Commentary
A predictable second act for the architect of concentration camps for migrants
Is this a turning point in the career of former Interior Minister Marco Minniti, who presided over the internment of thousands of refugees? No, it’s an expected development.
Marco Minniti, the former Interior Minister in the Gentiloni government, who held the portfolio that oversaw the Secret Services in the Letta and Renzi governments, is leaving Parliament to lead the “Med-Or” Foundation—thanks to his valuable experience—set up by the Leonardo corporation, formerly called Finmeccanica, which is 30% controlled by the Ministry of Economy.
The foundation was established last Thursday, aiming to be an “economic, industrial and cultural mediator” between Italy and the countries of a vast area. Minniti, at the head of an international board of industrialists and academics, will have a “substantial” budget and a mandate to develop “structural programs in the aerospace, defense and security sectors,” with the recommendation that the cultural content of the Foundation should not be merely “cosmetic.”
Oh dear. In short, a vast and “cultural” market for armaments, weapon systems and related high technology will be set up, buoyed by “democratic” diplomatic and media initiatives. It’s not like we don’t sell many weapons already—including via Leonardo—to corrupt, oppressive and often warring regimes in the Mediterranean, Middle and Far East.
Is this a turning point in his career? No, it’s an expected development, which comes after two decisive precursors. The first is his work as Minister of the Interior in 2017, when, to save the “democratic character” of the country, he began the implementation of a concentration camp universe on the other side of the Mediterranean, delegating the control of migratory flows from Libya to the so-called “coast guard.”
That is to say, to the organized criminal militias which, financed and armed by us, have imprisoned—and still do—thousands of refugees fleeing from war and misery, often caused by our own arms trafficking, in concentration camps and prisons. Thus opening the way, after a wide-ranging campaign of criminalization of NGOs, to the racist right and to Salvini’s “private enterprise.”
The second precursor is right before our eyes these days. It is former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who, as a true servant of the state (but which one?), took up a well-remunerated position as part of the Board of Trustees of a Saudi investment fund controlled by the criminal prince Bin Salman—now also named as such by the CIA.
Renzi put on a display of obsequiousness over video towards the man who ordered the killing of the dissident Khashoggi and the war in Yemen (a fruitful one for us), and with much praise to the “Saudi Renaissance” and envy for their low “cost of labor”—namely the labor of heavily exploited migrants, as Amnesty reports. It’s just what everyone does these days.
Minniti has done well for himself, as long as there is still war…
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/sulla-via-del-rinascimento-renziano/ on 2021-02-28