Leaders to fete fall of Berlin Wall at giant bash
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
BERLIN, Nov 9 (AFP): World leaders past and present on Monday gathered for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, with 100,000 people expected at celebrations to toast a free and united Europe.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is hosting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French and Russian presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev and representatives from across the European Union as well as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-Polish president Lech Walesa and dissidents who helped bring down the Wall and end European communism would also be on hand at the former "death strip" between East and West Berlin.
At a ceremony late Sunday kicking off the official festivities, Clinton issued a call for a new transatlantic push to free those still oppressed. "Our history did not end the night the Wall came down," she said.
On the night of November 9, 1989, following weeks of pro- democracy protests, East Germany's Stalinist authorities suddenly opened the border.
After 28 years as prisoners of their own country, euphoric East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans welcoming them on the other side.
"Even in the 1980s, I never would have believed that the Wall would fall in my lifetime," Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, told Monday's Bild newspaper.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is hosting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French and Russian presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev and representatives from across the European Union as well as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of German unity.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-Polish president Lech Walesa and dissidents who helped bring down the Wall and end European communism would also be on hand at the former "death strip" between East and West Berlin.
At a ceremony late Sunday kicking off the official festivities, Clinton issued a call for a new transatlantic push to free those still oppressed. "Our history did not end the night the Wall came down," she said.
On the night of November 9, 1989, following weeks of pro- democracy protests, East Germany's Stalinist authorities suddenly opened the border.
After 28 years as prisoners of their own country, euphoric East Germans streamed to checkpoints and rushed past bewildered guards, many falling tearfully into the arms of West Germans welcoming them on the other side.
"Even in the 1980s, I never would have believed that the Wall would fall in my lifetime," Merkel, who grew up in communist East Germany, told Monday's Bild newspaper.