Italy to Declare Independence from U.S. Military

Do they have a fourth of July in Italy? That's not a trick question.
This July 4th, Italians plan to gather in Vicenza to take nonviolent
action aimed at freeing Italy from U.S. occupation and opposing the
proposed construction of an enormous new U.S. military base in a town
already swarming with U.S. troops stationed at existing bases. For
years now, a major campaign
organized by local residents has resisted the construction of the new
base. The history of this campaign is chronicled in English here and here.
A local referendum voted 95 percent against the base. A leader of the
opposition to the base has been elected to the local government. An
Italian prime minister has been temporarily thrown out of power. Local
activists and members of parliament have visited Washington to oppose
the base, and testified before the U.S. House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs on April 23,
2009. The European media has been unable to avoid the story.

Last month, participants broke into the fenced off construction site to plant flags and banners: (video). Last week, U.S. soldiers jogging through Vicenza were greeted with signs asking them to go home: (video).
I used to live in Vicenza in the late 1980s and was enthusiastically
welcomed as an American and a friend. The military presence was already
pervasive, but since then it has grown tremendously, while Italians'
opinions of the purposes served by the U.S. military have plummeted.
The U.S. Army is not liberating Italy from Nazism, but sending soldiers
off to fight aggressive wars in the Middle East, and bringing them back
disturbed, suicidal, and prone to drinking and causing trouble. In
April, Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez visited Venice (Venezia in
Italian, and not far from Vicenza), where she told Italians that they would just have to accept the new base, and that the United States needs it in order to more easily attack Africa.

This week the "No Dal Molin" campaign (named for the Dal Molin site
of the proposed base) sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama that
quoted his victory speech from November 4, 2008, in Chicago: "a
government of the people, by the people, and for the people . . . I
will listen to you, especially when we disagree." The letter noted that
Obama will soon be in Italy for a G8 summit and invited him to visit
Vicenza, which has hosted U.S. military installations since 1955. The
letter read, in part:

"For three years, women and men, young and old, wealthy
and ordinary people have been working together to defend the city and
the future of our land for future generations. We, like you, started in
neighborhoods and built a community working for change. This has
nothing to do with anti-Americanism, which is how our movement is often
painted. Our concerns are based on facts, and we would therefore like
to ask you a few questions:

"In the United States would it be possible to build a military base one
mile from the center of a UNESCO World Heritage site? This is what is
happening in Vicenza.

"In the United States would it be possible to do this without
consulting the local population and going against the will of local
residents, who during a recent referendum voted 95 percent opposed?

"In the United States would it be possible to build a military base
above one of the most important ground water sources on the continent
(the one in Vicenza is considered one of the most important here in
Europe), vital for the population, placing it at serious risk of
contamination and in violation of existing legislation? This is what is
happening in Vicenza.

"Vicenza, a city that has always had a strong vocation for peace, is
destined to become the home of the most important US base in Europe, a
command center for Africom as well as an integral part of preventive
war designed and pursued by the Bush administration, which has thus far
proved a failure. With which rights do you impose this upon us?

"If the words written in the Declaration of Independence of the United
States have real value and if you, like us, believe in values such as
democracy, respect, legality, and transparency, then you should know
that these values are being denied in Vicenza."

On the eve of the G8 summit (July 8-10 in L'Aquila), the No Dal
Molin organization is inviting people from all over Italy and the world
to celebrate the Fourth of July in Vicenza and "declare our
independence from the US military, freeing the land from the presence
of a new war base." The words of these new Jeffersonians are worth
quoting in the original:

"Il 4 luglio è l'anniversario in cui gli statunitensi
festeggiano la propria indipendenza; quest'anno sarà anche il giorno in
cui i vicentini - e tutti coloro che vogliono la pace e la difesa dei
beni comuni - decreteranno la propria indipendenza dalle servitù
militari."

Translation: July 4th is the holiday with which the people of the
United States celebrate their own independence. This year it will also
be the day on which Vicentines, and all those who support peace and
defense of the common good, declare their own independence from
military servitude.

And it's worth considering the use to which the words of my neighbor
here in Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson, are now being put. Jefferson
borrowed from Filippo Mazzei, but it is the words of Jefferson that are
now being translated back into Italian in ironic and tragic protest of
what Jefferson's nation has become:

"Quando nel corso di eventi umani, sorge la necessità
che un popolo sciolga i legami politici che lo hanno stretto a un altro
popolo . . . un conveniente riguardo alle opinioni dell'umanità
richiede che quel popolo dichiari le ragioni per cui è costretto alla
secessione."

To support this effort, write to international@nodalmolin.it

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