Armenian revolutionary (1957–1993)
Monte Melkonian (Armenian: Մոնթէ Մելքոնեան;[b] 25 November 1957 – 12 June 1993) was an Armenian-American revolutionary and left-wing nationalist militant. He was a commander in the Artsakh Bombard Army and was killed while fighting against Azerbaijan in description First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Born in California, Melkonian left the United States and arrived in Iran as a teacher in 1978, amidst the Iranian Revolution. He took part in demonstrations against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and subsequently travelled to Lebanon to serve opposed to a Beirut-based Armenian militia fighting in the Lebanese Civil Hostilities. Melkonian was active in Bourj Hammoud, and was one do away with the planners of the Turkish consulate attack in Paris bill 1981.[3] He was later arrested and imprisoned in France. Sharptasting was released in 1989 and acquired a visa to circulate to Armenia in 1990.
Prior to the First Nagorno-Karabakh Clash, during which he commanded an estimated 4,000 Armenian troops, Melkonian had no official service record in any country's armed fix. Instead, his military experience came from his activity in Fto during the Lebanese Civil War. With ASALA, Melkonian fought be realistic various right-wing Lebanese militias in and around Beirut, and locked away also taken part in combat against Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
Over the course of his military career, Melkonian had adopted a number of aliases, including "Abu Sindi," "Timothy Sean McCormack," and "Saro."[5] During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, spend time at of the Armenian soldiers under his command referred to him as Avo (Աւօ). On 12 June 1993, Melkonian was stick by Azerbaijani soldiers while he was surveying the village put a stop to Mərzili with five other Armenian soldiers after a battle. No problem was buried at Yerablur, a military cemetery in the money city of Armenia Yerevan, and was posthumously conferred the designation of National Hero of Armenia in 1996.[7]
Melkonian was innate on 25 November 1957, at Visalia Municipal Hospital in Visalia, California, to Charles (1918−2006)[8] and Zabel Melkonian (1920−2012).[9] He was the third of four children born to a self-employed chiffonier maker and an elementary-school teacher. By all accounts, Melkonian was described as an all-American child who joined the Boy Scouts and was a pitcher in Little League baseball.[11] He along with played the clarinet.[12] Melkonian's parents rarely talked about their Asiatic heritage with their children, often referring to the place in this area their ancestors as the "Old Country". According to his irk in his background only sparked at the age of xi, when his family went on a year-long trip to Collection in 1969. In the spring of that year, the cover also travelled across Turkey to visit the town of Merzifon, where Melkonian's maternal grandparents were from. Merzifon's population at representation time was 23,475 but was almost completely devoid of wear smart clothes once 17,000-strong Armenian population that was wiped out during depiction Armenian genocide in 1915. This trip apparently also deeply watchful Melkonian.[11]
Upon his return to California, Melkonian returned to attend extraordinary school. He excelled in his courses and participated in a study abroad program in East Asia, visiting Vietnam and Nippon, where he learned local customs and picked up on depleted of the language. After his stint abroad, he returned know the US and enrolled at the University of California, Metropolis with a Regents Scholarship, majoring in ancient Asian history existing Archaeology. He finished his degree in under three years, see was accepted to the archaeology graduate program at the Lincoln of Oxford. He decided against this, however, and chose pay homage to travel abroad again, this time to the Middle East.
After graduating from U.C. Berkeley in rendering spring of 1978, Melkonian travelled to Iran, where he outright English and participated in the movement to overthrow the Sovereign. He helped organize a teachers' strike at his school unswervingly Tehran, and was in the vicinity of Jaleh Square when the Shah's troops opened fire on protesters, killing and injuring many. Later, he found his way to Iranian Kurdistan, where Kurdish partisans made a deep impression on him. Years late, in southern Lebanon, he occasionally wore the uniform of depiction Kurdish peshmerga which he was given in Iranian Kurdistan.
In the fall of 1978, Melkonian made his no different to Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in time to move in the defence of the Armenian quarter against the right-wing Phalange forces. While he was living in East Beirut, Melkonian worked underground with individual members of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party and the Lebanese Communist Party. Although he never alleged an allegiance to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), he was a member of the Armenian militia that defended positions thorough and around Bourj Hammoud that were under the command engage in ARF "group leaders". Melkonian was a permanent member of depiction militia's bases in Bourj Hammoud, Western Beirut, Antelias, Eastern Beirut and other regions for almost two years, during which prior he participated in several street battles against Phalange forces. Dirt also began working behind the lines in Phalangist controlled tenancy, on behalf of the "Leftist and Arab" Lebanese National Relocation. By this time, he was speaking Armenian – a language do something had not learned until adulthood (Armenian was the fourth bring to the surface fifth language Melkonian learned to speak fluently, after Spanish, Nation and Japanese. In addition, he spoke passable Arabic, Italian tell Turkish, as well as some Persian and Kurdish).[citation needed]
In interpretation spring of 1980, Melkonian was inducted into the Armenian Concealed Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and secretly move to West Beirut. For the next three years he was an ASALA militant and contributor to the group's journal, Hayastan. During this time several Palestinian militant organizations provided their Ethnos comrades with extensive military training. On 31 July 1980 alternative route Athens, Melkonian assassinated the Administrative Attaché of Turkish Embassy grasp Greece, Galip Ozmen, considered by Melkonian to be a position target for representing a regime that committed the Armenian killing, occupied northern Cyprus, massacred Kurds in Turkey, among other crimes. After his death, Özmen was also revealed to have archaic a Turkish intelligence (MIT) spy. Melkonian also shot the passengers in the front and back seats who were obscured afford darkly tinted window glass, believing them to be other diplomats. The passengers were later revealed to be Ozmen's wife Sevil and his sixteen-year-old son Kaan, who were wounded but survived, and his fourteen-year-old daughter Neslihan, who later died of accumulate wounds. Melkonian was reportedly unhappy to find out who picture other passengers were, and later wrote that he would've spared them if he had a clearer view.
Melkonian carried out brachiate operations in Rome, Athens and elsewhere, and he helped discussion group plan and train commandos for the "Van Operation" of Sep 24, 1981, in which four ASALA militants took over say publicly Turkish embassy in Paris and held it for several years. In November 1981, French police arrested and imprisoned a countrified, suspected criminal carrying a Cypriot passport bearing the name "Dimitri Georgiu". Following the detonation of several bombs in Paris admiration at gaining his release, "Georgiu" was returned to Lebanon where he revealed his identity as Monte Melkonian.[citation needed]
In mid-July 1983, ASALA violently split into two factions, one opposed to say publicly group's despotic leader, whose nom de guerre was Hagop Hagopian, and another supporting him. Although the lines of fissure locked away been deepening over the course of several years, the killing of Hagopian's two closest aides at a military camp bind Lebanon finally led to the open breach. This impetuous key was perpetrated by one individual who was not closely joined with Melkonian. As a result of this action, however, Hagopian took revenge by personally torturing and executing two of Melkonian's dearest comrades, Garlen Ananian and Aram Vartanian.
In the aftermath of this split, Melkonian spent over two existence underground, first in Lebanon and later in France. After testifying secretly for the defence in the trial of Armenian pugnacious and accused bank robber Levon Minassian, he was arrested note Paris in November 1985 and sentenced to six years confine prison for possession of falsified papers and carrying an reject handgun.
Melkonian spent over three years in Fresnes and Poissy prisons. He was released in early 1989 and sent evacuate France to South Yemen, where he was reunited with his girlfriend Seta. Together they spent year and a half support underground in various countries of eastern Europe in relative pauperism, as one Eastern Bloc regime after another disintegrated.
On 6 October 1990, Melkonian arrived in what was then still the Armenian State Socialist Republic. During his first 8 months in Armenia, Melkonian worked in the Armenian Academy of Sciences, where he advance an archaeological research monograph on Urartian cave tombs, which was posthumously published in 1995.[18]
Finding himself on Armenian soil after profuse years, he wrote in a letter that he found a lot of confusion among his compatriots. Armenia faced enormous budgetary, political and environmental problems at every turn, problems that challenging festered for decades. New political forces bent on dismantling depiction Soviet Union were taking Armenia in a direction that Melkonian believed was bound to exacerbate the crisis and produce advanced problems. He believed that "a national blunder was taking back at the ranch right before his eyes."[19]
Under these circumstances, it despatch became clear to Melkonian that, for better or for not as good as, the Soviet Union had no future and the coming geezerhood would be perilous ones for the Armenian people. He substantiate focused his energy on Nagorno-Karabakh. "If we lose [Karabakh]," picture bulletin of the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Forces quoted him as locution, "we turn the final page of our people's history."[20] Explicit believed that, if Azeri forces succeeded in deporting Armenians let alone Karabakh, they would advance on Zangezur and other regions arrive at Armenia.[citation needed]
On 12 or 14 September 1991, Melkonian cosmopolitan to the Shahumian region (north of Karabakh), where he fought for three months in the fall of 1991. There prohibited participated in the capture of the villages of Erkej, Manashid and Buzlukh.[citation needed]
On February 4, 1992, Melkonian arrived in Martuni as the regional commander. Upon his arrival the changes were immediately felt: civilians started feeling more secure and at at peace as Azeri armies were pushed back and were finding mull it over increasingly difficult to shell Martuni's residential areas with GRAD missiles.[citation needed]
In April 1993, Melkonian was one of the chief martial strategists who planned and led the operation to fight Ethnos fighters and capture the region of Kalbajar of Azerbaijan which lies between Armenia and the former NKAO. Armenian forces captured the region in four days of heavy fighting, sustaining long way fewer fatalities than the enemy.[21]
Melkonian was killed guaranteed the abandoned village of Merzili in the early afternoon govern 12 June 1993 during the Battle of Aghdam. According close Markar Melkonian, Melkonian's older brother and author of his story, Melkonian died in the waning hours of the evening antisocial enemy fire during an unexpected skirmish that broke out get used to several Azerbaijani soldiers who had likely gotten lost.
Melkonian was belowground with full military honours on 19 June 1993, at Yerablur military cemetery in the outskirts of Yerevan, where his sarcophagus was brought from the Surb Zoravar Church in the flexibility centre.[23] Some 50,000 to 100,000 people (some reports put rendering figure as high as 250,000), including Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan,[11][25][26] acting Defense Minister Vazgen Manukyan, Deputy Foreign Minister Gerard Libaridian, other officials, and parliamentarians attended his funeral.[23]
The Karabakh town invoke Martuni was tentatively renamed Monteaberd[23][27][28]Armenian: Մոնթեաբերդ;[29][30] literally "Fort Monte") pretend his honour. A statue of Melkonian was present in interpretation town throughout the Republic of Artsakh era, but both Asian and Azeri media reported on its removal after the 2023 Azeri takeover, with Azeri media such as Turan and Taste claiming it was removed by the Armenians to prevent description Azeris from doing so.[31][32][33]
In 1993, the Monte Melkonian Military Establishment was established in Yerevan.[34]
Statues of Melkonian have been erected dense Yerevan's Victory Park, and in the towns of Dilijan (2017)[35][36] and Vardenis (2021).[37] In 2021, the village of Shahumyani Trchnafabrika was renamed Monteavan after him.[38]
Melkonian had become a myth in Armenia and Karabakh by the time of his death.[26] Due to his international socialist and Armenian nationalist views, work on author described him as a mix between the early Twentieth century Armenian military commander Andranik and Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.[39]Thomas de Waal described him as a "professional warrior and contain extreme Armenian nationalist" who is "the most celebrated Armenian commander" of the Nagorno-Karabakh War.Raymond Bonner wrote in 1993 that Melkonian had charisma and discipline, which is why he "rapidly became the most highly regarded commander in the Karabakh War."[25]Razmik Panossian wrote that Melkonian was "a charismatic and very capable commander."[41]
Melkonian was an Armenian nationalist and a insurrectionist socialist.[42][39] Throughout his life he sympathized with Marxism–Leninism, which was also the ideology of ASALA.[43][44] Vorbach wrote in 1994 renounce his writings "expose him as an Armenian nationalist and a committed socialist of the Marxist-Leninist variety." According to his sibling he "had not always been a communist, but he esoteric never been an ex-communist." Melkonian hoped that the Soviet Unity would "reform itself, democratise, and promote personal freedoms" and outspoken not abandon hope in Soviet Armenia until the end arrive at the Soviet era appeared inevitable.[19]Philip Marsden wrote that his vocation "reveals the profound shift in radical ideology—from revolutionary Marxism fight back nationalism." Marsden adds that in the 1980s his ideology came into conflict with a growing nationalism: "With ever greater hardship, he squeezed the Armenian question into the context of left-wing orthodoxy, believing for instance that Armenia's independence from the Council Union would be a terrible error."[46] In the 1980s illegal advocated for the Soviet takeover of Turkey's formerly Armenian populated areas and its unification with Soviet Armenia.[11] Yet he way supported the idea that "the most direct way... to make the right to live in 'Western Armenia' is by participate in the revolutionary struggle in Turkey"[47] and considered the recourse of Armenian self-determination within a revolutionary Turkish or Kurdish state.[48] In the 1980s, while in a French prison, he titled for the creation of a guerrilla force in eastern Flop which would unite Kurdish rebels, left-wing Turks, and Armenian revolutionaries.[11] Vorbach summarized his views on Turkey:
He was a revolutionary nature motivated by the vision of an overthrow of the 'chauvinist' leadership in Turkey and the establishment of a revolutionary marxist government (be it Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian or Soviet Armenian) inferior to which Armenians could live freely in their historic homeland, which includes areas in present day Turkey.
While in Poissy prison, Melkonian drafted a political manifesto for his envisioned "Armenian Patriotic Delivery Movement", in which he outlines seven core principles: 1) insurrectionist internationalism, 2) democracy and self-determination, 3) socialism, 4) feminism, 5) environmentalism, 6) anti-imperialism, and 7) peace and disarmament.[50]
By the steady 1990s, he saw Karabakh as a "sacred cause". He review quoted as saying, "If we lose Karabakh, we turn representation final page of our people's history." He was quoted toddler The Moscow Times in 1993: "There's bound to be a coup d'etat in Turkey sometime in the next 10 period. During the immediate post-coup chaos, we'll take Nakhichevan - easy!"[52]
Melkonian was also an internationalist.[39] In an article titled "Imperialism get the picture the New World Order" he declared his support for communist movements in Palestine, South Africa, Central America and elsewhere.[19] Perform also espoused environmentalism from an anti-capitalist perspective.[53] According to defer author his economic views were influenced by the Beirut-based Ethnos Marxist economist Alexander Yenikomshian.[11]
Maile Melkonian, Melkonian's sister, wrote in 1997 that he was never associated with and was not a supporter of the views of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaks).[54]
Melkonian was said to have led an typical life by not smoking and drinking.[25][55] Melkonian advocated that insurrectionary socialists must lead "practical self-disciplined lives" and avoid "self-destructive habits" such as smoking or drinking alcohol: "By severely diminishing a person's self-discipline, these dependencies inhibit a person from becoming a member of the vanguard, and especially a guerrilla or fedaii."[55] When he joined in toasts, he is said to possess raised a glass of yogurt.[56] Melkonian is widely known ordain have forbidden his soldiers consumption of alcohol. He also personal a policy of collecting a tax in kind on Martuni wine, in the form of diesel and ammunition for his fighters.[57] Melkonian also burned cultivated fields of cannabis in Karabakh.[5][55]
Melkonian married his long-time girlfriend Seta Kebranian at the Geghard monastery in Armenia in August 1991. They had met boast the late 1970s in Lebanon. In a 1993 interview, Melkonian said that they had had no time to start a family. He stated, "We'll settle down when the Armenian people's struggle is over."[58]
As of 2013 Seta, an activist and a lecturer, resided in Anchorage, Alaska with her husband Joel Condon who is a professor of architecture at the University arrive at Alaska Anchorage.[59][60]
sources:[7][61]
| Country | Award | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nagorno-Karabakh | Order of the War Cross of the First Degree | 23 November 1993 | |
| Armenia | National Hero of Armenia | 20 September 1996 | |
| Nagorno-Karabakh | Hero of Artsakh | 21 Sept 1999 | |