and investigation are conducted.
  “It cannot be yet stated with 100 percent certainty that the footage that appeared on the web is authentic and not falsified. It is impossible to officially state that it shows an area near the village of Hasan-Ghaya and that it was in summer 1992 until a thorough expert examination and investigation are conducted. Everything must be established in detail.”
  According to Kaprielyan, the latest meeting of the State Commission discussed this issue as well. Armenia’s Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, who is a member of the Commission, promised that an expert examination and investigation would be conducted.
  What makes Alaverdyan have doubts is that in August 1992, two months after the detachment went missing there was a signal from the Azerbaijani side that 17 members of the detachment were alive and kept in captivity. The Azerbaijanis then offered to exchange the Armenian soldiers for theirs held by Armenians. However, she says, no more contacts followed and the trace of Arabo was lost again. In subsequent years, according to Alaverdyan, from time to time there emerged conflicting pieces of information, various rumors that someone somewhere saw members of the detachment, but all efforts to definitively establish the fate of the Armenian soldiers failed.
  State Commission Secretary Kaprielyan also said that currently the Armenian side is considering a project proposed by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Its essence is in conducting works on the exhumation and identification of the remains of the people buried in the zone of hostilities, which would make it possible to establish the fate of many people who went missing during the years of the Karabakh war. A similar project, according to Alaverdyan, was realized after the end of the war in Chechnya.
  Marina Grigoryan
  http://www.armenianow.com