by Josephine Piccolo

Responding to the calls “Liberiamo la pace” (Let’s free peace) and “Giuliana: una di noi” (Giuliana: one of us), on Saturday February 19, after a week of local demonstrations held all over Italy, half a million people converged in Rome from all over Italy to march and rally for the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, her French colleague Florence Aubenas and her translator Hussein, and the pull out of Italian troops from Iraq.

The following day, on Sunday March 20, in soccer fields all over Italy, soccer players, including the captains of the 3 top teams in the major league, wore jerseys with Giuliana Sgrena’s photo and the demand for her liberation, and big banners were hung from the stadiums with the same demand.

Leading the demonstration in Rome was the banner of the Italian communist daily Il Manifesto, for which Giuliana has been reporting for many decades, and in first row stood Giuliana’s elderly parents, Franco and Antonietta her father a partisan during World War I, and both actively involved in organizing the march.

Participating in the march were also a great number of journalists and press, many bearing signs saying “Not an embedded journalist”, and a contingent from RAI, the State owned Italian television which, prompted by the Berlusconi government, refused to broadcast the march live. By contrast images of the demonstration were broadcast and broad coverage given all over the Arab countries.

Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter and photographer for the communist daily Il Manifesto was kidnapped on February 4 in Baghdad just as she had finished interviewing a group of refugees from Falluja. On February 16 a video was delivered to APII by her captors with images of Giuliana calling on people to put pressure on the Italian government for the pull out of the Italian “mission” and to help free her. She issued a strong appeal to all those who have been fighting at her side over decades for justice and against war to mobilize, and for her partner to circulate the pictures she took of Iraqi victims of the war in hospitals and refugee camps.

In a not uncharacteristic show of callousness, a few hours after the release of the video, the Italian government voted to renew their “mission” to Iraq, with the opposition parties this time voting against it.

Giuliana’s words in the video were instrumental in mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people around opposition to war in Iraq, but compared to last year’s demonstration (which had come on the heels of the Spanish pull out from Iraq) this was a much more somber march. Weighing on many people's minds was the expansion of the conflict, a consciousness of the carnage taking place in Iraq, exemplified by Falluja, but occurring on a daily basis elsewhere in the country, the revelations about widespread use of torture on the part of the coalition of the willing, and the murky stands on the part of some sections of the opposition in Italy as far as demanding withdrawal of the troops. This feeling of heaviness was captured in a video made by Il Manifesto in which participants in the march ranging from young people to immigrants are interviewed and talk about the different ways they share with Giuliana the feeling of being hostage.

Another element compounding the unease is the uncertainty about the real dynamics and forces behind the kidnapping of Sgrena. It has in fact been speculated that this kidnapping might be one of the opening salvoes of the Salvador option, which was floated around recently in Washington circles and confirmed by the appointment of Negroponte as director of U.S. central intelligence.

Throughout the route of the march great solidarity was shown by the people of Rome, and unlike last year’s march, many politicians from the center-left spectrum participated in it. Conspicuously absent were politicians of the governing center-right coalition.

Speakers at the rally held near Circus Maximus consciously chose to focus on the situation of the Iraqi people, placing the demand for Giuliana’s liberation in the context of the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Photographs taken by Giuliana Sgrena, depicting children and women maimed by war were repeatedly shown over a giant screen as a reminder of the consequences of the war.

Particularly moving were the speeches by Simona Torretta, one of the two Italian aid workers who had been kidnapped last year, and Menhaz Bassam an Iraqi volunteer who was kidnapped at the same time. As direct witnesses, they focused on the day to day conditions of society in Iraq today due to the occupation, especially the situation for women and children.

Solidarity messages were read by different representatives of press organizations and by Gabriele Polo, the director of Il Manifesto. His speech reiterated the illegality of the Italian intervention, forbidden by Article 11 of the Italian Constitution and placed the response to the war in the broader context of the role that Europe should be called to play vis-à-vis the notion of war, and pre-emptive war in particular.

English translations of Gabriele Polo’s words, a piece by Italian poet Giulio Stocchi alternating words by Giuliana Sgrena in the video with the words she used in the interview with Mitahl, an Iraqi woman held and tortured at Abu Graib are provided. For readers who understand Italian, the video made by il Manifesto is available at www.ilmanifesto.it.