http://www.nationalturk.com/en/why-italians-honored-a-fascist-butcher-general-rodolfo-graziani-italy-news-24058
Why Italians Honored a Fascist Butcher General Rodolfo Graziani ?
/ Italy News
15 August, 2012 | 17:49
Italy memorial to Fascist hero Graziani sparks row.
A political row has erupted in Italy after a memorial was opened to Fascist
commander Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, a convicted war criminal.
Graziani was honoured with a mausoleum and memorial park, built at
taxpayers’ expense, in a village south of Rome.
He was notorious as Benito Mussolini’s military commander in colonial wars
in Ethiopia and Libya where he carried out massacres and used chemical
weapons.
Italy’s main leftist party has protested against the commemoration.
“Is it possible to allow, accept or simply tolerate that, in 2012, we
dedicate a park and a museum to the fascist general and minister Rodolfo
Graziani?” asked Esterino Montino, head of the Democratic Party in the
Lazio region.
He pointed to the “crimes against humanity committed by Graziani in
Ethiopia in the 1930s”, La Repubblica newspaper reports.
Graziani was sentenced to 19 years’ imprisonment for war crimes in 1948 but
was released from jail after serving only two years, and died in 1955.
Who is Field Marshal Rodolfo Graziani most of people call him “ Butcher of
Fezzan & Butcher of Ethiopia “
Rodolfo Graziani cult of fascist heroes remains alive in certain parts of
Italy despite the outlawing of the fascist party in the country’s postwar
constitution.
He adds that it is curious, however, that there has been no formal protest
that a crypto-Fascist mayor of a small town near the capital can, in 2012,
publicly honour a man who brought death to thousands of Africans and
dishonour to his own country.
The mayor of the village of Affile attended the opening ceremony on
Saturday, together with a representative from the Vatican.
Although almost unknown to modern generations of Italians, the Fascist
military officer was known as the Butcher of Fezzan for the executions of
Libyans he ordered while military governor of Cyrenaica in North Africa,
our correspondent says.
He used poison gas and chemical weapons against Ethiopian tribesmen during
Italy’s colonial war in what was then called Abyssinia.
Towards the end of the war, Graziani was appointed defence minister by
Mussolini in the short-lived Fascist Republic of Salo.
He commanded Italian troops alongside the Germans at the Battle of
Garfagnana in December 1944, one of the last military victories of the Axis
forces.
According to La Repubblica, the mausoleum in Affile cost 127,000 euros
(£100,000; $157,000).
About 100 people attended its inauguration, the paper adds.
Mayor Ercole Viri was quoted as saying the memorial was of national
importance and dismissing criticism as “idle chatter”.
were posted in a gallery on the village’s website, which lists Graziani as
one of the village’s “famous sons”. Engraved on the mausoleum are the words
“Fatherland” and “Honour”.
There is another side to Italy’s often schizophrenic attitude to its recent
history, our correspondent adds.
Another ceremony was held the same weekend marking the anniversary of a
tragic massacre of 560 Italian men women and children by German SS troops
as a reprisal in a small town near Lucca, in Tuscany.
Martin Schulz, the German Social Democrat and president of the European
Parliament, was present in Sant’Anna di Stazzema on Sunday.
He said: “I am a German and the language I speak is the same of those who
committed those crimes. I shall not forget that.”
Received on Wed Aug 15 2012 - 12:03:27 EDT
