The Agony of an Abduction

Vahe H. Apelian

Next to prematurely losing a family member, the worst possible thing is not knowing if the person is still alive or dead. If alive, where is or is being held? If dead, how did he die? Was it a peaceful death or a tortured one? Where are his remains buried?  I do not think that a day could possibly go by without the surviving family members not contemplating the fate of their lost family member/s. The late Kevork George Apelian likened the anguished state akin to being “Martyred For Life” and so titled his book about survivors of the genocide who lost a family member during the ordeal and lived the remainder of their lives wondering what happened to them.

It is not far-fetched to imagine that Sarkis Zeitlian’s family lives the agony of his abduction and obscure fate every God's given day.

Recently I came across a book in my library I had already read, titled “THE SARKIS ZEITLIAN CASE”, in Armenian «ՍԱՐԳԻՍ ԶԷՅԹԼԵԱՆԻ ԴԱՏԸ». “Hraztan Sarkis Zeitlian Publications” published the bilingual book in 1994. My copy was the book’s second and expanded edition. “The publication was sponsored by the Strategic Research Initiative of the GALIAN FOUNCATION, Inc., a non-profit Public Benefit Corporations for the study of Armenian and Multicultural Issues.”

I do not think there is any need to introduce Sarkis Zeitlian other than glimpsing over his personal life. He was born in 1930 in the village of Khader-Beg on the slopes of the famed Moussa Dagh. In 1957 he married the noted author Sona Simonian who was his colleague in Kaloustian School in Cairo. They are blessed with four children. Their son Hraztan is an acclaimed architect. Their daughter Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is an art professor at University of California and is an award winning author.

Sarkis Zeitlian was abducted on Thursday, March 28, 1985, in broad daylight, at 9:30 am.  The abduction took place “on the street adjacent of Nshan Palanjian Jemaran in West Beirut. Accompanying Sarkis Zeitlian was a member of the ARF Youth Organization, Garo Kolanjian. As he did every Thursday, Sarkis Zeitlian was on his way to the office of Hamazkayin Vahe Setian Publicatishing House located at the corner to the Jemaran to supervise the layout of Aztag Shaptoriag-Troshag (note: ARF Organ) and to have the weekly ready for production by Yervant Nonofarian, the manager of the printing operations”.

I spent most of my teen years in the very neighborhood where the abduction took place. It was heavily populated by Armenians at one time. The Armenian inhabitants started leaving the neighborhood and moving away to the mostly Christian inhabited East Beirut because of the raging Lebanese Civil war. Sourp Nshan Cathedral, Nshan Palanjian Jemaran, Souren Khanamirian and Hovagimian-Manougian High Schools, the Demirjian Middle School, along with HMEM sports center, Hamazkayin Vahe Setian Publishing House, Aztag daily, Ara Yerevanian Community Center,  were all there within an easy walking distance to each other in the  greater Zokak-El-Blat - the one time famed neighborhood of Beirut. In spite of the dwindling Armenian population ARF for a long haul continued to retain its centers there as a testament of its support for an undivided Beirut as an invisible border was splintering the capital city into a West and an East Beirut. Presently not much has left of the thriving Armenian community that resided there once.

“THE SARKIS ZEITLIAN CASE”, is a 130 pages long book. The first part is in Armenian, the second in English. The book is a meticulous study of Sarkis Zeitlians abduction. It consists of six chapters and each chapter contains a number of subsections and each sub-section, in turn, contains, at times, a number of headers. Listing the chapters gives a glimpse of the scope of the study the family has undertaken to come to grips with his abduction. The six chapters are:

I.   THE POLITICAL ASSESSMENT OF SARKIS ZEITLIAN’S ABDUCTION.

II.             THE ABDUCTION OF SARKIS ZEITLIAN

III.            THE INVESTIGATION OF THE SARKIS ZEITLIAN CASE

IV.  THE DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AND THE EVIDENCE REFUTING THE DISINFORMATION.

V.            CURRENT STATE OF SAKIS ZEITLIAN’S CASE

VI.          CONCLUSION.

The book is a serious study of Sarkis Zeitlian’s abduction. It also is a reflection of the agony the family experienced loosing the patriarch of the family in such a way. The copy I have is personalized by Mrs. Sona Zeitlian and is dated 1997.  Over three decades have elapsed since his abduction. Had nature been kind to him, Sarkis Zeitlian would have been in the twilight of his later years. During my days as a member of the ARF Zavarian Student Association, Sarkis Zeitlian was a favorite ideologue of the ARF and a much liked orator we did not want to miss hearing him speak on stage.

Kevork George Apelian’s, in his book “Martyred For Life”, wrote that  in spite of the passing years, when wrinkled covered the faces and gray hair    took over the surviving family members but they continued to retain in their memories the image of their loved ones as they saw him or her last. Sarkis Zeitlian was abducted and disappeared in the murky realities of realpolitik at the age of fifty-five. I imagine that it would be impossible for the family members to erase from their memories the image of the robust and dynamic man he was when he was taken away from their midst years ago.

The book ends quoting Jean-Paul Kaufman, who was a former hostage in Lebanon who was released in 1988. Jean-Paul Kaufman has said: “until we have unequivocal evidence that a hostage is dead, we shall conclude that he might still be alive”. I am not sure if passing years will alleviate Zeitlian Family from the pain of losing their patriarch whose fate continues to remain unknown.

We have a saying in Armenian, “May God spare even our enemies from such pain”.