New York City State of Siege Triggers Memories
for Latin American Survivors of Past Wars

By María Suárez Toro, FIRE

On September 11, 2001, FIRE co-director María Suárez was returning home to Costa Rica via New York from the UN Conference in South Africa, and became one of thousands of stranded travelers at JFK International Airport...
 

Surrounded by four large suitcases and thousands of travelers including other Latinas/os, Latin Americans, Europeans and Americans, all of whom were also stranded in the JFK Airport in New York City yesterday morning, the 70-year-old Dominican woman, Adelaida Dwell, didn't know what to do.

"From what the authorities tell us and what I hear on the radio, it seems that the city of New York is under a state of siege," said Adelaida.  "Such events have never been known in this country.  It seems that war has been unleashed on the center of the city."

The visibly nervous airport security officials shouted at the stranded travelers to quickly gather their belongings and leave the building, but there was not enough public transportation for so many people, who had been evacuated from airplanes en route to other places, or not allowed to board.  The public telephone system was not working, and attempts by US residents with cell phones to call out were often futile, met with busy signals.   Soon the airport was besieged by a great contingent of US military personnel who swarmed through the facility with trained security dogs and electronic devices designed to detect bombs.

Adelaida heard on the radio that Manhattan, the central district of the city, was cut off from all transportation and communication, and that the thousands and millions of people who work there had to try to reach home on foot.  The bridges and tunnels that connect the island of Manhattan with Brooklyn, Staten Island, Long Island, the Bronx, Queens and other burroughs of New York were closed to all except foot traffic, so thousands began trudging through the crowded streets. The ferries on the Hudson River transported some passengers, but most people began walking, and kept walking, in stunned silence.   For some, the experience had triggered vivid memories of massive evictions and displacements they had seen in the past, in wars and conflicts in other parts of the world.

Soon after the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC), the nerve center of the world economy, crumbled and crashed to the ground.  The smoke from the fires and crushed cement billowed in large clouds that spread for blocks around.  Each Tower had 110 floors.  And two other WTC buildings, Numbers 5 and 7, shuddered as underground natural gas explosions shook the earth.   Some hours later, these two buildings also collapsed.

"The radio says that this was not an accident," said Adelaida. "Two commercial airplanes, one from American Airlines and another from United were hijacked and diverted from their flight paths and used like missiles, flown and crashed deliberately into the WTC Towers, just 20 minutes apart.  The planes were full of gasoline, prepared for their original cross-country flights to California.  They say that two others, again one from United and another from American, also were hijacked and that one was flown deliberately into the Pentagon in Virginia, the military logistics center.  The other crashed in a rural area near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. They say that it is not known if that one had originally been planned by the hijackers to be aimed at the White House in Washington, DC, or perhaps at Camp David in Maryland.   Minutes after the attack on the Pentagon, a car-bomb exploded in front of the State Department, also in Washington, DC.   What they do not say on the radio is who organized these barbaric acts.  All of the airplanes carried innocent passengers and likewise the people who died in the WTC towers are not guilty of what is happening in the world."

In the airport, in the White House and in rest of the world, speculations flew about who were the perpetrators of the largest and most dramatic terrorist acts to be carried out on U.S. American soil.  The same political and economic complex that now collapsed like dominos had been object of an attack in 1993, but did not suffer so much damage back then.  Nor was it carried out with such careful planning and technical dexterity.

On both occasions there were thousands of potential victims, since more than 60,000 persons either work or visit the World Trade Center Complex each day.    In 1993, those responsible had planted a bomb that killed 6 persons, but this recent three-pronged attack required enormous knowledge and technical skills in hijacking and flying large commercial jets, as well as great political coordination.  The airplanes used were from commercial flights, so the hijackers had to know about the technical management of the airplanes, as well as flight plans and controls in order to plan the deadly alternative routes.  And they attacked simulataneously these critical military, political and economic nerve centers of the nation.  And they carried out these terrorist acts on September 11, or 9-11, which corresponds with the emergency 911 telephone number in the United States.

Now President Bush is shown at the White House on television, frantically eager to point the finger at someone, but at whom he didn’t know yet.  It’s as if Bush needed to declare war in order to ease the enormous political and military vulnerability that U.S. Americans have not felt since the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor in 1941, and to calm the thirst for revenge demanded by some,  fueled by the sensationalist media coverage, and brandished by their own president.  "Our freedom has been attacked!  American will hunt down and punish the guilty ones, including countries that harbor them," said Bush in his first public statement after leaving the secure hideout where he was placed minutes after the attack on the Pentagon. "Attack against America" was the title that the press gave to this act.

They accused the Islamic Saudi Arabian terrorist Osama bin Laden, although he declared he did not do it. Also accused were the Taliban government of Afghanistan, for harboring the multimillionare terrorist fugitive bin Laden.  The Taliban said they rejected such action. However, CNN continued fueling rumors  that bin Laden was responsible, projecting live images of an alleged intensive bombing attack by bin Laden in Kabul, some hours after the deliberate collision of the airplanes at buildings in New York.

But these attacks turned out to be weeks old, although the media reported it as recent.  The truth was that the opposition to the Taliban, headed by Ahmed Shah Massood in that country, had carried out an important military attack in recent weeks.   But the media announced that the bombs were possibly dropped by the United States military or NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in immediate retaliation against Afghanistan, which left a powerful image in the minds of many viewers.

Also rumored among the Palestinian population in the United States and Middle East was that the United Airlines plane that crashed near Pittsburgh had been intended by hijackers to attack Camp David, and was to be blamed on the Palestinians.  The 11th of September marked the anniversary of the Camp David Accords, peace agreements signed in 1978 by then President Jimmy Carter, the Israeli administration and the Egyptian authorities.  The media presented images of Palestinians celebrating the attack, despite the fact that the Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat had condemned the terrorist actions, and a spokesman for the Arab League, Palestianian Hanan Ashraui said that the crimes against the United States would have serious negative consequences for Palestinians," and for this reason, the Arab countries should make their voices heard in opposition to these actions."  But these images of Palestinian protests were engraved in the minds of the people of the United States.

But not in the mind of Mrs. Adelaida, who sat in contemplation, sitting at the airport waiting to be picked up by relatives.  "It will be almost impossible for the government of this country to know who did it. There are so many people in the world who have been harmed by the military and economic policies of the United States, and many of the people that dislike the USA have been trained by the USA Army, that they will have to find proof of who did it to know for sure. There are too many out there."

For the population of the Global South, the horrifying images of Manhattan yesterday and today triggered memories of their own experiences.  Sadly enough, now citizens of the United States share something with those from countries who have been victims of wars imposed by colonialism and militarism: uncertainty of what was going to happen, with massive involuntary displacements and evictions; the disappearance of loved ones who even now remain buried in unknown graves without ever being identified or buried with love and respect; and the massive deaths of innocent persons; and above all, the terrible sensation of the loss of control of their possibilities of building peace, liberty and justice.