Page 74 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Army for the Liberation of Rwanda———47

government to acknowledge the genocide, pay on civilians were hurting its cause, labeled itself the
reparations, and support the creation of an Armenian ASALA Revolutionary Movement (ASALA–RM)
state. and vowed to pursue a more openly political path; the
The group was founded in 1975 by Hagop Hago- second faction, led by Hagopian, remained committed
pian, a Lebanese-born Armenian who had become to terrorist tactics and associated itself with the Abu
involved with Palestinian resistance groups in the early Nidal Organization. The split weakened both groups
1970s. Some sources claim that Hagopian was a mem- considerably and the number of their attacks declined
ber of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine drastically. In 1988, Hagopian was killed in Athens,
(PFLP) and that the PFLP helped fund the Armenian Greece. He is believed to have been assassinated
group. Like the PFLP,ASALA was Marxist in ideology. by Turkish agents. ASALA’s steady decline only
ASALA started with six or seven members; at the worsened after his death, and, despite 1991 and 1994
height of its support in the early 1980s it may have attacks claimed by the group, most observers believe
had about 100 active members and sympathizers. the group no longer poses a threat.
ASALA’s first attack was the bombing of the World
Council of Churches office in Beirut, Lebanon, in Further Reading
January 1975; no one was hurt. The group’s next
Foreman, Adrian. “Turks Deny Killing Armenian Activist:
attack, the assassination of Oktay Cirit, the first secre-
Faction Fighting Blamed for Assassination of Agopian.”
tary of the Turkish embassy in Beirut in 1976, estab- The Guardian, April 30, 1988.
lished assassination as a primary tactic. Throughout Gunter, Michael M. Pursuing the Just Cause of Their
the late 1970s and early 1980s, ASALA perpetuated a People: A Study of Contemporary Armenian Terrorism.
series of attacks on Turkish diplomats around the New York: Greenwood, 1986.
world—more than 30 diplomats and members of their Iacovou, Christos. “ASALA: Terrorism as a Political Issue.”
families were assassinated between 1975 and 1984. International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
(Another Armenian terrorist group, the Justice http://www.ict.org.il/, June 20, 1999.
Commandos for the Armenian Genocide/Armenian
Revolutionary Army [JCAG–ARA] also carried out
assassinations.) ARMY FOR THE
The assassination campaign attracted international LIBERATION OF RWANDA
attention to the claimed Armenian genocide, and by
1980 ASALA had begun to receive considerable clan-
destine support from the Armenian community in the The Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR)
United States and Europe. is a guerrilla force that is leading an insurgency
Unlike JCAG–ARA, ASALA also carried out against the government of Rwanda, largely from
dozens of bombings. Between 1980 and 1982, bases in the neighboring Democratic Republic of
ASALA initiated several bombing campaigns in the Congo.
Switzerland and France with the aim of freeing com- The conflict between the ALIR and the government
rades imprisoned in those countries; the bombings of Rwanda is related to deep divisions among the
injured dozens and several terrorists were released ethnic groups of Rwandan society, for centuries before
from prison in response. the colonial period—and for many years after—
ASALA more often targeted Turkish institutions. between the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu. In
Its most devastating attacks were made at the Ankara, the early 1990s, a Tutsi-led rebel army began attacking
Turkey, airport on August 7, 1982, and at the Turkish Rwanda from neighboring Uganda; by early 1994 the
Airlines counter at France’s Orly airport on July 15, rebel forces had taken large parts of the countryside
1983. Eighteen people were killed and more than 120 and were approaching the capital. The Hutu-controlled
injured in these two attacks. government then initiated a massive genocide against
When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, Rwandan Tutsi and any Hutus believed to be collabo-
ASALA was forced to flee its Beirut headquarters. rating with them. An estimated 500,000 people were
This shakeup exacerbated tensions within the group, killed. By late summer, the Tutsi rebels had conquered
and, following the Orly attack, the ASALA split in the government forces and stopped the genocide. Tens
two. One faction, which felt that the group’s attacks of thousands of Hutus fled into the neighboring