Word: ramstein
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...East. But with the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, the end of Stalinism in the East bloc and the progress on arms control, Germans have lost that fear. Resentment, long repressed, burst into the open in 1988 when three Italian jets collided during an air show at the U.S. Ramstein air base, killing 70 spectators and pilots. Although the accident had little to do with U.S. military operations, it galvanized public protests against ubiquitous and often frightening low-level flight training by NATO fighters...
...Ramstein accident also exposed limitations on German sovereignty that had gone unnoticed -- and unresented -- before the crash. "People realized that their Defense Minister technically didn't have the right to ban air shows in their own territory," says an American official. "Allied military rights had been pretty much taken for granted, but now they are a political issue...
...civilian safety and pollution rules, and some labor leaders are suggesting that civilian employees of the U.S. forces be given the management- participation rights that workers have in West German industry. U.S. officials, mindful of the delicacy of relations, are cautious about asserting their rights and fearful of another Ramstein-like disaster, especially with elections coming up in December. "We're in a situation here where we just can't afford any accidents or incidents," says an adviser...
...West Germany, however, the public's confidence in allied air forces was on the ebb even before the Ramstein disaster. In recent years West Germans have grown increasingly intolerant of low-altitude exercises by NATO fighters, mostly F-16s, whose pilots must practice the ground-hugging tactics they would use in battle. In the past seven years, 20 F-16s have crashed in West Germany, several in populated areas and one a bare ten seconds' flying time from a nuclear power reactor near Landau. Three aircraft crashed on a single day in July. For the past three years demonstrators have...
Scholz's declarations raise the delicate question of whether a West German Defense Minister can decide what is and what is not part of NATO's defense role. But as a NATO diplomat in Bonn noted, "We are in an emotionally charged situation." Nowhere more so than at Ramstein, where the blackened remains of the Italian jet lay crumpled late last week amid abandoned picnic tables, uneaten potato salads and indelible memories of nightmare...