Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Berlusconi & Gadhafi finishing history, new centuries & stopping migrants

iosaf | 02.09.2008 08:35 | Analysis | Migration | World

This last week Berlusconi's propaganda machine ostentatiously presented an aid package with formal historical apology attached as the first time a European power has offered financial compensation to former imperial possession. Mr B's 5 billion dollars over 20 years would Colonel Gadhafi agreed set a precendent for blood money and completely make up for Mussolini's establishment of Italian provinces whose lasting legacies are the name "Libya" and the spiffing good movie about dashing heroics at the Battle of Tubrik.

This time neither Europe's leading fascist or Africa's most evasive dictator needed to push the migrant route thing. It was and has been for some time a "non-sequitor".

Modern Libyans might be forgiven this week asking the clichéd post-colonial questions like "What did the Italians ever do for us?". Answers may pretty simply be divided into two classes as generally they are for such things :-
(a) they built roads and trainlines on which the trains ran punctually etc.,
(b) In four years they killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through starvation in camps) etc.,

Today's Libya though is far off from the dark fascist imperialist expansion dreams of Italy under Mussolini. Since 2002 its popular and uncontested leader Col. G has been enjoying regular meetings with Mr B over the important questions of Gas, Migrants and WMD. Col. G agreed to stop making WMD (despite nobody really being convinced he had been making them in the first place but they can be a good bargaining chip) & in return for a good price on Gas would agree to stop migrants entering Italy.

From 2004 onwards Libya became the largest recipient of EU aid channeled to the building of camps to house migrants before they got to the beaches and bravely dodging the jellyfish swam to Italy. This of course meant that the EU (& Italy) could outsource its migration worries and relocation troubles to a trusted partner state in the orbit of democratic accountable neighbouring regimes, where plod is friendly and a cup of mint tea is yours for the asking as long as you don't shag on the beach.

Sharpest analysts will note this took pressure off of Mr B on the home front allowing him to pitch more intellectual resources against the largest threat to Italian civilisation since Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery unleashed the secret weapon of Spike Milligan on the soft underflank of its Empire. The pieces thus fell into place for the gypsy child to be properly dealt with in the proper way which as we all know was putting paratroopers on the street.

Col G. comes out of all this really well too, less than a week since the Lebanese government rather weirdly indicted him for the murder of a nearly forgotten cleric who led shia muslims before Hezbolla - He now has 5 billion dollars for 20 years and might think of settling down and moving out of the tent he has lived in (as a Bedouin) to a proper settled home. His transformation from pan-arabic quirky socialist and sponsor of freedom fighters who lived in a tent to consort of the European rightwing is now a done & paid deal. He may contemplate his defence and intelligence accords with not only Mr B. but the only other European he likes Nik Sarkozy (Celia Bruni's dream come true). These accords mean increased play in the southern regions of the Libyan state under the pretext of offering logistic support to any intervention in Darfur (camps) or if that seems messy the Uranium rich veins which run from Northern Sudan through to Northern Chad. This of course the place where Libya and France went to war the last time. Those of us too dazzled by Celia Bruni might have forgotten that Chad was the first state of Sub-saharan africa to be roped into Sarkozy's new France century project.

this is of course very bad news for migrants.

If you can't see that it is bad news for migrants - then you don't see that the monsters are alligning for a new century of African imperialist expansion with effective but undeclared borders ever further south from the UK or even EU proper. It's too early to mutter about "the mediterranean union" of Sarko - for when we look at Mr B and Col G we gaze astoundedly at nasty old dogs who no matter how many times a stake is put through their hearts just come back ready for more. Nobody to my knowledge has of yet put a stake through Sarko's heart. Correct me if I'm wrong. So thus you see, his ideas as his influence are not yet proven by stamina.

the deal for $5 billion in compensation for "colonial misdeeds"

 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Gaddafi_and_Berlusconi_sign_accord_worth_billions.html?siteSect=143&sid=9632925&cKey=1220116936000&ty=ti
 http://www.corriere.it/esteri/08_agosto_30/berlusconi_libia_gheddafi_bengasi_478ee3f4-767e-11dd-9747-00144f02aabc.shtml



iosaf

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech