From today's "Il manifesto" (Rome) some more pieces of surreal news that testify the total panic and mental confusion where the new Italian government has plunged before the G8 in Genoa.
Few days ago, the DIGOS (political police) had transmitted a report according to which demonstrators from the movement where getting ready to attack the police at the G8 by throwing balloons full of HIV-contaminated blood. Today, I got the following, and it is reassuring to know that at least post-mortem arrangements have been efficiently organised (see the end of the message): ======== Il Manifesto (Rome), 20 June.
"The Viminale [Italian Interior Ministry] denies that the G8 will be moved onto a ship and says there will be freedome to demonstrate, without saying where. The associations demand the abolition of the resricted 'yellow zone' (...) The meeting between Interior minister, Claudio Scajola, and representatives from the municipality, province and region has not said a final word on anything, apart from confirming that the G8 will take place in Genoa in the notified venues - therefore not on a ship by in Palazzo Ducale - (...). The idea of moving the summit onto a ship, which has been ridiculed by most European press, will be probably kept as an emergency last-minute solution (...). Concerning relationships with the Geonoa Social Forum [the coordination that gathers all expressions of the Movement together with NGOs and associations, FB], the foreign minister, Renato Ruggiero yesterday has repeated his refrain on "opening to the dialogue", which the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has made the whole cabinet learn by heart. Starting from developing countries' debt, through AIDS and social services, "there are problems that unite the people who believe in a summit like this as one of the engines for a better world and the demonstrators", the minister said. "Demonstration are a stimulation, because they strengthen our will to go ahead fast, but there should be no violence" (...).
In the meanwhile, polemics have arisen on the emergency plan designed by the Region which makes available, apart from a refrigerated room of 500 sqm. to be used as a morgue, also 200 body bags, plastic bags for corposes modelled after the ones that can be seen on Vietnam war movies. "Unbelievable madness" according to MP A. Pecoraro-Scanio (Greens) (...).
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