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October 19, 2005
CHAVEZ AND MUGABE IN ITALY, US A THREAT TO THE WORLD
At the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the creation of the Food and Agriculture Organization, in Rome two days ago, Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe and the Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez strongly accused the Us of being «a threat to the world and to the survival of the planet». Italian newspapers gave rather little space to their speeches, and far from the first pages. Most of the times they reported their words and ironically called it «a show». Mugabe actually stated that Blair and Bush are like Hiltler and Mussolini. «They formed a deplorable alliance to attack an innocent country(Iraq)», papers report Mugabe’s outburst.
“La Repubblica”, in an article by Giampaolo Cadalanu, explains that these radical words risk weakening the aid process towards developing countries, even though what they said about Us’ insufficient help to tackle hunger and poverty might partly be true. Flavia Amabile on “La Stampa” quotes them, but doesn’t give any space to comments or explanations, focusing on the anniversary instead. “Corriere della Sera”, the most sold Italian newspaper, highlights that the conference turned out to be anything but dull and boring, a mixture of embarrassing accusations and uncommon, histrionic demagoguery.
More extreme papers, on either side of the political spectrum, pay more attention to the men’s accusations and depict the atmosphere surrounding them here in Italy. The left-leaning “L’Unità” describes the Venezuelan as «courageous and proud» and heads: « Chávez defies Bush, oil is ours». The leftist “Il Manifesto” reminds its readers of the African president’s contradictions and define as «more legitimate» Chávez’s words, besides dedicating the lower part of the page to the description of his Italian stay. By contrast, the rightist “Il Giornale” talks about an anti-American rhetoric. According to the journalist Pasolini Zanelli the two presidents have shown their arrogance in a country like Italy, so close to America. Especially because Chávez met the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi - «one of the closest allies of president Bush» - and they even shook hands, as the picture confirms.
Posted October 19, 2005 01:21 AM
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