WORK|OUT European Students’ Review

PRISONERS OF WAR

Petite incursion dans l’histoire d’une initiative solidaire et unique au monde

   | Mattia Bergamini (Bologna). Why did it happen? Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, members of “Un Ponte per...”, an Italian humanitarian organisation working in Iraq since 1992, and the Iraqis Ra’ad Ali Abdul Azziz and Mahnoaz Bassam, an engineer of “Un Ponte per...” and a member of INTERSOS, were kidnapped in Iraq on the 7th September, and freed on the 28th.
   As Dominique de Villepin, French interior minister, has been praying with the Muslim leaders at the main mosque in Paris for the release of the two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq, Giuseppe Pisanu seemed instead to be really busy with the fight against clandestine immigration, while Silvio Berlusconi, Italian prime minister, preferred talking again about taxes reduction, rather than following French conciliatory policy.
   How can be explained the Italian government’s embarrassment over the two Simonas’ kidnapping? The reason may be the connection between the humatitarian organisation and the four Italian bodyguards kidnapping last April. Have you ever heard this name: Valeria Castellani? This woman was at the same time working for “Un Ponte per...” and the head manager of DTS Security (the company which employed the four bodyguards). Together with Paolo Simeoni, her husband, a former mercenary and highly required by several humanitarian organisations, she founded DTS in Nevada offering security services for American citizens in Iraq, able to maintain under control the flow of dollars, politicians and machineries through the country. As Italian secret service and military sources comunicated, the two Simonas have not been erroneously kidnapped by Iraqi’s guerrilla but chosen to strike back at those companies and that countries, like Italy, which support the war and its business.

| the French answer to this article: replique and the German view: Kriegslügen