06-03-2010, 12:10 PM
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#151 (permalink)
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Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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Quote:
Author Henning Mankell Says Israel Committed Piracy (Update1)
By Catherine Hickley
June 3 (Bloomberg) -- Henning Mankell, the Swedish author of crime novels featuring the detective Kurt Wallander, said Israel committed an act of piracy and kidnapping by attacking aid-laden ships headed for Gaza in international waters.
Mankell was aboard the Sofia, one of six ships in the flotilla in the May 31 campaign. He said the boat was carrying cement, building materials and prefabricated houses to Gaza. About 25 passengers were on board, many of them Swedish. Mankell and the other participants in the flotilla were detained in Israel after they were captured.
“This happened on international waters, so this was an act of piracy,” Mankell, 62, told journalists in Berlin, where he is starting a promotion tour for his new novel. “When they took us to Israel, we were kidnapped under international law.”
Israel has faced international criticism over its raid by naval commandos that left nine dead aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships taking aid to the Gaza Strip on May 31. The United Nations Security Council condemned the violence and Turkey has asked for an official apology, an international investigation and an immediate end to the embargo on Gaza. All nine killed were Turkish.
The activists, in a flotilla of six ships, were attempting to sail into Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since the Islamic Hamas movement took control of the territory in 2007. Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and Israel.
Knives, Clubs
Israel said its soldiers were attacked with knives and clubs after boarding a vessel and seven soldiers were wounded, including by gunfire, after activists aboard the ship managed to grab Israeli firearms. Israel has said it has by now expelled all the campaigners with the exception of some still in hospital.
“It was about 4 a.m., and I had gone to bed,” Mankell said. “We thought we had at least two hours before we got to Israeli waters.” He said the Mavi Marmara was about 1 kilometer away from the ship he was on.
“We could see lights and helicopters and we could see gunfire but we couldn’t know what was happening,” Mankell said. “It was only three days later when we boarded the Lufthansa flight that I found out people were killed.”
His own ship, Mankell said, was boarded about an hour later by Israeli navy commandos.
Machine Guns
“The idea was not to make any resistance,” Mankell said. “They were carrying machine guns. They came to the bridge and told us we had to go down. Some older people were a bit slower. One of them was attacked by an electric gun in his arm, very painful. Another was shot with a rubber bullet.”
Palestinians, backed by the United Nations and human- rights groups, say the restrictions on food imports and construction materials have created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel says it needs to control Gaza’s borders or Hamas will smuggle in material to make rockets and attack its territory.
“I thought the Israelis would use the navy to stop the convoy,” Mankell said. “But I thought they would do it nearer their territorial waters. I thought they would use force only against boats, not against people.”
Mankell, who is in Berlin to promote his new book, “The Troubled Man,” divides his time between Mozambique and Sweden. His wife, Eva Bergman, is a theater director and the daughter of the film director Ingmar Bergman, who died in July 2007.
The Wallander mysteries have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, according to the website of his English- speaking fan club.
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Author Henning Mankell Says Israel Committed Piracy (Update1) - Bloomberg.com
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
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