They carried large sports bags on their shoulders. They were five men and one woman, wearing thick coats and jackets and had come out of an apartment located very close to the center of Vienna.
It was a cold morning. The highest temperature that would be registered in the Austrian capital that day would be just over one degree centigrade.
They got on an almost empty tram and, although they caught the attention of some passengers, it was a normal trip.
They got out and walked to the headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), where their leaders were meeting.
A young policeman who was at the entrance of the building saw them enter, as he had seen dozens of people enter, including ministers, delegates, interpreters, journalists, who had come from the previous day .
It was approximately 11: 30 morning of 21 from December to 1975, the day in which what OPEC calls “ the darkest chapter in its history ” occurred.
In a matter of minutes, the The group that had just entered the eight-story building would unleash “hell”, as Austrian historian Thomas Riegler tells BBC Mundo.
At the helm was a young man from 25 years old, with Latin American features, who wore a beret.
It was Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as “Carlos the Jackal”.
Shots
At OPEC headquarters included the oil ministers and delegates from Algeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Ven ezuela.
Some 30 journalists had been sent to cover the meeting that had generated a lot of international expectation and some were in the lobby when the subjects asked them about the conference room.
“They seemed to be part of one of the delegations of OPEC. Nobody paid much attention to them , “wrote journalist Clyde H. Farnsworth in the article by The New York Times which was published a day later.
“The reporters directed the six to a staircase that led to the second floor, where two hours before many of the ministers had been.”
“About a minute later, a shooting broke out “on that floor.
” Carlos and his accomplices broke into the reception, fired warning shots at the ceiling and drove people to the conference room, where the ministers’ meeting was held ”, says Riegler.
The researcher is the author by Tage des Schreckens: Die OPEC-Geiselnahme 1980 und die Anfänge des modernen Terrorismus (“The terrible day: OPEC hostage-taking in 1975 and the beginning of modern terrorism ”) and the chapter When modern terrorism began (“When modern terrorism began”) from the book Handbook of OPEC and the Global Energy Order (“Manual of OPEC and the world energy order”).
The attackers
What was happening on that second floor was a kidnapping.
The group of six headed by “Carlos the Jackal”, With the help of submachine guns, hand grenades, detonators and other devices that they carried in their sports bags and hidden in their coats, they were restraining some 60 persons.
He called himself the Arm of the Arab Revolution and justifying his action said that the United Nations Security Council was about to to recognize “the legality of the Zionist existence on Palestinian land.”
According to Riegler, the six attackers followed the leadership of Wadi Haddad, “who today is known as the ‘godfather’ of modern terrorism ”
Haddad recruited Hans-Joachim Klein and Gabriele Krocher-Tiedemann, members of the West German Revolutionary Cells for this operation.
He added two men from his own circle, “Joseph” and “Jusuf”, and appointed Ramírez as leader and Anis Naccache, a Lebanese guerrilla, as substitute.
The author explains that by attacking OPEC, Haddad wanted to draw the attention of the world’s media to the “ question Palestinian to ”and raise funds for the“ armed struggle ”.
“But there was also a hidden agenda,” he says.
Beyond the Palestinian cause
According to the expert, “to a large extent, OPEC’s hostage-taking was the result of the struggle for power within the cartel itself.”
“The real sponsor was the Libyan Muammar Gaddafi, who wanted to affect the price policy of the cartel and used Haddad’s group as a force to pressure his main rivals: Saudi Arabia and Iran. It is possible that there would have been more aid from Algeria and Iraq. ”
Ramírez himself would say, years later, that this operation was ordered by the Libyan leader to exert pressure not only on Saudi Arabia, but on The United States, which had joined forces in a “dirty game” to lower the price of oil.
“Tactically it did not go as planned, it was a failure. Strategically it was an extraordinary success, “he told the EFE news agency.
The Venezuelan separated the ministers into three groups: ” friends, “” neutrals. ” and “hostile” .
Later, the Austrian authorities would reveal that the first delegates that the attackers threatened to kill were the Iranians and the Saudis.
Riegler says that the first thought of the Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani when he heard the commotion outside the compound conferences was that “the attackers should be Europeans who were protesting the increase in the price of crude oil.”
“I thought they were coming to take revenge on us.”
The global context
The international media impact of the shot was enormous.
“That action had a It is of notable importance because the world economy was in crisis due to the sharp increase in oil prices ”, tells BBC Mundo José Toro Hardy, former director of the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
And it is that between 1973 Y 1974 had occurred the embargo on the fuel supply imposed by the Arab countries and that had generated an energy crisis.
The measure, which also included production cuts, sought to pressure Western countries that had supported Israel in the Yom war Kippur at the end of 1973, but it was extended several months after the end of the conflict.
Yamani had been key not only in the imposition of the embargo, but in its lifting.
- Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the man who put world economy in check
In addition, adds the economist and author, “all the OPEC countries were willing to nationalize their respective industries.”
“The countries of the The organization had acquired enormous power , but had internally a great divide between Iran (Shiites) and the other oil-producing monarchies (Sunnis). ”
“Venezuela was the balance point” and there, remember, the news of the kidnapping was received with great anguish because among the hostages was the Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, Valentín Hernández.
Deaths
Klein had received the order to take control of the switchboard and to check who was at the reception To make sure no one had weapons, John Follain says in the book: Jackal: The Complete Story of the Legendary Terrorist , Carlo s the Jackal (“Jackal: the complete story of the legendary terrorist”).
The young receptionist Edith Heller hid behind his desk and managed to call the police: “It’s OPEC. They’re shooting all over the place “.
Klein gave account, he ran towards her and pointed his pistol at her.
“Heller felt as if his head had exploded when, after moving his pistol very slightly, he fired a bullet at the earpiece she was holding” , indicates the author.
Two policemen were on duty at the OPEC facilities : Anton Tichler and Josef Janda, who – Riegler says – they did not offer resistance, they did not wear uniforms or they had radios.
“Josef Janda called by phone to ask for help, then hid his gun in a desk drawer and mingled among the hostages. ”
Tichler managed to run to the elevator, but couldn’t save himself .
“The inspector was assassinated just a few weeks before his retirement.”
It was the first of the three victims deadly . The other two were a security guard Iraqi and a Libyan economist.
Farnsworth also reported that the attackers fired through the windows as Austrian police vehicles approached the building.
“The police surrounded the area and deployed snipers. ”
The demands
The attackers had taken control of the place, when at 11: 50 in the morning a squad of eight police officers from an emergency unit managed to enter, says Riegler.
But he lacked “special training” and his leader was wounded by a stray bullet. He was one of several injured in the shooting.
Klein, who along with “Jusuf” had been located in the lobby to repel any action by the authorities, he was wounded in the abdomen.
“Carlos had no alternative but to request emergency treatment for Klein in a Viennese hospital.”
The five remaining kidnappers used the Iraqi charge d’affaires in Vienna, Riyadh al Azzawi, as an intermediary in their negotiations with the Austrian government.
“Tell them that I am from Venezuela and that my name is Carlos . Tell them that I am the famous Carlos . They know me, ”Ramírez told him, as Follian evokes in his book.
- “Carlos the Jackal”: how a Venezuelan became one of the militants world’s most feared Palestinians
The Arab official would be the one who would transmit their demands:
“We have the delegations of the OPEC Conference in our hands,” said a statement from the group .
“They must prepare a bus with curtains on the windows to take us to Vienna airport tomorrow at 7 in the morning. There, a fully-tank DC-9, with a crew of three, must be ready to take us and our hostages to our destination. ”
“Every delay, every provocation and every attempt at rapprochement, with whatever pretext, will only endanger the lives of our hostages.”
They also demanded that a lengthy communiqué , in French, was broadcast on Austrian radio and television “every two hours.”
The message denounced “ US imperialism ”And“ Zionist aggression ”and addressed the role“ of the Arab people and other peoples of the third world ”in the management of oil resources.
Later, Al Azzawi – Farnsworth recounted – described Ramírez as a man “ as cold as ice “.
“You have half an hour”
In 2003, Yamani evoked for the BBC a part of his experience with Ramírez:
“He informed me that he had decided to kill me in the end and that he had only two days to live .
In the afternoon they sent their statement to the Austrian government and said: ‘Unless they broadcast our statements on the radio at 4: 00 (pm), we are going to kill Yamani and throw his body into the street. ‘
He told me about it . At 4: did not issue the statements and told me: ‘You have half an hour’.
I asked him if I could write my will and I started to write it (…)
Twenty minutes after 4: 00, came and touched me. I saw it, I looked at my watch and I said: ‘ I have left 10 minutes‘. I was negotiating.
And he told me: ‘No, you have more than that because they spread our statements.’ ”
The authorities
Riegler says that on the morning of that 21 December Bruno Kreisky Chancellor of Austria had arrived at the place where he would spend his Christmas holidays.
After Knowing about the emergency, “he had to undertake a return trip of several hours.”
Once in charge of managing the crisis, he made several counterclaims against Ramírez. One of them was for him to free the hostages residing in Vienna.
Foillan notes that Kreisky received letters from a group of hostages asking that he comply with the demands of the kidnappers and expressed their willingness to leave Austria with them.
According to Riegler, The official was in “close contact” with the ambassadors of the OPEC countries and asked them for “their consent” in the most delicate stages of the negotiations.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Algeria, Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika, had offered the Austrian government that his country could receive the plane with the captors if they wanted to fly to that country.
“To feed his team and the hostages, who had not eaten since the morning, Carlos ordered a hundred sandwiches and fruits “, says Foillan.
The authorities made the shipment, but several of the sandwiches had ham, food that the m Usulmans do not eat for religious reasons.
“Carlos refused the shipment and instead ordered chicken and fries.”
The outcome
“At 8: 45 on the morning of 22 from December to 1975 the convoy carrying the terrorists and the 30 remaining hostages, including 11 ministers of oil, it arrived at Schwechat airport ”, says Riegler.
Ramírez and his group decided that the plane would go to Algeria.
Klein was transferred in a ambulance and was accompanied by a doctor throughout the flight.
Riegler recalls that once the boarding of kidnapped and assailants was completed, “Carlos approached” the then Minister of the Interior, Otto Rosch, to say goodbye .
Kreisky said the decisions had been made out of “fear that the lives of the hostages would be taken.”
“We knew we were dealing with very dangerous and determined people,” he said at a press conference.
Once in the North African country, “El Chacal” asked the aircraft to go to Libya.
“But obviously Gaddafi had withdrawn his support at this stage. So the plane had to return to Algiers, where the hostage-taking concluded on 23 from December to 1975, after direct negotiations with Bouteflika ”, indicates the historian.
The kidnappers escaped and various sources suggest that a large sum of money was delivered for the safe release of the hostages.
In 2001, Klein was sentenced in Germany to nine years in prison for his participation in the operation, which he admitted, but rejected the murder and attempted murder charges.
At the trial, he also linked Gaddafi and said that “the Libyans had even provided details of conference venue security, ”the BBC reported that year.
“In 1990, a Cologne court acquitted Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann of murder after key prosecution witnesses refused to testify, ”noted journalist and writer Colin Smith in his book Carlos, portrait of a terrorist .
And, Riegler points out, “Carlos’s group had issued threats in the decade of the 80, which scared away the witnesses from appearing in court. ”
“She was acquitted because the evidence against her was not strong enough “, But” he was definitely a member of the command “, as confirmed by” Klein and Carlos himself. ”
In 1994, Ramírez was captured in Sudan and taken to France, where he is imprisoned.
He has three life sentences for a series of attacks in the decades of 1970 Y 1980, OPEC hostage-taking is not one of them.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them .
- Do you already know our YouTube channel? Subscribe!