her murder is a terrible blow to all who knew her Politicians are those we elect to defend our society so we should protect them like you would protect a treasure." The NK department store where Ms Lindh was fatally wounded remained open yesterday, but it was hardly business as usual.At the Filippa K counter, where Ms Lindh had fought for her life, designer clothes had made way for an impromptu shrine of flowers and candles.More harrowing details emerged of the savage attack. People say we should put an end to the open society, guard it like all the others. She was not a 'weather politician' - by that I mean she acted with conviction."Mr Aden, a political sciences student, 34, who is an active member of Ms Lindh's Social Democrat party, added: "She was Palme's heir and it is horrific that she should have died in the same way. After it was all over she came to visit me with presents for my children and she said she had suffered with me over that business. Within the crowd that gathered and laid flowers in Lutheran solemnity outside the hospital yesterday were large numbers of African and Middle Eastern faces - the one-time refugees of whom Ms Lindh was the greatest champion.Abderisak Aden, originally from Somalia, said that Ms Lindh had personally intervened for him in Washington after his name appeared on a US list of terrorist suspects."She told me that she believed me and she fought my case until my name was removed from that list. She was savagely stabbed in the stomach and died from her injuries early yesterday.What has changed since Palme's still-unsolved murder is that Mrs Rashid is among a growing number of immigrants who consider themselves to have a stake in this country. It remains an open society in which ministers go to work on public transport.Ms Lindh was shopping with a friend, not a bodyguard, on Wednesday afternoon. We came here because it was a paradise."Sweden has not learnt the lessons of Palme's killing. Ms Lindh, 46, was the "queen of the 'yes' vote'' in the run-up to Sunday's referendum, he said.In a country that, out of a sense of being different from the rest of Europe, had looked set to vote against adopting the currency, Ms Lindh's murder has devastated Swedes and reminded them that their country can suffer the same evil as anywhere else.The last time Sweden felt this level of shared grief was in February 1986 when Ms Lindh's mentor, Prime Minister Olof Palme, was shot dead outside a cinema in Stockholm.Ms Rashid, 43, an immigrant from Kurdistan who has three children, said yesterday: "Sweden was supposed to be safe. How could he have got away? How could people just stand back and watch?" she added. Numbed by the brutal murder of Sweden's most popular politician, the country's leaders vowed to press ahead with Sunday's referendum on euro membership.Goran Persson, the Prime Minister and a long-term ally of Ms Lindh said: "We don't want to end up in a situation where violence puts an end to the democratic process."Sweden, he said "has lost its face towards the world".
"If I had been there at the stabbing, I would have ripped his face off,'' said Lanja Rashid as she placed a teddy bear at an impromptu shrine outside Karolinska hospital where Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister, died of her stab wounds early yesterday "We Swedes have to think again. and someone who was completely committed to her family."His German counterpart, Joschka Fischer, said: "We have lost a great European, a great foreign minister and a great friend.". She had this extraordinary ability to balance the demands of [being] one of the most active of Europe's foreign ministers ... who represented something wonderful in Sweden and Europe .... her murder is a terrible blow to all who knew her."Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said she was "someone ... EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said: "The beauty in her face was a representation of the beauty she had in her soul."George Robertson, Nato's secretary general, said: "The world on the 11th September, with horrible irony, has lost another very substantial contributor to a better and safer world."US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said: "It is with great sadness that I heard the news ... In Geneva, the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan called Ms Lindh a "great foreign minister, a great Swede and a great European". In Brussels, European Union ambassadors held a minute's silence during a session. Tributes to Anna Lindh poured in from leaders around the world. That common touch would have been inconceivable in just about any other European capital and Anna would not want the circumstances of her death to bring it to an end in Stockholm.As Foreign Minister she exercised an influential, often pivotal, role at European meetings because of the confidence with which she would assert her case and the ease with which she related to other ministers.She commanded respect and affection throughout Europe and beyond Her nation has lost a powerful voice for the country Sweden's loss is also Europe's.. Anna always insisted that she was going to continue while Foreign Minister to lead the life of an ordinary citizen. To her that was not just a matter of personal taste, but an expression of her strong egalitarian views.On one occasion when I was Foreign Secretary we left her ministry on foot and travelled to our official engagement by underground. It is a wicked tragedy that they should now have lost her because of her public role.Her murder is also a test of the relaxed, open society of Sweden. Anna had made it a priority to provide a normal family home for her children and to protect them from being affected by her public position. |
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