‘Tinian bomb pits should be national treasure’

Visiting Albanian ambassador Fatos Tarifa agrees that the bomb pit memorial site on Tinian should be declared a national treasure, as earlier pushed by the island’s municipal government.

“Its significance is not only national. It’s international. It definitely deserves international recognition. It was the beginning of a new year for world history,” he said.

The ambassador took particular note of his visit to Tinian, describing as “very emotional” his visit to the bomb pit at Northfield where the U.S. military launched the B-29 planes that dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II.

“I could quite imagine how it was like during World War II,” he said.

Tarifa, who arrived on Saipan Friday with former North Carolina congressman David Funderburk, left early morning yesterday for Washington D.C.

“I truly enjoyed my trip. It’s beyond my expectation,” said Tarifa, recounting his three-day stay on Saipan and Tinian. “A trip to a new place is always better than just plain reading. I may read a hundred books about Saipan or Northern Marianas but what I saw in three days was something.”

Tarifa, a sociologist and university professor, said he developed an interest about the Northern Marianas when he heard about the place from Funderburk, who has been to the Marianas several times already.

“I didn’t know anything about Saipan until then,” he said.

He noted, though, that since he was a child, he has been fascinated with the thought of going to Fiji because “it makes the best stamps in the world after Cameroon.”

“I’ve been collecting stamps and I’d immediately know if it’s made in Fiji. They just do it really good,” he said.

Tarifa said his visit to the CNMI has been in the works over a year ago after meeting with Saipan resident Thomas Camacho, director of the CNMI Developmental Disability Council, as well as House Speaker Benigno Fitial, who is personally known by Funderburk.

Tarifa said that, above all, he enjoyed the warmth, friendship and hospitality of the CNMI people.

“The people here are extraordinary. They make you feel comfortable. They welcome you as a family. That I would think is one similarity you have with my people in Albania. I also come from a people who are warm and friendly,” he said.

Albania is a small European country that became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1912. It became a democracy—after long years of communism—in 1992.

These two events, he said, came to pass largely due to the help of the U.S.

“President Wilson was very instrumental in our independence. Up to now, Albanians talk about Wilson like he’s the president,” said Tarifa.

Albania is located in southeastern Europe, bordering the Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea, between Greece, and Serbia and Montenegro.

As of July 2004, it has an estimated population of 3.5 million, with a literacy rate of more than 86 percent.