Monday, September 05, 2005
US leaning heavily on Italy
The meeting has three basic purposes:
- helping the peace movement which opposed the invasion before it took place to understand that there is an even stronger motive for opposing an invasion after it has taken place. And helping the peace movement to understand that it is only the incredible resistance by the Iraqis which has prevented the neo-cons from launching the other wars they proudly boasted of intending to do.
- Provide a chance for the various forces of the Resistance - from secular Arab nationalists to dissident Communists, from Shiite to Sunni religious figures - to meet and discuss a common platform.
- Launch the opposition against the civil war which the occupiers are trying to develop in order to divide and rule the country.
Hot topics, indeed, but every secret service in the world knows that this is a small initiative organized by people without financial resources. Also, the Iraqi opposition figures who have been invited are people who live and work in relative freedom in Iraq: otherwise, of course, they would all be in the Abu Ghraib prison by now.
It came, therefore, as a surprise to read in the July 27 issue of US News & World Report that no less than 44 US congressmen had written a letter to the Italian ambassador in Washington demanding that the Italian government ban the meeting. This only a few weeks after an Italian judge had issued arrest warrants against a dozen CIA agents accused of having kidnapped in full daylight an Egyptian citizen regularly living in Milan: the agents were identified because they used Italian portable phones to call the US embassy and the military base in Aviano while carrying out the kidnapping.
As an excuse for interfering in the internal affairs of an officially sovereign country, the fourty-four congressmen refer to a public campaign conducted two years ago by the Anti-Imperialist Camp (one of the organizers of the meeting) raising funds for the Iraqi opposition. The money collected in other European countries was used to ship medicine to Iraq, while the part collected in Italy - a few thousand Euros, which should have gone to setting up an opposition printing press in Iraq - was seized by the authorities for investigation. On September 3, 2005, the court of Perugia, Italy, cancelled the investigation, for total lack of evidence of any illegal activity.
In July, the Italian embassy in Baghdad had assured the applicants that their request for a visa to Italy would be granted. In August, after the diktat by the US congressman, Gianfranco Fini, leader of the former Italian neo-Fascist party and foreign minister, ordered the visas to be denied for "security reasons". As if an ageing Iraqi clergyman with a visa in his pocket could suddenly slip away to place a bomb.
Due to this heavy-handed foreign interference, the organizers of the Chianciano meeting have met with widespread support, not only on the anti-war left, but also among liberals and from people worried, in general, about national sovereignity.
Seven people are currently on a hunger strike in front of the Italian foreign ministry, in Rome, demanding the issue of the visas. The strike began last Thursday, and is still going on.
They are also asking for a visa to be granted to Hajj Ali, the man tortured in Abu Ghraib depicted with the hood and the electrodes. Will he, too, be considered a security risk for Italy?
neon artwork by Bill Concannon
