Monday, August 1, 2011

'You failed', says 16 year-old survivor to Norway gunman


Oslo:  A 16-year-old survivor of Norway's shooting rampage told his attacker that good would prevail over evil, in a heartfelt open letter published today.

"We are not responding to evil with evil as you wanted. We are fighting evil with good. And we are winning," Ivar Benjamin Oesteboe, who lost five friends in the attack, said in the letter addressed: "Dear Anders Behring Breivik."

"Maybe you think you've won. Maybe you think you've destroyed the Labour Party and people around the world who stand for a multicultural society by killing my friends and fellow party members," the teenager wrote.

"Know that you failed," said the letter posted on Facebook and published today in the Dagbladet newspaper.

"You describe yourself as a hero, as a knight. You are no hero. But one thing is certain, you have created heroes. On Utoeya on that warm July day, you created some of the greatest heroes the world has seen, you united the people of the world," the teenager wrote.

On the day of the attacks, Oesteboe hid with others on the islands shore when he heard the first gunshots. They thought Behring Breivik, who was dressed in a police uniform, was there to help them.

"We called out to him, waving our arms. He was there, trying to reassure those around him. All of a sudden, without batting an eye, he turned around and started shooting at people in the water," he said.

The young man survived by running towards police who arrived on the island at 6:25 pm (2050 IST), about 80 minutes after the shooting rampage started.

"You have united us ... You have killed my friends, but you have not killed our cause, our opinion, our right to express ourselves. Muslim women have been hugged by Norwegian women in the street in sympathy ... Your act has worked against its purpose. We have created a community," he told his attacker.

"You deserve to hear how your plan worked. A lot of people are angry, you are Norway's most hated man. I am not mad. I am not afraid of you. You can't get to us, we are bigger than you," the teenager wrote.

Behring Breivik, a far-right extremist, has confessed to carrying out the twin attacks on July 22.

He set off a car bomb in Oslo's government quarter that killed eight people, and later went on a shooting rampage on the Utoeya island near Oslo, where the ruling Labour Party was holding a youth camp, killing 69 people, most of them teenagers.

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