Ian Davison, Another White Right Wing Terrorist On The QT

Ian Davison actually had made Ricin, in oder to conduct terrorist attacks, when the BBC reported this story online they censored out he was a white supremacist and this further instance of vicious right wing terrorism has received I would say about 1% (at best) of the coverage of a Muslim who might once have thought the word ‘Ricin’. As needs to be said again this is not simply a discreet establishment protection of fascist terror, it is a Europe wide policy. The simple point is this- people are going to be hateful and violent, (and lovely and splendid, there are all kinds of everything, ahem) when these qualities are obsessively & spitefully documented in one ethnic or religious group while they are excused and covered up for in another group that is not an accident, that is tribalism. Our establishment is white and right wing, they feel comfortable with their own even when they are terrorists (ask the spooks about its chums in the Loyalist terror gangs, well don’t bother they’ll say fuck all or just lie to you), however they are stricken with panic and revulsion when the alien other also (shock horror surprise surprise etc) acts in the same human way as they do.

Racism. Tribalism.

I am always impressed our *enlightened* media manage to report on Africa with reference to tribalism but our big shiny developed world is of course beyond such primitive behaviour. We really do need to Study Up. The extent to which right wing terror is hidden and excused is the extent to which our society wallows in unthinking entitlement and privilege, more sinisterly it also indicates a tolerance and even support among organs of state power for certain ideologies. Speaking of which… turns out Total Politics (nb. I don’t take part in their blog ranking polls, fixed tory nonsense) are going to publish a nice big interview with Nick Griffin.

See also Obsolete & Lenin.

Desaparecidos

The excavation of a mass grave on a Granada hillside where the poet Federico Garcia Lorca was murdered during the Spanish Civil War has reinforced calls for the area to be investigated. “Lorca was just one of 4,000 executions on a roadside just a kilometre long,” says Juan Antonio Lopez Diaz, a Granada University professor. “There are so many bodies there that pine trees were planted just to stop them being uncovered by rainfall erosion.”

After years of debate, digging finally began last week at the mass grave where half a dozen men, possibly including Lorca, were killed and buried on 18 August 1936 by hitmen from General Franco’s right-wing Nationalist forces. A huge white tent has been erected, surrounded by a two-metre high metal fence, to ward off the media during the two-month investigation.

There are no such restrictions on area less than a mile away known simply as “the ravines of Viznar”. This is where mass executions of hundreds of other sympathisers of the doomed Spanish Republic were summarily executed.

“We had our desaparecidos [disappeared] way before the term became famous during the 1970s South American dictatorships,” Diaz Lopez added. “During the war in Granada anybody with even the slightest connection to the ‘wrong’ side risked illegal execution. And that went on well into Franco’s regime.”

Early Pilot For BBC’s Treatment Of The BNP

Under Mark Thompson (now there’s a mental image to run screaming from), BBC history repeats itself, first as satire then as policy. Hmmmmm.

Meanwhile, oh no, more leaks than a sieve and while this is a bit underhand… I mean really if you are ashamed of being a hateful nazi then…d’you think that might be telling you something? I would recommend this for the reality of what the BNP contributes to (the BBC giveth and it taketh away).

Stop Welsh Fascists

Hope Not Hate- The Welsh Defence League – a violent group of anti-Islamic football hooligans – plan on holding an event in Swansea this Saturday and in Newport a week later.  A few weeks ago racists attacked worshippers at a mosque in Swansea, culminating in a pitched battle involving sixty people. Now the WDL want to have another go.

Such actions shame us all – and we must do all that we can to stop this violence occurring again.

Our Welsh organisation, Searchlight Cymru, have just written a letter to the Western Mail stating that we all reject the fear and intimidation of the Welsh Defence League.

And I’d like you to co-sign the letter as well – the WDL may be focusing their attacks on the Welsh Muslim community but by doing so they attack us all:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/standupforwales

In truth, this isn’t about religion. It’s about figures on the far right trying to create fear and tension within and between communities – and then capitalise on this division.

But as we understand what they are trying to do, you, I and the thousands of people who view each of us as equals can organise against their hatred and send a clear message: we reject your hate, we reject your fear, we are stronger together than apart.

If you agree with this sentiment please co-sign my letter – and then pass it to all of your friends to co-sign as well:

http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/standupforwales

Together we can make a difference.

Anne Frank Gets On YouTube

The Anne Frank House Wednesday released the only existing film images of Frank, showing the young Jewish girl, whose famous diary detailed her family’s two torturous years spent in hiding from the Nazis, in a more carefree time as she watches a bride and groom from her apartment balcony in Amsterdam. In the grainy black and white YouTube video, Frank is shown leaning over the balcony to watch an eager young newlywed couple as they walk past the sidewalk adjacent to the Amsterdam apartment Frank lived in before she and her family moved into the annex behind father Otto’s office to escape Hitler’s regime. The July 22, 1941 video is the first-ever released film image of Frank. It was given to the Anne Frank House from the married couple, who lived on the same floor as the Franks.

I think it’s very effective, ties her into the here and now which will hopefully help keep the message alive, the lesson of the Holocaust is that this must never happen again to anyone. The need to remain vigilant is as pressing as ever, contemporary Nazis & sympathisers are going to be on Question Time, the BBC apparently finding their ideas compelling and speaking at the Tory party conference.

First They Came For the Migrants

And let’s just be clear Roberto Maroni & the Northern League are fascists, just as torture is not called torture, fascists are never called fascists. Thanks media, heck of a job…

Italian lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to controversial legislation that makes illegal immigration a punishable offence and allows mayors to form civilian anti-crime patrols in towns and cities. The bill was approved by 157 votes for to 124 against, in the upper house Senate. The lower house Chamber of Deputies had already approved the package in May. A provision to triple the time illegal immigrants can be detained in holding centres, is also included in the package which is now law.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government relied on confidence votes in both houses of parliament to ensure approval of the measures which are strongly supported by the ruling coalition’s junior partner, the anti-immigration Northern League party. Italy’s centre-left opposition, the Catholic Church and human rights activists have slammed what they say is the criminalisation of would-be immigrants.

The law won’t help defend Italian citizens from crime and “seriously violates the civil rights of immigrants whose work is indispensable to keep thousands of businesses going,” said leading centre-left Democratic Party senator, Anna Finocchiaro. But in his response Maurizio Gasparri from Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party said the government “is proud” of achieving an objective which helps fulfill promises to “combat crime”. Under the provisions, people entering Italy without permission face fines of up to 10,000 euros (14,084 dollars), while anyone renting housing to an illegal immigrant faces up to three years in prison. Critics also allege the citizen-patrols would amount to vigilante groups who are likely to harass foreigners. But Interior Minister and senior Northern League official, Roberto Maroni, has said the patrols would mostly consist of unarmed, retired police officers.

Many immigrants are afraid to seek medical care in Italy because they fear they will be expelled from the country, according to a survey by the Italian-based human rights group EveryOne. The group’s survey was released on Thursday as the Italian parliament approved a law making illegal immigration a crime.

“Reports have confirmed the recent sharp drop in the number of migrants seeking medical care for serious illnesses,” said Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau, co-presidents of the EveryOne Group in a media statement.

The new Italian law provides for anti-crime patrols in towns and cities and triples the amount of time illegal immigrants can be detained in holding centres from two to six months. Apart from doctors and school principals, every one is required under the law to report illegal migrants to the authorities.

The denial of medical care and fear among migrants is similar in the UK, maybe that is why the fascism in Italy goes unremarked upon by the Neoliberal EU establishment, it is something they really rather admire.

Connecting Oily Dots…

Having avoided their crimes in Nigeria coming out in open court Shell have looked elsewhere to ply their business model perchance…Abiding in Bolivia sums up 

Branco Marinkovic, Argentine fascists, and US Embassy security personel, our buddies at the Human Rights Foundation were also involved by partially funding the mercenary group. Apparently the faux human rights organization doesn’t just hire mentally unstable bloggers like Alek Boyd, they now also have criminal fugitives from Bolivia on their roster, Hugo Acha.

So what of Shell?

2008- The Shell oil company is under great pressure from the Bolivian government to reduce its presence in the country, or even to withdraw completely. President Evo Morales issued an ultimatum at the end of March, giving the company till 30 April to agree to sell off its activities to the Bolivian state.

Ok, they must have been upset. Now imagine, people trying to kill Evo Morales just so happened to have a history working security for Shell, oh coincidences!

It has emerged that members of the Szekler Legion, a paramilitary group which recruits among young ethnic Hungarians in Romania, have worked as security guards at the Shell Corrib Gas Project construction sites in recent months.

Among them the Szekler Legion’s leader 32-year-old Romanian Hungarian Tibor Revesz who worked for Integrated Risk Management Security (I-RMS) at the Mayo sites. There are indications other Szekler Legion members have worked in Ireland, with the organisation’s internet site selling patches associated with the Corrib project.

One patch, with a skull and Celtic motif carries the slogan “OSS — Operation Solitaire Shield 2008 Corrib Gas Project”, believed to refer to the Solitaire ship which was to be used for pipe-laying at the site.

The Szekler Legion have been implicated in violent incidents in Romania. The group openly promotes neo-fascism and race hate.

Among the Szekler Legion’s members were Magyarosi Arpak and Elot Toazo. Arpak, 28, was shot dead by Bolivian security forces alongside Tipperary native Michael Dwyer, 24 in Bolivia. In the same operation Toazo was arrested.

The Bolivian government has accused the Tipperary man and his companions of planning terrorist attacks, including the assassination of the country’s socialist President Evo Morales. The gang’s leader Eduardo Rozsa Flores, 48, was also killed in the raid. Flores was a neo-fascist activist and an “honorary member” of the Szekler Legion.

Five skinheads formed a guard of honour at the Tipperary man’s grave in Tullyglass cemetery just a few hours after he was buried last Thursday. A Garda source said they were members of Hungarian right-wing group, the Szekler Legion. Cops believe Dwyer forged links with the fascist group on the internet before flying to Bolivia to take a security job.

Of course it’s entirely possible such lovely individuals found other benefactors and left all ties to Shell behind, it would just be a happy accident of fate their objective would have alleviated the problems their former employer Shell was having in Bolivia. It’s nice when friends and colleagues, current and former share interests, innit?

At the end of 2007 I-RMS ‘security operatives’ replaced the majority of security guards employed by Shell. A substantial number of these ‘operatives’ have military backgrounds and dubious far-right political links. I-RMS have faced numerous complaints from protestors, having been accused of assault, heavy handedness and failure to wear or present their Private Security Authority licences. They have also routinely filmed protestors and indeed Dwyer himself was involved in this gathering of intelligence for Shell. On their website, offline and ‘under construction’ in the wake of Dwyer’s death, I-RMS had advertised their services, specialising in “international armed and unarmed security”, “customised security solutions” and “special services”, unquestionably all euphemisms for mercenary work. I-RMS have also been used by Fianna Fáil at their last few ardfheiseanna. So not only does I-RMS protect the nefarious multinational Shell in their robbery of Irish gas, they also defend the politicians who facilitated this grand theft. Who said three’s a crowd? Maura Harrington, the courageous veteran Shell to Sea campaigner, castigated I-RMS as “Shell’s private army in North Mayo”. This hired muscle for capitalism has been doing the state’s dirty work, while Gardaí turn a blind eye. They are no more than a hired gang of thugs and fascists.

Italian Fascist Ally of Berlusconi Suggests Segregated Buses

 At the same time they deny asylum rights to migrants by interdicting at sea, the EU need to stop being diplomatic with the Italian fascists less they appear (and become) yet another weak body that failed to stem European fascists. Or does that interfere with their Neoliberal outlook, which will end in authoritarian capitalist corporate states, hmmm-

A proposal to introduce racial segregation on trains, trams and buses in Milan provoked an outcry from Italian opposition politicians today. The scheme was put forward by a representative of the anti-immigrant Northern League, the prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s main ally in government. Matteo Salvini, the league’s secretary in Milan, told a rally to launch his party’s European election campaign that he wanted “seats or carriages reserved for the Milanese” on local public transport.

 Dario Franceschini, leader of Italy’s biggest opposition group, the Democratic party, said: “One’s thoughts go back to the affair of Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her place on the bus and inspired Martin Luther King’s struggle.” Salvini tried to downplay the row, insisting: “It was just a provocation to say the residents are now in a minority and, as such, need safeguarding.” But the Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, spoke of a “worrying” increase in intolerance, while the opposition Italy of Principles party called on the government to disown the idea publicly.

 However, Berlusconi, whose government is already under attack for its immigration policies after the Italian navy returned to Libya more than 200 boat people without letting them apply for asylum, said: “Salvini himself has said it was a quip, a provocation.” The interior minister, Roberto Maroni, a Northern League member, hailed it as a “turning point” in his battle to stem the flow of immigrants through Italy’s Mediterranean islands. But the UN and human rights groups accused the government of violating international treaties to which Italy is a signatory.

 On Thursday the occupants of three boats adrift, reportedly in Maltese waters, were escorted back to the Libyan coast by Italian naval vessels. It was the first time that Libyan authorities were known to have accepted back migrants who set off from their coast. The shift appeared to reflect recent agreements between Berlusconi’s government and Libya. According to UNHCR, three-quarters of migrants who arrive in Italy by sea apply for asylum and, of those, half are recognised as genuine refugees. Maroni said that, in the latest instance, Italy was not bound to consider the asylum requests because the 227 migrants had not reached Italian waters,

 But the UN’s high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, said the operation was a “source of very serious concern”. Human Rights Watch said Libya had a terrible record in dealing with migrants, who it said were sometimes subjected to indefinite detention “in inhuman and degrading conditions”. The EU justice commissioner, Jacques Barrot, carefully avoided joining the chorus of protest. He said his department was still gathering information on the circumstances.

Berlusconi’s Party Merges With Mussolini’s

The flames are going out all over Italy. Tomorrow, the flame which for more than 60 years has been the symbol of neo-Fascist continuity with Mussolini, will disappear from mainstream politics. The National Alliance, the last important home of that inheritance, is “fusing” with Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party to give the governing bloc a single identity and a single unchallenged leader.

According to Christopher Duggan, the British author of Force of Destiny, an acclaimed history of modern Italy, the fusion of the two parties does not mark the disappearance of Fascist ideas and practices but rather their triumphant insinuation. “This is an alarming situation in many, many ways,” he says.

“The fusion of the parties signifies the absorption of the ideas of the post-Fascists into Berlusconi’s party … the tendency to see no moral and ultimately no political distinction between those who supported the Fascist regime and those who supported the Resistance. So the fact that Fascism was belligerent, racist and illiberal gets forgotten; there is a quiet chorus of public opinion saying that Fascism was not so bad.”

One example of the way things are changing is the treatment of the veterans of the Republic of Salo, the puppet Fascist state ruled by Mussolini on the shores of Lake Garda in the last phase of the war. Under the thumb of Hitler and responsible for dispatching Jews to the death camps, Salo was seen by Italians after the war as the darkest chapter in the nation’s modern history.

But steadily and quietly it has been rehabilitated in the Italian memory. The latest step, before parliament, is the creation of a new military order, the Cavaliere di Tricolore, which can be awarded to people who fought for at least six months during the war – either with the Partisans against the “Nazi-Fascists”, with the forces of the Republic of Salo on behalf of the Nazis and against the Partisans, or with the forces in the south under General Badoglio.

In this way, says Duggan, the idea of moral interchangeability is smuggled into the national discourse, treating the soldiers fighting for the puppet Nazi statelet “on an equal footing morally and politically with the Partisans”.

Duggan contrasts the post-war process in Italy with that in Germany, where the Nuremberg trials and the purge of public life supervised by the Allies produced a new political landscape. Nothing of the sort happened in Italy.

“There was never a clear public watershed between the experience of Fascism and what happened afterwards. It’s partly the fault of the Allies, who after the war were much more concerned with preventing the Communists from coming to power. [Gladio]

“As a result very senior figures in the army, the police and the judiciary remained unpurged. Take the figure of Gaetano Azzariti, one of the first presidents, post-war, of Italy’s Constitutional Court, yet under Mussolini he had been the president of the court which had the job of enforcing the the race laws. The failure of the Allies to put pressure on Italy also reflects a perception that still exists: that the Fascist revival is not to be taken seriously because Italy is ‘lightweight’. Whereas if the same thing happened in Germany or Austria, you’d get really worried.”

The coalition of the shilling made us allies with (open) fascists-

Italy cannot escape blame, however, for its refusal to confront the true shame of what happened under Mussolini – his order to Badoglio, his commander in Libya, for example, to “employ any kind of gas… even on a massive scale”, which was duly carried out. When Berlusconi insisted that Mussolini was not nearly as bad as Saddam, he was voicing standard saloon-bar wisdom.

Gladio Redux- Old Fascist Imparts Wisdom To Newbies

“Maroni should do what I did when I was secretary of the interior. He should withdraw the police from the streets and the universities, infiltrate the movement with secret (provacateurs) agents, ready to do anything, and, for about 10 days, let the demonstrators devastate shops, set fire to cars and lay waste the cities. After which, strengthened by popular consent, the sound of ambulance sirens should be louder than the police cars. The security forces should massacre the demonstrators without pity, and send them all to hospital. They shouldn’t arrest them, because the magistrates would release them immediately, but they should beat them up. And they should also beat up those teachers who stir them up. Especially the teachers. Not the elderly lecturers, of course, but the young women teachers.”

Francesco Cossiga, the former president of Italy

The writer of this Guardian piece Roberto Mancini then goes on to say-

Hence the interest in the recent interview, which sheds light on one of the most secretive periods of Italian history – the so-called “strategy of tension” that began with the 1969 bombing of Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Milan (carried out by the far-right and blamed on anarchists) through to the events at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001 where the mysterious “black-blok” group created the mayhem and destruction which brought forth the police violence against thousands of anti-globalisation protestors.

Hmmm…Chris Floyd also on this. And Gladio for the uninformed- yes we and the US paid Nazis & Italian Fascist war criminals to perform terrorist attacks the left was framed for. Neocon Michael Ledeen was there at the time, y’know- Rome, forged yellow cake documents, WMD’s, Iraq…blah blah blah

And as we have often noted here, similar operations — the “El Salvador option,” death squads, “High-Value Targeting,” etc. — have been an integral part of the Anglo-American subjegation of Iraq. Indeed, they are a pillar of the “counterinsurgency doctrine” proclaimed by the other president-in-waiting, David Petraeus, and now avidly embraced by the War Machine. As Tara McElvey reports in The American Prospect, the Pentagon is eager to apply “High-Value Targeting” and refinements of the “Phoenix Program” — in which U.S. forces and local proxies murdered more than 20,000 people — and the whole panoply of “psy-ops” to imperial imbroglios around the world, applying them “to Afghanistan, then Pakistan, the Philippines, Colombia, Somalia, and elsewhere.”

This Is Fascism

There was uproar in a Genoa court last night after some of Italy’s highest-ranking police officers, accused of masterminding a savage attack on peaceful protesters at the G8 meeting in the city seven years ago, were cleared of the charges against them.

The three judges handed out sentences of up to four years to some of the operational commanders. But none of them will have to go to jail, because their offences will expire under a statute of limitations early next year.

None of the officers who carried out the beatings was a defendant in the trial. All were masked, and none wore names or numbers during the raid. Only one has ever been identified.

Among those acquitted were Giovanni Luperi, who has since been put in charge of the Italian equivalent of MI5, and two of Italy’s most senior detectives, Francesco Gratteri and Gilberto Calderozzi. Several of the top police officers accused in the trial were filmed standing outside the building as the beatings proceeded.

Almost 30 people were taken to hospital after the raid, several in comas. An Italian judge subsequently ruled that none of those staying at the Armando Diaz school had had any part in the intensely violent rioting or looting that marked the anti-corporate globalisation protests in Genoa.

A statement issued by some of the victims accused the Italian police of acting “outside the democratic order”. It added: “That is possible because they know they enjoy total impunity, as this sentence confirms.”

Previously.

Huge March Against Berlusconi’s Fascism

(Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of Italians marched through Rome on Saturday to protest against Silvio Berlusconi’s conservative government, which the left accuses of flirting with fascism. Opposition leader Walter Veltroni, who lost to Berlusconi at an April election, addressed a crowd at Rome’s ancient chariot track Circus Maximus which organisers say numbered 2.5 million.

The rally was not aimed against any particular policies — unlike dozens of smaller demonstrations over recent days protesting reforms to the school system — but was meant to buoy centre-left voters who feel their opinions are being trampled.

In an alliance with two right wing parties, the 72-year media tycoon Berlusconi has a strong majority in parliament.

Among his earliest policies have been the dismantling of gypsy shanty towns, putting soldiers on city streets and guaranteeing immunity from prosecution for himself and a handful of other top officials.

Flirting?

Huh?

The NYT notices something might be amiss in Italy, but…

During the altercation, the attackers shouted “dirty black,” lawyers for both sides said.

Although there is some debate about whether the killing was racially motivated, the attack on Mr. Guibre was the most severe in a recent spate of violence against immigrants across Italy.

And completely manages to avoid saying fascism entirely.

Fascist FC

One of Silvio Berlusconi’s players at AC Milan has declared he is a fascist. Christian Abbiati, 31, an Italian international, said: “I am not ashamed to proclaim my political beliefs. I share [the] ideals of fascism, such as the fatherland and the values of the Catholic religion.”

The goalkeeper’s remarks, published today in Sportweek magazine, come amid debate over Italy’s fascist past and rightwing present under the leadership of AC Milan’s billionaire chairman.

The minority partner in Berlusconi’s parliamentary alliance, the Freedom People, is a party spun out of the country’s neo-fascist movement. Some members remain unabashed apologists for the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.

The defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, sparked a row this month after he paid tribute to Italian soldiers who fought alongside German troops in the second world war. His comments came after the mayor of Rome, Gianno Alemanno, told a magazine he did not consider fascism an “absolute evil”. Berlusconi dodged a question on his own views, replying: “I think only of working to resolve the problems of the Italian people.”

Troops on the streets, Roma being persecuted. So how will the EU deal with the fascism of in its midst? Fascism we helped keep ticking over.

RNC- Some Charges Dropped

Charges will be dropped against journalists who were arrested and charged with misdemeanors for unlawful assembly during the Republican National Convention, St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said today.

Many reporters, photographers and bloggers were among the 818 people arrested during the Sept. 1-4 convention. Many were trapped on a bridge with protesters on the Thursday night, just before Sen. John McCain made his acceptance speech. Police had warned the large group to dissipate, then closed in from both sides of the bridge and made mass arrests. The mayor’s ruling applies only to journalists getting misdemeanors, but he said that, with the proliferation of alternative media covering the convention, the definition of journalist will be broadly applied as they try to ascertain identities and credentials. City officials said they’re not sure how many people this will affect.

Upon learning of the news, Democracy Now! Host, Amy Goodman said, “It’s good that these false charges have finally been dropped, but we never should have been arrested to begin with. These violent and unlawful arrests disrupted our work and had a chilling effect on the reporting of dissent. Freedom of the press is also about the public’s right to know what is happening on their streets. There needs to be a full investigation of law enforcement activities during the convention.”

In the weeks after the journalist arrests, tens of thousands of members of the public contacted St. Paul officials to protest the unlawful arrests of working journalists. Goodman said, “We were deeply moved by the outpouring of support. We thank everyone who called and wrote first to have us freed and then to have the charges dropped. We thank everyone who stood up for press freedom and the First Amendment.”

I’m not sure they always were going to quietly drop many charges, mission accomplished coverage quashed. Now to those paying attention it made a lot of fuss so you might think it was counterproductive or my guess is wrong, maybe. But they play for the mainstream audience who remained largely uninformed, who then spent the next…well even now obsessing over Palin and not reporting the ruling party acted exactly as the Chinese authorities did during the Olympics. Also other protesters have not had charges dropped and the blanket insurance to cover claims against police brutality remains largely unremarked upon, a license to beat, gas and torture people. And now Iraq hardened/traumatised combat troops are on call to do it as the recession once again is used to ensure the wealthy get bailed out by the public commons. Wealth redistribution upwards as usual. Crisis capitalism, disaster capitalism, authoritarian capitalism. In that respect there were no lies told by what happened at the RNC, their doctrine is to continue stealing and beat anyone who objects, on that the lessons of the RNC were very clear.