MacFormat España 17

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ MacFormat España 17 / MacFormat 17 (Spain) / MacFormat 17.bin / DATABASE / SHARED.DIR / 01283_120.cap.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1996-03-14 | 4.1 KB | 243 lines

@ Ulrike Meinhof was intelligent, middle class, and well- educated. She had access to all the benefits of a free affluent society, and she could have built on her early success in journ- alism. Instead she chose to try and destroy her society with violent action # The mid-Seventies were the heyday for bourgeois terr- orism. In Italy left wing ideological bandits wreaked havoc with bomb blasts, murders and kidnaps. The activities of the notorious 'Red Brigade' group reached a climax in 1978 when they abducted and killed the former prime minister of Italy, Aldo Moro # Terrorists from Meinhof to the IRA have taken their inspiration from Carlos Marighella, the Brazilian guerrilla. His tactics, described in a textbook for terrorists, have proved to be less effective in practice than they seemed on paper # Historical parallels were often drawn between Meinhof and Rosa Luxemburg, who was murdered in 1919. In fact they were poles apart: the revolu- tionary ideals of Luxemberg were founded on a desire for social justice, those of Meinhof on a vague but deeply felt sense of embitterment # The Red Army Faction emerged out of the late Sixties student movement. Its key members were eager to take up arms against "imperialism", believing that only the example of revolutionary struggle would break down the indifference of the working class # Urban terrorism was not confined to Europe. Angela Davis was an American activist, who, like Meinhof, had a brilliant intellect and who believed political violence was a legitimate tool. Davis was put on trial for an armed attempt to free jailed comrades, but was acquitted @ Meinhof became a household name when she led an armed raid to free her lover and fellow terrorist Andreas Baader from a high- security Berlin jail in May 1970. This daring act, together with the bank raids which funded their activities, made the 'Baader-Meinhof Gang' folk heroes to Germany's dis- affected youth # In January 1971, Meinhof was pulled over by a routine traffic patrol. Worried that the officer had seen through her new, blonde disguise she sped off. And the police officer was left holding her driver's licence with its new and up-to-date photo # Meinhof's mythical status grew with every day that she avoided capture. After the notorious 1970 prison raid , Meinhof eluded the police for another two years, during which time she commited a series of bank robberies, bomb attacks and shootings # Meinhof was in the end captured in a Hanover flat in June 1972. The hunt for her had involved 150,000 policemen. Four other members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, including Andreas Baader, had been arrested two weeks earlier after a gun battle in Frankfurt # The impact of Red Army Faction terrorism had been so destabilising that, even while on hunger strike in prison, Meinhof was still seen as a threat to society. Since the reunifi- cation of Germany it has emerged that West German terrorists were receiving support from the Stasi, East Germany's secret service @ Meinhof remained unrepentant. She was not present in court when her sentence was read out. She had been barred from the proceedings for her unruly habit of screaming "pig" and "fascist"at the judge # In 1975, Meinhof (with Baader and two other members of the gang) faced another trial. Among the charges were six bombings which left five dead and 54 injured, the killing of a police officer, six armed robberies, three attempted murders. A fifth defendant died on hunger strike before the trial could begin # In May 1976, Meinhof hanged herself in prison. She was 44 years old. After her suicide the trial continued in an atmosphere of disarray. In March 1977 an 'Ulrike Meinhof Commando' assassinated West Germany's chief prosecutor, Herr Seigfried Buback, who had led the campaign against the terrorists # In April 1977 Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan Carl Raspe, the three other members of the original gang, were sentenced to life imprisonment. When an attempt to free them by hijacking a Luft- hansa plane in Mogadishu failed, all three killed themselves in their prison cells @