STORIES
Terror at the Games
‘Black September’ terrorists hit the Munich Olympics
By David Cocksedge
THEY were billed as the ‘Games of peace and Joy’; the 20th modern summer Olympic Games in the Bavarian city of Munich, West Germany. At the opening ceremony on 26 August 1972, most of the 10,490 athletes either marched into the magnificent new stadium with their teams, or milled around amid the 70,000 seated spectators watching the spectacular pageant. As whip-cracking Bavarian folk dancers skipped onto the red track, some 5,000 doves were released into the blue skies. It was all planned to be a far cry from the last Olympics on German soil in 1936, when Adolf Hitler used the sporting event in Berlin as a massive propaganda exercise for his militaristic regime.
To discourage any memories of Germany’s Nazi past, the 2,000 Olympic security guards were dressed in light-blue uniforms and sent out to charm the world, armed with nothing more lethal than walkie-talkie radios. A party atmosphere prevailed across the vast Olympic site, dominated by a 292-metres high television tower and a futuristic tented cover to the main stadium.
And there was no greater confirmation of Germany’s rehabilitation than the presence of an Israeli team, proudly led into the stadium by marksman Henry Herskowitz, who carried a large flag bearing the Star of David.
The Games began well: the American swimmer Mark Spitz won seven gold medals; the Soviet sprinter Valeriy Borzov became the first European man to win a track sprint (100 and 200 metres) double; and the elfin gymnast Olga Korbut (aged 14) captured the hearts of all spectators. When Olga finished her floor exercises with a toss of her hair and a pout, the watching world errupted.
But the friendly atmosphere abruptly changed nine days later. Shortly after 4 am on the morning of 5 September eight shadowy figures in tracksuits toting large sports bags arrived on the outskirts of the Olympic village and scaled a 2-metres high perimeter fence near Gate 25A. Security was so lax that a drunken group of celebrating Americans athletes returning to their beds chatted with the gang as they helped them climb the fence. The leader of the group, 35-year-old Luttif Afif, (code name ‘Issa’) then led his men through the sleeping village to a drab three-storey block on Connolly Strasse until they came to number 31 – the building that housed the Israeli delegation. These determined young men were intent on making a violent political stand to bring the plight of the Palestinian people to the world. In their sports bags were masks, AK-47 assault rifles, Tokarev automatic pistols and grenades, and they had been well briefed on their mission.
The men were ‘fadayeen’ (‘fighters for faith’) from Black September, an extremist faction within the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, and they planned to take as many Israeli hostages as they could to gain maximum publicity for their cause. But to the Israelis and much of the world, they were simply violent terrorists.
Issa used stolen keys to enter two apartments being used by the sleeping Israeli team, most of whom had been at a performance of ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ the previous evening. Before they went in, the gunmen donned menacing black ski masks that left only their eyes and noses exposed.
Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling referee, was awakened by scratching at the door of Apartment 1, which housed the Israeli coaches and officials. When he investigated, he saw the door begin to open and masked armed men about to enter. He shouted a warning to his sleeping roomates and threw his 135 kg weight against the door in a brave but futile attempt to stop the intruders from forcing their way in. His swift response gave his colleague, weightlifting Coach Tuvia Sokolovsky, enough time to smash open a window and escape.
Wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg also bravely fought back until he was shot in the face and forced to lead the terrorists to Apartment 3, where six more Israelis were taken hostage. As the athletes were being marched back to the coaches’ apartment, the wounded Weinberg again attacked the kidnappers, allowing one of his wrestlers (Gad Tsobari) to escape via the underground garage. The burly Weinberg punched one of the terrorists to the ground and slashed another with a fruit knife before being shot dead with six 7.62mm rounds that opened up his chest. Weightlifter Yossef Romano, a veteran of the Six-Day war in 1967, also attacked one of the intruders and was also blasted to death at close range.
The two female members of Israel’s Olympic team, (sprint hurdler Esther Shakhamarov-Roth and swimmer Shlomit Nir) were housed in a separate part of the Olympic village inaccessible to the terrorists. Other Israeli athletes, such as the popular 50km walker Professor Shaul Ladany, managed to escape by jumping off a balcony on Apartment 2 and running through the rear garden of the building.
But the terrorists held nine living hostages: Wrestling referee Yossef Gutfreund, weightlifters David Berger and Zev Friedman, wrestlers Eliezer Halfin and Mark Slavin, track coach Amitzur Shapira, shooting coach Kehat Shorr, fencing coach Andre Spitzer and weightlifting judge Yakov Springer. The alarm was quickly raised, and so began the siege of Munich.
The hooded terrorists who had violated the sacred Olympic truce were later identified as Afif (the leader), plus Yusuf Nazzal (Tony), Ahmed Hamid (Paolo), Khalid Jawad (Salah), Ahmed Chic Thaa (Abu Halla), Mohammed Safady (Badran), Adnan Al-Gashey (Denawi) and his cousin Jamal Al-Gashey (Samir). Three of them had worked in various jobs at the Olympic Village, and had spent weeks scouting out their target area, and observing routines.
Issa demanded the release and safe passage to Egypt of 234 Palestinians and non-Arabs jailed in Israel, along with two German ‘Red Army Faction’ members Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. He announced a deadline of 9 am for the Palestinian demands to be met, or he would order the execution the hostages, one for each hour of delay. Weinberg’s bullet-riddled corpse was tossed outside the front of the building to show the resolve of his team.
But the terrorists’ deadline was hopelessly unrealistic. The Palestinian attack on the Games was such a shock to the German administration in Bonn that it took several hours for the full machinery of government to swing into action. Meantime, the response from the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1898-1978) and her government was swift. There would be no negotiation with terrorists, whatever the circumstances. To give in to such pressure was simply not an option for the Jewish state; it would only lay the beleaguered country open to future acts of terrorism.
The German government in turn, headed by Chancellor Willy Brandt and Interior Minister Hans-Dietrich Genschsler, flatly rejected the offer of an Israeli Special Forces unit to assist. Munich Police Chief Manfred Schreiber and the Bavarian interior minister Bruno Merk controlled the subsequent hostage crisis without specialised help.
When Merk and Genschsler offered money to the Black September members to cease their mission, Issa was deeply angered. “Money means nothing to us”, he said, “and our lives mean nothing to us! Only our cause matters!” He was referring to millions of disenfranchised Palestinians languishing in refugee camps and largely forgotten by the world since fanatical Zionists took over their land by force in 1948.
As negotiations developed, the Germans were able to convince the kidnappers that their demands were being considered, and Issa granted no less than five extensions to the deadline, as food was provided for both terrorists and their bound hostages. Elsewhere at the Games, athletes carried on as normal, seemingly oblivious of the tense situation unfolding close by. The sporting events actually continued until mounting pressure on the International Olympic Committee and its President, Avery Brundage, forced a suspension of the Games some twelve hours after the first Israeli athlete had been murdered.
Events quickly became farcical. As international camera crews broadcast the siege on live worldwide television, a squad of German border-police toting submachine guns took up positions above 31 Connolly Strasse. Suddenly aware that the terrorists were watching every move on TV from within the apartment, the hastily-assembled rescue team was withdrawn, especially when Issa threatened to kill two of the hostages if they did not get off the roof immediately.
As the hours ticked by, live television coverage continued, and to the dismay of the organisers, the most memorable media image of Munich 1972 was nothing to do with sport: it was a masked terrorist looking over a balcony.
Eventually, the Fadayeen were lied to and told that they would be flown with their hostages to Egypt, and to this proposal Issa agreed. At 10.10pm, they were taken by bus and then flown by two helicopters to a military airfield (Furstenfeldbruck) 20 kilometres from the city centre. At 10.42pm, as two of the terrorists were running back across the tarmac after checking out a waiting Lufthansa Boeing 727, five German police sharpshooters posted at locations around the scene opened fire, knowing that the terrorists had found no aircrew aboard the plane, and were now aware of the trap that had been set.
The horribly botched ‘rescue’ attempt went tragically wrong. Unbelievably, the five German snipers at the airport had not been issued with communicating radios, and the German police did not realise that there were actually eight terrorists (not five as they had been led to believe) to deal with until they cautiously emerged from 31 Connolly Strasse with their hostages to board the waiting bus to take them to the helicopters. But this essential information could not be communicated to the waiting snipers at the military airport. The inevitable two-hour gun battle at Furstenfeldbruck was a tragic shambles.
Police chief Georg Wolf ordered his snipers on the airport control tower to open fire, and two of the terrorists guarding the helicopter pilots went down; one dead, the other fatally wounded. The others immediately took cover under the choppers and returned fire, aiming at the muzzle flashes coming from the airport buildings. Issa and Nazzal (Tony), sprinting back from the 727, were also fired on, and Issa fell, wounded in one leg. He crawled to safety under one of the helicopters.
The terrorists then raked the airfield with awesome firepower, pumping bullets at the main building, at the lights, at the 727 and at the fleeing helicopter pilots. Anton Fliegerbauer, a Bavarian officer firing an automatic rifle from the base of the tower, took a round in the head and died instantly.
After an hour or so of sporadic automatic fire; Issa ordered his men to kill all the hostages: a live grenade was tossed into one of the choppers and it blew apart, killing all five Israelis inside. The four hostages in the other aircraft were blasted with 7.62mm rounds as they sat helplessly tied together. But by now the terrorists were running low on ammunition. One by one, they were picked off as more German police arrived in APC’s and joined in the fire fight. Eventually three Palestinians were captured: Jamal Al-Gashey, Adan Al-Gashey and Mohammed Safady. (All three expected to be executed on the spot). By now there were more than 450 German police at the airport. Amid scenes of carnage, the gun battle was over.
In a cruel twist, the news blackout covering the military airport was lifted when an unknown German official informed the media that all the hostages were safe, and that the rescue attempt had been a complete success. This ‘news’ was very quickly flashed around the world. But the ensuing celebrations were premature. Bavarian authorities had failed to handle the crisis as they arrogantly refused help from experts in this field. (By a strange quirk of German law, Bavarian police had sole jurisdiction over the rescue mission).
But this grotesque attempt to save face and pretend that all had gone well after this total disaster only raised false hopes, especially for the families of the hostages, and that will surely never be forgotten. Even today, 36 years later, the families of the slain Israelis are still seeking financial compensation for the loss of their loved ones due to what can only be described as criminal negligence by authorities handling the rescue mission. Amazingly, the families have also not received any help in their efforts by successive Israeli governments, perhaps in fear of harming trade and political ties between Israel and Germany.
At a special memorial service for the murdered Israelis at the Olympic Stadium on 7 September, IOC President Avery Brundage (1887-1975) addressed the world with his customary lack of tact. “The Games of the XXth Olympiad have been subject to two savage attacks”, he fumed. “We saw our Israeli friends gunned down, and we lost the Rhodesian battle against naked political blackmail. We have only the strength of a great ideal…and we cannot allow a handful of terrorists to destroy this nucleus of international co-operation and goodwill we have in the Olympic movement.”
With a defiant flourish, he shouted, “The Games must go on! We must continue in our efforts to keep them clean, pure and honest and try to extend the sportsmanship of the athletic field into other areas of life. We declare today a day of mourning and will continue all the events one day later than originally scheduled.”
The elderly American millionaire (84), a man rich enough to cherish the Corinthian Spirit of strict amateurism in sport, had been unable to resist taking a dig at African Olympic delegates, and shocked many by equating this political/racial debate with the massacre of innocent athletes. His successor Lord Killanin of Ireland, later wrote, “It was not what Mr Brundage said that was objectionable in itself, but the occasion on which he said it.”
Many athletes, including the entire Philippine team, left Munich before the end of the Games. One Norwegian athlete said, “If you are attending a party where someone is murdered; you quietly leave the party. It is the only respectful thing to do.”
Even as the memorial service in the stadium was finishing, preparations were being made to airlift the remains of the 11 Israelis back to their relatives in pinewood coffins. Jewish tradition dictates that the bodies should be covered in prayer shawls, but some of the corpses were so badly charred and mutilated that this was a difficult task.
The coffins arrived at Lod Airport, 19 kilometres south-east of Tel Aviv at 11.45am on 7th September 1972, amid sweltering heat. All shops in the country were closed, work in government offices ceased and ships docked at the port of Haifa sounded their horns mournfully for hours.
The Travel Bishop
THE RAIL WAY: Most visitors are familiar with the infamous River Kwai Death Railway as being Thailand’s scenic rail trip option. The infamy of the line escalates this trip in the eyes of the visitor. Spectacular in parts and with beautiful scenery along the Kwai Noi river to Namtok at the end of the line, it is but a small segment of the SRT system and by no means the only memorable route to be found.
River Kwai services leave from Thonburi station with additional services from the main Hualomphong station during November festival time. Thonburi station affords splendid views of the Chao Phraya river and is near the Royal Barge sheds as well as being architecturally notable for its own clock tower façade. For those in Bangkok with only a short stay, a real rail experience can be found with a trip from Bangkok Wong Wian Yai station on the Thonburi side of the river (not Thonburi station!) It will provide a rewarding trip to Samut Sakhon on the Tha Chin River and then on to Samut Songkharm, a fishing and boat building town located where the River Kwai spills into the Gulf of Thailand. Its easy to find the Thnburi terminus: from Weong Wian Yai traffic circle, walk through the open air clothes market on the south
west corner. Within seconds you will be walking on the train tracks. The scenery enroute is largely unrewarding as this is the land leading towards the Chao Phraya mangrove swaps and the salt fields that have slowly replaced their existence in the ecosystem. However , for a view of what local suburban life is like, this is the trip to take, and there will be few tourists on this route. The seats are uncomfortable and as the train passes through many local market townships with merchants transporting produce, the train will be fairly dirty at the end of the line (both ends) Asia was like this 20 years ago and it is somehow reassuring that it still can be. Whether having an interest in railways or not, trains are still an immensely pleasureable and cheap way to view the Thai countryside. The rail fare to Nam Tok, at the end of the Kwai line is still only 90 baht for a one way ticket and the Wongwian Yai service can still be found at around 30 baht round trip. On local trains and many of the long distance expresses, vendors still ply there wares at the various halts along the line and many travelers will already be aware of the new Korean - manufactured sleeper carriages available on most routes. Sleeper fares are still a real deal and more comfortable than ever. First class carriages now all have a shower area at the end of each carriage. The Korean rolling stock is the latest progressive foreign intervention
into the State Railway, with Japanese Kawasaki train units and British Rail ‘Sprinter’ trains having upgraded the quality of train services within the last 15 years. Of course, the whole system wasGerman – built, being a dream of King Chulalungkorn to link the hinterland to Bangkok and create a united Thai Land as well as fortifying links to the weak border points. In recent years the system celebrated its operational centennial with services duplicating the original public service to Korat. The climb to the Korat Plateau, after the lineside temple views at Ayutthaya and especially Lopburi is another of the lesser-known scenic sectors of the system. Here the route skirts Khao Yai National Park and the slow ascent affords excellent views of the lush central plains dissappearing into the distance to be replaced by the comparitively flat and bare Isaan rice bowl. From November to January, special sunflower field excursions run to the Lopburi area for just that! Trains halt in the middle of huge tracts of sunflowers and passengers go for a walk. These trips also include a stop ON the Chaolosit Dam where passengers can again alight, to walk along this huge man made structure. For scenic mountain ascents the Doi Khun Tan National Park has by far the best to offer. Most will see it at its best by being an early riser (0600-0700) on the Express Sleeper from Bangkok to Chiangmai. The morning light hits the deep forested valleys in an array of colour that is difficult to find elsewhere in the region and this sparsely inhabited area onlyadds to the slow switchback trundle of the train up the mountain. The climax of the ride is the final ascent to Doi Khun Tan station through a 2km tunnel, finally arriving at, (in this writer’s opinion), the most beautiful, well kept station in the Kingdom. Basketed blossoms on the platform and green peaks in the backdrop give it a special feeling, especially when experienced in the atmosphere of Lanna’s cool morning air - and hopefully some misty photogenic opportunties. The tunnel itself claimed many lives during its construction over a century ago and a plaque in respect of those workers can be seen at the southern portal. Many will argue the point that Hua Hin, with its Royal waiting room, is the more pleasant (and certainly more photographed) station, but Doi Khun Tan , with its inaccessability is a credit to the people that created it and those who currently man it. It really is only visited by those hiking the nearby National Park and for that reason alone, has far fewer visitors than the Hua Hin version. Sprinter train travellers on the Chiang Mai day service from Bangkok will see Doi Khun Tan in the evening twilight, which can be almost as rewarding. TheSprinter service has become popular since its introduction, allowing train travellers to see all of the countryside between the two major cities during daylight. A similar situation exists with the Surat Thani to Bangkok sprinter service where travellers are able to view the coastal section from the south in daylight, previously missed with only the overnight sleeper services available. Sprinter trains, with their large viewing windows and airline-style reclining seats are a comfortable and affordable way to view the countryside.There are no
traffic jams and you are not constantly watching for oncoming traffic! Many visitors will, at some stage, experience the cross-section of life that inhabits the Butterworth Express. A lifeline for many visa run exponents it is also a way out for many overland travellers and a holiday special for the Muslim and Chinese communities
heralding from the southern provinces: in fact, an international version of the WongWian Yai local service. Most long stay visitors will spend several early visa trips becoming acquainted with the rituals of this almost folkloric institution. These limited pages cannot do justice to the many stories arising from this journey. If you havent been there and done that, take this train to at least join the long list of journeymen still in a quandry as to why and how Pedang Besar exists. Aside from the cynicism, the only criticism of the international express, and indeed all sleeper trains within the kingdom is the fact that first class sleepers have berths situated across the car. As trains tend to rock from side to side, actual sleep is only usually achieved in 2nd class where berths are configured lengthways along side the carriage windows. The result in first class, despite the privacy of a double cabin, is one of being shunted up and down the bed in a traditional railroad manner. Check out the disembarking
sleeper passengers when you are at journey’s end: the upperclass travelers always seem to have that extra jaded style to their morning arrival. First class berths on the E & O Express are configured correctly i.e. lengthways and the luxury of this service far surpasses the SRT public trains and perhaps most other services in the world. The train is not a remnant of a bygone age, as are the sister trains in Europe, but a converted version of New Zealand’s Silver Streak, Christchurch to Greymouth train of the 1980’s. It blends well as a replica, but the minimum of 1,800 US dollars for the one way 2 night trip to and from Singapore is, to most, still expensive. Far easier to experience the train on the frequent Saturday night 5 hour dinner specials from both Bangkok and Singapore at around 180 US dollars per head. Check the local press for those special departure dates. Those looking for a rail experience and not E & O luxury, may choose Ayutthaya steam train excursions from Bangkok on the King’s Birthday and Chulalungkorn Day as well as during the Kwai festival. These usually cost around 200 baht for the round trip, a figure unheard of for European rail enthusiasts. Thai Rail passes still exist but the complications of reserving seats and
berths in advance can sometimes outweigh the good value from these visitor’s special deals. No matter, as long as you observe the 60 day advance purchase regulation and recognise the popularity of train travel at holiday times, it is a very rewarding and value-for-money means of seeing the kingdom. Furthermore, the punctuality is what may be expected of an originally German built system, like the new reliable Bangkok Skytrain and Metro systems. Thailand –The Rail way. I.H.TB.D. It has
to be done ! The Travel Bishop travelogues are courtesy of The Travel Bishop Show on www.radiobangkok.net every Thursday at 2200, Bangkok time OR download the podcast. Alternative Music. Alternative Destinations.
Obscure Tour
So you have been everywhere have you? you have faced up to missing luggage, dodgy taxi drivers, kids using the back of your seat for football practice, boring in-flight movies and connecting flights that do not connect. you sit back wi th a smug look on your face comparing destinations wi th other grizzled, seasoned travellers.
been there, there...and there! well we are delving into those last few destinations left on the planet you may not have been to, fasten you seat belt for your journey to....albania. ALBANIA, OPEN AFTER 46 YEARS. Whilst on holiday in Corfu back in June 1981, I remember looking out over the Ionian Sea to the rugged coastline of Albania. “Forbidden territory”, said my tour guide. “No tourists are allowed to go there. Not that it would be much fun anyway. From what I hear, the whole place is just one big Communist slab of drab.” Times have changed. Albania is now open to visitors, and relatively unspoiled by globalisation and commercialism thanks to 46 years of enforced isolation by her xenophobic President, Enver Hoxha. Straddling the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, Albania is indeed fast becoming one of the world’s more interesting holiday destinations. It is bordered by Greece to the south-east, Montenegro to the north, Kosovo to the north-east and the Republic of Macedonia to the east. The long coastline embraces the Adriatic Sea to the west, and the Ionian Sea to the south-west. Italy is less than 72 kilometres (45 miles) away across the Strait of Otranto, where the forces of Benito Mussolini invaded in April 1939 making Albania one of the first countries to be occupied by the Axis Powers just before World War II. Albania has been populated since prehistoric times. In antiquity, much of the country
was occupied by the ancient Illyrians, who fought heroic but losing wars against
Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Serbs, Venetians and the Ottoman Turks.
These have all left their cultural marks, as well as their ruins, on the land.
The ruling Illyrian tribe of the Albanoi even had their history recorded by Ptolemy,
the Macedonian geographer and astronomer from Alexandria who drafted a map of
remarkable significance which showed the city of Albanopolis (located north-east of
Durres) as the original capital of the country. After over 500 years of domination,
Albania finally declared independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.
Today the rediscovered Greek city of Butrinti is probably more significant than it was
when Julius Caesar (100 – 44 BC) used it as a supply depot for his troops during his
campaign in the first century BC. At that time is was considered to be an unimportant
outpost, overshadowed by the bustling trading colonies of Apollonia and Durres. In October 1940 Mussolini used his new Albanian base to launch an attack on Greece
and Albanian nationalist groups, (including Communist partisans), fought fiercely
against the Italians and then the Germans. Four years later they had thrown the
Germans out, the only Eastern European nation to do so without the assistance of
Soviet troops. Then the French-educated Enver Hoxha took power and isolated the
country under totalitarian rule, first with financial aid from the USSR and then from
China. Like Cambodia in 1975-1979, the country was totally cut off from the rest of the world; no ordinary citizens were allowed to travel abroad and the only visitors in were Russian or Chinese delegates. Albania was sadly plunged into isolationist darkness for 46 years until Hoxha died in April 1985. Eventually the new regime introduced some liberalisation, including allowing Albanians to travel abroad, and efforts were made to improve ties with the outside world. A visionary named Sali Berisha of the new Democratic Party was elected as Albania’s first non-Communist President in 1992, and he established a new constitution involving western-style parliamentary democracy in 1998. Berisha was re-elected in 2005 and will be running for President again next year. Albania, along with Croatia, is also slated to join NATO in 2009. Now that is progress. Albania has a total area of 28,750 square kilometres, and a population of 3.7 million, with 800,000 in the capital city of Tirana, which is fast becoming a modern metropolis. Here you can find a development boom in telecommunications and tourist infrastructure. Tirana’s time zone is GMT/UTC plus 1; electrical plugs are 220V 50Hz, the international dialling code is +355 and the national currency is the Lek (77.5 to the US dollar at the end of May 2008). Some 70 per cent of the country is mountainous and often inaccessible from the
outside. The highest mountain is Korab (2,753 metres high), situated in the district of Dibra. The country has a continental climate at its high altitude regions with cold
winters and hot summers. The other principal cities are Durres, Elbasan, Shkoder,
Gjirokaster, Vlore, Korce and Kukes. For energetic tourists who enjoy such healthy pursuits as hiking and climbing, Albania is a destination certainly worth considering. The three largest and deepest tectonic lakes of the Balkan Peninsula are also located in Albania. Lake Scutari in the north-west has a surface area of 368 square kilometres, with 149 sq. km belonging to Albania (57 km of shoreline). Ohrid Lake is situated in
the south-east and shared between Albania and Macedonia. It has a maximum depth
of 289 metres and is so old that a unique flora and fauna can be found there, including
several living fossils. Because of its natural and historical value, Ohrid Lake is under
the protection of UNESCO. In fact, over a third of Albania’s territory (about a million hectares) is forested and the whole country is very rich in flora. About 3,000 species of plants grow in Albania, many of which are cultivated and used for medicinal purposes. The forests are also home to a wide range of animals, including bears, wild boars, and chamois. Lynx, wildcats, pine martens and polecats are rare, but still manage to survive in some remote parts of the land, and the patient visitor may be lucky enough to photograph or videotape them in the wild. Tourism in Albania is an emerging industry that is growing rapidly. The most notable attractions are the ancient sites of Apollonia, Butrinti and Kruje and the coastal areas are becoming increasingly popular with sun-worshipping tourists during European summers due to some unspoiled beaches looking onto the Ionian and the Adriatic Seas. Beach tourism is still something new to Albania, but hoteliers and local vendors are not slow to cash in on the commercial potential. Meantime Tirana is bristling with hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping malls and internet cafes, and Albanian cuisine has become popular with visitors. The main course is the mid-day lunch, featuring a substantial meat dish accompanied by a salad of fresh vegetables and olives with olive oil and vinegar plus tomatoes andcucumbers. Seafood specialties are also common in the coastal areas of Durres, Vlore and Sarande. Visitors can pick out their own choices from live fish in tanks which are then grilled and prepared for them on the spot. A large majority of the population is ethnically Albanian and minority groups include Greeks, Aromanians, Torbesh, Gorani, Macedonians, Roma, Bulgarians, Balkan Egyptians and Jews. The dominant language is Albanian with two main dialects – Gheg and Tosk. Many Albanians are also fluent in English, Italian and Greek. Part of the new political deal shuffled out by Sali Berisha included free health care for all Albanian nationals. There are large hospitals in Tirana and Durres, and the mainmedical school is the Faculty of Medicine at Tirana University. There are also nursing schools in many other cities. Natural resources of Albania include petroleum, natural gas, coal, bauxite, chromite,copper, iron ore, nickel, salt, timber and hydro-power and trade in these items is said to be expanding steadily. Albania’s land boundaries total 717 kilometres, involving 282 km with Greece, 151km was Macedonia, 172 km with Montenegro and 112 km with Kosovo, which was brutalised by civil war and ethnic tensions during the 1990’s that spilled over into Albania in the form of thousands of refugees. Most of these have returned since those turbulent times. In the 1997 Barry Levinson movie, ‘Wag the Dog’, Robert Di Nero (as the expert political trouble-shooter ‘Conrad Brean’) and Dustin Hoffman (as the movie producer ‘Stanley Motss’), are employed by a secret government organisation to orchestrate and wage a fake televised war by the USA against Albania. Hoffman devised tear-jerking ‘news’ footage of a terrified girl refugee clutching a kitten as she fled the violence, and the elaborate setup even included a fallen hero (Woody Harrelson) who was buried with full military honours when in fact he was a psychotic criminal who had been incarcerated for raping a nun during military service. A songwriter (Willie Nelson) was even hired to compose patriotic hymns to accompany the pageant. “Albania is hard to rhyme”; complained Nelson, before going on to write the chauvinistic songs, ‘Our American Dream, ‘Have Courage Mom’, ‘Good Ole Shoe’ and ‘The Men of The Three-Oh-Three’. All this was done to divert the American public’s attention away from a sex scandal involving the incumbent US President and a teenage ‘Firefly’ girl just eleven days before he was due to stand for re-election: a sly satire on the administration of William Jefferson Clinton (1993 to 2001). Why should the USA wage war on Albania? Well, it’s a dubious sort of vaguely threatening place that no one really knows anything about, you see. That was the argument advanced by Conrad Brean, the character played by Di Nero. Even James Belushi (playing himself in the film) posed as an Albanian patriot who urged ‘Albanian terrorists’ to allow ‘Sergeant Schumann’ (Harrelson) to get back to his unit (The 303) after being left stranded behind enemy lines; abandoned like an ‘old shoe’. (Belushi was born in Chicago, USA in 1954, but his father Adam Belushi immigrated from Albania in 1934, and his mother Agnes was also born in Albania). Today, Albania has opened up to the world and surely has no need to apologise for itself. And we can rest assured that there are no Albanian terrorists trying to smuggle a ‘suitcase bomb’ into the USA over the Canadian border – a plotline devised by Hoffman’s character. If you don’t believe me, just ask Jim Belushi.
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