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The second book of the series Sumgait tragedy: Eyewitness Accounts was published in Yerevan. The author and executive editor of the collection, Marina Grigoryan, who is the manager of the project An Ordinary Genocide, told Panorama.am that the book includes the eyewitness accounts compiled immediately after the pogroms (spring-winter, 1988), which were not included in the first book for various reasons, former Sumgait residents’ memories, who currently live in Armenia and the NKR, as well as a number of documents and photos which had not been made public so far.

“The book was ready for publishing a year ago, but new materials, including photos, were constantly appearing, and they eventually entered into the book making it richer. Photos of the corpses of those killed, who still remain unidentified, are published for the first time. In addition, we included the eyewitness accounts taken from the materials of criminal cases on Sumgait events investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Armenian SSR in 1988 and currently posted on the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Armenia. Those accounts are important in that the witnesses gave them immediately after fleeing to Armenia. The book is also featured by several publications from the press, including the well-known article Watershed by Armen Oganesyan, which was the first to lift the curtain on the Sumgait hell to the Soviet readers in November 1988,” Grigoryan said.

Grigoryan especially highlighted an article by Lidia Grafova, famous Russian journalist, human rights defender and public activist. The article titled Without Repentance: Freedom to Kill Declared in Sumgait Three Years Ago was published in the newspaper Demokraticheskaya Rossiya (Democratic Russia) in 1991.

“Lidia Ivanovna was one of the first people to call what happened in Sumgait a genocide of the Armenian people. Here is a citation from her article: ‘The justice “failed to notice” what was nothing but the most important aspect: Sumgait pogroms are not a burst of rage of “hooligan elements” but a thoroughly organised genocide of the Armenian people’,” Marina Grigoryan said.

She added that back in 1989, when the first volume of Sumgait tragedy: Eyewitness Accounts was published in semi-underground conditions and later translated into nine languages becoming a rare bibliographic source, its founder, Samvel Shahmuradyan, planned two more volumes, still his tragic death halted the fulfilment of that idea. The first volume of that unprecedented collection was republished with new photos and documents being added to it in 2013 in the frameworks of the project An Ordinary Genocide carried out by the Information and Public Relations Centre of the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Armenia. Now, the second book is published featured by not only archive materials, but also resources found by the staffers of the Centre over the recent years with the majority of them being published for the first time.

Marina Grigoryan said that the authors of the project also plan to publish the third volume of the book, which is going to include the accounts of Sumgait residents, and that the significance of the book will be that the eyewitnesses are Armenians, but mainly Azerbaijanis. 

“It will be a unique collection, where we will publish the testimonies by Azerbaijani and other nation eyewitnesses given during the ‘Sumgait’ trials. These are accounts of people who were shocked by what they saw and considered it their duty to honestly speak about the Sumgait nightmare in hope for justice. Materials of criminal cases in our possession will also be included in the book. We all know that most of them are vigilantly kept in Azerbaijani archives, where any independent researcher is most strictly prohibited to enter. After almost 28 years, Baku is still dreadfully afraid of the unmasking of the whole truth about ‘Sumgait.’ Moreover, everything is done at the state level to hide that truth behind plentiful lies and falsifications,” Grigoryan added.

She pointed out that in this context, the publication of the second and, eventually, the third books, as well as the planned translation into English will be a powerful blow to the Azerbaijani propaganda machine
“We also plan to publish Baku Tragedy: Eyewitness Accounts at the beginning of the next year. The book will include Baku Armenians’ stories about the events unfolded in the Azerbaijani capital between 1988 and 1990. Works on the second documentary dedicated to the Operation Ring are also underway. The film will recount the events, which took place in the border districts of Armenia in spring and summer of 1991,” said the project manager. She added that many materials and photos included in the book are already available at http://karabakhrecords.info/.

The project An Ordinary Genocide is implemented by the Public Relations and Information Centre of the Armenian President's Administration. A series of documentaries was made since November 2009 about the events in Sumgait, Baku and Maragha and during the Operation Ring. Besides, the website Karabakhrecords was launched, and a number of books were published, republished and translated. Brochures in Armenian, Russian and English were also released as a part of the project to provide detailed information about the events presented by An Ordinary Genocide project.