Posts Tagged ‘Italy’
Italy’s PM under investigation for enforcing ‘lock down’
Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte is now officially under investigation for enforcing a nationwide ‘lock down’ in Italy against the advice of Italy’s scientific committee. The news from Italy, the first democratic country to impose a national lockdown, followed by others, is that the scientific committee recommended against it, but Conte over-ruled the scientific committee and had a ‘lock down’ imposed.
It was 9 March 2020 that the Conte government severely restricted the movement of the population except for necessity, work, and health circumstances. The scientific committee in Italy only recommended masks for those who feel ill. Among the questions to be raised by the investigation are: Who pushed for mandatory masks in public interior spaces? And, who was Conte listening to?
Here is the gist of the startling new developments in Italy, taken from two reports of the newspaper ‘La Repubblica’. The text of the two relevant news reports follows, in Italian, with an output from an automatic translator in English.
The first Repubblica news report, on 13 August, is headlined ‘Notices filed against PM and six ministers’. The main paragraphs are (Italian):
Avviso di garanzia da parte dei pm di Roma nei confronti del presidente del Consiglio Giuseppe Conte e dei ministri Alfonso Bonafede, Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Gualtieri, Lorenzo Guerini, Luciana Lamorgese e Roberto Speranza. Stando a quanto si legge in una nota della presidenza del Consiglio, con questo avviso si comunica la trasmissione al Tribunale dei ministri degli atti di un procedimento nato da varie denunce provenienti da soggetti di varie parti d’Italia per i reati di epidemia, delitti colposi contro la salute, omicidio colposo, abuso d’ufficio, attentato contro la Costituzione, attentato contro i diritti politici del cittadino (artt. 110, 438, 452 e 589, 323, 283, 294 del Codice penale).
Sempre la nota di Palazzo Chigi aggiunge che la Procura di Roma chiederà l’archiviazione: “La trasmissione da parte della Procura al Collegio in base alle previsioni di legge, è un atto dovuto. Nel caso specifico tale trasmissione è stata accompagnata da una relazione nella quale l’Ufficio della Procura ‘ritiene le notizie di testo infondate e dunque da archiviare'”.
(English): Warranty notice from the pm of Rome against the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Ministers Alfonso Bonafede, Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Gualtieri, Lorenzo Guerini, Luciana Lamorgese and Roberto Speranza. According to what is read in a note of the Council Presidency, this notice communicates the transmission to the Court of Ministers of the acts of a procedure born from various complaints from subjects in various parts of Italy for the crimes of epidemic, manslaughter against health, manslaughter, abuse of office, attack against the Constitution, attack against the political rights of the citizen (Articles 110, 438, 452 and 589, 323, 283, 294 of the Penal Code).
The note from Palazzo Chigi also adds that the Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office will ask for the case to be dismissed: “The transmission by the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the College according to the provisions of the law, is a due act. In the specific case this transmission was accompanied by a report in which the Public Prosecutor’s Office ‘considers the news of the text unfounded and therefore to be archived'”.
(IT): Conte e i ministri, inoltre, “si dichiarano sin d’ora disponibili a fornire ai magistrati ogni elemento utile a completare l’iter procedimentale, in uno spirito di massima collaborazione”. Successivamente il premier scrive su Facebook: “Ci siamo sempre assunti la responsabilità, in primis ‘politica’, delle decisioni adottate. Decisioni molto impegnative, a volte sofferte, assunte senza disporre di un manuale, di linee guida, di protocolli di azione. Abbiamo sempre agito in scienza e coscienza, senza la pretesa di essere infallibili ma nella consapevolezza di dover sbagliare il meno possibile per preservare al meglio gli interessi della intera comunità nazionale”.
Come accennato, sono oltre duecento gli esposti e le denunce presentate da cittadini sull’operato del governo nel periodo del lockdowon e dell’emergenza Coronavirus. Gli esposti, passati ai pm Eugenio Albamonte e Giorgio Orano, riguardano due ambiti della gestione da parte del governo: da un lato si accusa l’esecutivo di non aver saputo affrontare l’emergenza. Nel secondo filone sono stati inseriti gli esposti in cui si ipotizzano reati di abuso d’ufficio e attentato contro i diritti politici del cittadino per l’imposizione delle norme legate al lockdown.
(EN): Furthermore, Conte and the ministers “declare themselves willing to provide the magistrates with all the elements necessary to complete the procedure, in a spirit of maximum cooperation”. Subsequently, the Prime Minister writes on Facebook: “We have always taken responsibility, first and foremost ‘politics’, for the decisions taken. Very demanding decisions, sometimes painful, taken without having a manual, guidelines, protocols of action. We have always acted in science and conscience, without the pretension of being infallible, but in the awareness of having to make as little mistake as possible to preserve the interests of the entire national community as best we can”.
As mentioned, there are more than two hundred complaints and complaints from citizens about the government’s actions during the lockdowon and the Coronavirus emergency. The complaints, passed to the pm Eugenio Albamonte and Giorgio Orano, concern two areas of management by the government: on the one hand, the executive is accused of not having been able to deal with the emergency. In the second strand, the complaints have been inserted in which crimes of abuse of office and attack against the political rights of the citizen for the imposition of the rules related to the lockdown.
The earlier Repubblica news report, printed 6 August, is headlined ‘Coronavirus, the scientific committee wanted differentiated measures but Conte decided the lockdown for the whole Italy’. The main paragraphs are:
(IT): Il 7 marzo scorso con un documento riservato inviato al ministro della Salute Roberto Speranza, sull’analisi della situazione epidemiologica, il Comitato tecnico scientificio propone al governo di “adottare due livelli di misure di contenimento: uno nei territori in cui si è osservata maggiore diffusione del virus, l’altro sul territorio nazionale”. Nello specifico: misure più rigorose in Lombardia e nelle province di Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini e Modena, Pesaro Urbino, Venezia, Padova, Treviso, Alessandria e Asti”. Due giorni dopo, però, il presidente del Consiglio Conte con il Dpcm del 9 marzo dà il via al lockdown estendendo le stesse misure a tutto il territorio nazionale senza distinzioni e senza citare a giustificazione del provvedimento alcun atto del Comitato tecnico scientifico.
È la novità di maggiore rilievo che emerge dalla lettura dei cinque verbali, per oltre 200 pagine, che sono stati pubblicati sul sito della fondazione Luigi Einaudi, dopo essere stati desecretati dalla Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. Sono alcuni dei verbali quelli prodotti dal Comitato tecnico scientifico per l’emergenza del Coronavirus e sono alla base delle decisioni prese dall’Esecutivo con i Dpcm. Documenti che che da giorni le opposizioni, e anche il Copasir, chiedevano di rendere pubblici. Pagine pagine firmate dal Comitato istituito con un’ordinanza del capo del dipartimento della Protezione Civile il 3 febbraio scorso. I cinque verbali sono datati 28 febbraio, 1 marzo, 7 marzo, 30 marzo e 9 aprile 2020. Ma non sono tutte. Mancano, ad esempio, le riunioni dai primi giorni di marzo, quelle della mancata zona rossa ad Alzano e Nembro, in Val Seriana.
(EN): On March 7 with a confidential document sent to the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, on the analysis of the epidemiological situation, the Scientific Technical Committee proposes to the government to “adopt two levels of containment measures: one in the territories where the virus has been observed more widespread, the other on the national territory”. Specifically: more stringent measures in Lombardy and in the provinces of Parma, Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Rimini and Modena, Pesaro Urbino, Venice, Padua, Treviso, Alessandria and Asti”. Two days later, however, the President of the Count’s Council with the Dpcm of March 9 kicks off the lockdown by extending the same measures to the entire national territory without distinction and without citing any act of the Scientific Technical Committee to justify the measure.
This is the most important news that emerges from the reading of the five minutes, for over 200 pages, which were published on the website of the Luigi Einaudi Foundation, after having been declassified by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. Some of the minutes are those produced by the Scientific Technical Committee for the emergency of the Coronavirus and are the basis of the decisions taken by the Executive with the Dpcm. Documents that for days the oppositions, and also the Copasir, were asking to make public. Pages pages signed by the Committee established by an order of the head of the Department of Civil Protection on February 3. The five minutes are dated 28 February, 1 March, 7 March, 30 March and 9 April 2020. But they are not all. There are, for example, the meetings since the first days of March, those of the missing red zone in Alzano and Nembro, in Val Seriana.
(IT): In un passaggio di questi verbali contenenti “informazioni non classificate controllate”, quello del primo marzo in una delle riunioni dopo l’esplosione del coronavirus in Italia, si legge che “il Cts esprime la raccomandazione generale che la popolazione, per tutta la durata dell’emergenza, debba evitare, nei rapporti interpersonali, strette di mano e abbracci”. Il 9 marzo, poi, il premier Giuseppe Conte avrebbe annunciato il lockdown.
Ieri sera alle 21.15 erano stati trasmessi tramite PEC dal Capo della Protezione Civile Angelo Borrelli agli avvocati Enzo Palumbo, Andrea Pruiti Ciarello e Rocco Mauro Todero. Il Governo – si legge sul sito della Fondazione – ha pertanto deciso di rivedere la propria posizione, anticipando il prevedibile esito dell’udienza collegiale fissata per il 10 settembre 2020, innanzi alla Terza Sezione del Consiglio di Stato e aderire alle richieste degli avvocati, fortemente rilanciate dalla Fondazione Luigi Einaudi e sostenute da molti parlamentari e da gran parte dell’opinione pubblica. La Fondazione Luigi Einaudi auspica che il Governo compia l’ulteriore passo sulla strada della trasparenza e pubblichi autonomamente tutti gli altri verbali del Comitato Tecnico Scientifico, utilizzati a supporto dei vari DPCM adottati dal Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri Giuseppe Conte, nel corso della pandemia da Covid-19.
Da parte sua, il ministro della Salute Roberto Speranza all’informativa al Senato, ha detto che “la Presidenza del Consiglio ha già provveduto a consegnare i verbali del Cts a chi ne ha fatto richiesta e la regola della trasparenza è quella cui non intendiamo rinunciare”.
(EN): In a passage of these minutes containing “controlled unclassified information”, that of March 1st in one of the meetings after the coronavirus explosion in Italy, we read that “the Cts expresses the general recommendation that the population, for the whole duration of the emergency, should avoid, in interpersonal relations, handshakes and hugs”. On March 9, then, Premier Giuseppe Conte announced the lockdown.
Yesterday evening at 9.15 p.m. were transmitted through PEC by the Head of Civil Protection Angelo Borrelli to lawyers Enzo Palumbo, Andrea Pruiti Ciarello and Rocco Mauro Todero. The Government – it can be read on the Foundation’s website – has therefore decided to review its position, anticipating the expected outcome of the collegial hearing scheduled for September 10, 2020, before the Third Section of the Council of State and adhere to the requests of the lawyers, strongly relaunched by the Luigi Einaudi Foundation and supported by many parliamentarians and a large part of public opinion. The Luigi Einaudi Foundation hopes that the Government will take a further step towards transparency and will independently publish all the other minutes of the Technical Scientific Committee, used to support the various Prime Ministerial Decree adopted by the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during the Covid-19 pandemic.
For his part, the Health Minister Roberto Speranza, at the information to the Senate, said that “the Presidency of the Council has already provided to deliver the minutes of the Cts to those who requested them and the rule of transparency is the one we do not intend to give up”.
Monsanto drops GM crop plans in Europe

‘Monsanocchio’, by Raymond Burki, a Swiss cartoonist whose works are published in the Lausanne daily 24 heures. Courtesy: Presseurop
The signs have been gaining substance over the last two years. In western Europe (Britain excluded), citizens and independent researchers have demanded and end to GM food products. The support given to the seed-biotech-fertiliser conglomerates of the USA and Europe, by their governments has been well met by organised consumer awareness and resistance. It is no wonder then that these cartels have shifted the use of their tactics to Asia, where political establishments can be more easily influenced and where consumer awareness about the dreadful dangers of GM is generally lower than in western Europe.
Europe’s press is reporting that Monsanto, the fertiliser and biotechnology company, is withdrawing all permits requested to the European Commission to grow genetically modified corn, soy and sugar beet because it does not see “a commercial outlook” for these products (that’s what the public relations scoundrels call what we know and practice as informed consumer awareness).
German daily Die Welt reported that only a request to grow genetically modified corn (of the MON810 type) will be renewed. For the moment, this type of corn is the only genetically modified organism commercially cultivated in Europe, said Die Welt. While MON810 corn type is admitted into the EU, several countries including France, Germany and Italy have banned it at the national level, following citizen initiatives. Last year, German chemical firm BASF threw in the towel and relocated its biotechnology centre to the USA because genetic engineering is so strongly contested in Europe.
Monsanto has loudly insisted that its genetically modified products, including maize MON810, which is authorised in Europe, are safe for humans. It has an army of compromised ‘scientists’ on its payroll in every single country where it wants to push its GM products, and using its public relations agents has infiltrated media in every country that it sees as a market. But the evidence that GM is dangerous for humans and animals, for insects and plants alike grows by the day. A study conducted on rats for two years by a team of French researchers on Monsanto NK 603 corn revealed an abnormally high tumour and death rate – Monsanto’s own in-house studies, pushed out as counter-evidence by mercenary accomplices, were conducted for no more than three months!

Roadside shacks of people whose land has been taken over for soy fields in Alto Parana, Paraguay, which is among the South American countries with the most unequal land distribution. Paraguay has seen this situation escalate to the point where today, 2% of owners control 85% of the farmland. The regional situation is worse when one considers that the neighbouring countries – Brazil especially but also Argentina – are also experiencing land concentration for transgenic soybeans. Photo: Grain / Glyn Thomas / FoE
Greenpeace noted the company will also seek to continue sales of its controversial MON810 maize, which was already approved in Europe and is the last remaining GM crop grown there. “The EU-wide authorisation for the cultivation of MON810 is expiring at the end of a ten-year period and the safety of the crop is due to be reassessed. The company is permitted to continue to use MON810 in Europe until the European Commission announces its decision,” stated Greenpeace.
The GM Freeze campaign welcomed Monsanto’s announcement that it is withdrawing pending applications to cultivate GM crops in the European Union but said this is not the end of Europe’s GM story. GM Freeze pointed out that Monsanto’s GM crops will still be imported into the EU, primarily for use in animal feed and biofuels, so the damage to ecosystems and human health caused by GM will continue elsewhere. The lack of labels on meat, eggs, dairy products and fish produced using GM feed means that Europe’s reliance on GM is hidden from consumers so they cannot easily avoid buying GM-fed products. Food companies should meet the clear demand for entirely non-GM foods by labelling those produced without GM, as is done successfully by many companies in Germany, Austria and France.
In tiresomely typical contrast, the government of the United Kingdom is to push the European Union to ease restrictions limiting the use of GM crops in the human food chain, reported The Independent. Britain’s Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is next week due to announce a UK government drive to increase Britain’s cultivation of GM foods! The newspaper said Britain’s ministers are hopeful of building support in Brussels for a change of heart on GM, with Germany seen as a key swing voter. The government of Britain’s craven attempts to relax the rules will face opposition from countries like Poland which in April became the eighth EU member state to ban the cultivation of GM crops.
Forgetting their ‘commitments’ to get GM out of their supply chains, big British food retailers – Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Tesco – have gone in the opposite direction. Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer have joined Monsanto, Cargill and Nestle on the absurd Roundtable on Responsible Soy, a group that has been condemned by organisations around the world as a greenwash of existing bad practice in industrial soya monoculture. The Roundtable ‘certifies’ (judge and jury) GM soya as “responsible” despite growing evidence of adverse health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts in producer countries. Tesco is now backing GM soya production in South America, where it is grown in huge monocultures sprayed frequently with Roundup to the detriment of people and ecosystems there.
Where the children sleep
These pictures are from James Mollison’s book of photographs of children from around the world and where they sleep (thanks to The Telegraph of Britain for running an article on the book). Mollison hopes his photographs will encourage children to think about inequality. He sees his pictures as “a vehicle to think about poverty and wealth, about the relationship of children to their possessions, and the power of children – or lack of it – to make decisions about their lives”.

Indira, seven, lives with her parents, brother and sister near Kathmandu in Nepal. Her house has only one room, with one bed and one mattress. At bedtime, the children share the mattress on the floor. Indira has worked at the local granite quarry since she was three. The family is very poor so everyone has to work. There are 150 other children working at the quarry. Indira works six hours a day and then helps her mother with household chores. She also attends school, 30 minutes’ walk away. Her favourite food is noodles. She would like to be a dancer when she grows up. Picture: The Telegraph / James Mollison / Chris Boot Ltd

Jasmine, four, lives in a big house in Kentucky, USA, with her parents and three brothers. Her house is in the countryside, surrounded by farmland. Her bedroom is full of crowns and sashes that she has won in beauty pageants. She has entered more than 100 competitions. Her spare time is taken up with rehearsal. She practices her stage routines every day with a trainer. Jazzy would like to be a rock star when she grows up. Picture: The Telegraph / James Mollison / Chris Boot Ltd

Home for this boy and his family is a mattress in a field on the outskirts of Rome, Italy. The family came from Romania by bus, after begging for money to pay for their tickets. When they arrived in Rome, they camped on private land, but the police threw them off. They have no identity papers, so cannot obtain legal work. The boy’s parents clean car windscreens at traffic lights. No one from his family has ever been to school. Picture: The Telegraph / James Mollison / Chris Boot Ltd

Kaya, four, lives with her parents in a small apartment in Tokyo, Japan. Her bedroom is lined from floor to ceiling with clothes and dolls. Kaya’s mother makes all her dresses – Kaya has 30 dresses and coats, 30 pairs of shoes and numerous wigs. When she goes to school, she has to wear a school uniform. Her favourite foods are meat, potatoes, strawberries and peaches. She wants to be a cartoonist when she grows up. Picture: The Telegraph / James Mollison / Chris Boot Ltd

Lamine, 12, lives in Senegal. He is a pupil at the village Koranic school, where no girls are allowed. He shares a room with several other boys. The beds are basic, some supported by bricks for legs. At six every morning the boys begin work on the school farm, where they learn how to dig, harvest maize and plough the fields using donkeys. In the afternoon they study the Koran. In his free time Lamine likes to play football with his friends. Picture: The Telegraph / James Mollison / Chris Boot Ltd
Extracted from ‘Where Children Sleep’ by James Mollison (Chris Boot).
An inequality chasm is fracturing Europe, warns the OECD

April in Berlin, Germany. A homeless man sat begging for euros or food in the entrance of an S-Bahn station.
Deepening inequalities in income between the richer and poorer families, greater relative income poverty in recent years compared with earlier, a greater burden borne by children and young people than before because of their being relatively poor – these are some of the stark conclusions contained in the OECD briefing, ‘New Results from the OECD Income Distribution Database’.
This is the picture of Europe today (and of the non-European members of the OECD). “Looking at the 17 OECD countries for which data are available over a long time period, market income inequality increased by more over the last three years than what was observed in the previous 12 years,” observed the new briefing, which is sub-titled ‘Crisis squeezes income and puts pressure on inequality and poverty’.

Annual percentage changes in household market income between 2007 and 2010, by income component. Chart: OECD
The figures and data show that many of the countries recording the most dramatic increases in inequality are European countries which have been subjected to punitive austerity measures by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. The OECD report singles out Spain and Italy, where the income of “the poorest 10 percent was much lower in 2010 than in 2007”.
Five percent falls in income (per year) amongst the poorest 10 percent were also recorded in Greece, Ireland, Estonia, and Iceland. The only non-European nation with a comparable level of income decline was Mexico. The report also stated that over the same period, poor families in the United States, Italy, France, Austria and Sweden all recorded income losses in excess of the OECD average.
Indeed the ‘New Results’ briefing has showed that across OECD countries, real household disposable income stagnated. Likewise, the average income of the top 10% in 2010 was similar to that in 2007. Meanwhile, the income of the bottom 10% in 2010 was lower than that in 2007 by 2% per year. Out of the 33 countries where data are available, the top 10% has done better than the poorest 10% in 21 countries.
This is the OECD picture till 2010. Since then, recession has been the companion of inequality. With an average growth of -0.2 per cent in the first quarter (against -0.1 per cent in the EU as a whole) and hardly better prospects for the whole rest of the year (-0.7 per cent), according to Eurostat, the dreaded “double dip” has become a reality. The press attributes the result largely to the austerity policies.

Gini coefficient of household disposable income and gap between richest and poorest 10%, 2010: Chart: OECD
“Eurozone sets bleak record of longest term in recession,” reported the Financial Times. The daily noted that “this latest dismal record came after unemployment hit 12.1 per cent in the bloc, its highest level,” and that this data “is likely to add to pressure on the European Central Bank to take further action after cutting interest rates this month, and to revise down its economic forecast predicting a recovery later in the year.”
Moreover, relative income poverty – the share of people having less income than half the national median income – affects around 11% of the population on average across OECD countries. Poverty rates range between 6% of the population in Denmark and the Czech Republic to between 18% and 21% in Chile, Turkey, Mexico and Israel. Over the two decades up to 2007, relative income poverty increased in most OECD countries, particularly in countries that had low levels of income poverty in the mid-1990s.
In Sweden, Finland, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, the income poverty rate increased by 2 percentage points or more. In Sweden, the poverty rate in 2010 (9%) was more than twice what it was in 1995 (4%). Relative poverty also increased in some countries, such as Australia, Japan, Turkey and Israel, with middle and high levels of poverty.
The OECD briefing has stated bluntly: “Households with children were hit hard during the crisis. Since 2007, child poverty increased in 16 OECD countries, with increases exceeding 2 points in Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Slovenia and Hungary.” The ‘New Results’ briefing added: “Since 2007, youth poverty increased considerably in 19 OECD countries. In Estonia, Spain and Turkey, an additional 5% of young adults fell into poverty between 2007 and 2010. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the increase was 4%, and in the Netherlands 3%.”

Annual percentage changes in household disposable income between 2007 and 2010, by income group. Chart: OECD
Between 2007 and 2010, average relative income poverty in the OECD countries rose from 12.8 to 13.4% among children and from 12.2 to 13.8% among youth. Meanwhile, relative income poverty fell from 15.1 to 12.5% among the elderly. This pattern confirms the trends described in previous OECD studies, with youth and children replacing the elderly as the group at greater risk of income poverty across the OECD countries.
These results only tell the beginning of the story about the consequences of austerity, growing unemployment, the burden on children and youth, and burden on immigrant wage labour. The OECD data describes the evolution of income inequality and relative poverty up to 2010. But “the economic recovery has been anaemic in a number of OECD countries and some have recently moved back into recession”, said the briefing.
Worse, since 2010, many people exhausted their rights to unemployment benefits. In such a situation, the briefing has warned, “the ability of the tax-benefit system to alleviate the high (and potentially increasing) levels of inequality and poverty of income from work and capital might be challenged”. These are unusually blunt words from the OECD and their use reflects the depth and persistence of the crisis of modern, reckless, destructive capitalism in Europe.
Of German wurst, French fries and an IMF bullet

A closed chips stall called 'La Reine des Fritures' ('The Queen of French Fries') in French Flanders. Photo: Stephan Vanfleteren / Panos Pictures
Le Monde Diplomatique, that fearless critic of globalisation and the tyranny of the multilateral lending institutions, has said in its 2011 December issue that in November, the Franco-German directorate of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — the ‘troika’ — were furious when the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, announced plans to hold a referendum.
Absolute oligarchs dislike referendums because the idea has a great deal to do with consultation – not a favourite subject for the IMF in the 67 years it has claimed to shape the global economy. That is why, summoned to Cannes for an interview during a summit that his country was too small to attend, kept waiting, and publicly upbraided by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy (who were responsible for exacerbating the crisis), Papandreou was forced to abandon the plan for a referendum and resign. His successor, a former vice-president of the ECB, promptly decided to include in the Athens government a far-right organisation banned since the Greek colonels lost power in 1974.
In ‘Europe in crisis, rule by troika’, Serge Halimi has written in LMD that the European project was supposed to secure prosperity, strengthen democracy in states formerly ruled by juntas (Greece, Spain, Portugal), and defuse “nationalism as a source of war”. But it is having the opposite effect, with drastic cuts, puppet governments at the call of the brokers, and renewed strife between nations. Everything, in short, that the IMF and the World Bank have pursued since 1944 mostly successfully in Asia, Africa and South America.
Former bankers Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti have taken over in Athens and Rome, exploiting the threat of bankruptcy and the fear of chaos. They are not apolitical technicians but men of the right, members of the Trilateral Commission that blamed western societies for being too democratic. “Having crushed Greece and Italy, the EU and the IMF have now set their sights on Hungary and Spain,” Halimi has written, and it is a grim warning.

A ferris wheel runs in the centre of Brussels next to an old building advertising Martini and Zanussi. Photo: Stephan Vanfleteren / Panos Pictures
Red Pepper has more on the ways and means of the IMF.
“It’s stripped millions of people of their livelihoods, but the global economic crisis has brought one institution back from the dead: the International Monetary Fund. Two years ago, the IMF looked to be on its last legs. It had got to the stage where nobody wanted to borrow its money. Many developing countries started accumulating reserves to avoid ever having to go to the IMF loan shark. Developed countries in trouble would go just about anywhere – China, Russia, Saudi Arabia – to avoid the IMF.”
Then came the meltdown. “The IMF failed to see it coming – pretty damning for a body supposed to oversee global financial stability – but bankrupt countries suddenly had no choice but to come begging.” Exactly the point – the IMF did see it coming because this is what its prescriptions for the previous decade were aimed at in the first place. In April last year, the G20 pumped the organisation with £330 billion of new funds. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called the decision ‘black humour’, saying it would ‘rub salt in the wound’ of countries hit by a crisis they did not create. The IMF is now re-armed and doubly dangerous, with large new areas in what was formerly the Eurozone to subjugate.
Not quietly by any means. After all, the Greeks are Greeks first and then, perhaps, Europeans. Ditto with the Italians, Portuguese, Hungarians, Spaniards and Latvians. It is looking rather like the Germans and the French (elite, mind you, not the labour, the unemployed, the migrants and the armies of informal workers struggling on 25 euros a day) are the last Europeans left.
But this is why major protests have been convulsing Greece throughout the autumn with strikes, and occupations of the main squares in many towns. Civil servants blockaded their ministries, preventing ministers from accessing their departments in September and October. The early November surprise announcement of a popular referendum in Greece on the EU-IMF loan terms and conditions would have marked the first time an IMF lending package was subjected to a test of popular ownership. In the end the political pressure heaped on the Greek prime minister by other European countries, the Greek political opposition and factions from within his own government forced him to back down and resign as prime minister.
After the collapse of the Greek government, Elena Papadopoulou of the Athens-based Nicos Poulantzas Institute said: “Despite the proclaimed enthusiasm, there is no realistic reason to believe that the new coalition government – with the participation of the extreme right – will follow anything other than the socially destructive policies applied according to IMF recipes with the agreement of the European elites.”
Eighty years after Umar al-Mukhtar’s execution, western Europe’s rulers announce the Libyan plunder

Umar al-Mukhtär (b. c. 1862), a leader of Sanüsi resistance to Italian colonisation until his execution in 1931. Photo: General History of Africa, Vol VII, UNESCO 1985
We do not know if the president of France and the prime minister of Britain were aware of the historic signifiance of the timing of their joint visit to Libya last week. Either David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy had been informed of what had happened there, exactly 80 years before, and chose the date as a symbol of the military might that occupying colonial powers have had in North Africa; or they did not, their presence at the time being coincidence. Whichever the explanation, the Libyans who watched the two western European political leaders in their country could not have failed to have observed the anniversary of the execution of Umar al-Mukhtär, Libya’s legenary freedom fighter and the ‘Lion of the Desert’. It had taken place exactly 80 years ago, on 16 September 1931.
The Cameron-Sarkozy visit recalled all the sordid and bloody traditions of imperialism: untrammelled hypocrisy, rank economic plunder and the ruthless use of force to secure such plunder. They were feted by the leaders of NATO’s local client, the National Transitional Council (TNC), under heavy security in Tripoli. Delivering the ghastly charade, Cameron hailed “free Libya” to the cheers of the assembled crowds. “France, Great Britain, Europe, will always stand by the side of the Libyan people,” his counterpart Sarkozy declared.
A comment in The Guardian has explained that in Libya the long decades of oppression could not be forgotten so easily. The Italians had devastated the old pastoral economy, and depopulated much of the land: the very term Siziliani (many of the settlers had come from Sicily) remained a term of loathing. Memories of anti-colonial resistance helped to legitimise Libya’s new British-backed king, Idris, who as head of the Sanusi order had been a figurehead for the struggle against the Italians. But such memories also helped bolster the 27-year-old Colonel Gaddafi when he accused the king of selling out to latter-day imperialism, toppled him in a coup and set up the republic.
This year that republic became the pretext for NATO’s neo-colonial adventure — to protect Libyan lives from the regime of Muammar Gaddafi — one that has almost completely been dispensed with. Based on a blatant illegality [‘Is the resolution on Libya legal under international law?‘], NATO warplanes continue to pound targets around the remaining pro-Gaddafi towns of Sirte and Bani Walid with scant regard for civilian lives as the TNC and its NATO backers push to bring the entire country under their control. The World Socialist Web Site has explained that all the hypocritical claims that the war for “regime change” in Libya was all about saving human lives notwithstanding, the aims of British and French imperialism in Libya, North Africa and the Middle East are no more humanitarian today that they have been for the past 200 years.
Earlier that week, the CEO of Italy’s energy giant ENI, Paolo Scaroni, was in Tripoli to discuss the resumption of Libyan gas exports. ENI was Libya’s largest energy producer before this economic war was illegally launced the energy company wants to defend its dominant position. Libya has the largest proven energy reserves in Africa: 46.4 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Libyan officials reported to the “Friends of Libya” gathering in Paris on September 2 that five major foreign energy corporations were back in the country.
To compare better the bloody and tragic history of ‘regime change’ carried out under colonial domination then and now, here is an extract that describes the events leading up to 16 September 1931.
“To worsen the situation even further, on 21 December 1922, Emir Idrïs al-Sanusï, the Union’s spiritual leader and supreme commander, went into voluntary exile to Egypt. His unexplained and sudden departure, which is still being debated among historians, completely demoralized the people and caused many of the warriors either to leave the country or surrender to the Italians. However, before leaving, al-Sanusï appointed his brother Al-Ridä as his deputy, and Umar al-Mukhtär as commander of the National Forces in the Green Mountains, and it was under his leadership and because of the efficient guerrilla warfare that he developed that the resistance continued until 1931. He divided his forces into three major mobile companies (adwär) and camped in the mountainous area south of al-Mardj at Jardas. The series of attacks launched against him in the summer of 1923 were all repelled. Another army sent against his camp in March was routed.”

Partie de Tunis et de Tripoli. Afrique no. 3. (Dresse par Ph. Vandermaelen, lithographie par H. Ode. Troisieme partie. - Afrique. Bruxelles. 1827). Cartographer: Vandermaelen, Philippe, 1795-1869. Date: 1827. Collection: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
“It was Tripolitania that fell first. By June 1924, all arable land was occupied. But aware of their weakness as long as they did not control the desert, the Italians began a long campaign to control the desert and finally Fazzän. This was not marked by success despite the use of aerial bombing and poison gas. Several Italian advances were stopped. As late as 1928 the Libyans blocked the main Italian force at Faqhrift south of Surt. But by the end of 1929 and the beginning of 1930, Fazzän was finally occupied and the Libyan resistance in the west and south collapsed.”
“Meanwhile, the resistance in Cyrenaica continued and succeeded in inflicting heavy defeats on the Italians. When the Fascists failed to suppress the revolution of Umar al-Mukhtär in Cyrenaica through direct military attack, they resorted to some measures unprecedented in the history of colonial wars in Africa. They first erected a 300 km-long wire fence along the Tripoli-Egyptian border to prevent any aid coming from Egypt. Secondly, continually enforced, they occupied the oases of Djalo, Djaghabüb and Kufra to encircle and isolate the warriors in Cyrenaica. Finally, they evacuated all the rural population of Cyrenaica to the desert of Sirt where they kept them in fenced concentration camps. This measure was meant to deprive al-Mukhtär’s forces of any local assistance. Other mass prisons and concentration camps were established at al-Makrfln, Sulük, al-Aghayla and al-Barayka. Conditions in these camps were so bad that it is believed that more than a hundred thousand people died of starvation and diseases, not to mention their animals which were confiscated. In al-Barayka prison camp alone, there were 80,000 persons of whom 30,000 are said to have died between 1930 and 1932, according to the Italians’ own statistics.”
“Despite these wicked measures, the revolt continued and hit-and-run tactics were resorted to. The Italians again offered to negotiate with al-Mukhtâr. A series of meetings were held between the two sides. Among them was the one held near al-Mardj on 19 July 1929, attended by Governor Badoglio. At this meeting, the Italians offered to bribe al-Mukhtlr who turned down the offer and insisted on liberating his country.”

One for you, two for me. French President Nicolas Sarkozy (right) greets British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday at the Elysee Palace. Photo: Der Spiegel/DPA
“Later, when al-Mukhtär discovered that the Italians were trying to apply the policy of ‘divide and rule’ among his followers, he broke the talks with the Italians and resumed his tactics of guerrilla warfare which included skirmishes, raids, ambushes, surprise attacks and incursions spread all over the country. In the last twenty-one months before his capture, he fought 277 battles with the Italians as Graziani himself admits. In September 1931, however, al-Mukhtär was captured and taken to Benghazi. He was then court-martialed and executed before thousands of Libyans at the town of Sulük on 16 September 1931.”
[Extract from the chapter, ‘African initiatives and resistance in North Africa and the Sahara’, by A. Laroui, in Volume VII of ‘General History of Africa – Africa under Colonial Domination 1880-1935’, UNESCO-Heinemann, 1985]
From the very start of the Gaddafi regime, the Guardian comment observes, present and past merged as the anti-colonialist Gaddafi ordered British and American air bases to close and kicked out the 20,000 Italians still living in the country, nationalising their property. As his regime became more and more unpopular, so it found new uses in Libya’s history of oppression. Even as it razed the monuments of the Sanusi leadership, now seen by regime propagandists as feudal usurpers of a popular nationalist movement, so it sent researchers into the countryside as part of a vast oral history project to collect memories of the guerrilla war and Italian atrocities.
Such moves not only wrapped the regime in the heroic mantle of the anti-Italian jihad, they served geopolitical purposes too. Two years after forcing the Italians to leave, the socialist Gaddafi was inviting Italian corporations back in, turning the former colonial oppressor into Libya’s chief European business partner. And when in 2004 he sought new respectability in Europe, Italy became a crucial ally and history was part of the deal: Berlusconi apologized publicly for Italy’s past crimes, and in return, Gaddafi promised to keep Italy’s unwanted illegal migrants locked up in camps inside Libya.
There is more on Libya here: The bloody cost of ‘democratic transition’ in Libya ; A time before the pillage – what North Africa should mean to us ; Mussolini and Ethiopia, Italy and Libya, the mill of history ; Libya, the economic reasons for invasion ; Nato’s fascist war and the Black Code of the West ; So, why did the powers now attacking Libya easily tolerate Gaddafi for the last 10 years? ; The West’s Libya campaign has begun