The Defense Ministry in East Berlin said Wednesday that 31 officers of the Palestine Liberation Organization who had been enrolled in a course for teaching terrorist tactics have been ordered to leave the country.
The ministry also said the training program, performed by the “National People’s Army,” had been stopped.
But their departures came many months after East German officials declared that the country had ceased training PLO terrorists. The new admissions point out a profound lie.
Two weeks ago, the East German defense minister, Rainer Eppelmann, conceded on a West German television program that PLO officers were still being trained in terrorist tactics, including the bombing of buildings, explosives handling and operating in small units.
After East Germans began forcing profound changes on their country, the country’s last Communist prime minister, Hans Modrow, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in December that the practice had been stopped.
It now appears that Modrow’s account was patently false.
As Eppelmann confirmed, the training programs continued all along, including after the April 1990 installment of the new Christian Democratic government.
Last week, the Jewish community in Germany sharply protested against the training program, calling it a scandal. Community leaders urged Eppelmann to immediately terminate the training program for terrorists who were preparing operations against Jews and Israelis.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
