"THE Albanians? We should throw them back into the sea and when they fire on our military, then we should sink their ships."
The above charitable thought was not expressed by an extremist caller to one of thee many radio chat programmes that have recently devoted much attention to Italy's refound Albanian problem. No, this Christian thought was expressed by Ms Irene Pivetti, a former Speaker of the Lower House, one-time Northern League deputy and now leader of the small movement, Italia Federale.
Ms Pivetti's comments were carried by many Italian dailies on the morning of Friday, March 28th. That evening, in the Otranto Strait between Albania and Italy's Puglia coast, an Italian corvette collided with a small, barely seaworthy Albanian navy patrol vessel, dangerously overcrowded with boat people, causing it to sink. As many as 80 Albanians, mostly women and children below deck, are believed to have drowned.
Two days after the Otranto Strait tragedy, the opposition leader, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, made a surprise visit to the Puglia port of Brindisi to express his solidarity with the survivors of the sinking. At a later impromptu news conference, Mr Berlusconi described his meeting with Albanians, some of whom had lost entire families on the boat. With cameras whirring and microphones turned on, he became so overwhelmed by the suffering just witnessed that he broke off his news conference, his voice breaking with emotion and wiping tears from his eyes.
"You'll have to excuse me, now, I cannot go on ... said an apparently distraught Mr Berlusconi. In that same news conference, however, Mr Berlusconi had described the Italian navy blockade (which, indirectly, at least, had caused the tragedy) as "an imprudent, hazardous decision unworthy of a civilised country".
That blockade had been decided jointly by Albania and Italy at a Rome meeting early that week, on March 25th: when the Albanian Foreign Minister, Mr Arjan Starova, and the Italian Foreign Minister, Mr Lamberto Dini, had signed a 30-day "naval patrol" pact.
When Mr Berlusconi attacked the legitimacy of the blockade, he was clearly attacking the centre-left government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi. L'Avennire, the Catholic daily run by the Italian Bishops' Conference, was moved to comment: "No one doubts Mr Berlusconi's good faith or humanitarian impulses ... but the way things happened make it difficult to avoid the accusation that he tried to exploit (the tragedy) ... Why did he have to wait for the disaster before voicing his opposition to the blockade?"
The matter did not rest there, needless to say. Mr Prodi immediately went on record to point out that he had personally informed Mr Berlusconi of the blockade, in the course of a telephone call. Furthermore, he had made use of a mechanism that allowed his cabinet secretary, Mr Enrico Micheli, and his spokesman, Mr Francesco Lona, to listen in.
Mr Micheli pointed out that Mr Berlusconi had given his "full consent" to the blockade while Mr Luna recalled that Mr Berlusconi had not been much interested in discussing the Albanian problem but rather had focused three-quarters of the conversation on new legislation concerning television and, in particular, reference to one of the three nationwide TV channels controlled by his Fininvest Group. Mr Berlusconi denies this version of events.
Mr Berlusconi's tears, his public squabble with Mr Prodi about who said what and Ms Pivetti's unfortunate remarks are a minimal reflection of the trauma provoked in Italian public opinion not only by the overall Albanian crisis and by the Otranto Strait tragedy but also by the prospect of the forthcoming Italian-led, UN-mandated international security force to Albania.
At the very moment that Italy is called on to assume, almost single-handed, the sort of international responsibilities it has carefully eschewed since 1945, Italian public and party political opinion is divided. Opinion polls in recent days suggest that 69 per cent of Italians are in favour of the 6,000 strong military intervention force.
Diffidence among a minority of Italians to Albanians and their plight has solid roots. Some of the most regularly touted arguments in favour of immediate repatriation and against a military mission include the following: the Albanians are economic migrants not political refugees; there is no ongoing civil war in Albania; both Albanian and Italian organised crime are taking advantage of the current confusion to import drugs; Albanian boat people have used their children as "human shields"; Albanians already living in Italy are involved in organised crime, prostitution and petty crime; the military intervention will end in chaos and bloodshed, etc, etc.
Among those not in agreement with the military mission, if for rather more complex reasons than those above, is the hard-line Rifondazione Communista, the extreme left party on which Mr Prodi relies for a parliamentary majority. When the Italian parliament finally gives the green light to the international mission, probably this afternoon, Rifondazione Communista will vote against.
This time, the lack of Rifondazione support will not bring down the government since the centre-right opposition intends to vote for the Albanian mission. However, what happens when the first dead Italian soldiers return from Albania? Italy's Albania crisis could yet have profound knock on effects.