'A Day of Terror Recalled'

1979 Embassy Siege In Islamabad Still Haunts Survivors

By Cameron W. Barr

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 27, 2004; Page A20

Marine Master Sgt. Loyd G. Miller stood in the lobby of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, and deployed his troops. Outside the locked gate of the 32-acre embassy compound, bus after bus after bus disgorged crowds of student protesters.

"Kill the American dogs," some shouted.

~ continue reading... ~

 

1979: Mob destroys US embassy in Pakistan

From the BBC, 'On this day, 21 November':

 

A mob in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has burned the US Embassy to the ground, killing a US marine.

The five-hour siege began as an organised student protest outside the locked gates of the embassy compound.

But the demonstration grew violent as protesters pulled down part of the outer wall and broke into the compound itself.

Gunfire broke out, and the marine, who was standing on the roof of the building, was shot.

Radio report

The attacks are believed to have been triggered by a radio report from the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, saying Americans were behind the occupation of Islam's holiest site, the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, yesterday.

The US State Department has described the broadcast as "irresponsible, outright, knowing lies".

The Saudi Arabian authorities have also issued statements saying the Mecca incident was the work of Muslim fundamentalists and no Westerners were involved.

American relations with Pakistan are already at a low point after the US cut off aid in April over Pakistan's nuclear ambitions, and criticised the human rights record of Pakistani leader General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq.

Trapped

As the protesters began smashing windows and setting fire to the building, more than 100 embassy staff took refuge in a steel-lined and windowless vault on an upstairs floor.

Those trapped in the room included US diplomats, Pakistani staff members and a visiting journalist from Time magazine.

The Ambassador, Arthur W Hummel Junior, was outside the building when the attack began.

Staff inside were able to contact him, and it was Ambassador Hummel who raised the alarm and requested help from Pakistan's government.

Meanwhile, protesters found their way onto the roof of the building, and staff members later said they began firing bullets down ventilation shafts.

Rescue

General Zia ordered the Pakistan Army to rescue the trapped Americans, and soldiers brought the situation under control at about 1800 local time (1300 GMT), about five and a half hours after the attack began.

Several other American institutions in Pakistan were also targeted in what appears to have been an orchestrated day of anti-American violence.

Tensions are running high since 66 American citizens were taken hostage by Iranian radical students, who seized the US embassy in Tehran just over two weeks ago.

President Carter yesterday threatened the use of force for the first time after the Ayatollah Khomeini accused the American hostages of being "spies" - effectively handing down a death sentence on them.

 

An unobserved anniversary

1979 U.S. Embassy Burning in Islamabad

According to Wikipedia:

In 1979, Pakistani students, enraged by a radio report claiming that the U.S. had bombed Islam's holy site at Mecca, stormed the U.S. embassy at Islamabad, and burned it to the ground. The diplomats survived by hiding in a reinforced area, though Marine Security Guard Steve Crowley and another American were killed in the attack.

On 20 November 1979, a Saudi Arabian Islamic zealot group had led a takeover of the Mosque at Mecca. Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini immediately claimed that Americans were behind the attack on Islam's holiest place. This claim was repeated in media reports the morning of 21 November.

What started as a small riot with people shouting the anti-American slogans later grew into a full-scaled attack on the U.S. embassy’s compound. Although, at first glance it seemed as a small protest outside the embassy’s walls, in a little while, buses started pulling up in front of the main gates and hundreds people began climbing over walls and even trying to pull them down using ropes. And when a bullet fired at the gate’s lock by one rioter ricocheted and struck protesters, (according to an investigation) they opened fire falsely believing that Americans fired first. Twenty-year-old Marine Stephen Crowley was struck by a bullet and transported to the embassy’s secure communication vault the rest of personnel serving in the embassy. Locked behind steel-reinforced doors they started waiting for help to come and rescue them from a smoke-filled building.

Two days later, The New York Times published an article titled “Troops Rescue 100 in Islamabad; U.S. Offices Are Burned in 2 Cities”. The article mentions Jody Powell, the White House press secretary at that time who said that the administration appreciates action taken by the Pakistani forces in bringing about the dramatic escape of the 100 people besieged for five hours in the embassy chancery.

In that action: “The Government troops who finally ended the siege had to land on the roof by helicopter, rout the attackers and then assist the embassy personnel onto the roof, down to a lower level of the building and finally to the ground”

~ link ~

 

Ireland: 'Changing History'

From Mary McAleese's Longford Lecture in Westminster:

"...With a new confidence in our future Ireland has begun to look the past in the face. We are prising open the sealed space between historiography and history, a space that had always found it difficult to place men like Frank Pakenham, men and women too whose stories did not fit the conveniently-shaped boxes that have shaped separate and unreconciled narratives of Anglo-Irish matters for so many years. These old narratives are now giving way to a more considered story of our two peoples and, while coloniser and colonised are unlikely ever to stand easily in each other's shoes, we are nonetheless beginning to reveal those stories where we can at least stand side by side.

One powerful such story is that of the significant Irish contribution to the First World War which until recently had been the subject of what has been described as a 'policy of intentional amnesia'. In a remarkably short period of time the 210,000 volunteers from all over Ireland, a majority of them Catholics and Irish nationalists, had been airbrushed into a stark story which recounted on one side only the sacrifice of Ulster Protestants, mainly in the 36th (Ulster) Division and on the other only the heroism of those who took part in the Easter Rising.

Last year for the first time Dublin hosted two commemorative events, one commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the Rising and the other the ninetieth anniversary of the Somme. The fifty thousand Irish men who died are commemorated in the joint Island of Ireland Peace Park at Messines in Belgium. It was opened nine years ago by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the King of the Belgians and I, and its opening helped to create a platform of shared memory through which we hope to realise the dream of the great Irish intellectual, Professor Thomas Kettle, one-time nationalist MP at Westminster, who died at the Somme fighting with the 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers:

'Used with the wisdom which is sown in tears and blood, this tragedy of Europe may be and must be the prologue to the two reconciliations of which all statesmen have dreamed, the reconciliation of Protestant Ulster with Ireland, and the reconciliation of Ireland with Great Britain.'

Today, as we seek to effect those reconciliations, a barely-credible narrative, distorted by all sides for political ends is being replaced by a truer narrative which gives all of the people of Ireland a point of common cultural reference, and a shared history to commemorate.

Similarly, and contemporaneously, the history of the Easter Rising in 1916, which has long been the subject of attempted manipulation by different parties in history, is now looked at in a broader light and commemorated in Ireland with confidence, dignity and pride. Forty-one years ago, Lord Longford, then in Wilson's cabinet, caused an outcry by attending the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Rising where he was photographed beside his friend, President De Valera. Last year, representatives of the British government attended the ninetieth anniversary parade through the city of Dublin. Changed and changing times..."

~ full article ~

 

A warning to bloggers: are you liable for libel?

"...To prove libel, which is the same thing as written defamation, the plaintiff has to prove that the blogger published a false statement of fact about the plaintiff that harmed the plaintiff's reputation. Let's break that down.

"Published" means that at least one other person may have read the blog. That's right, just one.

A "false statement of fact" is a statement about the plaintiff that is not true. Truth is the best defense against libel. An opinion is also a defense against libel. But, depending on the context, the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact can be remarkably gray. Context is a big deal in determining defamation.

One thing to watch out for: simply inserting the words "in my opinion" in front of a statement of fact doesn't magically make it an opinion.

Satire and hyperbole can also be defenses against libel, but again, very gray.

Then there's the matter of "harming the plaintiff's reputation." It's one thing to say that a false statement harmed your reputation, but if you can't demonstrate damages, the suit may be effectively worthless. Damages would include, for example, losing X customers that represent Y income, suffering emotional distress and so on. Also, if your damages are minimal, you may have a hard time finding a lawyer to take the case. They're a greedy lot. (That's an opinion, not a statement of fact.)

If the plaintiff is your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill person or company, then negligence is sufficient to prove libel. That means that a reasonable person would not have published the defamatory statement. If the plaintiff is a "public figure," however, then the plaintiff must prove actual malice--a higher burden of proof. That means that the blogger knew that the statement wasn't true or didn't care.

Then there's the question of who's responsible for comments on a blog. Whoever publishes the Web site is responsible for content on the site. That includes comments. However, many bloggers have independent agreements to indemnify the site that publishes their blog. That may or may not include comments.

Plaintiffs can certainly sue everybody in the chain and see what sticks, though they will likely go after those with the deepest pockets. You can avoid the entire question by turning comments off.

To make matters worse, this is the Internet, so there are individual state and national laws to consider. I'm going to stick with California and U.S. law, and hope for the best.

You may be able to get insurance for this sort of thing. I was able to get a quote for what's called media liability insurance, but it was expensive and had a high deductible. It also took lots of time and and paperwork just to get the quote. In any case, a business insurance broker should be able to quote you a policy from one of their carriers.

Well, those are the basics. Check out this EFF site on defamation for FAQs and examples. You can probably spend a lifetime understanding different scenarios and studying case law..."

~ link ~