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BBC journo recounts ordeal
25/10/2007 11:18 - (SA)
London - Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist who was kidnapped and held by an extremist group in Gaza for nearly four months, recounted his "dark education" in a radio programme set to be aired on Thursday.
In the special edition of BBC Radio's From Our Own Correspondent, which will be aired domestically and on BBC World Service radio, Johnston told of how on the day of his capture, "a saloon car had suddenly surged past mine, and then pulled up - forcing me to stop".
"I had reported many times on the kidnapping of foreigners in Gaza. Now - as I always feared it might - my turn had come."
Johnston, who was the only Western journalist still based permanently in Gaza, was taken captive by Palestinian extremists the Army of Islam on March 12 as he returned to his flat. He was only released on July 4.
He noted that he "did everything I could to reduce the risk of capture".
"Set against this danger, I felt that Gaza's story was important. It is at the centre of the Palestinian drama - which in turn lies at the heart of the rising tensions between the East and the West that have become the defining story of our time."
In the room where he was held, the 45-year-old said all he had was "a narrow, sagging bed and two plastic chairs" and said that he had been stripped of his watch, only able to tell the time "by the passage of the sun, and the five calls to prayer from nearby mosques".
His eyes were also weakened because he had to throw away his disposable contact lenses early in his ordeal.
'I couldn't help worrying'
"As one empty day slid slowly into another, the seriousness of my situation became more and more important ... Britain never does deals with kidnappers, so why - I couldn't help worrying - would I ever be freed."
He said that in the early days of his captivity, he worried about its impact on his parents and sister in Scotland, and noted that "with that wonderful clarity of hindsight, I deeply, deeply regretted having stayed in Gaza so long - and having taken the risks that I had".
Johnston said that one of the few bright spots in those months were the fact that his guards allowed him a radio, with which he became aware of the BBC's campaign to win his freedom, which he described as "an enormous psychological boost".
He spoke of his struggle to "keep my mind in the right place", prompting him to "strangle" negative thoughts and encourage positive ones - "The fact was that I hadn't been killed, and I wasn't being beaten around. I was being fed reasonably, and I decided that my conditions could have been much, much worse."
Eventually, the politics of Gaza worked in Johnston's favour, as the radical Palestinian group Hamas seized control of the territory and negotiated his release.
Since returning to Britain, Johnston said he dreams "sometimes that I'm in captivity again, and I cannot tell you how good it is to wake, and gradually realise that, actually, I'm free."
"The kidnap's legacy is not all bad ... it was a kind of dark education."
"I lived through things which before I would have struggled to imagine ... I've gained too a deeper of the value of freedom ... it can still seem faintly magical to do the simplest things - like walk down a street in the sunshine or sit in a cafe with a newspaper."
- AFP
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