BRINDISI – On the day of the dinner of the G7 leaders in the Castello Svevo of Brindisi, the city, armored and scorched by the sun, is divided between the enthusiasm of many residents who are grateful for “the visibility”, and the dissent of those demonstrating in the square asking for “peace policies” and trusting for this in the intervention of the Pope who, for the first time in history, will sit at the table of the “grown-ups” tomorrow.
The protest, organized in the evening by pacifist and environmentalist associations, has more of a symbolic value than anything else. The participants, a few dozen of them, discuss the climate, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East and then feast on wine, couscous and Apulian friselle.
The representative of the No G7 Puglia coordination table, Bobo Aprile, who promoted the event against the “war policies that will be discussed in the summit” until 15 June in Borgo Egnazia, highlights: “These people will lead us to the third war world. Today Zelensky comes here and leaves with 50 billion euros for a war that he has already lost. We trust in the Pope’s presence to moderate their positions and materialize an increasingly vast opposition.” «Europe is completely dead and the entire market must be organized in favor of the USA. It’s an economic, social and military war – he points out – it’s all condensed.”
American President Biden does not attend the welcome dinner in the castle, around which an impressive deployment of law enforcement forces keep watch because he is tired from the commitments of the last few days. «For us, however – specify some Brindisi residents from whose balconies the tricolor flies – it matters that our Mattarella is there: we ask him to remember Puglia and Brindisi, and not to believe the American media according to which there is the mafia, because it’s no longer the same as before, everything has changed.”
The network of associations joining the protest, including those that defend the rights of Palestinians and the Kurdish people, also stands “against climate change due to a false ecological transition”, and asks the G7 countries to work to ” correct immigration and not one made up of concentration camps.” “We must also stop – they highlight – the genocide underway in Gaza: no one talks about it but the Israeli settlers are guilty of war crimes.”
Some tourists who didn’t know the G7 was there also appeared at the demonstration and were surprised by the presence of so many police and the fact that the shops were closed: «We were wondering why there were all those helicopters in the sky, we thought it was another move of Putin”, jokes the Londoner James bitterly.
GERMAN ACTIVISTS AND THE ANTI-G7 TROJAN HORSE
After being subjected to police checks in Brindisi for two hours, the “Debtforclimate” activist collective arrived from Germany in Piazza Vittoria in Brindisi with a large wooden Trojan horse that they mounted on the spot. The activists arrived to join the No G7 coordination protest organized at the same time as the welcome dinner for the leaders held in the Castello Svevo in Brindisi.
The structure, they explain, represents a “Trojan horse” that reveals the “true hidden meaning of the G7, namely the colonization of the southern hemisphere and the desire to establish a new world economic order”.
“What we strongly ask for – add the activists – is the total cancellation of the debt of poor countries – because it would be a starting point for the G7 to repay their climate and colonial debt”.
