NATIONAL HERO MONTE MELKONIAN WOULD BE 57 TODAY
13:31 25/11/2014 ” SOCIETY
November 25 is the birthday of national hero of Armenia and
Artsakh, legendary commander, philosopher and warrior, activist of
national-liberation struggle of the Armenian people Monte Melkonian.
He would have turned 57 today.
Monte Melkonian was born on November 25, 1957 at Visalia Municipal
Hospital in Visalia, California to Charles and Zabel Melkonian. He was
the third of four children born to a self-employed cabinetmaker 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. Melkonian’s parents rarely talked about
their Armenian heritage with their children, often referring to the
place of their ancestors as the “Old Country.” His interest in his
background only sparked at the age of eleven, when his family went
on a year-long trip to Europe in 1969.
While taking Spanish language courses in Spain, his teacher had posed
him the question of where he was from. Dissatisfied with Melkonian’s
answer of “California”, the teacher rephrased the question by asking
“where did your ancestors come from?” His brother Markar Melkonian
remarked that “her image of us was not at all like our image of
ourselves. She did not view us as the Americans we had always assumed
we were.” From this moment on, for days and months to come, Markar
continues, “Monte pondered [their teacher Señorita] Blanca’s question
“Where are you from?”
In the spring of that year, the family also traveled across Turkey to
visit the town of Merzifon, where Melkonian’s maternal grandparents
were from. Merzifon’s population at the time was 23,475 but was almost
completely devoid of its once 17,000-strong Armenian population
that was wiped out during the Armenian Genocide in 1915. They did
find one Armenian family of the three that was living in the town,
however, Melkonian soon learned that the only reason this was so,
was because the head of the family in 1915 had exchanged the safety
of his family in return for identifying all the Armenians in the town
to Turkish authorities during the genocide. Monte would later confide
to his wife that “he was never the same after that visit….He saw
the place that had been lost.”
Upon his return to California Monte returned to his education. In high
school, he was exceeding all standards and having a hard time finding
new academic challenges. Instead of graduating high school early,
as was suggested by his principal, Monte found an alternative thanks
to his father: a study abroad program in East Asia. At the age of 15
Monte traveled to Japan for a new chapter in his young life. While
there he began making money teaching English which helped finance his
travels through several Southeast Asian countries. This introduced
him to several new cultures, new philosophies, new languages, and in
several cases, like his travels through Vietnam, new skills that would
become immensely valuable in his later life as a soldier. Returning
to the United States, he graduated from high school and entered
the University of California, Berkeley, majoring in ancient Asian
history and Archeology. In 1978 he helped to organize an exhibition of
Armenian cultural artifacts at one of the university’s libraries. The
section of the exhibit dealing with the 1915-23 genocide was removed
by university authorities, at the request of the Turkish consul
general in San Francisco. The display that was removed was eventually
reinstalled following a campus protest movement. Monte eventually
completed his undergrad work in under three years. Upon graduating,
he was accepted into the archeology graduate program at the University
of Oxford. However, Monte chose to forgo this opportunity, and instead
chose to begin his lifelong struggle for the Armenian Cause.
After graduating from U.C. Berkeley in the spring of 1978, Monte
traveled to Iran, where he taught English and participated in the
movement to overthrow the Shah. He helped organize a teachers’
strike at his school in Tehran, and was in the vicinity of the
MeydÄ~An-e ZhÄ~Aleh (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 later, in southern Lebanon, he occasionally wore the uniform
of the Kurdish peshmerga which he was given in Iranian Kurdistan.
In the fall of 1978, Monte made his way to Beirut, the capital of
Lebanon, in time to participate in the defense of the Armenian quarter
against by the right-wing Phalange forces. At this time, he met
his long-time confidante and future wife, Seta Kebranian. Monte was
affiliated with the Hunchakian socialist party and was a permanent
member of the militia’s bases in Bourj Hamoud, Western Beirut,
Antelias, Eastern Beirut and other regions for almost two years,
during which time he participated in several street battles against
rightist forces. He also began working behind the lines in Phalangist
controlled territory, on behalf of the “Leftist and Arab” Lebanese
National Movement. By this time, he was speaking Armenian – a language
he had not learned until adulthood (Armenian was the fourth or fifth
language Monte learned to speak fluently, after Spanish, French and
Japanese. In addition, he spoke passable Arabic, Italian and Turkish,
as well as some Persian and Kurdish).
In the spring of 1980, Monte was inducted into the Armenian Secret
Army for the Liberation of Armenia, ASALA, and secretly relocated
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 Armenian
comrade with extensive military training. Monte carried out armed
operations in Rome, Athens and elsewhere, and he helped to plan and
train commandos for the “Van Operation” of September 24, 1981, in which
four ASALA militants took over the Turkish embassy in Paris and held
it for several days. In November 1981, French police arrested and
imprisoned a young, suspected criminal carrying a Cypriot passport
bearing the name “Dimitri Georgiu.” Following the detonation of
several bombs in Paris aimed at gaining his release, “Georgiu” was
returned to Lebanon where he revealed his identity as Monte Melkonian.
In mid-July 1983, ASALA violently split into two factions, one opposed
to the group’s despotic leader, whose nom de guerre was Hagop Hagopian,
and another supporting him. Although the lines of fissure had been
deepening over the course of several years, the shooting of Hagopian’s
two closest aides at a military camp in Lebanon finally led to the
open breach. This impetuous action was perpetrated by one individual
who was not closely affiliated with Monte. As a result of this action,
however, Hagopian took revenge by personally torturing and executing
two of Monte’s dearest comrades, Garlen Ananian and Arum Vartanian.
In the aftermath of this split Monte spent over two years underground,
in Lebanon and later in France. After testifying secretly for the
defense in the trial of Armenian militant and accused bank robber
Levon Minassian, he was arrested in Paris in November 1985, and
sentenced to six years in prison for possession of falsified papers
and carrying an illegal handgun.
Monte spent over three years in Fresnes and Poissy prisons. He was
released in early 1989 and sent from France to South Yemen, where he
was reunited with Seta. Together they spent year and a half living
underground in various countries of eastern Europe in relative poverty,
as one regime after another disintegrated.
On October 6, 1990 Monte arrived in what was then still Soviet
Armenia. During the first 8 months in Armenia, Melkonian worked in
the Armenian Academy of Sciences, where he prepared an archaeological
research monograph on Urartian cave tombs, which was posthumously
published. Seta and Monte were married at the monastery of Geghart
in August 1991.
Finding himself on Armenian soil after many years, he wrote in a letter
that he found a lot of confusion among his compatriots. Armenia faced
enormous economic, political and environmental problems at every turn,
problems that had festered for decades. New political forces bent
on dismantling the Soviet Union were taking Armenia in a direction
that Monte believed was bound to exacerbate the crisis and produce
more problems.
Under these circumstances, it quickly became clear to Monte that,
for better or for worse, the Soviet Union had no future and the coming
years would be perilous ones for the Armenian people. He then focused
his energy on Karabagh. “If we lose [Karabagh],” the bulletin of the
Karabakh Defense Forces quoted him as saying, “we turn the final page
of our people’s history.” He believed that, if Azeri forces succeeded
in deporting Armenians from Karabagh, they would advance on Zangezur
and other regions of Armenia. Thus, he saw the fate of Karabagh as
crucial for the long-term security of the entire Armenian nation.
On September 12 (or 14) 1991 Monte travelled to Shahumian region
(north of Karabagh), where he fought for three months in the fall
of 1991. There he participated in the capture of Erkej, Manashid and
Buzlukh villages.
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 peace as Azeri armies
were pushed back and were finding it increasingly difficult to shell
Martuni’s residential areas with GRAD missiles.
In April 1993, Melkonian was one of the chief military strategists who
planned and led the operation to fight Azeri fighters and capture the
region of Kalbajar of Azerbaijan which lies between the Republic of
Armenia and former NKAO. Armenian forces captured the region in four
days of heavy fighting, sustaining far fewer fatalities than the enemy.
Monte was killed in the abandoned Azerbaijani village of Merzili in
the early afternoon of June 12, 1993 during the Battle of Aghdam.
According to Markar Melkonian, Monte’s older brother and author of his
biography, Monte died in the waning hours of the evening by enemy fire
during an unexpected skirmish that broke out with several Azerbaijani
soldiers who had gotten lost. Monte died in the arms of his closest
and most trusted comrades.
Monte was buried with full military honors on June 19, 1993 at Yerablur
military cemetery in Yerevan, Armenia. According to one estimate,
some 25,000 people filed past his open casket as it lay in state
at the Officer’s Hall in Yerevan. Among the dignitaries present
were Levon Ter-Petrosyan, President of the Republic of Armenia,
high-ranking Armenian and C.I.S. military leaders, and members of
all the major political parties in the country.
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.panorama.am/en/society/2014/11/25/monte-melqonyan/