One day in September

The most iconic image of the entire Munich hostage crisis which flashed before cameras and televisions

I was flipping through my movies library today and watched a few minutes of portion of the movie "Munich" when I decided to read more about it on the Internet. It turns out to be a coincidence that today 5th September was the exact day when the Munich massacre happened 38 years ago. If you think the recent failure of the Filipino police force in dealing with the Hong Kong tourist hostage was bad enough, history reminds us the handling of the Munich hostage crisis by the West German authorities was as disastrous. It was the middle of the 1972 Munich Olympics when a group of trained operatives from the militant group Black September, stormed into the Olympic Village in 31 Conollystrasse in the early morning hours to take hostage of the Israeli atheletes residing there. The village security was intentionally lax, following the Germans' determination to change the world's perceptions about them as a result of the bitter taste left by Hitler from the Berlin Olympics in 1936. It was this poor security loophole that was exploited by Black September with great success, starting from the infiltration of the facility as a worker and a mere casual visitor entering the facility without proper identification. They had the blueprint scouted well. Apparently before the games had even started, a West German psychologist, Dr. Sieber had came up with 26 worst case scenarios for the Olympic committee to examing and the predicted situation 21 was eerily too similar to the events that actually tanspired on 5th September. It was however dismissed as being too ridiculous to happen.

On the fateful day, the hostage takers entered into the Olympic Village compound in the most ironic fashion. Quite a number of atheletes had preferred to climb over the fence perimeter to return back to their apartments rather than taking a long detour back to the main gates with the guards. The bunch of them happened to stumbled upon a group of rather drunk group of American athletes who were at the same time, wanting to climb over the fence. Lo and behold, the Americans, unsuspecting of what they were doing or who they were (since all were dressed in tracksuits) helped them to climb over. Once inside and clear from outside eyes, the terrorists removed their AKs from the sports duffel bags and loaded them with bullets. They proceeded in breaking through the doors of the Israeli apartments. Of course, a struggle did occurred between the Israeli athletes and the gunmen as some of them were wrestlers and weightlifters and they thought they had a chance to overpower them with their muscular mass. The struggle did not last long as the gunmen promptly killed 2 of them during the struggle as a reminder to the 9 other sportsmen that they were holding. That was fail number 1 already. Hostage death.

So, the Munich police came in and started negotiations but the problem with the police force is that there were never any elite force or anti-terrorist squad present in Germany that were trained to deal with these types of problems involving highly armed situations. A large part of reason was because of the post-war agreements and the limitations imposed on Germany to operate any of these specialised militaristic group by the Allies. At first they tried storming the building with some track-suited policemen into the compound. Fail number 2: The camera crew were broadcasting the events to worldwide television and this included police positions and movements which the terrorists can observe from their TV sets..lol. Eventually, the storming idea was called off and towards the evening, the negotiations resulted in the terrorists demanding that they be transported via helicopters to the Airport to be flown to Cairo. It was at the airport that most failures were compounded. The Munich police devised another flip flop plan to have policemen dressed as airplane crew in the jet so that they can overpower the terrorist once they are in the plane. They don't seem to be able to make up their minds on a decisive course of action and towards the last minute, they decide to abandon this plan too and adopt another solution, that is to get snipers to take out the terrorists as they walked out of their helicopters. The problem is that there were never any trained snipers in the police team and the handpicked 5 were picked because they had regularly joined weekend competitive game shooting. That's fail number 3. They only had G3 rifles to rely on without scopes or night vision goggles. Fail no. 4. The Munich police had assumed that there were only 5 terrorists and that was the reason why they employed 5 snipers for one head each. Total number of terrorists coming out of the helicopters: 8. Ooopss. Fail number 5. No radio contact between the 5 snipers. Fail number 6. Three were on the control tower and two were on the ground. The two on the ground were vaguely instructed to start shooting as soon as they hear gunfire sounds.

Once the terrorist touched down in the airport, two of them went to inspect the alleged getaway jet plane and when they discovered that it was empty, they started running back in panic to tell their other comrades that their positions were compromised already. It was at this point that the German "snipers" started to open fire, killing two terrorists and fatally wounding another. The others managed to get away and ducked for cover. A firefight followed afterthat and this was proceeded by an hour of so of standoff, terrorists still hiding in the airport runway vicinity and giving sporadic shots once in a while. The terrorists succeeded in shooting out most of the airport lights and in the moment of confusion and darkness, friendly fire meant that that the 2 snipers on the ground were mistakenly targetted by their colleagues on the control tower, reducing the amount of operational sharpshooters to 3 personnels. Fail no. 7. The situation would have been easily settled with the deployment of armoured personnel carriers but the APCs were deployed only after the gunfight occured. And then they were stuck in a traffic jam. Epic Fail no.8. So, it finally ended with the remaining terrorists going on a kamikaze run towards the helicopters, spraying bullets and killing all hostages under point blank AK -47. To finish off the job, the terrorists lobbed grenades to explode the helicopters, burning the corpses in the process before they themselves were shot dead by the police. All hostages died at the end of the day. GG.

Up till today, the Germans could never account for their tactical failure in dealing with the crisis. It was a doomed rescue operation from the start, with many basic mistakes being made that could have saved lives. The West German government responded by forming the elite commando Swat group of GSG-9. Security at the Olympic Games was never compromised since then. Munich spent less than $2 million for security. The security bill in Athens 2004 was estimated to be more than $600 million. History does teach lessons in the end. Both sides did not gain at the end on what they had demanded, although one could say that it was a political statement success for the Palestinians in a way since they were brought under focused world media attention after the incident.

Photos that changed the world

I'm sure most people have seen amazing photos taken by a DSLR camera and technology has allowed some interesting effects to be added to them too. Nevertheless, 40 or 50 years ago, the photographers of yesteryears may not have such sophisticated equipments but yet they could capture the soul of that time. There are images that remain iconic throughout the test of time and they will always speak a message worth more than a thousand words that will continue to impact future generations to come. Here's my top picks in the historical archives for the photos that changed the world.

Soviet Victory over Berlin - A Soviet trooper climbs up the Reichstag to plant the USSR flag, a symbolic action marking the fall of the Nazi regime and the start of a tumultuous struggle between two superpowers for the control of the city for the next 45 years.

Raising a flag over Iwo Jima - US Marine troops raised the American flag over the island of Iwo Jima. This iconic photograph was immortalised as a monument in the United States Marine Corp headquarters.

Victory over Japan Day - One of my personal favourites. This shot was taken from Times Square in New York, on the day of announcement that war is over.

Guerrillero Heroico - This portrait photo of Che Guevara taken from a memorial service was reproduced millions of times throughout the later part of the 20th century as posters. This photo of his became the very embodiment of the idea of a revolution.

Execution of a Vietcong Guerilla - The Saigon police chief undertakes the grimm task of executing a Vietcong operative. This was a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph that changed the public opinion of the Vietnam war.

Afghan Girl refugee - The piercing green eyes graced the cover of the National Geographic magazine in the 80s to highlight the plight of refugees all over the world. The identity of the girl was found by the photographer 20 years later.

Tiananmen Square 1989 - The sight of a young man defying the rolling war machine speaks volume of the university students who demanded democratic reforms during that year.

World Trade Center 9/11 - The raising of the flag by the firemen was reminiscent of the photo from Iwo Jima. The paradigm of world politics had a major shift eversince that day.

Images are courtesy of their respective photographers and sources.

An Old Comrade

Chin Peng meets Chairman Mao

Yesterday was the 10th Anniversary of the Hatyai Treaty signing. The date may have pass by insignificantly for most Malaysians, especially if they do not follow the news or historical matters of Malaysia. For one man in Thailand, he would have marked that day as a significant one for the past ten years. It reminded him of his long-fought battle to return home. Now almost 86 years old, Chin Peng is a pale shadow of his notorious younger days when he was one of the most feared and wanted man in Malaya. The days as the Secretary-General of the Malayan Communist Party and guerilla fighting in the jungles were long gone and now replaced with a life of serenity. Chin Peng's repeated attempts to return back to Malaysia has often drawn debates and it remains an interesting case study on how history has been presented.

Chin Peng's legal battle to return has hit a stumbling block now where the courts demanded that he prove that he was a Malayan citizen in the first place by producing his birth certificate. Chin Peng claims that he lost his birth certificate after he left home to fight against the Japs in the war. In 1989 when the Hatyai Treaty was signed, the Malaysian government actually put into contract, or a written agreement or promise that MCP members would be given another chance to return back to Malaysia. It was not a popular decision for former policemen and army men who operated during the Emergency but the government went ahead anyway with the signing of the treaty with a clauses which allow former members of MCP and their relatives to return back to Malaysia.

The common argument that was brought up to deny Chin Peng's request to return was that MCP has committed too much of atrocities during the height of their power and that the victims of the MCP would not want him to return. This I believed can be a valid argument if the Hatyai Agreement had not being signed. But in any case, the Malaysian government DID sign it even with consideration of the MCP's actions in the past. The signatures of between both parties meant that the Malaysian government would have consented to wipe clean the slate of any grievances that may be present.

Thus, prominent MCP leaders like Abdullah CD, Rashid Mydin and Shamsiah Fakeh were allowed to retun home. Yes, contrary to popular belief that MCP consisted only of the Chinese and nothing else, there are actually Malays in the top leadership of the MCP. In fact, the whole of the 10th regiment of the Malayan National Liberation Army consisted predominantly of Malays. It must be understood that in the context that is formulated during the post-war period, the road to independence is pursued differently by different individuals. Most individuals with their burning nationalist desire would have to come to terms in choosing a path if they want to liberate Malaya from the yoke of colonialism. Malays in the upper class like Tunku Abdul Rahman and Dato Jaafar Onn chose non-confrontational ways through UMNO while common folks like Shamsiah Fakeh decided to join more radical parties like PKMM. Shamsiah belonged to the group of left-wing Malay nationalists who perceived that UMNO is right-wing and pro-British since their leaders are English educated. My opinion is that Shamsiah may not have subscribed to a pure Marxist theory but coming from a non-elite background would have influenced her to be more left-wing minded. The other thing is that most Chinese in Malaya did not actually pledge in full support for MCP because many of them are land and business owning people. There is no way they are gonna support communist manifestos since that would spell suicide for their businesses or private enterprises.

So, back to the Chin Peng business is that if the government wants to be consistent to its stance towards the damage and attrocities that MCP had done during the Emergency years, they shouldn't have sign the Hatyai treaty. It brings in unnecessary racial strife considering those that were allowed back were the Malay leaders of MCP and Chin Peng, being a Chinese was perceived to be "sold out" in the agreement. The question is, why the double standards? I'm sure that at some point of time, leaders like Abdullah CD or Rashid Mydin would have made decisions which would have cause the loss of lives of innocent people. People are bound to find patterns and come out with conclusions based on their observations. Such prejudiced conclusions does not bode well for future generations. If you forgive one, make sure you forgive all. If Chin Peng is unforgivable because of what MCP had done, so are the rest of the leaders, regardless of what race they are. The Hatyai Treaty doesn't exclude out certain individuals and in fact it covers all members of MCP. Another point to note is that MCP leaders and members are bound together not because of their race but because of their ideological and political beliefs.

At what price is the Malaysian honour is being staked? If the Federal government thinks that preventing Chin Peng from coming back would prevent him from being viewed as a "Chinese hero", I think it's producing the Streisand effect where people are paying even more attention to him now that they continuously deny his request. The call to allow Chin Peng to return back to his hometown in Setiawan is not an act of condoning what the MCP had done nor it's the younger generation soft stance towards Chin Peng just because they didn't live through the Emergency. It's just the simple act of honouring an agreement that was made in the Hatyai Treaty in 1989. The people who are whining that Chin Peng should not return or about MCP atrocities should instead question why the government had signed the Hatyai Treaty in the first place if they do not plan to pardon MCP.

This case is a classic case where history is being written by the winners. Like Ho Chi Minh who was championed alongside with the communists as the true nationalist fighters of Vietnam, the story would have otherwise changed if the South Vietnamese and America had won the war. The winners will get to influence a whole generation with their version of academic history while the losers will be damned with whatever remnants of reputation that they have. For Chin Peng, time is running out for him and his frail body would not last the test of time much longer. Perhaps his final battle lies in his dead body, where his only wish is to be buried in the land that he was once willing to die and spill his blood for.

The Longest Day

65 years ago on this very day, more than 100 000 Allied soldiers descended upon the shores and beaches of Normandy in a concerted effort to liberate Europe from Nazi Germany. It was D-Day, the start of Operation Overlord. In the wee early morning hours before the sun is up, the 82nd and 101st Airborne infantry dropped behind enemy lines to pave the way for the daylight invasion. Hours later, the main fleet will push up to the shore in an amphibious assault on five beach fronts; Sword, Juno, Omaha, Gold and Utah. Fighting was fierce and intense as Hitler's Atlantic Wall proved to be a formidable opponent. Approximately 4500 Allied soldiers lost their lives on that day itself, with the heaviest casualty being at Omaha Beach. At the end of the longest day, the Allied were triumphant in their objectives and the victory marked the start of the collapse of Nazi Germany's grip on Europe.

The number of World War II veterans dwindle by the day. Many of them are already in their 80s. If you happen to see or know one of them, thank them for their valiant efforts in fighting the war. They don't need any fanfare or honour parades. Just a simple show of gratitude or thank you will do.