Terrorism is a phenomenon that usually emanates from the failure of its perpetrators to develop sufficient political or military strength to present their case in a more conventional manner. The inability of the victims to stem it, on the other hand, often flows from the cliché that "one person‟s terrorist is another‟s freedom fighter." For example, during the 1984 trial in Paris of the four ASALA operatives who seized the Turkish consulate and killed its Turkish guard in 1981, the president of the French court ruled that referring to the defendants as "terrorists" would not be allowed, since anyone participating in a struggle can be called a terrorist by someone who opposes that struggle.[3] Clearly, one of the background causes of Armenian terrorism during the 1970s and 1980s was that too many states and individuals were too lenient on the matter, condemning it in one breath but apologizing for it in the next by saying "but we have to understand the motives."

Although Operation Nemesis, the Armenian terrorist organization that assassinated Ottoman officials immediately after the First World War, disappeared in the early 1920s, "there have existed for many decades those organizations internationally . . . that are pursuing quite seriously the Armenian struggle for liberation in every peaceful method available."[4] Eventually some Armenians became frustrated with what they saw as the unsuccessful peaceful approach and turned to violence.

The deletion of paragraph 30 from a report of the United Nations in 1973-74 is one example of the failure of the peaceful method. This paragraph specifically mentioned the Armenian massacres in 1915 "as the first case of genocide in the 20th century," and was included in a progress report to a study entitled, "Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide." When Turkey objected during the UN Commission on Human Rights, however, paragraph 30 was deleted, and the Armenians frustrated.[5] Gerard J. Libaridian, a prominent Armenian scholar, concluded that "the unwillingness of the Turkish state and major world powers to recognize Armenian aspirations after 60 years of peaceful efforts has resulted in a decade of terrorism."[6] Similarly, the leader of the ASALA group explained the wave of Armenian terrorism that occurred in the 1970s, in part, as the result of "the general discovery as to the failure of the policy of the traditional Armenian parties."[7]

In 1965, anti-Turkish demonstrations were organized in Beirut, Lebanon, by Lebanese Armenians to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1915 Armenian deportations and massacres by the Ottoman Empire. At this time, the Lebanese Armenians proclaimed 24 April as "Commemoration Day."[8] On the same day in 1965, thousands of Armenians illegally demonstrated in Yerevan, the capital of what was then Soviet Armenia. The protest became disorderly when rocks were thrown, and calm was finally restored only with difficulty. Since that date, Armenians around the world have commemorated 24 April as Genocide Day.[9]

Another event seminal to the genesis of organized Armenian terrorism occurred on 27 January 1973. In an individual act of revenge, a 78-year-old Californian of Armenian descent, Gourgen Yanikian, lured Mehmet Baydar and Behadir Demir, respectively the Turkish consul general and vice consul in Los Angeles, to a hotel room on the pretext of presenting them with two rare paintings. When the two Turkish diplomats arrived, Yanikian, who had lost members of his family in Turkey during the First World War, launched into a tirade and then shot both Turks to death. Many feel that this double murder served as a catalyst for the ensuing decade of Armenian terrorism by ASALA and JCAG. Indeed, after Yanikian died in 1984, a respected Armenian newspaper in the United States declared that he had "opened [a] new era of political struggle" and "changed the course of Armenian history."[10]

Armenian terrorists themselves declared that their campaign began in 1975. In an interview with the Arab-language periodical Al-Majallah in August 1982, an ASALA representative stated that his organization‟s first operation had been in 1975 against an office in Beirut "run by the World Council of Churches, for promoting the emigration of Armenians to the United States."[11] A miniscule breakaway ASALA group headed by American-born Monte Melkonian agreed that "the January 20, 1975 bombing of the Beirut office of the World Council of Churches . . . became known as the act which defined the birth of ASALA."[12] After one of its agents murdered Kemal Arikan, the new Turkish consul general in Los Angeles on 28 January 1982, the other Armenian terrorist organization, JCAG, claimed the deed in a recorded message over the telephone to the Washington Bureau of the Associated Press, adding that "our revolutionary struggle began in 1975,"[13] apparently referring to its assassination of Danis Tunaligil, the Turkish ambassador in Vienna, Austria, on 22 October 1975.

The Lebanese civil war of the mid-1970s acted as another catalyst for organized Armenian terrorism. As a result of the upheavals of the First World War, Lebanon had come to serve as the host for the largest group of displaced Armenians in the Middle East. In time, they numbered some 200,000 or approximately 6 percent of that country‟s population.[14] Many lived in Bourj Hammoud, the teeming Armenian quarter of east Beirut, while the Cilician See of the Armenian apostolic church was headquartered nearby in Antelias. During the 1970s, some Lebanese-Armenians gradually fell into the internecine power struggles that were to turn Lebanon into a byword for violence. The nationalist Dashnaks formed close alliances with the right-wing Christian Phalangists of Pierre Gemayel and the National Liberals of Camille Chamoun. Leftist Armenians drew close to Kemal Jumblatt‟s Progressive Socialist (Druze) Party and various factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had become a state within a state in Lebanon by the early 1970s.

Given the support of their Palestinian allies, radical Armenian leftists had created ASALA by 1975. In reaction to these developments, the right-wing Dashnaks set up their own terrorist organization, JCAG, to keep their young party members from abandoning the rank and file to join ASALA.[15] The dissident ASALA group headed by Monte Melkonian agreed that "the most important and active center of such political experimentation during this period [1965-75] was Lebanon,"[16] and the editor‟s preface to Melkonian‟s posthumously published writings concurred that "during this time several Palestinian resistance organizations provided their Armenian comrade with extensive military training."[17]

Jose Antonio Gurriaran, a Spanish journalist who had come to know the Armenian terrorists after being maimed by one of their bombs, wrote that the "Black September chief Abu Iyad"[18] had helped ASALA leader Hagop Hagopian form ASALA in 1975. A dissident ASALA source stated that soon after joining the Palestinians, Hagopian "found himself within the ranks of Wadi Haddad‟s splinter PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine],"[19] which was George Habbash‟s faction in the PLO. "It was during his activity with Wadi Haddad that he [Hagopian] gained most of his experience, developed many personal friendships with Palestinian leaders, and began to mimic the organizational and military tactics of Wadi Haddad," which, according to the same dissident ASALA source cited above, "intentionally caused innocent victims harm, and thus served to discredit the Palestinian Resistance in general as „terrorist.‟"

The Lebanese catalyst for Armenian terrorism was further illustrated by the fact that so many of the known terrorists hailed from that country. As Hrand Simonian, a leader of the Armenian community in Los Angeles, explained, "Many of the terrorists are newcomers from Lebanon who learned how to do violent things" in the many years of civil violence there.[20] Similarly, Martin Halabian, the director of information of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, stated: "Armenians recently arrived from Lebanon and other Mideast countries . . . are more used to militancy as a way of life."[21]

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was born in January 1975 as a distinct alternative to the traditional Armenian political parties, especially the Dashnaks. As ASALA later explained in its journal Armenia, "International imperialism had almost completely spread its dominance on our people in the Diaspora through the rightist Dashnag Party which is a tool in the hands of imperialism and Zionism."[45] Thus, although "the main target of the New National Liberation Struggle launched in 1975 by ASALA is the liberation of the Turkish-occupied Armenian lands . . . another main aim of the . . . Struggle is the political and national awakening of the Armenian people which was led to a dangerous „deep sleep‟ by the treacherous policy of the Dashnag Party."[46] Sarcastically, ASALA declared that "even the name given to their armed group „Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide‟ reveals the deliberate indifference of the Dashnag leadership vis-à-vis the Armenian Territorial Question."[47]

Thus, although the world ironically saw ASALA as a Marxist, anti-Western terrorist organization seeking to join eastern Turkey to Soviet Armenia (goals and characteristics which indeed were true), ASALA first and foremost was created, in its own words, to "become today the representing power of the Armenian people."[48] Again, the organization proclaimed: "We came from different Armenian currents and circles, and united in ASALA, putting aside all inter-communal conflicts to serve the principal aim . . . to liberate Western Armenia [Turkey] and join it to today‟s liberated Soviet Armenia, forming an integral, revolutionary Armenia."[49]

In its attempt to appropriate the leadership of the Armenian diaspora, ASALA tried to co-opt historical Armenian heroes and deeds. Gourgen Yanikian, whose murder of two Turkish consuls in California in 1973 anticipated the terrorism that began in 1975, was adopted as "the spiritual leader" of the organization and operations were named for him and other historical Armenian heroes and places, such as Andranik (Ozanian) – an Armenian military hero in the early twentieth century – Shahan Natali, Erzurum, and Van, among others. Andranik‟s portrait sometimes appeared with a fictional one representing ASALA‟s founder and leader, Hagop Hagopian, alongside the masthead of Armenia. Even Vatche Daghlian, the leader of the Dashnak‟s "Lisbon Five," was usurped by ASALA to be portrayed as their "martyr" who had been killed "during a mission in Lisbon, following a Dashnag-international conspiracy."[50] Further tapping Armenian historic roots, "the words of our great [Soviet Armenian] poet Yeghishe Tcharentz „O Armenian people/Your sole salvation is/in your collective force‟"[51] were cited as a call for unity under ASALA.

It is noteworthy that ASALA‟s birth, as mentioned above, was announced by a bombing attack against the Beirut office of the World Council of Churches on 20 January 1975. Hagop Hagopian later wrote that "I chose it because the above mentioned organization was conspiring with the United States, with the Tashnag‟s co-operation, to send the Armenian youth away from the Middle East and socialist countries."[52] ASALA was going to challenge the existing Dashnak-led Armenian elites who were allowing the emigration and thus assimilation to occur.

By 1980, Hagopian boasted: "In five years we managed to win for ourselves the support of the Armenian masses and the democratic and revolutionary forces throughout the world."[53] He even claimed that "some of the leaders of Tashnag and Henshang [another Armenian party] have secretly joined ELA [ASALA]."

On 24 September 1981, four ASALA agents seized the Turkish consulate in Paris. They killed its Turkish guard, wounded the consul, and held 56 people hostage for 16 hours. According to Monte Melkonian, at that time a member of ASALA, this so-called "Van Operation" by the "Yeghia Keshishian Suicidal Commando" marked "ASALA‟s historic peak. It became the greatest single military/propaganda success ever achieved in the history of the diaspora. . . . Summed up, this was a tremendous achievement which created a previously unequalled atmosphere of patriotic enthusiasm and which made ASALA the hope in the eyes of a vast number of Armenians for the realization of our national aspirations."[54]

After his release from a French prison in the summer of 1986, Kevork Guzelian, one of the four participants in the Van Operation, discussed it at length.[55] "The essential aim . . . was to gain on political ground and to turn the attention of international public opinion on Turkey." In addition, ASALA wanted to "shake the Armenian community in France, which until 1981 was in a slumber." Indeed, while they were occupying the consulate, said Guzelian, "we immediately made an appeal to the Armenians through a phone call . . . to organize a demonstration around the Consulate and back us up." Since "about 3,000 Turks had surrounded the Consulate in a demonstration . . . clashes took place between the Turks and the Armenians in the streets."

Guzelian claimed that "after our operation we noticed an awakening of national awareness in the Armenians in France." French Armenians who did not speak Armenian started to learn the language. Before 1981, the 24 April Genocide Day demonstrations in France had brought out no more than 150, but after the Van Operation the figure rose to 10,000. "This was not due to the activities of the other [Armenian] organizations . . . found in France but came as a result of ASALA‟s national and revolutionary sacrifices."

At the end of 1981, ASALA published an eight-point political program that was described as "the political line that the Popular Movement of ASALA will support."[56] The program was apparently the result of long discussions with the leaders of various "popular movements" with a view to eventually forming a united organization covering a broad spectrum from left to right.

In the program, ASALA identified its enemies as "Turkish imperialism" supported by "local reaction" and "international imperialism." "Revolutionary violence" was said to be "the principal means" to achieve the liberation of Armenian territories. ASALA would support those who "reject the authority of the oppressing classes" and would endeavor to "strengthen and expand" coalitions within the "international revolutionary movement." The final goal was a united Armenia with a "democratic, socialistic and revolutionary government." The Soviet Union and other socialist governments were to be called upon for help and Soviet Armenia itself turned into a base for "the long people‟s war."

ASALA‟s hope of becoming the leader of a broad, united front of all Armenian groups, however, foundered in general upon the increasingly obvious failure of terrorism to unite the Armenian community but more immediately upon the frequent Armenian tendency toward divisive factionalism. The latter problem involved Hagopian‟s willingness, even apparent eagerness, to employ indiscriminate terrorism against non-involved third-party civilians and non-Turkish targets. "In the name of the Armenian revolution," declared Monte Melkonian, "inhuman operations (i.e. atrocities) were being committed due to which dozens of innocent people were dying and hundreds of others had been wounded."[57]

The deadly attacks on the Ankara and Paris Orly airports in 1982 and 1983, respectively, and the Istanbul Covered Bazaar in 1983 were three egregious examples. As Melkonian explained in an interview: "Orly claimed innocent lives. It debases our struggle."[58] The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, and the resulting expulsion of ASALA from its base in west Beirut to the relative isolation of the Bekaa Valley, where the organization fell under increasing Syrian control, also helped lead to the subsequent splintering of ASALA.

ASALA violently split into two factions following the assassination of Khachig Havarian and Vicken Ayvazian, two of Hagopian‟s closest allies, on 15-16 July 1983. Hagopian blamed Melkonian for the deed, which Melkonian denied, and reciprocated by killing two of Melkonian‟s closest friends, Garlen Ananian and Aram Vartanian. Amid bitter mutual recriminations, which are too byzantine to go into here, as well as deadly infighting against the Dashnaks analyzed above, ASALA quickly shrank into insignificance. Hagopian‟s ASALA lost its allies and contacts outside Lebanon and, as mentioned above, fell increasingly under Syrian control.

Melkonian‟s hopes for a more humane ASALA under his leadership in the West were dashed by his sudden arrest and imprisonment for three years in France in November 1985. A series of deadly bombings in Paris in September 1986 were at first blamed by many on ASALA as an attempt to win the release of Varoujan Garabedian, the perpetrator of the deadly Orly bombing in 1983. However, the eventual arrest of the actual perpetrators in March 1987 proved this to be untrue. ASALA had been reduced merely to issuing proclamations and threats.

Then, on 28 April 1988, Hagop Hagopian himself was assassinated in Athens, Greece.[59] It was said that he ironically had been expelled from the now Syrian-controlled ASALA at the end of 1987.[60] A subsequent report claimed that the Syrians had been behind these events because Hagopian had refused to follow their orders, which, among other things, involved driving booby-trapped trucks into Christian east Beirut for later explosion.[61] The Syrians were also displeased with Hagopian‟s close relations with such Palestinians as Abu Cherif, Abu Iyad, and Fouad Bitar, who operated independently of Syrian influence. A partial rapprochment between Syria and Turkey at that time also played a role in Syria‟s actions.

Monte Melkonian was released from the French prison early in 1989 and eventually found his way to the newly independent Armenia. There he became a noted military leader in the war against Azerbaijan over Karabagh, which he saw "as crucial for the long-term security of the entire Armenian nation."[62] He was killed in a minor skirmish on 12 July 1993, and given a funeral with full military honors in Yerevan.

Financial matters, of course, constitute an important issue in studying terrorist organizations. On this point, Hagopian declared: "Our strength is the Armenian people; that is where we get our support from. And from robberies."[63] Melkonian concurred when he wrote that after the Van Operation on 24 September 1981, Hagopian "went to France to collect money. . . . Due to the atmosphere, collecting money was not difficult and considerable sums were acquired."[64] After Hagopian moved to Damascus to escape the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982, Melkonian added that "the collection of money . . . [there] within the Armenian community" also occurred.

The amply publicized fact that the Dashnaks in the United States were able to raise over $250,000 in small donations for Sassounian‟s legal defense,[65] as well as some $160,000 in Canada for the defense of the so-called „LA-5,‟[66] indicates that these claims of broad-based Armenian financial support are not empty. For the legal defense of the accused murderers of the Turkish ambassador to Yugoslavia, "fundraising committees have visited Armenian homes" in Europe and "everyone has been very generous with their donations"[67] claimed another Dashnak report.

Other reports, however, indicate that the terrorists also extorted funds from nonviolent, fellow Armenians.[68] Further such evidence regarding ASALA emerged during the trial of three young ASALA members, charged with conspiring to bomb the freight terminal of Air Canada in Los Angeles in May 1982 to gain freedom for four Armenians held in Canada and with conspiracy to extort money from wealthy Canadian-Armenians in Toronto.[69] Vicken Tcharkhutian – who was apparently involved with the three Armenians on trial but who managed to escape to France where the government refused to extradite him back to the United States – was also charged on a separate count of attempting to extort $150,000 from the Haserjian brothers, the owners of a chain of carpet stores throughout the Los Angeles area.

In addition, according to Monte Melkonian, ASALA was apparently able to acquire money from "Abu Nidal and certain governments" by performing "operations as gestures of revolutionary solidarity."[70] This explains the bizarre ASALA attempt to bomb the Kuwait Airlines office in Athens from a motorcycle on 8 December 1982. The plot failed, causing the death of one ASALA agent, Karnik Vahradian, and the imprisonment of the other, Vahe Khutaverdian. Nevertheless, Hagopian "used Karnik‟s death to extract even more financial aid and other „favors‟ out of Abu Nidal and/or some governments." The Athens operation was "portrayed . . . as proof of the willingness of Armenian revolutionaries to struggle to the death in cooperation with Arab revolutionaries against imperialism." ASALA, concluded Melkonian, "had become a mercenary for [other] governments and organizations." Further reports indicate that ASALA was probably also running a "drug ring"[71] and that "the huge revenue generated from this trafficking was being directed for use by the underground radical group." Three Armenians were convicted for this operation in Sweden and incarcerated.

Testifying before the US Senate‟s Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Nathan M. Adams, a senior editor of Reader’s Digest, who stated he had been investigating "the connection between drug trafficking and international terrorism . . . over the past several years," declared: "Armenian terrorist groups of both the left and the right were estimated a year ago to be 90 percent financed through the sale or barter of narcotics."[72] Adams then elaborated on "the case of Noubar Soufoyon, a notorious Armenian drug trafficker now believed sheltering in Lebanon."

In June 1981, Soufoyon "was indicted in New York for importing heroin" and Interpol was alerted. The Greek authorities who arrested him, however, rejected US application for extradition and chose instead to send him to Lebanon, where he was promptly released. Soufoyon, testified Adams, was "capable of dealing as much as 100 kilos of heroin at a single time [and] . . . has helped finance both Armenian terrorist factions with the profits from drug sales." Adams added that Soufoyon "was convicted in Switzerland of the financing of a series of bomb attacks against Turkish financial and cultural establishments in Zurich the year before." The Swiss authorities, however, merely banned him from their country for five years.

Similarly, Francis M. Mullen, Jr., the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration of the US Department of Justice, added: "Documented heroin and hashish trafficker Noubar Soufoyon was connected with the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide. . . . He remains a fugitive from U.S. justice and his current whereabouts are unknown."[73]