ITALY's new policy

The invasion of southern Italy by illegal immigrants is one reason northern Italy, of which Umberto Bossi is a spokesman, would like to rid itself of the deadweight of the south. Christopher Jones explain's Italy's new policy of shooting illegal immigrants: "That Umberto Bossi cultivates an aggressive style is well known: I once heard him in Venice say that he wanted to throw the Italian "Tricolore" in the toilet and pull the chain. Bossi's "whiff of grapeshot" policy however is nothing new. Last year, neo- fascist leader and deputy PM Gianfranco Fini advocated using Italian fighter-bombers to strafe and bomb Albanian beaches in an effort to destroy the smuggler's boats. I can only repeat that the situation in southern Europe has reached an untenable and explosive point, and if an Italian warship fires a shell across the bows of an illegal transport, so be it. The law has to be enforced. Bossi and Fini may be playing tough guys, but we have to realize that the situation inside Italy with illegal immigrants is red hot. I personally have never seen so much barbed wire as in Italy -- the place looks like a concentration camp and I lived in the countryside. George Sassoon mentioned the airlock doors for banks. They often break down, and if the teller doesn't have the key you're in big trouble. (Italian banks are worth special attention, I often felt that the real gangsters were behind the counter.) I was living north of Rome when one day the principal autostrada was cut off by the Carabinieri. They were chasing a carload of Albanian gangsters up and down the road, shooting in roaring twenties Chicago style. Against this backdrop, Berlusconi is the fireman: he is preparing an EU intiative together with Spain asking for military help from EU non-Mediterranean members to control the EU's southern maritime frontier. At the same time, crazed German Socialist Member of the European Parliament Martin Schulz has had to apologize on TV for his disparaging and insulting remarks about the Italian people -- who he said were racists. Then he changed his tune and said that Umberto Bossi is a racist. He had to apologize to both".

Ronald Hilton - 7/20/03