[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Giuliani Sgrena - A Target?

Sat Mar 5 21:57:38 PST 2005

>
>
>United for Peace of Pierce County (Tacoma)
>February 5, 2005
>
>http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2373/
>
>Italian reporter's companion tells press
>Americans hoped she'd be killed   
>
>Written by Mark Jensen
>
>The web site of TF1, France's most popular television
>network, reported Saturday that as Giuliani Sgrena
>returned to Rome Saturday morning, her companion told
>the press that "the American military didn't want her
>to get out alive" because she was in possession of
>information embarrassing to the United States.[1]  --
>The common joy at her liberation quickly degenerated
>into a political confrontation in Italy, whose
>population has never been in favor of the government's
>support for military intervention in Iraq.  --  An
>earlier report from LibÈration (Paris) evoked the
>"confusion" in Rome Friday night as news of the tragedy
>reached Italians.[2] ...
>
>1.
>
>[Translated from the web site of TF1]
>
>World
>
>'THE AMERICANS DIDN'T WANT GIULIANA TO GET OUT'
>
>** Pier Scolari, the companion of the Italian reporter
>liberated Friday in Iraq, says that American soldiers
>had been informed about that the car heading for the
>Baghdad airport was passing through. Giuliana Sgrena
>was wounded and the leader of the team of Italian
>special forces accompanying her was killed. Italy is
>demanding an explanation from the United States **
>
>TF1 March 5, 2005
>
>http://news.tf1.fr/news/monde/0,,3205999,00.html
>
>After relief mixed with sadness comes polemic. Pier
>Scolari, Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena's companion,
>said Saturday that "the American military didn't want
>her to get out alive" because she had information
>embarrassing to the United States. When she was taken
>hostage last Feb. 4, the reporter was preparing an
>article on refugees from Fallujah who had taken shelter
>in a Baghdad mosque following American bombing of the
>Sunni bastion.
>
>"RAIN OF FIRE"
>
>Giuliana Sgrena, 56, was freed Friday evening after a
>month of captivity. But on the road to the Baghdad
>airport, her car was fired upon by American soldiers.
>The journalist was wounded, and Nicola Calipari, 51,
>the head of the team of Italian special forces
>accompanying her, was killed. According to Pier
>Scolari, "The Americans and the Italians had been
>advised the car was coming through. They were 700
>meters from the airport, which means they'd gone
>through all the checkpoints."
>
>A "rain of fire" hit the car "at the very moment when I
>was talking to Nicola Calipari," she said by telephone
>to the TV station RaiNews24 from the Celio military
>hospital, were she was taken after her return to Rome
>at morning's end. "We weren't going very fast, given
>the circumstances. . . . The firing continued. The
>driver couldn't even explain that we were Italian,"
>added the journalist. "The whole fusillade was heard
>live by the Council presidency, which was on the phone
>with one of the members of the special forces. Then the
>American soldiers confiscated and shut off the cell
>phones," added Pier Scolari.
>
>ITALIAN-AMERICAN TENSIONS
>
>Carlo Ciampi, the head of state, demanded an
>explanation from Washington. "Like all Italians, we are
>waiting for clarification from the United States on
>this painful tragedy," he announced Saturday morning.
>It was clear that Carlo Ciampi found inadequate the
>regrets expressed Friday evening by President George W.
>Bush in a five-minute telephone conversation with
>Silvio Berlusconi.
>
>"The president has every reason to demand an
>explanation, because the United States is responsible
>for the death of Nicola Calipari. The only thing to do
>now is to withdraw our troops from Iraq," said Fausto
>Berinotti, the secretary general of the Party for
>Communist Refoundation. The incident, attributed to
>"destiny" by Gianfranco Fini, the head of Italian
>diplomacy, has degenerated into a new confrontation
>over the Italian military presence in Iraq between the
>left opposition and the right, which is in power. And
>it brought back to the surface anti-American
>resentment, which has often been expressed since
>President Bush's decision to intervene militarily in
>Iraq.
>
>"THEY NEVER MISTREATED ME"
>
>Wounded, tired, but free, the Italian ex-hostage was
>taken, as soon as she returned to Rome Saturday
>morning, to a military hospital for treatment. Her
>shoulder in a sling, the journalist walked down the
>ramp leaning on two people, one of whom was her
>companion Pier Scolari, who had gone to retrieve her in
>a Falcon 900 lent by the Italian government. Many
>colleagues, political figures like Silvio Berlusconi,
>the president of the Italian Council, and the chiefs of
>the Italian special forces also went to Ciampino on
>Saturday. "They never mistreated me," she said of her
>captors to colleagues from the newspaper Il Manifesto,
>who had come to greet her. "The hardest moment was when
>I saw the person who had saved me die in my arms," she
>said to Pier Scolari, her companion.
>
>2.
>
>[Translated from LibÈration (Paris)]
>
>Top Stories
>
>Hostages
>
>GIULIANA SGRENA LIBERATED UNDER FIRE By Eric Jozsef
>
>LibÈration (Paris) March 5, 2005
>
>http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=280211
>
>ROME -- Released on Friday, exactly one month after her
>kidnapping on Feb. 4 in the center of Baghdad, the
>daily Il Manifesto's special correspondent Giuliana
>Sgrena was wounded by American fire several hours after
>her liberation. The chief of the Italian special forces
>team in Iraq, Nicola Calipari, who was with her, was
>killed. As the Italian soldiers were on their way from
>the Iraqi capital to the airport, where a military
>plane was waiting to take her straight back to Rome, a
>barrage of American soldiers opened fire on the convoy.
>In addition to the officer killed, another Italian
>soldier was wounded, and Giuliana Sgrena was shot in
>the shoulder. She was taken to the emergency room of an
>American hospital in Baghdad.
>
>In Italy Friday evening, the greatest confusion reigned
>concerning these events, in particular concerning the
>hail of bullets. Toward the end of the afternoon, Al
>Jazeera television announced the freeing of Giuliana
>Sgrena, of whom no news had been received since Feb.
>16, when a videocassette was broadcast in which,
>visibly distraught, she asked several times, in tears,
>for the Italian contingent to be withdrawn from Iraq.
>Since then, the mysterious "Mujahideen Without
>Borders," an organization not heretofore known, had
>given no further sign. But the government pursued
>negotiations on the sidelines. Friday evening, in a
>videorecording recorded by her kidnappers and broadcast
>by Al Jazeera, Giuliana Sgrena, in a black dress before
>a basket of fruit, said only that her captors "had
>kidnapped her because they were determined to free
>their land of occupation," and specifying that she had
>been well treated.
>
>EUPHORIA
>
>A few minutes after the broadcast of the news of the
>liberation by Al Jazeera, Il Manifesto, informed by the
>council presidency, confirmed the news of her
>liberation, as did the head of state, Carlo Azeglio
>Ciampi, who, just last Wednesday, had issued a solemn
>appeal: "Free Giuliana and Florence Aubenas, their
>liberation would be a good thing for everyone and above
>all for the future of Iraq."
>
>Throughout Italy, which since Feb. 4 had intensely
>mobilized to demand that the hostages be liberated, in
>particular by means of a gigantic demonstration on Feb.
>19 in the streets of Rome, the news caused a genuine
>moment of euphoria, with Italy's political class
>unanimously hailing the dÈnouement. As a sign of
>celebration, Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni, announced
>that the Coliseum would be lit all night.
>Simultaneously, Gabriele Polo, editor-in-chief of Il
>Manifesto, was received by Council President Silvio
>Berlusconi.
>
>-- Translated by Mark K. Jensen
>
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand