Bavaria lamented Friday (August 12) that the families of Israeli victims of the Munich Olympics bombing decided to boycott commemorations marking the 50th anniversary of the tragedy due to a dispute over compensation.
“
We deeply regret this negative response
,” a spokesperson for the cabinet of Markus Söder, leader of Bavaria, who is organizing these ceremonies scheduled for September 5 in the capital of this German regional state, told AFP.
"
Negotiations continue to be conducted with the objective of achieving a positive outcome
," he added.
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In a letter sent to the President of Bavaria Markus Söder, and of which AFP obtained a copy on Thursday, the families of the 11 Israelis killed during the Munich games in 1972 indicated that they "
decline the invitation to go
" to the commemorations.
They demand from the German authorities "
public apologies
" for "
all their errors
" and their "
lies
" in this affair, "
to open all
" their archives, as well as "
just compensation
".
The person in charge of questions of compensation to victims within the German government, Pascal Kober, asked that a solution be found, underlining “
the political responsibility
” of his country.
"
Germany bears a political responsibility that we must assume, particularly in view of its unique relationship with Israel
,” he stressed in the magazine Der Spiegel.
According to the daily
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, Berlin has made an offer of compensation of 10 million euros in total, including the 4.6 million already paid in 2002. But the families of the victims consider this amount too low.
On September 5, 1972, eight members of the Palestinian organization "
Black September
broke into an apartment of the Israeli delegation in the Olympic Village, killing two Israeli athletes and taking nine other members of the delegation hostage, in the hope of exchanging them for 232 Palestinian prisoners.
The intervention of the German security services at the Fürstenfeldbruck military base, about thirty kilometers from Munich, ended with the death of all the hostages, as well as a West German policeman, a bloody outcome for which the West German authorities were held partly responsible.
Five Palestinian attackers were also killed.
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The spokesperson for the families of the victims, Ankie Spitzer, told AFP that the German authorities had given the green light for the first two requests but were still refusing to grant the families compensation respecting "
international standards
".
