ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

under which they operate, the terrorists have in fact
declared war on human society.
In studying the development o f Armenian terrorism, one
is struck by the attitude adopted by some Armenian communities
toward the terrorist scene. This is especially true
in the United States and France, where the Armenians
constitute an important, financially powerful, highly intellectual
element o f public life. Armenian clubs and
associations in these countries are in some cases remarkably
conciliatory, if not openly supportive, towards terrorism.
It has even been known to happen on more than
one occasion that a moment o f silence has been observed
in a public worship service for terrorists who had been
killed or arrested.
Similar expressions o f sympathy and remembrance can
be observed in the secular world. The frame o f mind at
work here cannot be entirely attributed to the fact that
many Armenians are the victims o f terrorist blackmail at
the hands o f their own terror organizations. Much more
important is the exaggerated, largely false understanding
of history, which is mainly propagated by certain newspapers
and periodicals o f the Armenian diaspora. The fact
that one can often find gems like "ONE million dead in
1915" and then perhaps in the same publication "two or
two and a half million victims" does not seem to bother
the editors very much.
Some Armenian intellectuals also show a remarkable
intolerance towards scholars whose view o f history differs
from their own. Professor Justin McCarthy is the
author o f the tremendously important, scientifically
irrefutable work Muslims and Minorities, in which the
true population figures for Anatolia appear for the first
time. He can only hold his lectures with massive police
protection. The version o f historical events presented in
Stanford J. Shaw's History of the Ottoman Empire and
Modern Turkey did not match the picture presented by certain
Armenians. His house was bombed in an attempt to
intimidate him and keep him from publishing further.
This intimidation has reached the point where it is doubtful
whether an Armenian publisher could be found today
for a book like Louise Nalbandian's "The Armenian
Revolutionary Movement". The book is thoroughly pro-
Armenian, but it is also somewhat objective and contains
a few critical words.
The Armenian Terrorist Organizations
The Armenian terrorists use the names o f several different
front organizations in carrying out their attacks. In
spite o f the seemingly bewildering multitude o f acronyms
and pretentious titles, however, everything can in fact be
traced back to ju st two organizations. The oldest
Armenian terrorist organization grew out o f the Dashnak
Party, which had been under the spell o f the Russian anarchists
and ultras from the beginning and reached maturity
in Russian Armenia. The party was a response o f the
extremists to their own unsuccessful efforts to give the
Armenian minority within the Ottoman Empire a state o f
its own. These efforts were actually doomed to failure
from the beginning, given the small percentage o f
Annenians in the eastern Anatolian population.
These first Armenian terrorists bear an uncanny resemblance
to the Shiite suicide squads. (Extensive accounts
can be found elsewhere in this book o f Armenian terrorism
in the Ottoman Empire o f the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.) Their main heirs from an historical viewpoint,
however, are the JC A G (Justice Commandos o f the
Armenian Genocide).
The terrorist actions o f the JC A G are regarded - as funny
as this may sound - as being carried out by "conservatives".
Their specialty appears to be the assassination o f
Turkish diplomats and their families. A SA LA (Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation o f Armenia) is, by contrast,
generally considered to be a Marxist terrorist organization,
closely controlled by the Soviet Union. They see
the existence o f an "Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic"
as the ideal and work for the "unification" o f eastern
Anatolia with the A SSR . It is only with some reservations
that the Soviets can condone this objective, since they
worry that a larger Armenia could easily become rebellious.
They support the activities o f the A SA LA anyway,
however, since they are directed against Turkey (which is
also an important partner in the NATO alliance).
For many years, the A SA LA also enjoyed the hospitality
and support o f the Shiite terrorist groups in Lebanon.
There appears to be a special affinity between the Armenian
terrorists and the Shiites. This can be seen in the
willingness (or longing) to die and in the radical nature o f
the attacks, where there is never any indication whatsoever
that the fate o f innocent bystanders has been given
any consideration.
In spite o f this manifest spiritual closeness to the Shiite
conception o f the value o f life (or lack thereof), the
A SA LA has proclaimed in their mouthpiece ARMENIA:
"Our forces never strike against S. S. R. o f Armenia,
w hich is already liberated."
This corresponds entirely to the interests o f the Soviet
Russians. Just like their Czarist predecessors, they want
access to the "warm waters", and that means using all
available means to gain control over eastern Anatolia (as a
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