Passport saved Canadian hostage
Held hostage at gunpoint by Palestinian extremists in the Gaza Strip, Mark Budzanowski feared for his life – until his captors discovered his passport and declared 'We love Canada'
16/03/06 Globe and Mail
JERUSALEM — Mark Budzanowski could almost feel his captors' mood sag when they rifled through his pockets and found his passport. The word Canada on the cover was a blow to the dozens of masked men who surrounded him in the nondescript basement somewhere in the Gaza Strip. They thought they had kidnapped an American.
At first, the men in the masks didn't believe their eyes, and questioned the 57-year-old aid worker about Canada and about specific shops near Mr. Budzanowski's residence on Carlton Street in Toronto.
When they were finally convinced that Mr. Budzanowski was not an American in disguise, he said, they started treating him more politely, and handling him less roughly.
"When they were certain I was Canadian, they were very disappointed. Then, they told me, 'We love Canada.' That's wonderful to hear when you have guns pointed at you," an exhausted Mr. Budzanowski said yesterday in a telephone interview shortly after he was released after almost 30 hours as a hostage.
"It's wonderful to have a Canadian passport because it changes people's minds. One of the guards kept asking me to say hello to Canada, so it does stand for something."
His former captors had taken a liking to him toward the end of the hostage-taking and one — the one who kept asking him to say hello to Canada — even gave him a phone number to call if he ever needed the help of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"I don't intend to use it, but I believe he meant it," Mr. Budzanowski said with a chuckle.
He was one of 11 foreigners taken hostage by Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday after the Israeli army attacked a prison in the West Bank city of Jericho, eventually capturing militant leader Ahmed Saadat and five other wanted men who had been in Palestinian custody. All the foreign hostages have since been released.
Mr. Budzanowski's captors, members of the leftist PFLP, which Mr. Saadat leads, had been looking for an American or British hostage, someone they could potentially use as barter to get Israel to stop its attack on the jail.
Under a complicated international agreement, U.S. and British monitors had been stationed at the prison since 2002 as guarantors of Mr. Saadat's sentence, but left their posts just minutes before the Israeli tanks and bulldozers arrived. The short period of time between the departure of the monitors and the arrival of the Israeli military sparked charges of collusion and a wave of anti-foreigner anger across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Gunmen wearing masks and military fatigues burst into the Gaza City offices of Jumpstart International, the U.S.-based humanitarian group that Mr. Budzanowski works for, shortly after the Israeli assault on the Jericho prison began Tuesday morning. Pointing Kalashnikov rifles at his chest, they blindfolded him and shoved him down stairs and into a waiting car.
At times, they changed addresses every half-hour. They forced Mr. Budzanowski to change out of the tan suit he was wearing and put on ill-fitting clothes they gave him. Later, they instructed him to put his suit back on.
At one stop, they made him record a video that was broadcast on international news networks Tuesday night. In the video, Mr. Budzanowski, shown surrounded by masked men and flags of the PFLP, said his kidnapping was the work of "patriotic Palestinians" who wanted to protest the U.S. and British roles in the Jericho raid. He also told the camera that he and other foreigners taken hostage that day would meet the same fate as Mr. Saadat. Later when he was freed, he recalled that he had been so tired and frightened that he hadn't known what he was saying, merely reading a script they gave him.
"They told me what to say: how awful the Israelis were, how wonderful the PFLP was. I was very obliging, whatever they told me. I don't even remember what I said." He added, however, that he understood the anger the Palestinians felt over the Jericho raid, even if he didn't agree with the use of violence in response.
After the broadcast of the video, the hostage-takers began to pass on handwritten notes from Mr. Budzanowski's friends and colleagues. They heartened him — it meant people knew where he was, and he began to hope he would soon be released.
After a sleepless night, during which his captors kept flicking on the light to make sure he wasn't trying to escape, Mr. Budzanowski said, he was forced to record another video, then put back into a car and driven to what he assumed would be another hideout. Only when he saw a crowd of camera-wielding journalists, and then was greeted by French diplomats acting on behalf of the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv, did Mr. Budzanowski realize that he was being freed.
But while the Canadian embassy had arranged safe passage for him to Tel Aviv, and then home to Canada if he wanted, Mr. Budzanowski decided to stay in Gaza City. After what he hoped would be a long sleep and a warm shower, the aid worker planned to be back at his desk at Jumpstart this morning.
Despite his lack of sleep, Mr. Budzanowski spoke passionately about the need to help Palestinians rebuild their economy and society. He said Jumpstart's projects — including the building of a polytechnic school on the ruins of a deserted Israeli settlement in Gaza and a "peace park" near the Rafah border crossing with Egypt — are too important for him to go home now.Palestinian police were less sure he should stay, and posted guards outside his room in Gaza City last night. Mr. Budzanowski, however, wasn't worried.
"I find this work very exciting, this is tangible help we're giving, and there's no reason for me to go home because of an incident like this, no matter how unpleasant."
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