Commentary
Giuliana Sgrena: To those who still tell me ‘you were looking for trouble’
To those who for 20 years have accused me of being a murderer, I reply that it was the Americans who shot Nicola Calipari, not me.
On the morning of February 4, 20 years ago, while on assignment in Baghdad, il manifesto correspondent Giuliana Sgrena was kidnapped by a group that claimed the name of the “Islamic Jihad Organization.” The news reached our newsroom while we were still trying to get in touch with her, as we did every day. Her satellite phone was silent.
Giuliana was held prisoner for a month. She was freed on March 4 by the direct intervention of Nicola Calipari, a senior executive of the Italian military intelligence service (then called SISMI), who had followed the negotiations with the kidnappers and had gone to Baghdad to bring her home. Calipari was shot dead by a U.S. National Guard soldier when the car in which he was traveling together with Giuliana was within sight of the airport.
Giuliana and service operations manager Andrea Carpani, who was driving the car, were both wounded. A joint Italian and American commission of inquiry could not reach a conclusion on who bore responsibility because of the lack of cooperation on the American side. The Italian judiciary conducted an investigation, but there was no trial because the Supreme Court ruled that Italy had no jurisdiction over the matter.
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“You were looking for trouble.” I hear this accusation over and over again, every time a woman – whether young or old, a journalist or a volunteer – is taken hostage, kidnapped or imprisoned.
“Why didn’t you stay home and darn your stockings?” (Enzo Biagi), or “why didn't you go on vacation to Liguria instead?” (Edward Luttwak). Worse still, people call you a silly goose or a little miss Sunshine. Are these expressions purposely chosen because they cannot be applied to males? They are used only for women who dare to invade the field of professions deemed to be for men alone.
For 20 years, I was mocked, blamed, insulted. With the advent of social media, it was almost inevitable.
In the end, I decided that is where I stand: yes, I did go looking for trouble, and not only in Iraq, but also in Algeria, Somalia, Afghanistan. Looking back at my travels in all the tough places, in the countries at war, this was everywhere the requirement to do my job, to look for the news, to verify them, to report them.
It was this conviction that had kept me going through the month of captivity. I never gave in to despair, even when I feared I would be killed, and my steadfastness helped me fight, even when I, a pacifist, was turned into “a weapon of war.”
The first accusation levelled at journalists who run into trouble in war zones is always that they are spies; proving otherwise is not an easy task, not least because I think many of us have noticed “odd” characters insinuating themselves into groups of journalists. After all, the two professions have common goals: to seek information.
The distinction became more blurred with the institutionalization of “embedded journalists.” I remember the arrival in Baghdad of the press envoys following the U.S. military: in military vehicles and khaki outfits, it was hard to distinguish them from the Marines. And then it was us, who had been covering the war in Baghdad, who were called “unilateral.”
It’s not only about being embedded with the military in order to follow its otherwise inaccessible operations, but also about the possibility of becoming army informants. I am thinking about a concrete case. When the U.S. military was approaching Baghdad, embedded journalists would phone colleagues in the Iraqi capital to inquire about the situation in the city. Of course, the occupying force must have had far more sophisticated intelligence tools available, but this was a case that was much discussed.
Our job has changed: it has become increasingly risky, not only because the weapons are increasingly sophisticated and deadly (depleted uranium), but precisely because information is increasingly militarized. We’ve seen this with the war in Ukraine, where if you raise any uncomfortable questions, you are accused of being “pro-Putin,” or with the one in Gaza, where Palestinian journalists paid an unprecedented price to report on a genocide.
Access to the Strip was impossible, and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone that the information reported by Italian media, with rare exceptions, came from the Israeli army; this was the only way to avoid being accused of being “pro-Hamas.”
Paradoxically, with all the means of communication available, information has become impoverished and is increasingly succumbing to war propaganda.
To those who for 20 years have accused me of being a murderer, I reply that it was the Americans who shot Nicola Calipari, not me. But I cannot forget how it feels to have someone die lying on top of you. The man who died was the person who saved me twice, first from the kidnappers and then from the Americans. And I live on as a survivor.
I have never been able to celebrate my release. March 4 is the anniversary of Nicola Calipari's death.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/a-quelli-che-ancora-mi-dicono-te-la-sei-cercata on 2025-02-04