Ethnic cleansing in Italian town

[sixmile]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/11/italy-rosarno-violence-immigrants
'Rosarno in southern Italy had, by last night, been turned into what one politician termed the world's only entirely white town after a bloody ethnic cleansing that produced scenes reminiscent of the old American deep south.

As bulldozers got to work to obliterate shacks belonging to the itinerant crop-pickers who had fled, the last of more than 1,000 such workers were being removed from the area for their own protection.

After two days and nights of violence that began with the apparently motiveless shooting of two African workers, the number of injured stood at 53, comprising 18 police, 14 local people and 21 immigrants, eight of whom were in hospital.

Some of the crop-pickers had been shot; others had been beaten with metal bars or wooden clubs as local people took indiscriminate vengeance after a riot of Thursday in which more than 100 Africans caused extensive damage in the town to protest at the shootings.'

snip

'A junior minister in the previous, centre-left government, Luigi Manconi, commented ironically that Rosarno was now "the only wholly white town in the world. Not even South African apartheid obtained such a result." And he asked: "Who now will pick the oranges?"'



http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/world/europe/11italy.html?ref=world
Mafia is Suspected
'The clashes began Thursday night in Rosarno, a working-class city amid citrus groves in Calabria, the toe of Italy’s boot, after a legal immigrant from Togo was lightly wounded in a pellet-gun attack in a nearby city. It is not clear who pulled the trigger — the authorities said they were investigating whether organized crime had provoked the riots — but the consequences were severe.'



In case you believe racism doesn't exist anymore

[freddie mertz]

1. Thanks for posting this. This is the tip of the iceberg.

Berlusconi's Italy has hit new heights of corruption and xenophobia.

It's not just some pretty country with beautiful art and food, wine etc.

There is lots of ugliness there.

[janedum]

2. Awful! I've heard Italy is hard on immigrants ... very RACIST.

[sixmile]

3. I suppose they'll now have to pick their own oranges

and everything else...
Real great jobs being stolen from Italians.

[invictus]

4. Ethnic cleansing? Bulldozing homes? Sounds like Israel. Only difference is that in Israel ..

... it is the migrants (Israeli settlers) who are doing the ethnic cleansing and bulldozing of the indigenous Palestinian population.

[notesdev]

5. With that unemployment rate

importing foreign workers to southern Italy was a recipe that made this inevitable.

18% unemployment+
1000 mostly illegal immigrant workers easily identifiable by skin color+
stupid as hell riot by the immigrants =

What did you think was going to happen?


The people responsible for this are the political class who created such a combustible mix and foolishly expected people to just live with it.

[sixmile]

8. These statistics sound familiar

Could this happen here?

[pampango]

9. The National League's Roberto Maroni (Berlusconi's Interior Minister) would agree with you.

"Maroni criticised local authorities for turning a blind eye to the widespread, irregular use of immigrant labour, adding that they had created communities of foreigners that were "bombs primed to go off"."

A junior minister in the previous, centre-left government, Luigi Manconi, commented ironically that Rosarno was now "the only wholly white town in the world. Not even South African apartheid obtained such a result." And he asked: "Who now will pick the oranges?"

But, perhaps explaining the crop-pickers' frustration and the eagerness of some locals to get rid of their immigrant workforce, the Calabrian citrus industry has been in crisis due to a fall in prices, according to Antonio Lupini, vice-president of the local farmers association. He told the daily Corriere della Sera that 800m kilograms of citrus fruit were rotting on the trees.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The right wing, anti-immigrant party agrees with you, while the "center-left" party does not. By the way, this all happened in the part of Italy which is the base for the National League, in other words a very conservative part of the country.

And where did you read that these immigrants were illegal. The sources I have read indicate that they arrived with legal contracts, then were exploited after they arrived.

[notesdev]

10. Reference

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLDE60906D

"Authorities moved more than 1,000 people, mostly illegal temporary workers from sub-Saharan Africa to immigrant centres around Italy in an operation that lasted from Saturday through to the early hours of Sunday."


This is called labor dumping, and if you care at all about workers' rights you should be as alarmed as I am about it. This is what big corporations do to drive down their labor costs, they tell the natives to go screw themselves and they import the cheapest labor from abroad they can find.

I'm amazed that there is anyone on the left who doesn't have a BIG BIG problem with this.

[Odin2005]

6. OMG.

And people dare claim that Europe is somehow more enlightened then we are. Fuck that noise.

[proteus_lives]

7. Aside from the healthcare, Europe is no great shakes compared to the US.

Their racial problems are staggering.

[Odin2005]

11. IMO Europe is far more racist than we are, they just hide it better.

Until it bursts out in atrocities like this.

[proteus_lives]

13. Agreed.

One of Europe's main problems with racism is that they refuse to deal with it or admit it.

[Odin2005]

14. Yep, We were forced to deal with our racism issues, Europe never did.

That is probably why Europe is more economically progressive then we are, our energies got diverted into fixing the race problem.

[proteus_lives]

17. Riots in France, this shit in Italy, problems with the Rom.

Immigration in the UK. It's all coming back to bite them in a big way.

[Arkana]

12. Oh God, I'm Italian and I thought my 25% Polish heritage

was the part I should be ashamed of.

[Solly Mack]

15. k/r

[meow2u3]

16. You nonza white? I choppa you head off!

:sarcasm: