Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was a militant organization active between 1975 and the 1990s whose stated goal was "to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its responsibility for the Armenian genocide in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland." ASALA itselfJürgen Gottschlich: Beihilfe zum Völkermord: Deutschlands Rolle bei der Vernichtung der Armenier. Christoph Links-Verlag, 2015. . Digitalisat and other sourcesPolitical dissent: an international guide to dissident, extra-parliamentary, guerrilla, and illegal political movements, by Henry W. Degenhardt, Alan John Day, Gale Research Company, 1983, p. 489Remembering with Vengeance, by Pico Iyer – Time, № 32, 8 August 1983The Caucasus: an introduction, by Frederik Coene, 2009 – 238 pages, p. 221The history of Turkey, by Douglas Arthur Howard – 2001 – 241 pages, p. 161 described it as a guerilla and armedUntold Histories of the Middle East, by Amy Singer, Christoph Neumann, Selcuk Somel – 2010 – 240 pages, p. 27 organization. Some sources, including the United States Department of State,United States Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism Report: 1989 , p 57 as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan listed it as a terrorist organization., , p. 39Michel Wieviorka, David Gordon White. The making of terrorism. University of Chicago Press, 1993. , , p. 256Bruce Hoffman. Inside terrorism. Columbia University Press, 2006. , , p. 71
The principal goal of ASALA was to establish a United Armenia that would include the formerly Armenian-inhabited six vilayets of the Ottoman Empire (Western Armenia) and Soviet Armenia.Terrorist Group Profiles. DIANE Publishing, 1989. p. 32 The group sought to claim the area (called Wilsonian Armenia) that was promised to the Armenians by American President Woodrow Wilson in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, following the Armenian genocide, during which Ottoman Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians,Pitman, Paul M. Turkey: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 283, 354–355 which Turkey openly denies.
ASALA attacks and assassinations resulted in the deaths of 46 people and 299 injured, mostly individuals serving the Turkish government. The organization has also claimed responsibility for more than 50 bomb attacks. Suffering from internal schisms, the group was relatively inactive in the 1990s, although in 1991 it claimed an unsuccessful attack on the Turkish ambassador to Hungary. ASALA's last and most recent attack took place in Brussels in 1997, where a group of militants claiming to be ASALA bombed the Turkish Embassy in the city. The organization has not engaged in militant activity since then.Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) . GlobalSecurity.org The group's mottos were "The armed struggle and right political line are the way to Armenia" and "Viva the revolutionary solidarity of oppressed people!" G. Yazchian, Thirty years ago this day was born ASALA, Azg daily, Yerevan, January 20, 2005
Origins and history
The presence of Armenians in eastern Anatolia, often called Western Armenia, is documented since the ninth century BCE, almost two millennia prior to the Turkish presence in the area. In 1915 and 1916, the ruling Committee of Union and Progress of the Ottoman Empire systematically deported and exterminated its Armenian population, killing around 1.5 million Armenians. The survivors of the death marches found refuge in other countries in Western Asia, as well as in Western Europe and North America; forces of the Turkish nationalist movement killed or expelled surviving Armenians that tried to return home. The Republic of Turkey denied that any crime had been committed against the Armenian people, actively campaigning against any and all attempts to publicise the events and bring about recognition in the West. It blamed Armenians for instigating the violence and falsely claimed that Armenians had massacred thousands of Turks, prompting the commencement of their deportations.
In 1965, Armenians around the world publicly marked the 50th anniversary and began to campaign for world recognition. As peaceful marches and demonstrations failed to move an intransigent Turkey, the younger generation of Armenians, resentful at the denial by Turkey and the failure by their parents' generation to effect change, sought new approaches to bringing about recognition and reparations.Paul Moussault (red.) & Barbara Sahakian, “ASALA de Nemesis voor de Armeense genocide. Stadsguerrilla tegen Turkije (1975–1988)” , Amsterdam, 2015.
In 1973, two Turkish diplomats were assassinated in Los Angeles by Kourken Yanigian, an elderly man who survived the Armenian genocide. This event might have been forgotten had it not initiated a chain of events which turned it, and its perpetrator, into a symbol representing the end of the conspiracy of silence which since 1915 had surrounded the Armenian Genocide. ASALA was founded in 1975 (thought to correspond to the 60th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide) in Beirut, Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War by Hagop Hagopian (Harutiun Tagushian) and Kevork Ajemian, a prominent contemporary writer, with the help of sympathetic Palestinians."Political Interest Groups ", Turkey: A Country Study ed. Helen Chapin Metz. Washington, D.C.: The Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 283, 354–355 Another major figure in the establishment of ASALA was Hagop Darakjian, who was a driving force in the earlier operations of the group. Darakjian headed the group for a period of time between 1976 and 1977 when Hagopian was unable to lead due to injuries sustained from his involvement with the Palestinians. At the beginning, ASALA bore the name of "The Prisoner Kurken Yanikian Group".Near East/South Asia Report, by United States Foreign Broadcast Information Service, United States Joint Publications Research Service, 1987, p. 3 Consisting primarily of Lebanese-born Armenians of the Diaspora (whose parents and/or grandparents were survivors of the genocide), the organization followed a theoretical model based on leftist ideology.Roy, Olivier. Turkey Today: A European Nation? p. 169. ASALA was critical of its political predecessors and Diasporan parties, accusing them of failing to deal with the problems of the Armenian people.Armenians in London: The Management of Social Boundaries, by Vered Amit Talai, Vered Amit, Manchester University Press, 1989, p. 27 The apex of the group's structure was the General Command of the People of Armenia (VAN).The Middle East Annual: Issues & Events, 1984, edited by David H. Partington, p. 155
The group's activities were primarily assassinations of Turkish diplomats and politicians in Western Europe, the United States and Western Asia. Their first acknowledged killing was the assassination of the Turkish diplomat, Daniş Tunalıgil, in Vienna on October 22, 1975. A failed attack in Geneva on October 3, 1980, in which two Armenian militants were injured resulted in a new nickname for the group, the 3 October Organization. ASALA's eight-point manifesto was published in 1981. ASALA, trained in the Beirut camps of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is the best known of the guerrilla groups responsible for assassinations of at least 36 Turkish diplomats. Since 1975, a couple of dozen Turkish diplomats or members of their families had been targeted in a couple of dozens of attacks, with the outcome that the Armenian vengeance, as well as the background to the Armenian struggle, have made it to the world press. These notable acts, while carried out by a small group, were successful in conveying the Armenian Genocide to the forefront of international awareness.
Political objectives The main two political goals of ASALA were to get Turkey to recognize its culpability for the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and to establish a United Armenia, which would unite nearby regions formerly under Armenian control or with large Armenian populations. Additionally, ASALA stated in a Cypriot newspaper in 1983 that it supported the Soviet Union and aimed to garner support from other Soviet republics toward the cause of eliminating Turkish colonialism. These goals helped shape the following political objectives:
Force an end to Turkish colonialism by using revolutionary violence Attack institutions and representatives of Turkey and of countries supporting Turkey Affirm scientific socialism as the main ideology of Armenia
Historian Fatma Müge Göçek describes the stated aims of ASALA as "righteous" but the means sought for these aims, i.e. the "wilful murder [of] innocent people" as not righteous, and thus argues that it was a terrorist organisation.
The U.S. Department of State, under President Ronald Reagan — as well as the militants themselves — attributed ASALA's deeds to Turkey's open denial of the Armenian genocide.
Attacks
According to the MIPT website, there had been 84 incidents involving ASALA leaving 46 dead and 299 injured, including the following:
On October 22, 1975, Turkish Ambassador in Austria, Danis Tunaligil was assassinated by three members of ASALA. Two days later, the Turkish Ambassador in France, Ismail Erez and his chauffeur were killed. Both ASALA and JCAG claimed responsibility.
The first two ASALA militants, arrested on October 3, 1980, were Alex Yenikomshian and Suzy Mahserejian, who were wounded after the accidental explosion of a bomb in a hotel in Geneva.Le Combat armenien: entre terrorisme et utopie : Lausanne, 1923–1983, by Armand Gaspard, L'AGE D'HOMME, 1984, p. 72
During the 1981 Turkish consulate attack in Paris (Van operation) ASALA militants held 56 hostages for fifteen hours; it became the first operation of its kind. Militants demanded release of political prisoners in Turkey including two Armenian clergymen, 5 Turks and 5 Kurds.Guerilla threat to kill 40 in Paris siege, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sep. 25, 1981, p. 3 Coverage of the takeover received one of the highest television ratings in France in 1981.Children of Armenia, by M. Bobelian, Simon & Schuster, 2009, p. 159 Among those who supported the militants during the trial were Henri Verneuil,Le procés des Arméniens, Paris, traduit du français par Grigor Djanikian, editions VMV-Print, Erevan, 2010, p. 200 Mélinée Manouchian, the widow of the French resistance hero, Missak Manouchian, and singer Liz Sarian.
One of the most known attacks of ASALA was Esenboga airport attack on August 7, 1982, in Ankara, when its members targeted non-diplomat civilians for the first time. Two militants opened fire in a crowded passenger waiting room. One of the shooters took more than 20 hostages while the second was apprehended by police. Altogether, nine people died and 82 were injured. The arrested militant Levon Ekmekjian condemned the attack in its aftermath and appealed to other members of ASALA to stop the violence.
On August 10, 1982, Artin Penik a Turk of Armenian descent, set himself on fire in protest of this attack.
On July 15, 1983, ASALA carried out an attack at the Orly Airport near Paris, in which 8 people were killed and 55 were injured, most of them not being Turks.Brian Forst, Jack R. Greene, James P. Lynch. Criminologists on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Cambridge University Press, 2011. , p. 431Council of Europe, Documents, Vol. 1, May 1984, Report by Amadei, p. 9 The attack resulted in a split in ASALA, between those individuals who carried it out, and those who believed the attack to be counterproductive.