Articles by Sarkis Balkhian

We were held captive for 45 days. You cannot even begin to imagine the terror we endured during those hellish days.’
–Carlo Hatsarkorzian

In October 2013, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report titled “You Can Still See Their Blood” that documented the atrocities committed by extremist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, against civilians in Latakia, Syria.[1]

In response to the report, the Supreme Military Council (SMC) of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) “wholeheartedly condemned” the crimes and reiterated its “full commitment to respecting the rule of law.” The SMC “stressed that the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Suqour al-Izz, and Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar are not part of the SMC command structure and do not represent the values of the FSA or the Syrian revolution.”[2]

Three months earlier, on July 26, 2013, the Free Syrian Army had kidnapped seven Syrian Armenians (four men and three women) while they were leaving Aleppo to resettle in Yerevan, Armenia. The women were released within the first 10 hours, while the men were incarcerated for 45 days.

This report documents the experience of those four men according to the first-hand accounts of Carlo Hatsarkorzian and Sako Assadourian.

The conundrum: ‘good rebels’ vs ‘bad rebels’

Over the past two years, Western politicians with vested interests in the outcome of the Syrian conflict and the ousting of the Assad regime have asserted the notion of “good rebels” versus “bad rebels.” These policymakers affirm that the good rebels consist of battalions fighting under the command of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army to bring justice, freedom, and democracy to the Syrian people, whereas the bad rebels are jihadists seeking the creation of an Islamic Caliphate across the MENA region.

The primary purpose of classifying the Syrian rebels into two principal categories—the good and bad—is to legitimize and justify any political, military, and financial support provided by the Western governments and their regional allies to the “good rebels” of Syria.

On Sept. 2, 2013, while the four Armenians were being tortured by the FSA, President Barack Obama had a private meeting with U.S. Senator John McCain to discuss the potential for an intervention in Syria and the possibilities of arming the “good rebels”—that is, the Free Syrian Army.[3]

“He [Obama] said that he was willing to upgrade the capabilities of the Free Syrian Army,” McCain stated in an interview with the Daily Beast. “For the first time we have an outline of action that could lead to the removal of Bashar al-Assad… I’m certainly willing to join that effort, but I need to know a lot of the details.”[4]

The rhetoric used by these policy makers has influenced the mainstream media’s coverage of the ongoing conflict. The vast majority of media sources have been quick to overlook the crimes of the FSA and have instead focused on the crimes perpetrated by the Syrian government and the “bad rebels”—the jihadists.

Moreover, international human rights groups have failed to properly document the plight of the minority groups in Syria. Whether or not this failure stems from the fact that the vast majority of these groups either support Assad’s regime or fear persecution in the absence of his secular government is up for debate. But one thing is certain—without the adequate documentation and condemnation of the human rights violations against all Syrians, including minorities, the cycle of crime will continue.

Prelude

In late July 2012, the armed conflict arrived in Aleppo, changing the destiny of Syrian Armenians forever. Prior to the beginning of the conflict, Carlo Hatsarkorzian, 21, worked as a mechanic at his family’s workshop in the Argoub district of Aleppo, and Sako Assadourian, 27, as a goldsmith. They both came from lower-middle class families.

In September 2012, rebels took over the neighborhood forcing the Hatsarkorzians to close their workshop. Carlo moved to Armenia, where he started working as a construction worker for 3,000 AMDs ($7.50) per day.[5]

In December, Carlo booked a round-trip flight to Aleppo to visit his family for the New Year. He never made the return flight because the Aleppo International Airport was shut down in early January. He’d remain in Aleppo until that life-defining journey in July 2013.[6]

In June 2013, Sako, a former Syrian Arab Army soldier, received a notice demanding his return to the army. His mother, Siranoush, begged Sako to leave the country and to join his brother in Yerevan.[7]

By late July, Carlo, Sako, Garo Boboghlian, and Nareg Varjabedian, along with three Armenian women, decided to leave Aleppo for Yerevan. What followed would haunt them for years to come.

A journey to hell

Abduction

In the morning of July 26, the seven Armenians got on a bus headed towards the Bab al-Hawa border point with Turkey. By 11 a.m., the bus had stopped at an FSA checkpoint near what is known as the Maabar al-Mawt (the Corridor of Death) in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood of Aleppo.

“At the checkpoint, the FSA soldiers requested our documentation,” Sako told the Armenian Weekly. “When they realized that we were Armenians, they transferred us to their headquarters.” Later that evening, at around 6:30 p.m., the women were released and sent off to Turkey, while the FSA comrades gave a warm “welcome” to the four Armenian men.

“They forced us to kneel down and say the Lord’s Prayer [Derounagan aghotk in Armenian], while a dozen of their soldiers beat us up until we all started bleeding,” said Carlo. “They hit us with their hands, feet, and anything they could find.”

The abuse was both physical and psychological. While being tortured physically, the four men were subject to verbal abuse, threats, and dehumanization. “You [the Armenians] are all traitors! You are the kafirs [infidels] who support Assad! We will kill you tomorrow!”

The headquarters

In the town of Hraytan, the Free Syrian Army headquarter consisted of a deserted liquor warehouse and a villa positioned across the street. Over the course of those 45 days, the four men were placed in 3 different cells.[8]

At the compound, the majority of the FSA soldiers did not use their official names when communicating with each other; instead they addressed one another using “Abu Ahmad” or “Abu Mohammad,” meaning “the father of Ahmad” or “the father of Mohammad” in Arabic.[9]

The chain of command at this particular base was divided into two branches: religious and military. The head of the religious branch was the Sheikh, the holy leader who was vested by Sharia law and whose verdicts were conclusive. The military command was in the hands of “Abu Ali,” a defector from the Military Intelligence Directorate of Syria, the “Mukhabarat.”[10]

Ironically, prior to the FSA takeover of the Hraytan region, the buildings where the four Armenians were held captive belonged to a Syrian-Armenian family that imported the Efes brand of Turkish beer.

Following the takeover, the Free Syrian Army upgraded the Chaprazian family properties, investing heavily in transforming the warehouse and villa into a high-security concentration camp from which no prisoner could escape.

Unfortunately for the FSA, not too long after the release of the four Armenians, the “bad rebels” of Syria—the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)—took over the Hraytan region and, along with it, the FSA headquarters.[11]

The snapshots included in this piece are cropped from a video prepared by the ISIS militants and published by the pro-regime news agency Syriantube.net. The video demonstrates the various torture methods used by the FSA and the locations of the warehouse and villa. Both Armenian interviewees, Sako and Carlo, confirmed that the video recording is from the site of their captivity, and the torture techniques demonstrated therein correspond to what they experienced.

The first 23 days

After they were beaten on the first day, the four men were taken to prison cell no. 1 in the warehouse, where they were kept for six days. They were subjected to numerous verbal abuses but no physical torture.