Protests rise against US base in Italy

The old airport, Dal Molin, is about the only green area left in the densely populated industrial district of Vicenza in Northern Italy. Soon the 500,000 square-yard area will be converted into a US Army base. But local citizens in this town 330 miles north of Rome are opposing the project. "We are against that base: we defend our land and do not want to be at the forefront of the global war against terrorism," says Francesco Pavin from "No to Dal Molin," a coalition of citizens, anti-war activists, church groups and environmentalists. There is already a US military site, Camp Ederle, in Vicenza, a town of 107,000 inhabitants. The base was established in 1965 and now hosts 2,750 soldiers and their families. It is home to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which recently served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Camp Ederle 2, to be completed by 2010, will feature eight housing blocks for 4,500 soldiers, two restaurants, a hospital and a fitness center at a cost of $500 million. The US Army plans to put the disused airport back into operation. The population of US citizens is expected to rise to 20,000 once the expansion is complete. "It is a crazy operation. The airport is situated 1,400 meters from the main city square, in a very crowded area," says Cinzia Botteri, spokesperson of a network of 12 local groups calling themselves the "Committees for the No." "It is not sustainable for our environment. The volume of infrastructures will amount to 700 cubic metres of concrete. The new base will consume as much water as a third of the citizens of Vicenza, with risks of exhaustion for the already impoverished waterbed," Botteri told IPS. "It will produce pollution. The US did not sign up to the Kyoto protocol. The Italian government cannot control the emissions of the incinerator in Camp Ederle," said Pavin. But "we do not protest only because they will build yet another military base in Vicenza. We say not here, not anywhere else," Toni Pigatto from the local boy scouts association told IPS. "We reject the idea that democracy can be spread with weapons." "The nature of the new base is purely offensive. With it, Vicenza will become the most militarized town in Italy and probably in the whole of Europe," said Giovanni Marangoni from the Christian group Families for Peace. About 30,000 people marched against the base last December "to defend the land for a future without war bases." A poster read, "We are not anti-American. We are with the millions of Americans who said stop to the Bush politics." Several petitions, public debates and marches have been organized by "No to Dal Molin." They have set up a large white tent facing the airport, where protesters are present round the clock organizing debates, setting up protest fires and holding concerts. "We will resist till the caterpillars come," Pavin told IPS. "They will have to pay a very high price for that camp." According to a recent survey by the opinion poll firm Demos, 63 percent of the inhabitants of Vicenza oppose the building of the new base. The project for Ederle 2 was first approved in 2003 by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi who led a center-right coalition. The local municipality authorized it in 2004 but kept it secret, Bottene told IPS. "We got to know about this project only in May 2006, and from the newspapers," Bottene said. "Then, the local municipality kept saying for months that there was still room for negotiation, while decisions were taken and not reversible." After news came that there would be no opposition to the US plans from the current center-left government led by Romano Prodi, about 300 people occupied the local train station for two hours. Citizens are asking for "a referendum whose result has to be taken into consideration by the government," said Botteri. Ederle 2 is becoming a hot issue for the government coalition. Members of Parliament from the Green party have decided to abstain from voting until the government finds an exit solution. There are 12 US Army military bases in Italy, some with nuclear bombs and missiles. La Maddalena, a US Navy base in the Mediterranean Italian island Sardinia, will be dismantled by the end of 2007 following strong opposition by citizens to an expansion plan.