Making the banks pay for the pandemic

Italy is now under full lockdown due to the pandemic. And the Italian government has announced an interesting economic stimulus policy to help people when they're unable to work: suspending mortgage payments:

Payments on mortgages are to be suspended in Italy due to the coronavirus outbreak, the country’s government has announced.

[...]

When asked about the possibility of halting mortgage payments on Radio Anch’io, Laura Castelli, the deputy economy minister, said: ”Yes, that will be the case, for individuals and households.”

I'm not sure about home ownership rates in Italy, or whether they have a similar plan to suspend rents, but the intention is clear: make the banks, rather than people, pay for the pandemic. Of course, they'll get their money eventually - the important term is "suspended", not cancelled, and it effectively just extends the mortgage term - but it means they'll effectively be providing a giant loan to the public for the duration of the crisis. Its not a complete solution - obviously, it does nothing for renters - but its an partial one, and one which puts costs where they can be best handled. Sadly, the New Zealand government is unlikely to do anything of the sort.

Justice for Operation Condor

From 1975 to 1989, the spy agencies of South America's right-wing military dictatorships cooperated in Operation Condor, a joint campaign of extermination against the continent's left. Roughly 400,000 people were imprisoned, 30,000 disappeared, and 60,000 murdered - kidnapped, tortured, executed, assassinated, or thrown out of flying aircraft. It was a crime against humanity, and over the past decades, its surviving architects have gradually been convicted and punished for it. And today, another 24 of them went were sentenced to prison:

An Italian court has sentenced 24 people to life in prison for their involvement in Operation Condor, in which the dictatorships of six South American countries conspired to kidnap and assassinate political opponents in each other’s territories.

The trial, the first of its kind in Europe, began in 2015 and focused on the responsibility of senior officials in the military dictatorships of Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina for the killing and disappearance of 43 people including 23 Italian citizens.

Those sentenced on Monday included Francisco Morales Bermúdez, who was president of Peru from 1975 to 1980, Juan Carlos Blanco, a former foreign minister in Uruguay, Pedro Espinoza Bravo, a former deputy intelligence chief in Chile, and Jorge Néstor Fernández Troccoli, a Uruguayan former naval intelligence officer.

Good. And hopefully they'll track down and prosecute the rest of those involved as well.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators of Operation Condor being hunted down and prosecuted like Nazis makes me wonder whether the perpetrators of Guantanamo, and US rendition and torture will be treated the same way in future. It took 25 years after the end of Condor for the prosecutions to really get rolling, so we're probably looking at at least another decade for that to happen.

Correction: It wasn't clear from the original article, but only one of the defendants - Jorge Tróccoli - is actually in Italy and facing prison. The rest were sentenced in absentia and will need to be extradited (though some are reportedly already in prison in their home countries). So its not quite the justice I thought it was. Still, the ruling itself that Operation Condor was a crime is useful, and even if not extradited now, those convicted will have this hanging over them for the rest of their lives, and if they ever set foot outside of whatever country is harbouring them, may find themselves Pinocheted.

The EU needs to stand up against its racists

The European Union is founded on values of "respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities". Those values are under threat from several of its members. In Spain, the government has unleashed state violence against those who peacefully advocate secession. In Italy, the government wants to deport Roma, an ethnic minority who were targeted for extermination by the Nazis. And in Hungary, the racist government has just made it illegal for lawyers and NGOs to help refugees claim asylum.

These actions clearly contravene the EU's fundamental values. They may also explicitly contravene European law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and look likely to result in court cases. But more than that, they require political action from other EU nations to enforce the Eu's values. These are not things civilised, democratic countries which respect human rights should be doing. And insofar as a government by its actions consistently fails to meet that standard, the EU should be looking at suspending or even revoking membership. If Hungary and Italy want to go back to being 30's racist shitholes, then they can do it without belonging to the EU.

The EU trumps democracy in Italy

Back in March Italians went to the polls to elect a new government, and delivered an indecisive result with no clear winner. After months of wrangling and failed talks, it looked like an alliance of the populist Five Star Movement and the racist League would finally be able to form a government. But it was effectively vetoed at the last minute by Italy's President, when he refused to appoint someone who had voiced doubts about the EU as finance minister.

No matter which way you look at it, this is grossly undemocratic. The two parties ran on an anti-EU platform. They won a majority, both of the popular vote and in parliament. No matter what you think of their policies, this gives them an unquestioned right to form a government of their choosing. That right has clearly been violated. Worse, by doing this, the president has sent a clear message that he believes that the European Union trumps democracy and that he is just a local satrap for Brussels (a message strengthened by the support he is receiving from major EU governments). You don't need to support or like M5S or the League to think that that is an extremely dubious position.

The president has now appointed an interim prime minister - a former IMF budget-slasher, no less - who has no support and will fall at the first confidence vote. New elections are inevitable. And the president has just ensured that they will be fought on the question of Italy's membership of the EU and the EU's toxic effect on the democracy of its member states (not to mention constitutional reform to prevent the president from ever pulling a stunt like this again). If he was trying to protect Italy's place in the EU, he couldn't have picked a worse way to go about it.

Justice for rendition

In 2009, Italy convicted 22 CIA agents in absentia for their role in the kidnapping and rendition from Italy of a refugee. One of those agents was dumb enough to set foot outside the United States, and was arrested in Portugal last year to face extradition. Her appeals have finally been exhausted and she is to be extradited to Italy next week:

A former undercover CIA officer is to be extradited to Italy following her conviction over the 2003 extraordinary rendition of a terror suspect to Egypt.

Sabrina De Sousa, a dual US and Portuguese citizen, was arrested in Portugal last October and has since lost three appeals against being handed over to Italian authorities. Her extradition is scheduled for 4 May.

Good. It may only be one of those responsible, but some justice is better than none.

meanwhile, there's a suggestion that the Italian government will pardon her to keep on-side with the US. They shouldn't. De Sousa conspired to kidnap and torture a man. Pardoning would simply make the government complicit in her crime.

Justice for rendition

In 2003, Abu Omar was kidnapped in Italy by the CIA. He was rendered to Egypt, where he was tortured. The rendition became public in 2005 and the Italian justice system was eventually forced to act; in 2009 22 CIA agents were convicted in absentia for their role in Omar's kidnapping and torture.

One of them was Sabrina De Sousa, a dual Portuguese-US citizen. She was detained in Portugal in October on a European Arrest Warrant, and a Portuguese court has just ruled that she should be extradited to Italy to serve her sentence:

A Portuguese court has ruled that a former C.I.A. agent should be handed over to Italy after being found guilty by an Italian court of taking part in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in 2003, one of the renditions ordered by the administration of former President George W. Bush.

The former agent, Sabrina De Sousa, holds dual American and Portuguese citizenship. Ms. De Sousa has denied any wrongdoing or involvement in the kidnapping, which took place while she was working undercover for the C.I.A. as a diplomat in Milan. She will appeal this week’s ruling, her lawyer, Manuel Magalhães e Silva, said by email on Friday.

Good. And hopefully the other 21 will soon be following her to face justice for their crime.

Relationship recognition is a human right

How far has the battle for marriage equality come? The European Court of Human Rights has just ruled that Italy's failure to provide any legal recognition for same sex relationships violates the right to privacy and family life:

Italy violates human rights by not offering adequate legal protection and recognition to same-sex couples, a European court has ruled.

[...]

The European court ruling on Tuesday said gay couples were essentially forced to live double lives in Italy: they could live openly in their relationships, but they did not receive any official recognition of their status as a family.

Specifically the court ruled that Italy was in violation of article eight of the European convention on human rights, which provides for the right to respect for privacy and family life.

The case was brought by three gay couples – all men – who do not have the right to marry or enter into a civil union and described the challenges the lack of recognition posed in their daily lives. The legal move was led by Enrico Oliari, president of a gay rights group called GayLib.

“We are delighted,” Oliari said in a statement. “We arrived at this conclusion at the end of a battle that began 18 years ago with our association and an eight-year fight in the courtroom.”

The court awarded damages and costs to the complainants, and urged Italy to legislate to recognise same sex relationships. Italy's NeoLiberal Prime Minister has promised to do that, but has never bothered to actually act on it. Hopefully this ruling - and the threat of future damages claims - will force him to do so. Meanwhile, its also a clear challenge to Eastern European bigot states like Poland and Slovakia, which have passed Texas-style constitutional amendments against marriage equality and refuse any recognition at all to same sex couples. The ECHR has basicly just said that that position is illegal and will have to change. Hopefully they'll get the message and act soon.

The full judgement is here.

Guilty

Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted of bribery:

Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has been found guilty of bribing a senator in 2006 in an attempt to bring down the then centre-left government.

A Naples court sentenced Berlusconi to three years in jail and banned him from holding public office for five years.

[...]

The billionaire was accused of giving 3m euros (£2.5m; $4m) in 2006 to Sergio De Gregorio, then a senator from the anti-corruption Italy of Values party, to switch to Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and thus undermine the government of the time.

Unfortunately he won't actually be going to jail because Italy's crazy statute of limitations law will kick in before the appeal period expires, effectively halting the trial. So he'll be convicted, but not punished. And then Italy wonders why it has a corruption problem...

Stitching up Italy's democracy

Back in December, Italy's constitutional court ruled that the country's 2005 "porcellum" electoral law - a regionalised party-list system with complicated thresholds and a national "top-up" to provide the biggest party with an automatic absolute majority - was unconstitutional. The reason? The winner's bonus was unfair, while the party-lists gave power to parties rather than voters. Italy's government has promised to reform the law, and now the Democratic Party has got together with former Prime Minister and convicted tax fraudster Silvio Berlusconi for a joint proposal. The details? A winner's bonus, and party lists, of course. Oh, and a higher threshold to eliminate their competition from Parliament. "A total stitch-up" doesn't even come close...

The good news is that any proposal will have to pass through the Parliamentary process, and the small parties are threatening to roll the government if they are excluded. And of course there will likely be another court challenge if the undemocratic features of the porcellum law are simply replicated. Politics in Italy might be about to get very interesting again...

Good riddance

Silvio Berlusconi has been expelled from the Italian Senate:

The Italian Senate has voted to expel ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi from parliament with immediate effect over his conviction for tax fraud.

Berlusconi, who has dominated politics for 20 years, could now face arrest over other criminal cases as he has lost his immunity from prosecution.

He told supporters in Rome it was a "day of mourning" for democracy.

Berlusconi has been a toxic influence on Italian politics, legislating repeatedly to protect himself and his cronies from prosecution for their crimes. Now, he's just a convicted tax fraudster, barred from office for six years. While he'll no doubt try to retain an influence through his Forza Italia party (named after a football chant - yes, Italian politics is that debased), inevitably his inability to lead a government will see that influence decline. And given his age, he's unlikely to have time to make a comeback.

So, Italian politics is finally free of Berlusconi. The question is whether they can do better, or whether its Berlusconis all the way down...

Guilty

Last year, an Italian court convicted former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of tax evasion, sentencing him to four years' imprisonment (which was automatically cut to one year under an amnesty law Berlusconi passed in 2006). Today, that conviction was upheld by Italy's constitutional court. Berlusconi is now officially a convicted tax-fraudster, and he will be spending the next year under house arrest. But it wasn't all good news - they also ordered a review of the five year prohibition from holding public office handed down by the lower court, meaning that he will not be automatically evicted from the Senate and will still be able to run if elections are called soon or the ban is not uphold.

Still, its a good result, and justice is finally being served on one of the most corrupt western leaders in some time. And there's still plenty more of it to come...

Extraditing for rendition

In 2003, Abu Omar was kidnapped in Italy by the CIA. He was rendered to Egypt, where he was tortured. The rendition became public in 2005 and the Italian justice system was eventually forced to act; in 2009 22 CIA agents were convicted in absentia for their role in Omar's kidnapping and torture.

On of them was Robert Lady (who has since gone public claiming he was "only following orders". Spot the lack of historical awareness). He's just been arrested in Panama on an international warrant. The question now is whether he will be extradited to serve his sentence, or whether the US will bully Panama into releasing him.

Guilty

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted of abuse of office and having sex with an underage prostitute. The sentence? Seven years imprisonment and a ban from public office. Sadly, I don't expect him to serve either. "Reforms" to Italy's justice system (made specifically to protect Berlusconi's friends) reduced the time-limit for cases, so all he has to do is drag it out through appeals, and the case will simply expire.

The question now is whether he will demand that Italy's coalition government pass new laws to protect him, and if so, whether they will agree. He can send the country back to the polls if he doesn't get his way, so he has a lot of leverage. But if that happens, then the credibility of Italy's democracy will take an even bigger dive.

Berlusconi in trouble again

Silvio Berlusconi is under investigation again - this time over allegations he bribed a senator to switch sides after the 2006 election:

The former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is challenging for a share of power after this week's election, has been placed under investigation on suspicion of bribing a senator to change sides in parliament in 2006, sources in the inquiry said on Thursday.

[...]

The prosecutors are investigating claims that a senator, Sergio De Gregorio, was paid €3m (£2.6m) to leave his party and join the PDL, the sources told Italian news agencies.

De Gregorio's move helped trigger the fall of the last centre-left government, headed by Romano Prodi.

The good news is that now he is no longer Prime Minister, this can be prosecuted effectively. Though even then the self-serving changes Berlusconi made to Italy's statute of limitations may mean he avoids punishment. Though I would hope that a finding that the case was proven but the statute had expired would be enough to make him political persona non-grata.

Italy votes

Italians went to the polls over the weekend to replace their unelected austerity government, and the result looks like a narrow victory for the centre-left (but pro-austerity) Italy. Common Good coalition. With 98% of polling places reporting, they have a narrow 0.4% lead over Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom - but its a gap which will hold. Which means that under Italy's Porcellum law, they will gain a guaranteed 55% majority on the Chamber of Deputies on only 29.5% of the vote. Its a perfect example of why "winner's bonuses" suck.

Meanwhile the real winner is comedian Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement, which has gained 25% of the vote, making it the largest single party in the Chamber. They're anti-establishment, anti-corruption, and anti-austerity - and thanks to holding a balance of power in the Senate, they can decide who forms the next government and how long it lasts. The numbers only allow two real options: a grand coalition of the establishment, or a centre-left government with Five Star support. But given that Italy's "centre-left" are pro-austerity, the latter can't be assumed. There is every chance that Italy's establishment will try and erect a cordon sanitaire against the people who want to clean them up.

(As for former dictator Mario Monti, it turns out that the constituency for his austerity policies is only 10% - which shows precisely why he shouldn't have been appointed in the first place. He had no mandate and no legitimacy. Fortunately now he's also got no power and no say in who runs the country. Suck on that, bankers).

The media seem to be suggesting that there will be new elections if these ones don't go the "right" way. Which is a pretty odd idea of democracy. Italy's people have spoken, and Italy's politicians should respect their decision and try and make the best of it.

Justice for rendition in Italy

In 2003, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (AKA Abu Omar), an Egyptian refugee, was kidnapped off the street in Milan by the CIA as part of a joint operation with the Italian SISMI. He was rendered to Egypt, where he was detained, beaten, electrocuted and raped in the name of the "war on terror". In 2009, an Italian court convicted 23 CIA agents for their role in Abu Omar''s rendition and torture. And now, after a retrial, they've convicted the then-head of SISMI and his deputy:

Italy's former intelligence chief Nicolo Pollari has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the rendition of a terror suspect.

The court in Milan also sentenced his former deputy Marco Mancini to nine years in jail over the 2003 kidnapping.

[...]

Pollari, who was head of Sismi military intelligence agency in 2003, insisted during the trial that he had known nothing about the kidnapping, but that documents proving he was not involved were classified under secrecy laws. He resigned over the affair.

Last September Italy's highest court upheld the guilty verdicts on the 23 Americans, and ruled that Pollari and four other senior Italian secret service agents be tried again for their role in the kidnapping.

Tuesday's hearing, in Milan's court of appeals, also saw six-year sentences handed to three other Italian agents.

They're appealing, so there's a long way to go yet, and Berlusconi's self-serving changes to the statute of limitations may mean that they never face jail even if the convictions are upheld. But the mere fact of a conviction sends a powerful message about the accountability of spies and the rule of law. If only the US courts would do the same...

Italy's dictatorship falls

A year ago, in an act of cowardice, Italy's elected politicians abrogated their responsibilities and allowed the appointment of an unelected, "technocratic" (i.e. NeoLiberal) government to manage their country through its economic crisis. That government then proceeded to fuck over the Italian people, imposing NeoLiberal austerity for the benefit of the rich and bankers. The good news is that this dictatorship has finally come to an end, with Prime Minister Mario Monti announcing that he would resign after a major party withdrew its confidence. The bad news is that all of this is happening because Silvio Berlusconi wants a fourth term - and another few years of immunity from prosecution.

Still, Berlusconi is better than the alternative. If he wins, he will at least be elected and accountable to the people. Monti was neither - he was a dictator with no mandate and no legitimacy. If he wants to keep pushing his austerity, then he should stand for election and see how popular it is. Otherwise, Italy is well rid of him.

Good riddance

Silvio Berlusconi has announced he will not be running again for Prime Minister. Good riddance. Berlusconi has been a toxic influence on Italian politics, repeatedly undermining the rule of law to keep himself and his friends out of jail. The sooner he is off the political stage, the better.

New Fisk

The ordinary victims lost in the noise of Beirut's latest big story
The legacy of imperialism still haunts every street in Rome
Photograph links Germans to 1915 Armenia genocide

Italy's new dictatorship

The jubilation over the demise of Silvio Berlusconi has given way to the cold light of dawn: Italy now has an unelected government, ready to impose harsh austerity without any popular mandate. Its unelected Prime Minister, Mario Monti, was made a Senator-for-life solely so he could take over. Its new Cabinet contains no elected politicians, and instead has a bunch of bankers: the very people responsible for the crisis in the first place.

This is possible for two reasons. Firstly, of course, because the Italian Constitution unbelievably allows it. There's no requirement for the Prime Minister or Ministers to be MPs or Senators. The PM must merely hold the confidence of both houses of the Italian Parliament (but even then is not obliged to resign if it does not hold them). Secondly, there's the total abdication of responsibility from Italy's elected politicians. They can't be arsed governing their country or doing anything to solve its problems, so they're just going to turn over power to a pack of unelected "experts" and watch (meanwhile, of course, they will continue to collect their salaries regardless). And so Italy's democracy dies, not with a bang, but a whimper...

Supposedly, this "technocratic" regime will make "non-political" decisions. Bullshit. Austerity is political. Privatisation is political. Who pays is political. These decisions need to be made by people who are elected, and can be democratically held to account for their decisions. If they are not, then they will be made in the interests of the rich, or the Germans, not ordinary Italians. But then, that's the point, isn't it? To make decisions which are not in the expressed interests of ordinary Italians, to ram NeoLiberalism down their throats for the benefit of foreign bankers (who must have their pound of flesh, plus usury on top of that).

The only light at the end of the tunnel is that some parties are already positioning themselves to pull the plug and force elections when they think they can get away with it. They don't want to govern, but they want to save Italy from the results of their abdication (using the technocrats as scapegoats to take the blame for any unpleasant policy decisions, which they of course will not reverse). Its a stunning display of political cowardice and cynicism. But I guess that's what you get from Italian politicians these days.