Momento Decisivo para Cesare Battisti

Preso no Brasil desde 18 de março de 2007, o escritor e ativista italiano Cesare Battisti passa por um momento decisisvo na luta por sua permanência no Brasil. Nas próximas semanas o Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) julgará o pedido de extradição feito pela Itália ao Brasil. Battisti recebeu em janeiro deste ano o status de Refugiado político, concedido pelo Ministério da Justiça. Ainda assim o STF manteve o processo de extradição e tem sinalizado até com a possibilidade de alterar o entendimento da Constituição para que possa executar a extradição.

Há pouco mais de dois anos, Cesare foi preso numa operação da Polícia Federal em articulação com as polícias da França e da Itália. Sua extradição é requisitada pelo Estado italiano, que há cerca de 20 anos atrás o condenou à revelia por quatro homicídios. Battisti, em recente carta pública encaminhada ao STF, reafirma não ter participação em nenhum dos crimes de morte que lhe foram imputados e explica que o processo que o condenou foi viciado: os depoimentos contra ele foram conseguidos por meio de tortura e delação premiada; não houve a presença do acusado para apresentar sua defesa; houve apresentação de documentos falsos no decorrer do processo; a condenação se deu com base em leis retroativas (aprovadas posteriormente aos acontecimentos). Some-se a isso a campanha de "caça às bruxas" realizada atualmente pelo Governo Italiano (Berlusconi) aos/às militantes da extrema-esquerda do período.

Estas e outras evidências fortalecem a versão de que tanto sua condenação há 20 anos como os atuais esforços desmedidos pra extraditar Battisti são políticos e objetivam fazer de Cesare um bode expiatório. Ao longo dos anos de perseguição que Cesare vem sofrendo tanto em território francês quanto no Brasil, foram levantados inúmeros apoios e constituídos comitês de solidariedade para sua libertação. As disputas em torno do "Caso Battisti" tomaram tal proporção que não envolvem mais somente os referidos acusados, mas também as concepções de anistia, refúgio e liberdade política no Brasil.

Em torno da iminente decisão e dos dois anos da prisão de Cesare, os comitês em solidariedade a Cesare Battisti estão organizando debates de lançamento do seu livro publicado no Brasil, chamado "Minha fuga sem fim".

( Retirado do Centro de Mídia Independente - 26.03.09 )

Berlusconi seeks more power after party merger

Rome Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, yesterday told members of a new conservative party that united his own Forza Italia with the right-wing Alleanza Nazionale that he needed more powers vested in him to help to modernise Italy.

About 6,000 delegates, gathered in Rome for a three-day congress officially to baptise the Il Popolo della Libertà (People of Freedom) party, heard Mr Berlusconi, who is 72 and has been Prime Minister three times, promise reforms in education, women’s rights and environmental policy. But he said that his position commanded only “false” power and that he had been hamstrung in the past from carrying out changes by an “irresponsible opposition”, an unwieldy parliament and the inability to change his Cabinet.

Many analysts believe that he intends to strengthen the role of the president of the republic and then manoeuvre himself into that position when this legislature ends, but he made no mention of the presidency in his speech.

( Retirado do jornal TIMES - 30.03.09 )

Rendering unto Caesar; The Italian right.(The new People of Freedom party).

His newly merged right-wing party entrenches Silvio Berlusconi in power

DELEGATES to the inaugural congress of the People of Freedom (PdL) party on March 27th can buy a new political souvenir: a Russian doll in the image of Silvio Berlusconi. Inside are progressively smaller dolls of the other prime ministers he has left behind in the past 15 years. The doll carries a message as troubling to critics as it is heartening to admirers: that Mr Berlusconi is no longer one of several political rivals, but Italy's uncontested master.

Since he swept to power for the third time last year, opposition has melted like Alpine snow at winter's end. In less than a year, the unions have split, the main opposition party has changed its leader and--thanks to the impact of a global economic crisis on a society in which politics and the economy are inextricably entwined--Mr Berlusconi has gained immense powers of patronage over Italy's apprehensive bankers and industrialists.

The transformation of the PdL from an electoral alliance into a real party is but the latest milestone in his triumphant advance. At its own congress on March 22nd the National Alliance (AN), which grew out of Italy's neo-fascist movement, formally wound itself up and merged with Mr Berlusconi's old party, Forza Italia. Mr Berlusconi has long said his dream was to create a single party of the right. That dream still eludes him, as the anti-immigrant Northern League remains determinedly independent. But the new PdL takes him a big step closer. The right now has a dominant movement comparable to the left's Democratic Party, pushing Italy nearer a two-party system.

Some of Mr Berlusconi's associates fret that heading a more heterogeneous party could turn the prime minister from a leader into an arbiter. That is what happened to the Democratic Party's first leader, Walter Veltroni, who acquired a politically lethal reputation for wishy-washy indecisiveness. But the bigger fear is that the freedom in the new party's title might be that of Mr Berlusconi to do whatever he likes. Francesco Storace, a former Berlusconi minister who left the an to found his own, unambiguously far-right party, said he looked forward to seeing what happened when "it becomes clear only Berlusconi rules". The prime minister is not used to being questioned by his followers. He created Forza Italia as a vehicle for his own ambition. At the start, most of its top people were his employees. AN, by contrast, is a party with a strong tradition of internal debate and dissent.

For many years, Mr Berlusconi's heir-apparent has been AN's leader, Gianfranco Fini. But after the 2008 election he was made speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. Since then, he has become a fierce and, for the prime minister, exasperating champion of the legislature, while appearing to slip rapidly leftward. He has decried Mr Berlusconi's use of votes of confidence to rush through bills without full debate and says the right is in danger of succumbing to "Caesarism". He has criticised plans for government-authorised vigilante patrols, and deplored as "immoral and unjust" a measure allowing doctors to report illegal immigrants to the police.

There has even been speculation that Mr Fini might position himself as a standard-bearer of libertarianism within the PdL. Yet at the AN congress he unequivocally endorsed Mr Berlusconi's leadership. For the moment, the ever-smiling, ever-tanned media tycoon remains a Caesar with no Brutus in sight.

The Economist (US) 390.8624 (March 28, 2009): p35EU. (568 words)