19. The Decision to Visit Retributive Karma Upon Monsters
Disgusted at the miscarriage of justice, some members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), a nationalist party, decided to take matters into their own hands, and bring the guilty to account. The ARF passed a resolution called The Special Mission, to visit karma upon and punish the main perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. The result was Operation Nemesis, named after the ancient Greek goddess of divine retribution. Between 1920 – 1922, Armenian avengers stalked those responsible for the genocide throughout Europe and Asia and dealt them lethal doses of karma.
The first target claimed by the avengers of Operation Nemesis was the first prime minister of independent Azerbaijan, Fatali Khan Khoyski. He had played a prominent role in the massacre of tens of thousands of Armenians in Baku in 1918. Azerbaijan’s independence did not last for long, and the Bolsheviks overran and incorporated it into the Soviet Union in 1920. That April, Khoyski fled to Tiflis, Georgia, to escape the Red Army as it overran his country. On June 19th, Armenian revolutionary Aram Yerganian opened fire on Khoyski in Tiflis’ Yerevan Square, and killed him on the spot.