He was the rampant head
of reconstruction in L'Aquila: Guido Bertolaso for
months was on tv news of Italy and everywhere he publicized the great
merits of Civil Protection, able to restore the calm in a region
destroyed. In Abruzzo truly there is still much to repair, but now Bertolaso has more important things to do. His new mission is the devastated island of Haiti.
Bertolaso went there to coordinate relief supplies and from there he gave an
interview to Lucia Annunziata for the program "In half an hour." A few words just to describe a situation in which "nothing works, there are only soldiers and rescue workers are missing." The Americans, these are the words he used, are extraordinary, but they "tend to confuse the military with what must be an emergency that can not be entrusted to the armed forces. They lack a head, a capacity for coordination that goes above what is organization, discipline, military procedures."
It was a tough attack from the Head of Italian Civil Protection, because he basically said, "there's not enough food and water, we must lay the foundations for future
life." Then, he goes further and says that the United States have offered "praiseworth relief supplies, but there is no capacity for coordination and leadership". In fact the rescue mission in Haiti would be a fair of vanity, a desire to appear before the cameras, to wave flags when, instead, we should "work first, then go before the cameras and take the flags."
It's so strange that Bertolaso is surprised because when he was in l'Aquila happened the same
thing: cameras, flags, helmets, photos, dentures and then
rebuild the houses with even the sheets. Too bad that today he does not come back in that city still destroyed, where life is trying to go on. "The situation is pathetic and everything could be managed much better."
Words, you know, are like boulders. And this time, willingly or unwillingly, Bertolaso has thrown down several boulders. He
could not ignore that those words would be bounced on the American
media, would have reached the ears of the Secretary of State. Hillary Clinton didn't like that statements and while she thanked Italy for its help, she explained that "here is not L'Aquila" and resized the accusations launched by Bertolaso with this phrase "There is always an opportunity in the face of any disaster for what we
in the United States call 'Monday morning quarterbacking.''' She said this during a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, in Washington.
Frattini immediately distanced himself from the words of Bertolaso saying that "the government does not recognize itself in his statements," but he said Bertolaso, anyway, "has made important proposals to the government of Haiti" during his trip.
The NYTimes said the criticism was unusual from Italy, a close European ally of the United States. And from Bertolaso the words were even more serious because they came from a person who enjoys a close relationship with Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Frattini, (the Times wrote he was clearly embarrassed, tried to fix things saying that Bertolaso was mistaken in blaming the lack of co-ordination on the
United States.
Throughout
this affair in which "experts" (of what? Tragedies?) and "politicians"
are competing to see who comes out worse, the only comment worth
mentioning is that of an Italian UN aid official in Haiti to the Times. He said, quoting the
words of Clinton, "Bertolaso had not understood that 'Haiti is not l'Aquila' ".
Time a couple of days and he will understand this is not a tv show where he can be the winner. And it could be better to run away.
Marianna Lepore
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