Terrorism of Armenian Nationalists

Background and occurrence of terrorism

Dashnaks - participants in the seizure of the Ottoman Bank

Armen Garo

The awakening in the first third of the 19th century of the national identity of many nations that did not have their own statehood also affected the Armenian people, all the more so after a series of successful wars of Russia against Turkey and Persia that ended with the rejection of several provinces with the Armenian population and the resettlement of thousands of Armenians to the Russian Transcaucasus, the Armenian people could not help but hope for final liberation from the Muslim yoke.

According to Sharia law, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire , not being Muslims, were considered second-class citizens - dimmi . They were forbidden to carry weapons, they had to pay higher taxes. Armenian Christians had no right to hold public office, serve in the army, testify in court ^{[12] [13] [14]} .

Despite the fact that 70% of the Armenian population were poor peasants, the stereotype of a cunning and successful Armenian with a great deal of commercial talent was widespread among the Muslim population. Hostility towards Armenians exacerbated unresolved social problems in cities and the struggle for resources in agriculture ^[15] . These processes were complicated by the influx of Muhajirs - Muslim refugees from the Caucasus (after the Caucasian War and the Russian-Turkish War of 1877–78 ) and from the newly formed Balkan states, as well as the Crimean Tatars. Expelled by Christians from their lands, refugees transferred their hatred to local Christians. The claims of Armenians for the provision of guarantees of personal and collective security and the simultaneous deterioration of their position in the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of the so-called “ Armenian issue ” as part of a more general Eastern issue ^{[16] [12] [13] [14]} .

The first major uprising against the Ottoman regime occurred in Zeitoun in 1862, which represented the remnant of the last Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, and in 1618 received freedom from taxation and government intervention in exchange for annual tribute from Ottoman Sultan Murad IV. However, in the middle of the 19th century, the Ottoman authorities decided to settle 30 thousand Circassian refugees who fled Russia in Zeytun and neighboring regions, and for this they withdrew Zeytun’s special status, and also sent a military expedition of tens of thousands of soldiers to attack Armenian cities in 1862 year This attempt, like the later attempt to attack Zeytun in 1895, was successfully repulsed by the Armenians ^{[17] [18]} . Lusine Nalbandian believes that the events of 1862 marked the beginning of a national movement for independence from the Ottoman Empire ^[19] . Ronald Suney, on the contrary, believes that it was an accidental uprising caused by the actions of the Ottoman government ^[17] .

In 1882, one of the first Armenian associations, the Agricultural Society, was created in the Erzurum region, designed to protect Armenians from being robbed by Kurdish and other nomadic tribes. In 1885, the first Armenian political party Armenakan was created, the platform of which envisaged the achievement of local Armenian self-determination through education and propaganda, as well as military training to resist state terror. The party program did not provide for open resistance and separation from the Ottoman Empire, even in the long term. In 1887, the Hnchakyan Social-Democratic Party arose, the purpose of which was the liberation of Turkish Armenia through revolution and the creation of an independent socialist state. The Hnchakian program assumed the participation of all ethnic groups in Turkish Armenia in the revolution and the subsequent guarantee of all civil rights in the European style. Finally, in 1890, the first congress of the most radical party, Dashnaktsutyun, was held in Tiflis . The party program provided for autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, freedom and equality for all groups of the population, and in the social part relied on the creation of peasant communes as the main elements of the new society. For this, Dashnaktsutyun assumed the organization of armed groups that were supposed to fight against the exploiters, corrupt officials and traitors, including by terrorist methods . However, the majority of the Armenian population, after centuries of repression and the position of second-class people, feared resistance, believing that it would lead to even greater suffering. The privileged classes of Armenians also did not share the socialist aspirations of the Armenian parties, seeing in them a threat to their own well-being ^[20] .

In the first edition (1892) of the political program of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation "Dashnaktsutyun" paragraphs 8 and 11 of the section "Means [of the revolutionary struggle]" essentially provided for the use of terror against "government officials, traitors, traitors, usurers and all kinds of exploiters", " ruin and destroy government agencies. " Similar formulations of the means and methods of struggle were also present in the documents of the Gnchak Party ^[21] . Initially, the terror was directed against those Armenians who were in the service of the sultan's regime and were considered traitors: for example, the intelligence chief of the sultan Abdul-Hamid Artashek, the head of the gendarmerie Adisi Tigran, Maksut Simon Bey, and others were killed by the Dashnaks.

In 1894, the Armenian population of Sasun abandoned virtually double taxation, and supported by members of the Gnchak party, they raised an armed uprising. The Fourth Army Corps was sent to suppress the protest. Restoration surrendered after three months of defense, under the promise of amnesty and submitting an official appeal to the Sultan. The promises were not kept and about 3,000 residents of Sasun were killed ^[22] .

Ambassadors of Britain, France and Russia proposed the creation of a commission to investigate these events, but the proposal was rejected by Porto. In September 1895, the gnchakists decided to hold a large demonstration against the unresolved security problem of the Armenians, but it was stopped by the police. As a result of the shooting that began, dozens of Armenians were killed and hundreds wounded. The police handed over Armenians to students of Islamic schools in Istanbul, who slaughtered them to death. On October 8, Muslims killed and burned alive about a thousand Armenians in Trabzonek ^{[23] [24]} .

The inability to solve the problem peacefully and the massacres of Armenians pushed the Dashnaks to seize the building of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul on August 26, 1896. Taking hostage European personnel and, threatening to blow up the bank, they demanded that the Turkish government carry out the promised political reforms. As a result of the negotiations, the Dashnaks left the bank under the personal guarantees of the representative of the Russian embassy and the director of the bank. However, the authorities ordered to launch attacks on Armenians even before the Dashnak group left the bank. Within two days, with the apparent connivance of the authorities, more than 6,000 people were killed ^{[23] [24]} . The exact number of victims of the massacre of 1894-1896 can not be calculated. The Lutheran missionary Johannes Lepsius, who was at that time in Turkey, counted 88 thousand killed and many violently converted hundreds of ruined churches and turned into mosques. Late sources estimate the number of victims in 1894-96. 80 to 300 thousand Armenians (see Massacres of Armenians in 1894-1896 ).

In July 1905 , the Dashnaks attempted to assassinate Sultan Abdul-Hamid, undermining his carriage. ^[25] After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and the overthrow of the “Zulum” (“tyranny”) regime, the Dashnaks abandoned the violent struggle in Turkey, supported the Young Turks and turned into a parliamentary party ^[26] .

Attempts by Armenians to resist state terror against the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire with their own terrorist methods are used by deniers of the Armenian genocide to justify mass killings (“thesis of provocation”) ^[27] . The “provocation thesis” first appeared in William Langer's “The Diplomacy of Imperialism” (“The Diplomacy of Imperialism”), where he suggested that the revolutionary leaders of the Armenians expected that the sufferings of the Armenians caused by their actions would draw attention to the Armenian issue ^[28] . Walter Lacker, in his book The Epoch of Terrorism, notes that the Armenian revolutionaries of the 1880s and 1890s assumed that their attacks on the Turks would lead to cruel retribution, which in turn would cause the radicalization of the Armenian population and could lead to the intervention of Western countries . ^[29] . Then the “provocation thesis” was repeated in the work of Stanford Shaw in 1977 ^[30] , where it was claimed that the massacre was a reaction to Armenian provocation and that the gnchakists intended to create a socialist Armenian republic in six Anatolian regions in which all Muslims would be deported or killed. This view was contested by Donald Broxham and Ronald Suny , who believed that there was no evidence for such a statement ^{[31] [32]} . Robert Melson , analyzing Shaw's statement, notes that such an opinion is not confirmed by other historians, and Shaw himself draws such a conclusion without reference to any quotations and without giving explanations ^[33] . Lord Kinross notes that the Armenians, going from separate incursions to the uprising, also called on all Muslims to oppose the despotic rule of Abdul Hamid ^[34] .

Terrorist Activities in Transcaucasia

The Dashnaktsutyun party stood behind the overwhelming majority of the terrorist acts carried out in the Russian Transcaucasus, which by 1903 had become very popular among the Armenian population due to its nationalistic ideology. Initially, the main efforts of this organization were aimed at freeing the Armenians from the Turkish government, and it was supported in this by the Russian authorities. Later, however, the Dashnaktsutyun party took extremely anti-Russian positions - the reason for this was a government decree of June 12, 1903, aimed at limiting the economic base of the Armenian Apostolic Church , which, in turn, undermined the financial well-being of Dashnaktsutyun (the decree was canceled in 1905). In addition to the physical elimination of those who hindered the implementation of their goals, the Dashnaks engaged in extortion, paying tribute to rich Armenians ^[35] . Among the terrorist attacks carried out by the Dashnaks were the killing on May 11, 1905 of a bomb thrown by Dro Kanayan , the Baku governor of Prince Mikhail Nakashidze , who was one of the organizers of the Armenian pogrom in Baku in February of the same year ^{[36] [37] [38]} and the killing of Baku police officials accused of the same - Makhmedbekova, Mikeladze, Shakhtakhtinova. ^[39] In 1907, at the fourth extraordinary congress of Dashnaks, held in Vienna, it was decided to start cracking down on officials of the Russian Empire, starting with Stolypin ^[40] . On July 3 of the same year, in the Alexandropol area, Dashnak terrorists killed General Maksud Alikhanov-Avarsky , ^{[41] [42]} who had the nickname “Tatar General” ^[43] , who in the summer of 1905 was sent to “pacify” the Erivan gubernia and, according to Russian newspapers, openly patronized the Tatars ^[44] in general and their relatives Khans of Nakhichevan , especially in the massacre of Armenians. ^{[45] [46] [47]} Along with him, the wife of Lieutenant-General Glebov and the coachman, a cartoons soldier, were killed ^[48] . In the newspaper “Droshak” (the Dashnaktsutyun press) in numbers 5 and 6 for 1910, praises to Dashnak murderers, including the death of Alikhanov, were published ^[49] . By the beginning of 1907, due to indiscriminate use of violence, the popularity of Dashnaks declined, but, nevertheless, they continued to play a major role in maintaining the power of terror in the Caucasus until at least 1909. ^[50]

Members of the Armenian Social Democratic Party Gnchak openly proclaimed terrorist methods "as a means of self-defense, revolutionary agitation and a weapon in the fight against the harmful activities of the authorities." On October 14, 1903, they made an attempt on the life of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army in the Caucasus, Prince Golitsyn , whom they considered responsible for the policy of confiscating the property of the Armenian church. Golitsyn was expecting an attack and wore mail, therefore he was only wounded. By 1908, Gnchak had lost his influence due to the abuse of his position by the leaders, and divisions began within the organization. The control of the central organs weakened, and the criminal activity of its members increased. ^[51]

Terror Against Armenians

Although such Armenian organizations as Dashnaktsutyun directed their main efforts against the Turkish authorities, they considered terror and extortion in Russia acceptable methods for raising funds for their activities. ^[52] So, on December 15, 1903, a banker Dzhamgarov was killed on the porch of the Armenian church in Moscow. The murderer Matevos Minasyants, as it turned out at the investigation, together with his comrades on behalf of the Armenian Revolutionary Committee, kidnapped Dzhamgarov in Shusha and received a receipt from him at gunpoint with a promise to transfer 30,000 rubles to the cashier of the party. Jamgarov did not keep his promises, for which he was sentenced to death. ^[53] In memory of Jamgarov, a memorial house was built near the Surb Harutyun Armenian Church in Moscow .

On July 22, 1907, carpets dealer Tavshandzhyan was shot dead in Union Square in New York . His murderer, Bedros Ambartsumian, who was detained at the crime scene, said that he had saved his country by killing Tavshandzhyan, because the dead man did not want to give money for her release. It turned out that many wealthy Armenians of the city received death threats if they did not pay $ 10,000 each to overthrow the Turkish authorities in the regions with the Armenian population. ^[54] An hour after the murder, these people received new warnings that the same thing would happen with them as with Tavshandzhyan if they did not pay. ^[55] It was established that the murder was organized by the head of the local branch of the Gnchak Arzuyan party, who was suspected of involvement in the killings of other Armenians in the United States. ^[56] In 1908, the writer and revolutionary Arpiar Arpiarian , one of the prominent figures of the Reorganized Party Hnchak ^[57] , the founder of a realistic trend in modern Armenian literature, ^[58] who published the data on the criminal activities of his compatriots, was assassinated in Cairo . ^[59]

In October 1919, the 9th congress of the Dashnaktsutyun party decided to exterminate those responsible for the Armenian genocide . The operation was called "Nemesis". Some authors have described it as terrorist ^{[10] [61]} . According to one of these authors, it was the rarest of cases when the aim of a terrorist action was an attempt to restore justice and avenge the extermination of a people ^[62] . A list of 650 perpetrators of the genocide was reviewed, of whom 41 were selected. The participants in the operation emphasized that they only carried out the decision of the Constantinople court, which in 1919 sentenced in absentia the organizers of the genocide to death ^[63] . Thus, an active participant in the operation Arshavir Shirakian said: “Our organization does not have a plan for extermination. It only punishes those who were convicted in absentia and found guilty of committing massacres. Armenian traitors have added to our list ” ^[64]

For the management of the operation, the Responsible body was organized (the head is the envoy of the Republic of Armenia to the USA Armen Garo ) and the Special Fund (the head is Shaan Satchaklyan). Operational management and material support of the operation were carried out by Shaan Natali and Grigor Merzhanov. Hrach Papazyan played a key role in collecting information, who, under the guise of a Turkish student, entered the Young Turks' emigrant circles. The killings were carried out as follows: first, a group of 3-5 people was organized for surveillance, then one, sometimes (if the Turks were accompanied by bodyguards), 2-3 people, carried out the killing. The main organizational centers of the operation were the editorial offices of the Chakatamarte (Istanbul) and Droshak (Boston) newspapers. In addition to the leaders of the Young Turks, the leadership of Operation Nemezis decided to liquidate some of the leaders of the Mousvat government of Azerbaijan , who were guilty, in their opinion, in organizing the massacre of Armenians in Baku in September 1918. ^[10]

During the operation in 1920-1922, the following persons were killed:

• On June 19, 1920 , the former Prime Minister of Azerbaijan Fatali Khan Khoysky was killed in Tiflis . According to the leaders of the operation, he was guilty of the massacre of Armenians in Baku in September 1918. ^[65] At the same time, the former Justice Minister of Azerbaijan Khalil Bek Hasmamedov was wounded, as well as of terrorists.
• On July 19, 1920 , Deputy Chairman of the National Parliament of Azerbaijan Hasan bey Agayev was killed in Tiflis .
• March 15, 1921 in Berlin killed the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Turkey Talaat Pasha , who stood in the "black list" under the number 1, one of the three main organizers of the Armenian Genocide.
• On December 5, 1921, in Rome, during a horse ride, the former Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) was killed in the first office of the Young Turks, Said Halim Pasha .
• On April 17, 1922, in Berlin, during a family walk, the former Wal-tree of Trapezund, known (known, in particular, by drowning 15,000 Armenians ^[66] ), and the creator of the Teshkilatiyu Mahsus organization (“Special Committee”), directly killed carrying out the genocide - Behaetdin Shakir , as well as the bodyguard of the latter.
• On July 19, 1921 , former Interior Minister of Azerbaijan Behbud Khan Dzhevanshir was killed in Istanbul for organizing the massacre of Armenians in Baku ^[67] .
• On July 25, 1922 , former Minister of the Navy of Turkey Jemal Pasha was killed in Tiflis .

In addition to the above-mentioned persons, several Armenians, known as accomplices of the Turks, were also killed in Constantinople in 1920:

• Mkrtich Harutyunyan, in the words of A. Shirakyan, is “a sadist and a member of the political department of the Turkish secret police”; killed by Soghomon Tehlirian
• Vahe Ihsan (Yesayan), who in April 1915 helped compile lists of prominent Armenians for deportation; killed by Arshavir Shirakian
• Hmayak Aramyants, a former member of the Gnchak Party, who in 1914 issued a conspiracy against Talaat and then collaborated with the Turkish police; killed by Arshak Yezdanyan.

Trials of Teyleryan and Torlakyan

In two cases, the murderers were captured and brought to trial: they were the murderer of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Turkey Talaat Pasha Sogomon Tehlirian and the murderer of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan Behbud Khan Javanshir Misak Torlakyan . Tehlirian was fully acquitted by the Berlin jury. The Tehliryan trial, which was attended by numerous witnesses of the genocide, gained a wide response as it revealed the details of the destruction of Armenians in Turkey ^{[68] [69] [64] [70] [71]} In a speech at the Tehliryan trial, the prosecutor described his motives as follows:

There is no doubt that we are dealing with political murder. The motives of the accused were political hatred, political retribution. Here before your eyes were described the events, the facts that took place in distant places. Certainly, terrible atrocities and crimes were committed against the Armenian people, and it is also certain that terrible things happened to the accused and his family, and the fate of his family pierced deeply his mind and brain, when all his relatives were suddenly put to death, he was forced to witness it all. (...) Further, without a doubt, the accused in the person of Talaat Pasha saw the culprit of his fate, which befell his family and many of his fellow tribesmen. In his person, he saw not only the Minister of the Interior, who bears formal political responsibility for all that took place in the sphere of his official activities, but also the personal and moral culprit of these crimes " ^[72] .

Torlakyan appeared before the British military tribunal. At the trial, he stated that his wife, sister and their children were killed in Baku in front of his eyes, and he himself received several gunshot wounds. Javanshir’s Russian wife stated that her husband had done everything possible to ensure the peaceful coexistence of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and that Armenians massacred 11,000 Muslims during the March events . According to her, in March 1918 they were forced to leave Baku because they were threatened by Armenians because they were Muslims. The speeches of numerous Armenian and Russian witnesses and the documents submitted by them clarified the details of the September massacre and the role played by Javanshir in it. According to one testimony, during the March events of 1918, Javanshir expressed gratitude to the Armenian intelligentsia of Baku, "defending the Tatars from the Bolshevik uprising, but after the Turks entered the city, Musavat turned against the Armenians, and Javanshir signaled the beginning of a massacre, so 18 of these intellectuals were killed. Twenty thousand people died within three days. Then Javanshir evicted the 9,000 who survived from Baku. Only 400 survived and were able to return from the labor camps where they were deported. ” The director of the Ganja orphanage told how before his eyes the dogs ate the bodies of orphans on the streets. Russian lawyer Boris Baikov spoke about his vain attempts to get Javanshir to intervene and stop the massacre; another Russian witness told about the answer given to her by telephone from the headquarters of the Azerbaijani army: “do not hope that we will come and help you” ^[73] .

After the testimony of the witnesses, the court heard medical experts. The Armenian and two Greek doctors stated that, due to the emotional crisis, Torlakyan could not be held accountable for his actions, and the British prison doctor found that the crime was the result of a hereditary epileptic crisis, and not deliberate revenge, although the Turkish doctor who examined Torlakyan at the request of his family did not I found no signs of epilepsy and mental disorder.

On October 20, 1921, the verdict was passed, according to which Torlakyan was found guilty, but not responsible for his actions, since he could not control himself at the time of the murder, he was released from liability on condition that he was expelled from Turkey. Sent to Greece. ^{[60] [74] [75] [76] [77]}

Operation "Nemesis" is considered the second wave of Armenian terror; after it ended, systematic anti-Turkish terror ceased for five decades ^[78] . However, conflicts between Armenian political groups for dominance in the diaspora led to political violence.

Thus, in 1926, the struggle between the local Dashnaktsutyun and Hnchak committees for control of the newly established Armenian quarters of Beirut (now known as Burj Hamud) led to the killing of Dashnak Vahan Vartabedyan by a group headed by Mihran Agazaryan. In response, in 1929 one of the members of the Agazaryan group was killed, and in 1933 he himself. ^[79]

On December 24, 1933, Archbishop Levon (Ghevond) Turyan , who was elected primate of Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of the USA, was killed in New York in the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Holy Cross during the Christmas service. When the procession led by him was held in a solemn procession between the rows in the church where he was to serve the liturgy, suddenly a group of people jumped out from behind the benches, surrounded the archbishop and stabbed him with large knives for cutting meat. In the hall began pandemonium. Parishioners began to beat some of the attackers, while others managed to escape. The police arrived at the crime scene arrested two people, and by the end of the week the number of detainees reached nine. All the suspects were members of the Dashnaktsutyun party. They were tried and convicted in the summer of 1934. ^[80] Two of the killers were sentenced to death in an electric chair, subsequently replaced by life imprisonment ^{[81] [82]} . The rest were sentenced to lengthy, from 10 to 20 years, terms of imprisonment ^{[83] [84]} . The reason for the murder was that on July 1, 1933, during the celebration of the Armenian day at the exhibition in Chicago, Archbishop Turyan arrived to perform a prayer and ordered to remove the flag of the Armenian Republic of 1918-1920 from the stage, as he did not want to cause discontent of the Soviet authorities of Armenia. Turyan recognized the spiritual power of the Holy See in Echmiadzin, for which it was important to maintain good relations with the Soviet authorities, but the Dashnaks considered the actions of the Archbishop a betrayal ^{[80] [85]} .

This murder caused a serious split in the Armenian diaspora, which continues to this day. The predashnak congregations broke away from the rest of the church and in the 1950s they came under the subordination of the Cilician Catholicos, leaving the subjection of the Holy See in Echmiadzin. Currently, there are two Armenian archbishops in New York and other major cities, two separate lobbying organizations in Washington, etc. ^[86]

The struggle for leadership in the diaspora also led to conflict in May-October 1958, when the Dashnaks and their opponents staged a small war during the first civil war in Lebanon. Of the 150 Armenians who died in these months, about 40 were victims of intra-Armenian political violence ^[79] .

At the turn of the 60s-70s, in the circles of the Dashnaktsutyun party, opinions began to spread about the ineffectiveness of diplomatic means of struggle and the need for forceful actions that could draw the attention of world public opinion to the Armenian issue. The experience of Palestinian terror demonstrated the effectiveness of terrorist methods (it should be noted, however, that Dashnaktsutyun officially never recognized its connection with terror).

The first terrorist actions were sporadic: in April 1972, the mailbox of the Turkish Embassy was mined in Beirut . The killing of Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles Mehmet Baidur and Vice Consul Bahadur Demir, committed in Santa Barbara in January 1973 by 77-year-old Armenian engineer and writer Gurgen Yanikyan, caused a big resonance. Yanikyan hoped that he would be able to turn his trial into an Armenian genocide process, but the prosecutor, following the instructions, did not allow this, insisting that questions of history are outside the court’s jurisdiction (which he later regretted ^[87] ). Yanikyan stated at the trial that 26 members of his family had been killed by the Turks, and that before his eyes the Turks had cut the throat of his brother ^[87] . Admitting his guilt in the murder, he said: “I did not kill two people, I destroyed two evils. For me, they were not human. ” ^[88] Yanikyan was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released in 1984 for health reasons, despite Turkey’s protests, and died less than a month later. ^[87] .

His act spawned imitators; there were several terrorist organizations, the main of which were ASALA and JSAG . These organizations emerged in Lebanon during the civil war that took place there, and relied on the experience of Palestinian terrorists. ASALA was a Marxist organization created with the support of radical Palestinian groups. According to some reports, ASALA founder Hakob Hakobyan was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the PFLP helped finance, ^[89] and also trained and supplied ASALA terrorists with weapons. ^[90] The first terrorist operation, the ASALA terrorists carried out in January 1975, blowing up the building of the World Council of Churches in Beirut. From 1975 to 1982, the ASALA terrorists (as well as the groups operating under her leadership: Orly, June 9, October 3, etc.) committed murders, explosions, and assaults. Initially, the organization attacked Turkish diplomats in order to draw attention to the Armenian problem. Subsequently, a number of operations were carried out against representatives of Western countries: attacks on the offices of KLM, Lufthansa , TWA, as well as attacks on citizens of countries holding ASALA militants in custody. Area of ​​operations: Europe, Middle East, Lebanon, Turkey, USA, France, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Great Britain, Italy, Iran, Hungary. ^[91]

Unlike the left radical ASALA, its main competitor, JSAG, adhered to a more conservative Armenian nationalism (the organization was tied to the Dashnak party ^[92] ), although the goals of both organizations were the same. Most of the attacks were carried out by terrorists of both groups in Europe, whereas in the USA only 6 attacks were carried out. Since 1982, the attacks of Armenian terrorists in the United States have completely stopped, and observers attribute this to the harsh sentence that a Californian court issued to the killer of the Turkish consul Hampig Sassounian. ^[93] Terrorist from JSAG Sassounian was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1984, which continues to serve today. In 1983, JSAG ceased its activities, it is replaced by the Armenian Revolutionary Army (ARA). Observers believe that this was a new name for JSAG. ^[94]

While JSAG and the ARA that replaced it favored the killing of Turkish officials on an individual basis, ASALA was not particularly picky about the choice of purpose and it did not matter to her whether the dead were Turks or not. ^[90] Among the most bloody actions of ASALA were an attack on Esenboga Airport in Ankara on August 7, 1982 and an explosion at Orly Airport on July 15, 1983, which resulted in the death of 17 people of different nationalities. ^[89] The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982 led to the fact that Armenian terrorists were forced to leave their main bases. This led to discord in the ranks of ASALA, and after the explosion at Orly airport, out of 8 who died, only two were Turks, the rest were citizens of Western countries, there was a split in ASALA on the admissibility of "blind terror", resulting in the selection of ASALA-RM under the leadership of Monte Melkonyan , who rejected the "blind" terror as harmful to the cause of the Armenian liberation. ^[95] The main faction led by Hakobyan continued the previous terrorist tactics and linked herself to the Abu Nidal organization . ^[89] The split weakened both groups, and their activity declined. ASALA militants began to settle scores among themselves, killing each other in a camp in the Bekaa Valley . In March-May 1985, ASALA killed important members of the Dashnaktsutyun branch in Lebanon. ^[96] In 1985, activists of the Armenian Revolutionary Army seized the Turkish embassy in Ottawa , killing a security guard (before that, rival organizations had committed several more terrorist attacks in the capital of Canada).

After the murder of Hakobian in Athens in April 1988, the crisis intensified even more, and despite some attacks in the 1990s, experts believe that ASALA no longer represents a threat. ^[89]

In October 1999, American law enforcement agencies arrested the chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), Murad Topalyan, on charges that he had organized an explosion in front of the Turkish mission to the UN, and was the leader of JSAG. During the process, the prosecution and the defense reached an agreement according to which the charges of terrorism were dropped in exchange for the recognition of Topalyan of illegal possession of explosives and firearms. On January 24, 2004, he was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison and 3 years of release under supervision. ^{[97] [98]}

According to the assumption of the RAND Corporation and the , former members of the ARA and JSAG joined the military forces of the Republic of Armenia in the period 1988-1994. participated in the conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh ^[99] .

Financial sources

At different times, ASALA received support from various sources, for example, ASALA requested funds from the Armenian community. Hakob Hakobyan has publicly stated:

Our strength is in the Armenian people, from here we get support. And from robberies ^[7]

As Melkonian wrote after “Operation Van”, Hakobyan “went to France to collect money ... Thanks to the prevailing atmosphere, collecting money was not difficult and considerable sums were collected” ^[100] . However, “fees” were not always synonymous with “donations” ^[7] . Thus, in mid-May 1982, Toronto police arrested an Armenian on charges of extortion. Three more were captured two days later on the basis of the same charge. Supposedly, they demanded $ 4,000 and $ 5,000 from two Armenian businessmen to support the “Armenian cause”. Incendiary bomb was thrown into the house of one of the victims of extortion less than a day after refusing to obey ^[101] . Vigen Charkhutyan, who was accused of bombing the Air Canada branch in Los Angeles in May 1982, was also accused of trying to extort $ 150,000 from Armenian-Americans, owners of a carpet store chain in California ^{[7] [100]} .

ASALA also received assistance from radical Palestinian groups with which it collaborated in Lebanon ^[99] . According to Monte Melkonyan, ASALA could receive money from Abu Nidal ^[7] and some governments by performing “operations like gestures of revolutionary solidarity”. This explains ASALA’s strange attempt to bomb the Kuwait Airlines office in Athens in December 1982. ASALA, Melkonyan concludes, "becomes a mercenary of [other] governments and organizations" ^[100]

According to documents declassified by the FBI , ASALA had close ties with , a CIA representative involved in the illegal sale of arms to Iraq ^[102] .

The story of Jsag was related to the history of the terrorist wing of the Dashnaktsutyun party ^{[7] [103]} . The Dashnak party financed Jsag from money received by the party from various sources. Dashnak fundraisers (fundraisers) are considered almost legendary in their ability to attract large amounts of money for priority purposes. Thus, more than $ 250000 were raised for the costs of legal protection of Hampig Sasunyan ^[7] . Unlike ASALA, JSAG, being primarily nationalistic, relied, almost exclusively, on the private support of Armenian communities, and not on sponsorship by the states hostile to Turkey ^[99] .

Some sources claim that ASALA also participated in drug trafficking, and the proceeds from this turnover were used to maintain this underground radical group ^{[100] [104]} . So, like other groups in Lebanon, radical Armenian groups financed their operations there by selling drugs ^[105] .

ASALA revealed its links with the drug trade, threatening to extradite a group of drug traffickers arrested by the Swedish police in 1981 ^[106] . The group also received financial and organizational support from Behcet Jantürk, a Kurdish “thief in law” selling heroin ^[105] .

In June 1981, Nubar Sufyan was charged in New York with heroin importation. The Greek authorities who arrested him refused to extradite and handed him over to the Lebanese side, where he was immediately released. According to the representative of the Office of Drug Enforcement of the US Department of Justice,

Heroin and hashish trader Nubar Sufyan was associated with the “Soldiers for Justice of the Armenian Genocide” ... He is hiding from American justice and his current whereabouts are unknown. ^[100]

The groups were discredited by assumptions about criminal ties with drug traffickers, arms smugglers and radical Palestinian terrorists. American journalist Nathan M. Adams, who spoke before the congress in 1984, noted that

Armenian right-and-left terrorist groups, according to estimates a year ago, were 90 percent funded through the sale and trafficking of drugs. ^[107]

Armenian Diaspora Reaction

The sympathy of the Armenian community, which took place both in the United States and beyond, was an important part of the terrorist struggle ^[108] . The seizure of the Turkish consulate in Paris in September 1981 ( Operation VAN ), admittedly, became a high point in ASALA’s activities. Militants surrendered to the French authorities after 16 hours, but the attack caused unprecedented public and political support for the Armenian struggle. On April 24, 1982, approximately 5,000 Frenchmen of Armenian origin with ASALA flags openly demonstrated support for the arrested militants. Prisoners' hunger strikes were coordinated with demonstrations, public rallies and other forms of propaganda. According to the ASALA insider, “Armenians all over the world began to show more sympathy for the armed struggle and solidarity with ASALA was expressed by Armenians, who were previously unwilling to recognize what is portrayed as a“ terrorist ”.” The increased sympathy of ASALA during this period was the result of increased support for the diaspora ^[103] .

On January 28, 1982, Consul General of Turkey to Los Angeles Kemal Arikan was killed in his car by Humpig Sassounian. Sassounian was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The verdict had a significant impact on the large Armenian community, the commercially successful and politically influential diaspora in the United States. Despite expressing sympathy and understanding of goals and motivation, the Armenian community did not offer any explicit support for these violent actions. As a result of the trial, it was not only emphasized how such acts of terrorism are tried in this country, but also given negative connotations and associations of such violence for the law-abiding Armenian community in the United States ^[108] . A number of publications of the Armenian diaspora expressed different degrees of solidarity with the activities of ASALA ^[7] . The American Armenian newspaper “An Appeal to all Armenians” wrote:

Since 1975, underground groups have been formed using effective power tools to continue the Armenian cause. Armenians are morally responsible for supporting these actions by all available means ^[109] .

A declassified CIA report on Armenian terrorism states that “the refusal of the Armenian Congress to condemn terrorist violence can be regarded by terrorists as a green light for attacks, meaning that the Armenian public opinion is leaning in the direction of their activities” ^{[110] [111]} . The reaction of Western countries to such loud attacks, like the explosion at Orly airport , undoubtedly had both moral and material influence on the ties of the diaspora and its support for ASALA. That is, the decision of the diaspora on ASALA and terrorism probably depended on Western values ​​and the material interests of the diaspora were undoubtedly threatened by increased suspicion of the West and its hostility towards Armenians. The reaction against Armenian communities also included a degree of ethnic hostility. In the public condemnation of ASALA, the Armenians of France feared that further terrorist acts "could ultimately make the Armenians of these countries victims ...". The terrorist acts were condemned as a shame for Armenians, and their continuation as a harm to Armenian interests. In Australia, in a 1984 government report, the conservative Armenian community was called "terrorists" ^[103] .

Acts of terrorism in Moscow

On January 8, 1977, a series of terrorist acts were carried out in Moscow. According to the official Soviet version and according to a number of modern researchers, Armenian terrorists (Hakob Stepanyan, Zaven Baghdasaryan and Stepan Zatikyan) carried out three explosions: in the train car between the Izmaylovskaya and Pervomayskaya stations, shop No. 15 of the Bauman District, and street October 25th. ^{[112] [113] [114] [115]} As a result of these terrorist acts, 7 people were killed, 37 were injured. The same group of terrorists was preparing to implement a series of explosions on the eve of November 7, 1977 at the Kursk railway station in Moscow . ^[116] Hakob Stepanyan and Zaven Baghdasaryan were arrested on the Moscow-Yerevan train in the fall of 1977. ^[117] Then Stepan Zatikyan was arrested in Armenia. The leadership of Armenia (the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia K.S. Demirchyan and the chairman of the Armenian KGB Yuzbashyan) tried to stop the investigation and arrest of Zatikyan at the beginning of the investigative measures. Demirchyan demanded that he immediately cease, in his opinion, lawlessness and arbitrariness. ^[118]

In his memoirs, the former head of the Fifth Directorate of the KGB of the USSR , who was engaged in the defense of the constitutional order, ^[119] Philip Bobkov wrote that after the trial the Armenian leadership tried to hide the details of the crime from the population of the republic:

During interrogation, the terrorists stated that they were intimidated by Zatikyan, who, while in prison, “moved” on the idea of ​​nationalism and insisted that the Russians should be punished for oppressing the Armenian people ^{[121] [122]} . Speaking at the trial, Zatikyan stated: “I have repeatedly stated that I refuse your trial and do not need any defenders. I myself am the accuser, not the defendant. You are not subject to judge me, because the Russian Empire is not a legal state! It must be firmly remembered ... ” ^{[123] [124] [125]} Zatikyan ended his last word with an appeal in Armenian:“ Tell others that we have revenge, revenge and revenge again! ” ^{[123] [124]} As a result of the closed the trial of all three in 1979 were sentenced to death by the USSR Supreme Court and executed ^{[124] [126]} .

Zatikyan before this crime has already been convicted under a political article. Together with a group of like-minded people, he publicly spoke in favor of the independence of Armenia through a referendum and pasted flyers. At the trial, he was charged with creating a nationalist party. He was also married to the sister of Paruir Hayrikyan , a famous Armenian dissident. Therefore, as soon as he was under investigation, human rights activists became interested in them ^[127] .

Soviet human rights activists, in particular Andrei Sakharov ^[128] , and a number of other members of the Moscow Helsinki Group protested the verdict, arguing that the convicts' guilt was not proven. In his letter to Leonid Brezhnev dated January 30, 1979, Sakharov demanded a suspension of the execution of the sentence and a new trial. According to him: “ There are compelling reasons to fear that a judicial error or deliberate falsification takes place in this case. ... Such a court, in which the principle of publicity is completely violated, cannot establish the truth ... ” Moreover, four days after the explosions, on January 12, Sakharov addressed the “world community”: ““ I cannot get rid of the feeling that the explosion in the Moscow metro and the tragic death of people is a new and most dangerous provocation of repressive organs in recent years “. Sakharov was summoned to the prosecutor's office, where he was offered to sign a statement of defamation of the authorities, to which Sakharov declared:

Upon learning of the execution of the sentence, Sakharov declared: “This is a murder!” And announced a one-day hunger strike as a sign of mourning. Subsequently, Sakharov wrote in his memoirs that he does not have an unambiguous position regarding the guilt or innocence of the Zatikyan group:

Historians Mikhail Geller and Alexander Nekrich have argued that there are a number of facts calling into question Zatikyan’s involvement in the bombings. According to Sakharov, prisoners in Yerevan prisons were pressured to testify that Zatikyan was plotting a terrorist attack ^{[131] [132]} . In the autumn of 1978, the artist Haikanuz Khachatryan was arrested, who had previously given testimony, demanded by the state security, about alleged terrorist attitudes and intentions of Stepan Zatikyan, who was under investigation at that time ^[133] . Nekrich and Geller claimed that the defendants had an alibi ^[134] . Some dissidents, in particular Gleb Pavlovsky , considered the explosion a provocation of the KGB. One of the leaders of the underground Neo-Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Alexander Tarasov, claimed in his memoirs that four months after the explosions he was detained on suspicion of organizing them and was released only after he had proved his "three hundred percent" alibi (he was in hospital during the terrorist attack ). In 1991, he wrote an article in which he expressed doubts about the official version:

Responding to allegations of falsification of the case, former investigator of the KGB of the USSR Arkady Yarovoy, who was involved in the investigation of the terrorist act, in 2004 stated:

Blakhotina's killing

On April 8, 1991, Armenian lieutenant colonel Vladimir Blakhotin was killed by Armenian terrorists. He was killed by mistake, instead of the former NKAO military commander General Safonov, whom Armenian militants sentenced to death (according to the Kommersant newspaper, this happened at one of the most crowded rallies in Yerevan ^[137] ), accusing him of cruelty towards the Armenian population of Karabakh and using the official position in the interests of the Azerbaijani side of the conflict (this characteristic of Safonov is confirmed by Russian human rights activists ^{[138] [139]} ). In the checkpoint of the unit where Safonov and Blakhotin served, the terrorists tried to find out the address and number of Safonov’s car. But there was mistakenly indicated the number of the Blakhotin car, which was the reason for the murder of the latter. ^{[140] [141]}

The terrorists were detained and brought to justice. ^[142] They were residents of the city of Stepanakert, brothers Hakob and Samvel Baghmiany, Yerevan Armen Antonyan and Kamo Yeghiyan and Karlen Hakobyan from Rostov. By the verdict of the Rostov regional court, Hakob Bagmanyan was recognized as the organizer and leader of the murder. His brother Samvel was found guilty of aiding the crime, and Armen Antonyan - the direct perpetrator of the murder. Karlen Hakobyan was found guilty of harboring criminals, and Kamo Egiyan, whose participation in the murder remained unproven, in the illegal carrying of firearms. As a result, Hakob Bagmanyan and Armen Antonyan were sentenced to 15 years in prison, Samvel Bagmanyan to 12 years, Karlen Hakobyan to 4 years, and Kamo Egiyan was released from custody right in the courtroom, as the deadline on charges of illegal possession and carrying a weapon - 2 years 9 months - he served during preliminary detention. ^[137]

Railroad attacks

From 1990 to 1994, several passenger and cargo trains of the Baku direction were blown up on the territory of Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia , there were numerous victims. The Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan considers Armenian terrorists to be involved in these terrorist acts, including: ^[143]

• March 24, 1990 - as a result of an explosion at the 364th kilometer of the Norashen-Baku railway, a diesel locomotive and 3 cars were blown up, more than 150 meters of the railway became useless.
• May 30, 1991 - near the Khasavyurt station in the Dagestan Republic a passenger train Moscow - Baku was blown up. 11 people were killed, 22 were injured.
• July 31, 1991 - a passenger train Moscow - Baku was blown up near the Khasavyurt station in the Dagestan Republic. 16 people were killed, 20 were seriously injured.
• February 28, 1993 - a passenger train Kislovodsk-Baku was blown up in the territory of the Chechen Republic near the Gudermes station, 11 people were killed, 18 people were injured.
• June 2, 1993 - a passenger car was blown up, standing on the siding at the Baku railway station. There were no dead and wounded. The citizen of Russia Khatkovsky Igor Anatolyevich who committed this crime was sentenced to 8 years in prison by decision of the Military Court of the Azerbaijan Republic, but was subsequently pardoned and deported to Russia ^{[144] [145]} .
• February 1, 1994 - a terrorist act was committed at the Baku railway station on the Kislovodsk - Baku train. 3 were killed, 20 people were injured.
• February 9, 1994 - a freight car was blown up, standing on the siding near the Hudat station.
• April 13, 1994 - near the Dagestan Ogni station in the Dagestan Republic a passenger train Moscow - Baku was blown up, 3 people were killed, 3 were wounded ^[143] .

In the fall of 1993, while trying to lay a mine on a Tbilisi-Baku train, a counterintelligence officer, ZakVO Soso Aroyan, was detained. Khatkovsky and Aroyan gave testimony, which were reported in Moscow. Russian special services joined the case. ^{[146] [147]} In May 1994, FGC employees in Moscow detained a group of organizers of terrorist acts. To the surprise of the security officers, all the detainees were officers of the special services. The group was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Jaan Hovhannisyan, head of the reconnaissance and sabotage operations department in the territory of the enemy of the Armenian National Security Administration (GUNB). The second was his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel Ashot Galoyan. The third detainee, Major Boris Simonyan, worked in the counter-terrorism department of the FGC of Russia. All three were charged with terrorism, smuggling and illegal possession of weapons and explosives.

The Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation, which was investigating the case, managed to gather evidence of their involvement in the train’s explosion in Azerbaijan and two attempted bombings, one of which was committed in Russia. On the instructions of the terrorists in Derbent , the train was mined, and only because of the performer’s mistake did the explosive device not work and was neutralized in Mineralnye Vody. The court acknowledged that the crimes they committed do fall under article 213.3 (terrorism), however, it was impossible to condemn precisely this article of saboteurs, since there was no such article in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation at the time of the crime. At that time, Article 68 (sabotage) was in force, but by the time of the trial, it was excluded from the Criminal Code. In addition, the criminals were not imputed to the explosion of the train in Gudermes, since the investigation into the territory of Chechnya , which was actually independent at that time, was impossible, and the explosion in Baku, although proved, did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Russian court, as was the case on the territory of another state. As a result, the head of the terrorists, Oganesyan, was found guilty under art. 86 of the Criminal Code (damage to communications and vehicles) and the 218th (illegal possession of weapons and ammunition), and was sentenced to 6 years. Also on the 218th Simonyan (employee of the FGC of Russia) and Galoyan were convicted. The first was sentenced to 2 years in prison, and Galoyan, who received a little less, was released from custody right in the courtroom due to the fact that he had actually served his sentence. ^{[148] [149]} One of the detainees, Petrosyan, was illegally released from custody in exchange for a promise to cooperate with the investigation, but being at large, hastily left the territory of Russia. ^[150]

In December 2013, the US Central Intelligence Agency , acting under the Freedom of Information Act, declassified its 1984 report on Armenian terrorist groups ( JCAG , ASALA, etc.) ^[155] . This report outlined the presentation of ASALA as a growing threat to a number of US political interests. And although it was noted that most ASALA attacks were carried out against the Turks, several facilities in Western Europe and the United States were also hit. In addition, US intelligence was alarmed by a marked increase in contacts with Libya and Syria in recent years. This report also reflected the policy of double standards of Western European countries, because “some Western European countries reached an agreement with ASALA, giving freedom to terrorists to pursue Turkish goals in exchange for promises not to attack the native citizens of these countries.” In total, according to the American intelligence, as a result of the terrorist activities of ASALA and JCAG, 50 officials and citizens of Turkey were killed since 1975, more than 200 explosions were carried out. ^[156]