HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

Rome, 30 April 2015 — Any decision by Italy to intervene in the Libyan crisis, while politically convenient, would create more problems than solutions.

Roberto Savio

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi announced recently (April 20) his government was studying the possibility of mounting “targeted interventions” against the Libya-based people smugglers behind the huge surge in numbers of migrants attempting to flee North Africa. But he made clear that Italy would not be intervening militarily.

His statement that “attacks on death rackets, attacks against slave traders (traffickers) are in our thinking” was a timely political manoeuvre, geared toward undermining the growth of anti-immigrant forces in Italy – particularly the extreme right-wing Lega Nord.

It also was a convenient way for Italy to hide its inability to take a real commitment on the issue of immigration.

Likewise, it was also convenient for the United States, as President Barak Obama made clear to Renzi in his recent meeting, that he had no intention of putting American troops on the ground in Libya.

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*

27 Apr 2015, Jondal, Bergen, Kristiansund, Norway – TRANSCEND Media Service – The West–North America and Europe to somewhere in Mexico and Ukraine– declines, outcompeted economically, defeated militarily, confronted politically, contested culturally. But still strong on all four, with much to offer in a more egalitarian world. No need to fall further by working against itself.

Johan Galtung

Take the 70th anniversary demarcation of the victory over nazism, take thousands of Africans drowning in the waters around Lampedusa, Italy, take the Islamic State, take Ukraine–and a country up there in the high North of Europe, Norway.

Elections have moved the country from “red-green” to “blue-blue” coloring of the same color blind foreign policy: follow Washington, Our Father, lest Satan should come.

Yes, the Red Army came and liberated Kirkenes 25 October 1944, the northernmost city.

Everybody knows Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s three-pronged attack toward Leningrad (the siege), Moscow (to beat–Napoleon?) and Caucasus (oil); but not the war for the ice-free harbor of Murmask, from Kirkenes. King Haakon VII, a Dane elected king in 1905, made a remarkable speech in London, distributed in leaflets through the air:

          “Fear of Russians is not a recent phenomenon.–New was the fear of bolshevism, added after the Russian revolution. But up till this date we are missing the slightest proof that Russia has had aggressive designs on Norway.

          What we are not missing are the proofs that the fear of Russians and bolshevism is propagated by powers and groups that themselves had aggressive designs on Russia. The proofs are abundant in the political history from 1918 till today.”