by Ann Williams
The exceptional terror that the population of Cambodia had to endure was brought about by the atrocities of war. Because it was the war that equipped them with weapons and gave them the will to use them, turning them into an enormous army of bullies. It appears that as long as war is regarded as permissible, there will be an ongoing problem with regard to the act of genocide. It teaches people intolerance, bullying, violence, prejudice, hatred, victimization, fantacism and extremism, and on top of all this a hunger for power.
Cambodia has to rely on the strength of its people to overcome the evils of Pol Pot’s regime and now, over three decades later, it seems likely that at least some of the people responsible for the genocide will be brought to trial. Nine years have passed since Cambodia and the United Nations agreed to work together on the trials, and yet international prosecutors only started work at the beginning of July 2006. With the court proceedings themselves still many months away, the question which nows hangs in the balance is whether any of the remaining Khmer Rouge members, who are all elderly and many in ill health, will ever see the inside of a court room.
Apart from one of the leaders, Ta Mok, who recently died while in detention, most of the former members have been living freely in Cambodia, and campaigners are still fighting to make the authorities act before the culprits simply die off one by one, without having to pay for their crimes. Their are now many sceptics among the Cambodian people as to whether the eventual trials will prove to be a meaningful event, because it is so long after the event.
The Opec Hostages
Tell them I’m from Venezuela and my name is Carlos. Tell them I am the famous Carlos, they know me.
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez
In the 1970s, the public became aware of an enigmatic figure who by many was regarded as a freedom fighter. The man’s name was Ilich Ramirez Sánchez, who was born in Venezuela on October 12, 1949. He was the son of a rich attorney, a strong believer in Communism, and was fed with his father’s beliefs throughout his childhood. Heavily influenced by figures such as Che Guevara, the young Sanchez became involved with revolutionary groups in Venezuela. His talents in sabotage methods and other radical techniques were obvious, and before long he attracted the attention of the KGB. In July 1970, Sanchez met the recruiting officer for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who believed that global terrorism was the best way of achieving the group’s objectives. He soon became a shrewd and bold assassin and assumed the name ‘Carlos the Jackal’, and to this day he is really only known by that title.
The Jackal’s career in crime spans over three decades, and he has been accused of several brutal bomb attacks that took place in Paris. He has also been blamed for the shooting of Edward Sieff, the president of Marks and Spencer, and for a grenade attack on the English headquarters of an Israeli bank. Perhaps, more notably, he was thought to be the ‘godfather’ behind the Munich Massacre, where a number of Israeli athletes were murdered at the 1972 Olympic Games.
His name and reputation truly came to the fore when he planned the seizure of 70 hostages at the headquarters of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) in Vienna.
MAKING PLANS
Acting in the name of the PFLP, and with the guidance of Wadie Haddad, who had organized his early terrorist training, Carlos started to implement his plan by selecting a team of men to assist him in his new mission. The attack was aimed at a group of oil ministers at the headquarters of OPEC in Vienna, Austria. His chosen team members were from West Germany, Wilfred Bose and Joachim Klein, who were both unsure of their roles when they learned what the mission was to be. They felt that it was not only a highly ambitious attack, but also that it could be an extremely dangerous attack. Carlos managed to talk them round by saying that it would certainly be very advantageous for the Palestinian cause, and he went on to explain how he planned to carry out the terror attack.
The aim, he explained, was to take over the Conference, which was to take place in December 1975, and hold all the government ministers hostage to extort a large ransom. Carlos also explained that two men who would be present at the Conference, Sheikh Yamani from Arabia and Jamshid Amouzegar from Iran, were not to be taken hostage but were to be executed when they raided the building.
Realizing that the success of the mission depended on more recruitments, Carlos decided on another four members to join them. One was a German woman by the name of Gabrielle Krocher-Tiedemann, who already had a criminal record for shooting a policeman. The remaining three were two Palestinians and a man from Lebanon, who used the codes names Joseph, Yussef and Khalid. Carlos briefed his team and organized the necessary equipment for the operation and he then flew to Aden to receive final instructions from his mentor Haddad.
Meanwhile, the other members of his team rented an apartment just outside Vienna and started to keep a vigilant watch on the activities at the OPEC headquarters. On December 19, Carlos had a secret meeting with one of his contacts, and when he returned to the apartment he was in possession of several rifles, pistols and revolvers and a large amount of explosives. The team spent the evening cleaning and checking the weapons and decided that they were now ready to carry out their mission.
On Sunday morning, December 21, the team, with the exception of Bose, left the apartment and caught the local tram to the OPEC headquarters, armed with two sports bags, which were used to carry all the weapons and explosives.
Carlos was the first man to enter the lobby of the OPEC building and, after asking a group of journalists if the conference was still taking place, he beckoned for his team to follow him upstairs to the first floor. Reaching the top of the stairs, the terrorists removed their weapons, ran to the doors of the conference room and started shouting to the occupants inside. The only security on that floor were two policemen, who were standing guard outside the doors. Carlos had sent Klein off to destroy the reception switchboard so that no one could raise the alarm, however, the receptionist had acted quickly and managed to get a call through to the police station before Klein managed to disable the phones. He did this by shooting the entire contents of his gun into the apparatus.
The remainder of the team had managed to easily overpower the two policemen standing guard outside the conference room, one of whom was shot in the neck, while the other was locked in an empty office. Unbeknown to his assailants, the second policeman had managed to find a phone and contact his headquarters to ask for assistance as the OPEC building was under siege.
Carlos and his men stormed into the conference room firing off a volley of bullets. The occupants of the room cowered and tried to take cover. Initially, they were all forced to sit on the floor, and while the team were questioning the men, a detachment of police who had been summoned by the guard locked in the office arrived at the building. Armed with machine guns, the members of Vienna’s Special Command made their way up the stairs only to be greeted by bullets from both Klein and Joseph, who were on guard outside. Klein told the police to retreat or he would use a hand grenade and the hostages would be killed. With these threats the police withdrew to the ground floor, but not before shooting Klein in the abdomen.
Back inside the conference room, Carlos had started to divide the hostages into three groups which he categorized as:
Liberals and semi-liberals – which consisted of ministers from Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Kuwait
Criminals – from United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar
Neutrals – from Venezuela, Indonesia, Gabon, Ecuador and Nigeria.
The group called the ‘Liberals’ were told to stand up at the windows that faced the street, and next to them were placed the explosives to which had been connected timers. The ‘Neutral’ group were told to stand on the other side of the room, while the final group of ‘Criminals’ was told to stand in a line in front of Carlos.
MAKING NEGOTIATIONS
Carlos spoke clearly to the group of men in Arabic, informing them that he was the leader of a group of Palestinian comman
dos and that he did not intend to harm them as long as everyone cooperated. He then forced a British secretary, Griselda Carey, to write a note to the Austrian authorities, which he dictated. Carlos informed them that he was holding various hostages and that he wanted a report to go out via television every two hours. He requested they send a bus to the OPEC headquarters, with the windows blacked out, so that his team and their hostages could be taken to Vienna airport, where a DC9 with a full crew was to be waiting on the runway. He pointed out that they would have no other option than to shoot the hostages if their demands were not met.
After the secretary had finished writing the ransom note, Carlos told her to take the letter to the rightful authorities and at the same time help the injured policeman out of the building.
After the Austrians had read the note and heard the secretary’s report about the division of the hostages and the large amount of explosives that had been set to detonate, they knew that they had to start serious negotiations with the terrorists.
Klein’s condition had deteriorated considerably, and Carlos told one of the other secretaries to help him out of the building and to call for medical help.
The intense negotiations began, with the Iraqi Charge, Riyadh Al-Azzawi, acting as mediator. Again Carlos told him what he required, and this time he added to the list a radio, a length of rope and five pairs of scissors. He also said that if Klein was well enough, he wanted him released from hospital so that he could make the trip with the rest of the group. However, when Carlos was informed that his companion Klein was on a life-support machine in hospital, he replied that he didn’t care what condition he was in, and that if Klein was going to die he might as well die with his friends while supporting their cause.
At about 6.00 p.m. that evening the Austrian broadcasting company started to televise the events of the siege at two-hourly intervals as they had been instructed. In view of the fact that there were so many hostages and the risk that they might lose their lives, the Austrian chancellor decided to comply with the wishes of Carlos the Jackal.
The following morning, just before 7.00 p.m., a bus arrived with curtains across the windows. The terrorists led the hostages out of a back entrance and into the bus and, accompanied by two police cars, it wound its way through the morning traffic to the airport. Klein, who was being transported in an ambulance with a doctor who had agreed to accompany him, followed the convoy.
Once at the airport Carlos oversaw the loading of the hostages onto the Austrian Airlines DC9 and once again separated them into their three ‘groups’. He placed explosives under the seats of Yamani and Amouzegar and also their deputies.
Their first stop was at El Beida airport in Algiers, where Carlos was warmly greeted by the Algiers Foreign Minister as he stepped off the plane. While Carlos enjoyed refreshments in the VIP lounge, his companion Klein was taken off the plane and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
Despite the fact that Carlos had requested a second plane to continue their journey, the Algerian authorities had denied his request and so after refuelling they took off in the original DC9 and headed off towards Tripoli, Libya. When they landed at Tripoli the welcome was anything but warm, and the authorities refused to help Carlos unless he released his hostages. He was becoming exceptionally tired through lack of sleep and agitated, and the situation on board the plane was becoming volatile. Eventually, after hours of negotiation and Carlos threatening to shoot his hostages, he relented and released all of the Libyan hostages and five other delegates. Carlos tried to negotiate for a larger plane with
the Saudi Arabian government. However, it also denied any help all the time that he held Sheikh Yamani as a hostage. Realizing that his demands were futile, Carlos again arranged for the plane to be refuelled and deciding that Algiers was a far more neutral ground, he ordered the crew to return to El Beida airport. Carlos had now been without sleep for more than 48 hours and was rapidly losing control of the situation. This time the Foreign Minister in Algiers was less than impressed that his country was once again having to handle a delicate situation and did not greet Carlos with such kindness. By now the hostages were all convinced that their lives would shortly come to an end, and their was a distinct atmosphere of restlessness and apprehension on board the plane.
Carlos spent many hours trying to negotiate with the Algerian authorities but made no headway. Eventually, he returned to the plane in a sombre mood and informed the hostages that they were all free to leave. They were no longer in any danger. Carlos left the airport in a convoy of official black cars and once again he had escaped unharmed from a tense political situation.
Estimated at having been responsible for more than 80 deaths, Ilich Ramirez Sánchez was finally arrested in 1997, and in December of that year he was found guilty of murder with aggravating circumstances. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and has been held in the maximum-security wing of Le Santé prison in France.
Assassination Of Aldo Moro
Kidnapping should be considered as one form of terrorism.
President Saleh of the Yemen
The use of kidnapping and the taking of hostages usually attracts a lot of media interest, which in the eye of the terrorist means that he is in a better position for bargaining. Although it is harder to plan the kidnap of someone in a prominent position due to the amount of security surrounding that person, if the kidnap is successful the terrorist group can demand money, release of imprisoned comrades and publicity for their cause for a long period of time. The main aim of the terrorist in a kidnapping is not the hostage himself, but the audience that it attracts.
THE RED BRIGADES
The Red Brigades are a militant Communist group based in Italy, who formed in 1970 and advocated violence in the pursuit of class warfare. It has been recorded that throughout the 1970s the leftist group committed more than 14,000 acts of violence.
In 1978, the Red Brigade’s target was Aldo Moro, a major political figure, and the five-times prime minister of Italy. Moro was a great political mediator and an important leader of the then all-powerful Christian Democrats (Democrazia Christiana). Moro had a very powerful influence on Italian politics even though he held no public office, and he was one of the men who helped in forming Italy’s government of national solidarity.
THE KIDNAP
Aldo Moro was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, on his way to parliament in his blue Fiat 130. He was a man of routine, and his established pattern of going to church at the same time every morning made it easy for his kidnappers to know where he would be at a certain time. Inside the car were also Moro’s bodyguard and chauffer, and they were followed by another car carrying three police bodyguards. As the two cars approached a road junction, a car showing diplomatic licence plates pulled in front of the Fiat and stopped abruptly. Moro’s chauffeur had to jam on his brakes so sharply, the security car behind went into the back of the Fiat. Both the driver and passenger of the car that had stopped in front of them climbed out as if to check for damage. The two men approached Moro’s car from both sides, and as they came in line with the windows they pulled out pistols and shot the driver and the security guard sitting in the front seat. Both men died instantly.
Four men dressed in Air Alitalia uniforms were standing at the junction. As they heard the shooting they crossed over the road to the cars, pulled automatic rifles out of their flight bags, and shot at the security guards in the follow-up car. Two of the guards died straight away, while the third one rolled out of the car onto the street. He bravely managed to fire three shots before being killed by a fatal shot from a sniper positioned on a roof overlooking the street.
Aldo Moro was driven away and taken to a secret location. Then one of the members of the Red Brigades made a telephone call to a newspaper office based in Rome, informing them that they had kidnapped the 61-year-old Christian Democratic leader. His words were:
We kidnapped Aldo Moro. He is only our first victim. We shall hit at the heart of the state.
Followi
ng the shock of the kidnap of such a prominent figure, the Italian security forces made literally hundreds of raids in the cities of Rome, Milan and Turin, but nothing turned up. For the entire two months that Moro was missing, the kidnappers kept him locked in a hidden closet in an apartment. While the entire country was out looking for this man, it appeared he was being held in an apartment in Rome, not far from where he lived.
As soon as the news spread of his kidnap, leaders of the trade unions called a 24-hour general strike, which left many of the shops and offices in Rome closed. Meanwhile the Italian police and army continued to scour the country looking in every possible nook and cranny where Moro could be imprisoned. Still they did not come up with any solid clues.
NEGOTIATIONS
The members of the Red Brigades used Moro as their lever for the freedom of imprisoned terrorists, but the Italian government took a hard rule in the negotiations, stating that they were not prepared to bend at all on the terrorists’ requests. The government claimed that if they gave in to their demands it would not only undermine the state it could also throw Italy into an immediate state of chaos.
During his period of captivity Moro wrote letters to the principal leaders of the Christian Democrats and also to Pope Paul VI apparently pleading with them to negotiate with his captors. He made it clear that their prime intention should be the saving of lives, but still the government refused to budge.
