“We Got a Comrade Back…We Lost Someone Who Would Become Our Friend.”

March 5th, 2005 - by: danny

ON THE AIR

Danny Schechter joins Laura Flanders on AIR AMERICA TONIGHT Sunday at 9PM NY Time. Check local listings.

WATCH THIS — A VIDEO ABOUT GIULIANA (IN ITALIAN)

www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/video/videogiuliana.mov

SUNDAY MARCH 6

GIULIANA SPEAKS–DOUG IRELAND PASSES ON THE REPORT:

“In Sunday’s Il Manifesto, Sgrena writes an account of her capture, liberation, and wounding by U.S. soldiers that provides more details which suggest even more strongly that the shooting might well not have been accidental: she writes that her chauffeur “had communicated twice — one to the embassy, once to Italy — that we were en route to the airport.” Given
the assiduity with which the Italian government had been working on freeing Sgrena, it is really inconceivable that it would not have instantly notified the U.S. authorities that she was to travel the dangerous road to the Baghdad airport so as to assure her safe passage. Moreover, Sgrena writes that she is sure she was deliberately attacked. (Sgrena’s article is
available on the Il Manifesto website today only in PDF form to those with a subscription–but two lengthy resumes of the article appear today in French.” Link to his site below.

What’s the press take on this issue where you live? Germany’s DW is reporting this Sunday morning:

“Giuliana Sgrena, said on Sunday she may have been a target because the US opposed negotiations with her kidnappers.

“Everyone knows that the Americans don’t want hostages to be freed by negotiations, and for that reason, I don’t see why I should rule out that I was their target,” Sgrena (photo) told Sky Italia news channel on Sunday.

“The comment comes amid fears that Friday’s incident, in which Italy’s top intelligence officer in Iraq was killed, could lead to a full-scale diplomatic rift between the two allies.

“The incident could have very serious political consequences,” Italy’s La Stampa daily said in a front page editorial. “The state of relations between the two governments, Italy and the United States, has suffered an immediate deterioration. Hour after hour, Washington’s version given by the State Department immediately after the incident has begun to unravel,” the influential paper wrote.

“The theory that an absence of coordination in Baghdad between the two allied commands and excessive secrecy by the Italians about their (rescue) mission led to the shooting near the airport, has faded. The Italian government said it had informed the United States about the very delicate operation which was about to begin. And the presence of an American colonel at Baghdad airport along with the Italian officers who were waiting for Sgrena and her liberators, demonstrates that the operation was being conducted in harmony,” the newspaper said….

It said however that a ransom was “almost certainly” paid to the kidnappers, even though any payment was “very probably” opposed by the Americans.”

Daryll Bowles comments from Spain:

“I assume you have heard/seen the horrible news of the “Rescue” of the Italian Journalist Giuliana Sgrena but I can only wonder if you have heard more or less the whole story. For according to the reports from this end the American media have hardly mentioned it. And of course, the White House comment, when confronted with the fact that her version of what happened was somewhat different than theirs was, “Well, she writes for a Communist paper.” As if to say that of course her side of the story is a lie and ours is the truth. And so what if she was almost killed?

“And of course, the head Mafia bum in Italy, Berlesconi had a hard time keeping a sad face when announcing he had asked Washington for and explanation and investigation of what had taken place. Ill Manifesto not being one of his main supporters!

“What you may not have heard is that the “Body guard/negociator” killed just happened to be the head of the Italian Secret service in Iraq just not some thug dressed up like a bodyguard. (The American way.)”

”

And now Doug Ireland is rightly ecoriating the NY Times for missing this story:

There’s little excuse for the Times having missed this story…. The story broke in European media and on European wire services like Italy’s Ansa at mid-day Saturday, Eastern Standard Time. It was the lead story on most European nightly TV newscasts, which–like that of France2, the largest froggie public television network–air at 2:00 PM E.S.T. (I caught the international francophone channel TV5′s presentation of the Fr2 Sgrena segment in a newsflash a few minutes later). If the linguistically challenged inhabitants of the Times’ 42nd St. headquarters couldn’t read French or Italian, they could have read this story on DIRELAND, where I posted translations of the principal elements of this story yesterday at 2:45 PM E.S.T. Thus, the information of Sgrena’s challenge to the Pentagon’s mendacity was available well before the Times’ deadline for its Sunday print edition (moreover, at 9:00 AM this Sunday morning, you still can’t find a reference to Sgrena’s statements even on the Times’ website). CBS, incidentally, didn’t do any better: the first two lead segments on Saturday’s CBS Evening News were on Sgrena, but her account of her shooting didn’t get so much as a mention. It would seem that TV’s capacity for instant response is exaggerated, as CBS had six hours to take note of and mention Sgrena’s rejoinder to the Pentagon.

“Just to make it perfectly clear that the Good Gray Lady’s editors shouldn’t have any credible deadline excuses for missing this blockbuster rebuttal of Rummy and Company’s Big Lie, the Los Angeles Times–which has a much earlier West Coast deadline than their New York homonym–managed to get an original story (by its Rome staffer Tracy Wilkinson) into its Sunday edition, by that time providing new quotes from Sgrena that had been broadcast last night in an interview with her on Italian television. Today’s Washington Post also has a story on Sgrena’s Pentagon-contradicting revelations.

Perhaps the establishment-think editors at the Times didn’t find Sgrena credible, since she’s a proud left-winger and works for the daily Il Manifesto, which is on the left of the left. Ah, but that excuse won’t wash either, since Sgrena’s version recounting the unnecessary and inexcusable nature of the shooting was confirmed by one of the agents of ultraconservative Bush buddy Silvio Berlusconi’s own secret services, which have long had an incestuous relationship with the U..S. intelligence community ever since the days of the super-secret Operation Gladio at the height of the Cold War, and aren’t therefore suspect as hotbeds of anti-Americanism.”

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/03/ny_times_has_re.html

There will be more. You can count on it…..

THE LATEST (March 5):

As of 6:41 From AFP and Turkish Press

US attack against Italians in Baghdad was deliberate: companion
Published: 3/5/2005

“ROME – The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate.

“The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming,” Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome’s Celio military hospital where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home.

“They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints.”

The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s office which was on the phone with one of the secret service agents, said Scolari. “Then the US military silenced the cellphones,” he charged.

“Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive,” he added.

When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.

Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a “hail of bullets” rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them.

“I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (…) when he leant on me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was dead,” said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two Italian magistrates.

“They continued shooting and the driver couldn’t even explain that we were Italians. It was really horrible,” she added.

Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her left shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon, said she was “exhausted because of what happened above all in the last 24 hours”.

“After all the risks I have been running I can say that I’m fine,” she said.

“I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians danger was over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a hail of bullets.”

The chief editor of Sgrena’s left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari’s death a “murder”.

“He was hit in the head,” he said.

Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.

03/05/2005 13:43 GMT AFP and Turkish Press

THIS MORNING…….

I kept thinking of Giuliana last night. I didn’t sleep well. The Italian journalist had finally been freed with the help of her government after literally MILLIONS of Italians expressed solidarity and demanded her release with written appeals and marches in the streets.

During my recent visit to Rome, I was struck by how people of every political background–from Berlusconi to his harshest critics–had shared this sentiment and pushed for the release of one of THEIR journalists even as she worked for a left-wing newspaper and opposed the war. Their media mattered to them as did their national pride in her courage and tenacity.

And then, finally, and amazingly, a government agent negotiated her release. Would the Bush Administration have negotiated anything similar if it had been an American? I doubt it. Here, you probably would have had some bloggers blaming her for being kidnapped, if not assassinating her character if the kidnappers didn’t kill her.

In any event, she was freed and then the unbelievable–or maybe, all too believable– occurred. Racing to the airport on a road known to be dangerous (where stopping can be suicidal) the car carrying her to the airport and homeland was fired on by US soldiers at a checkpoint.The soldiers say they ordered the vehicle to stop. The Italian “secret agent”/negotiator who freed her covered her with his body and took the bullet. She was wounded.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini called it “a macabre twist of fate, a tragedy determined by destiny.”

I had to hold back the tears and the sense that you always get about how war is always so unpredicatable, so surrealistic, so brutal.

Giuliana is back in Italy now. Here’s the latest report from Il Manifesto, the newspaper she served (as of 8 AM Saturday). It is badly machine translated in Googeleeze but you can get the idea:

MANIFESTO REPORTS

Nicholas Calipari , the civil employee of the Sismi that it has made from mediator for the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena has been killed from the blows exploded from armored of the American troops against the automobile of the Italian intelligence agencies that Giuliana transported towards the airport of Baghdad. Nicholas Calipari it has saved two times: the last one, repairing it with just the body during the shooting. Been born to Reggio Calabria, he had 50 years, he was married and father of two sons, one girl of 19 years and a boy of 13. In police they give beyond vent’ years, Nicholas Calipari had rendered also the liberation of Simona Pari and Simona possible Turret.

“Giuliana has been freed and is well, after the endured operation to Bagdad in order to remove a chip, has arrived this morning to Rome and has been ricoverata to the hospital of the Celio where it will be operated in the next few days to the clavicola. In the travel in automobile that yesterday carried it evening towards the airport of Baghdad and of we its car has been hit from the fire of the Americans. E’ be wound, in not serious way, with to others two persons. Nicholas Calipari of the Sismi is remained killed. The Department of USA State has expressed just “the sorrow” for the happened incident to Baghdad.”

THE “INCIDENT”

Reuters added these details:

“Giuliana Sgrena, looked in pain as she was helped off a plane and into a military ambulance. The reporter, who was treated for a wound in Iraq, clutched a plaid blanket around her shoulders and was attached to a drip.

Italy is to award a posthumous award for valor to secret service agent Nicola Calipari who was instrumental in gaining Sgrena’s release and then saved her life by acting as a human shield as the car was riddled with bullets.

Two other secret agents in the car were also wounded. One returned to Rome with Sgrena, the other is being treated in Iraq. Sgrena was whisked to an Italian military hospital where a wound in her collar bone will be operated on.

The shooting turned Italian joy at Sgrena’s release on Friday evening to anger and concern and sparked a diplomatic incident. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took the rare step of summoning the U.S. ambassador to explain what had happened.
U.S. forces said they opened fire on the car as it speeded toward a checkpoint.

President Bush telephoned Berlusconi, a close ally and vocal supporter of the campaign in Iraq, promising a full investigation.”
…

“MURKY”

The New York Times followed the American angle and tells us what US military said:

“According to a statement released by the United States Army’s Third Infantry Division in Baghdad, the soldiers tried to warn the driver to stop before firing at the speeding vehicle’s engine block.

“About 9 p.m., a patrol in western Baghdad observed the vehicle speeding towards their checkpoint and attempted to warn the driver to stop by hand-and-arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots in front of the car,” the statement said.

The circumstances of Ms. Sgrena’s release remain murky, and Italian officials have shed no light on how, or from whom, she was released.

And finally, a commentary from Gabriele Polo, one of her newspaper colleagues. It captures the sentiment and sadness in a situation in which most words fail:

“LIFE AND DEATH”

” A few minutes, that is how long our joy lasted. The time which goes from a phone call to another: the one telling us of Giuliana’s freedom and the one which throws us into the killing of the person who more than anybody else worked to free her. Fifteen, maximum twenty minutes, the time to save one life and lose another. Within the absurdity of a war in which we all risk to get lost.
” Sure, we are happy to be able to soon hug Giuliana, to be able to have her back with us, to go back and listen to and read her stories of peace. We owe it to what we have done in this very long month. All of us: we of il manifesto, the colleagues who helped us keep the attention on this abduction alive, the many people who with a phone call, a letter, or by coming to the streets kept the presence of our comrade alive even while she was forced to be silent. But we also owe it to those who worked night and day to find a contact with the kidnappers, to reach an agreement. People who are different from us, who speak a different language and uses different means. Yet with some of them we have been united with a common aim: to bring home a woman deprived of her freedom and to do it though a negotiation, not through those weapons which are the root of evil which for thirty days has taken Giuliana away from us. After those 15, 20 minutes of joy, last night we fell into a live drama. We are journalists and we must tell the story, but do not ask of us to be detached as a reporter should be.
“It is not possible. Just as it was not possible to coldly separate the duty to report and comment from the worry for Giuliana’s fate, from the fear she had fear, she was hungry, cold. When that second phone call arrived in a palace with high ceilings and wide spaces – so different from our daily working place -, we were there. And we will never be able to forget the pain of the colleagues of Nicola Calipari, how Gianni Letta was upset, even how the Prime Minister – whom we saw there and then for the first time – could not believe the news. We will never be able to forget the hectic calls, the chaos, the feeling of being lost by a place of power dealing with a power absolute and uncontrollable, the power of was, of who makes it and directs it.
“Nicola died, Giuliana is wounded”: a bit crying, a bit asking for more details of the wound of Giuliana, knowing she was there, with the American guns pointing at her, bleeding who knows how, asking she would be brought immediately to the hospital. Then we heard the wound was not serious, only superficial on the shoulder, because the bullet which could have killed her had first gone through the body of Nicola Calipari. Who saved her. For the second time.
” In those chaotic minutes, made of callls among ministries, generals, ambassadors – calls which all seemed pointless — we witnessed impotence going on stage, the performance of war killing politics, chalking democracy. All our reasons – those of Giuliana – were confirmed. Yet we wanted it to be different. We wish we could hear another call, telling us it was all a mistake, nobody had died, Nicola magically had got up, maybe a bit hurt and together with our Giuliana he was going to the airport, to come back home. We would have hug them both and all that we had just witnessed would only have been a bad dream.
“But no. That call never arrived. There has been another one, confirming everything: Nicola died, Giuliana and other two secret agents in the hospital. At that point, the only thing left to do was to leave, go back to the newspaper, tell everything to the comrades, explain that the joy was lost.
“They taught us to be cold, to analyze the events, not to get involved too much, in order to understand what happens. And try to change it. Right. But he world is made of people. Facts, even history, are our product: at the end they are the product of bodies, flesh and blood. It all depends on us, on what we do. On what Giuliana Sgrena has done and will do, on what Nicola Calipari had done but will never be able to do.
“We got a comrade back. We lost someone who would have become our friend.”

No more to say.

All of us at Mediachannel, for what it is worth, and probably not much, send our solidarity to our colleagues who fought so hard for her release, who never got fatatlistic and gave up.

We send our love to Giuliana and our condolences to the families of all who died.

Ironically, I had just come back to New York from Boston and a discussion about the crisis in the news business to read this news and get my first copy of the new DVD of my film WMD about the media in Iraq. I now wish I had done more about the journalists there who didn’t get along by going along, and who, like Giuliana, care about peace and worked for it with their work and lives,

Comments: dissector@mediachannel,org

The News Dissector