RICETTA? 5 PRIGIONIERI TALEBANI, 1 GIORNALISTA ITALIANO, 26 IMPUTATI AMERICANI: SCAMBIARE CON CURA

RICETTA? 5 PRIGIONIERI TALEBANI, 1 GIORNALISTA ITALIANO, 26 IMPUTATI AMERICANI: SCAMBIARE CON CURA



CORSERA ON LINE
22 marzo 2007
«Circostanze ancora non chiare alla cena con D'Alema»
Mastrogiacomo, nuovo affondo americano
Il portavoce del dipartimento: «La Rice ignorava l'accordo tra Roma e Kabul per la restituzione dell'ostaggio»

WASHINGTON (STATI UNITI) - Al momento dell’incontro con il ministro degli Esteri Massimo D'Alema il segretario di Stato Condoleezza Rice non era informata degli accordi presi da Roma con Kabul per la restituzione dell’ostaggio italiano Daniele Mastrogiacomo in cambio di cinque prigionieri telebani. Lo ha detto il portavoce del dipartimento di Stato Sean McCormack nel corso del briefing odierno con i giornalisti.




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"In una corrispondenza da Roma il quotidiano americano si interroga sul "ruolo preciso" di Washington, che ha "relazioni tese con l'Italia su molti fronti, tra cui il rinvio a giudizio di 26 americani per il rapimento dell'imam egiziano Abu Omar.
"Diplomaticamente - sottolinea il quotidiano americano, citando fonti ufficiali - gli Stati Uniti non avrebbero potuto impedire lo scambio, dal momento che i prigionieri Talebani erano detenuti dal governo afgano e non dai militari americani o dalla Nato. Funzionari americani erano inoltre consapevoli del rischio che montasse l'opposizione nell'opinione pubblica italiana contro la presenza di truppe italiane in Afghanistan"."



"Many experts wondered at the precise role of the United States, which has strained relations with Italy on several fronts, including the indictment of 26 Americans, all but one of them believed to be C.I.A. operatives, in the kidnapping in Italy in 2003 of a radical Egyptian cleric.

Diplomatically, the United States could not bar the exchanges, American officials said, given that the Taliban prisoners were being held by the Afghan government and not by the American military or NATO. United States officials have also been mindful of the rising tide in Italian public opinion against the presence of Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Edward Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, speculated that American officials made the political calculation that for the sake of good relations with Italy, it was better not to stop the transfer.

“They certainly didn’t lean on the Afghans” to trade the prisoners, Mr. Luttwak said. “But they didn’t interpose themselves. They let them have it.”"



CFR.:

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Italy Swapped 5 Jailed Taliban for a Hostage
By IAN FISHER
Published: March 22, 2007

ROME, March 21 —An Italian journalist who was held hostage for 15 days by the Taliban in lawless southern Afghanistan was ransomed for five Taliban prisoners, the Italian government and Afghan officials confirmed Wednesday.


Daniele Mastrogiacomo, a reporter for the Italian daily La Repubblica, arriving Tuesday at a Rome airport. He had been held by Taliban forces in Afghanistan for 15 days, and was freed in a prisoner exchange.

It appears to be the first time prisoners have been openly exchanged for a hostage in the wars that the United States and its allies are fighting there and in Iraq, and the move drew immediate criticism from Washington and London, and from other European capitals.

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists, and we don’t advise others to do so either,” said the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack.

A senior Bush administration official said the prisoners exchanged had been held by the Afghan government, not by NATO, which is directing the allied military in Afghanistan. The official said he did not believe that NATO officials in Afghanistan had been formally alerted before the exchange.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with the Italian foreign minister, Massimo D’Alema, in Washington on Monday, the day the hostage, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, 52, of the leftist newspaper La Repubblica, was released. It was not clear whether they discussed an exchange.

Though it may have saved a life, the ransom has set off a worried debate in Italy and in other countries with soldiers, reporters and aid workers in danger zones.

The exchange sent “the wrong signal to prospective hostage takers,” a spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office told Reuters.

On a visit to Kabul on Wednesday, the Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, told reporters: “When we create a situation where you can buy the freedom of Taliban fighters when you catch a journalist, then in the short term there will be no journalists anymore.”

The concern was underscored on Tuesday just after the release of one of the prisoners, Ustad Yasir, who was identified as a Taliban spokesman. He said he would return immediately to war, and was “grabbing two rifles to begin jihad again to hunt down invaders and fight nonbelievers,” according to a statement attributed to him on the Internet.

The government of Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, said the central issue surrounding the kidnapping of Mr. Mastrogiacomo was not complicated.

“We think that the life of a person is very precious,” said Mr. Prodi’s spokesman, Silvio Sircana, who is also a friend of Mr. Mastrogiacomo’s. “So if there is a chance to save a life, we must do all we can do. And this was our very simple line, and not anything more.”

Mr. Mastrogiacomo was abducted as he was driving with an interpreter and a driver to an interview with a Taliban commander near Lashkhar Gah, in southern Afghanistan, he wrote in La Repubblica on Tuesday, the day he returned to Rome.

Dragged from place to place, nearly always in chains, he wrote, he was forced to watch a Taliban soldier decapitate his driver, then wipe the blade clean on the headless body.

“I imagine myself with my neck sliced, the blood splashed from all the arteries drained into the sand, the body committed to the river’s course,” he wrote.

On Monday, he continued, a Taliban commander came into the mud hut where he and the interpreter were being held and proclaimed, “You are free, fly away!” The fate of the interpreter is still unknown.

Italy’s domestic politics seemed to play a role in the decision, in a nation where weak domestic support for foreign involvement had prompted earlier allegations of payments for hostages.

It was widely reported that the former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, paid cash for the freedom of at least three hostages in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. The issues then were at once humanitarian and political: Italians broadly opposed Mr. Berlusconi’s decision to send troops to Iraq, and critics said any deaths there could further erode support for him as national elections neared. Italy has since withdrawn its troops from Iraq.

The kidnapping of Mr. Mastrogiacomo occurred at a similarly delicate time for Mr. Prodi’s already fragile government, which fell briefly last month, partly because of a lack of support inside his coalition for the presence of nearly 2,000 Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Later this month, Mr. Prodi faces a crucial vote on financing for the mission there, a vote that might have been more difficult if Mr. Mastrogiacomo had not been freed.

Italy did not — and could not — act alone in the prisoner exchange, and attention was focused on both Afghanistan and the United States, which exerts broad control inside the country.

A spokesman for the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, told reporters in Kabul that the release was an “exceptional measure taken because we value our relations and friendship with Italy.”

Many experts wondered at the precise role of the United States, which has strained relations with Italy on several fronts, including the indictment of 26 Americans, all but one of them believed to be C.I.A. operatives, in the kidnapping in Italy in 2003 of a radical Egyptian cleric.

Diplomatically, the United States could not bar the exchanges, American officials said, given that the Taliban prisoners were being held by the Afghan government and not by the American military or NATO. United States officials have also been mindful of the rising tide in Italian public opinion against the presence of Italian troops in Afghanistan.

Edward Luttwak, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, speculated that American officials made the political calculation that for the sake of good relations with Italy, it was better not to stop the transfer.

“They certainly didn’t lean on the Afghans” to trade the prisoners, Mr. Luttwak said. “But they didn’t interpose themselves. They let them have it.”

A former Italian hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, kidnapped in Baghdad in 2005, said she believed that the Italian government was obligated to do all it could to save a hostage’s life. She argued that paying ransom for reporters was a far smaller issue than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“If there is no war, there will be no hostages,” Ms. Sgrena, also a journalist, said in a telephone interview from New York, where she is promoting a book about her experience.

(Her own kidnapping is another source of tension between the United States and Italy: an American soldier shot at her car at a roadblock in Baghdad shortly after her release, killing a top Italian intelligence official.)

She added that, whatever the dangers, it was important for reporters and aid workers to go to places like Iraq or Afghanistan to provide information independent of the governments or groups waging wars there.

“It’s a problem of democracy,” she said. “If we say we want democracy, democracy is based on information.”

Peter Kiefer contributed reporting from Rome, and Helene Cooper from Washington.




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REPUBBLICA ON LINE
22 marzo 2007
Il quotidiano americano si interroga in una corrispondenza da Roma
sul ruolo preciso svolto da Washington nello scambio di prigionieri
Afghanistan, ipotesi del New York Times
"Italia non ha agito da sola per Mastrogiacomo"

ROMA - "L'Italia non ha agito da sola - e non avrebbe potuto - nello scambio di prigionieri" che ha portato al rilascio di Daniele Mastrogiacomo e "l'attenzione è concentrata su Afghanistan e Stati Uniti, che esercitano un ampio controllo sul Paese". A sostenerlo è oggi il New York Times, che interviene con un 'retroscena' nella bufera scatenata dalla scarcerazione di cinque Talebani - criticata duramente da Stati Uniti, Gran Bretagna, Olanda e Germania.

In una corrispondenza da Roma il quotidiano americano si interroga sul "ruolo preciso" di Washington, che ha "relazioni tese con l'Italia su molti fronti, tra cui il rinvio a giudizio di 26 americani per il rapimento dell'imam egiziano" Abu Omar.

"Diplomaticamente - sottolinea il quotidiano americano, citando fonti ufficiali - gli Stati Uniti non avrebbero potuto impedire lo scambio, dal momento che i prigionieri Talebani erano detenuti dal governo afgano e non dai militari americani o dalla Nato. Funzionari americani erano inoltre consapevoli del rischio che montasse l'opposizione nell'opinione pubblica italiana contro la presenza di truppe italiane in Afghanistan".

Il New York Times osserva quindi come "la politica interna sembra aver avuto un ruolo nella decisione" sullo scambio, "in una nazione in cui il debole sostegno agli interventi stranieri" aveva già fatto venire fuori le accuse di pagamenti di riscatti per gli ostaggi.

Il quotidiano americano ricorda infatti come sia ampiamente noto che "l'ex premier italiano, Silvio Berlusconi, pagò per la liberazione di almeno tre ostaggi in Iraq nel 2004 e nel 2005". All'epoca la questione era "umanitaria e politica: gli italiani erano largamente contrari alla decisione di Berlusconi di mandare truppe in Iraq e gli oppositori sostenevano che una vittima avrebbe potuto erodere il sostegno per lui mentre si avvicinivano le elezioni", spiega il New York Times.


E il rapimento di Daniele Mastrogiacomo, rileva, "è avvenuto ugualmente in un momento delicato per il già fragile governo Prodi, caduto lo scorso mese, in parte a causa della mancanza di supporto all'interno della coalizione per la presenza di quasi duemila soldati italiani in Afghanistan". In più, nei prossimi giorni, chiosa il quotidiano, "Prodi affronterà un voto cruciale per il finanziamento delle missioni all'estero, un voto che avrebbe potuto essere più difficile se Mastrogiacomo non fosse stato liberato".