Tensions run high in Rome's suburbs as Italy struggles with migration crisis

Source: Stephanie Kirchgaessner – The Guardian, 26/07/2015

In wealthy Casale San Nicola, protesters express the sort of anger and
mistrust felt across country trying to cope with arrival of 80,000
migrants , where well-off Italians escape the chaos of the capital and
retreat into their multi-million euro villas nestled between cypress
trees, seems like an unlikely flashpoint for the migrant crisis in
Italy.


But this month, more than a dozen police officers were injured in the
enclave as they fended off violent protesters demonstrating against
the arrival of 19 migrants, who are being housed in an old school that
has recently been converted. As the migrants arrived in a bus, the
officers protecting them were hit by glass bottles and stones, in the
kind of scene that has often played out in some of the poorer areas of
Rome, where migrants are usually housed. On Thursday, more protesters
– some of whom took their children along – walked with torches and
candles in a demonstration against the "fake migrants" and said they
would not relent against the perceived injustice of having them so
close to home.


It was the latest in a series of clashes that have flared up across
Italy, where the influx this year of more than 80,000 asylum seekers,
who have made the treacherous journey to Italy`s southern shore from
Africa and the Middle East, is increasingly being met with
exasperation and frustration – as well as racism – by some Italians
who believe that an untenable burden has been foisted on their
economically challenged country.


While some in Casale San Nicola believe Italy – and Europe – have a
duty to assist the migrants, most interviewed by the Guardian were
clearly disdainful of their new neighbours.


Sylvia Pilotti, a hairdresser who works just a few miles away from the
new migrant centre, said: "They`re not really refugees. It`s not like
they are coming from famine and war.


"When the bus arrived, the refugees were all very well dressed, with
iPhones, and while the Italians there were screaming at them they were
doing like this," she said, holding up her middle finger. "Do you know
what that means?"


Her elderly customer silently nodded in agreement.


Outside the hairdressers, Camilla, a 16-year-old student, took a drag
on her cigarette and said she wants the migrants out.


She said: "They are right to protest. I live nearby." When asked about
the circumstances many of the new arrivals have faced – a dangerous
voyage across the Mediterranean, and war and conflict at home – she
said: "I have a different mentality. I think they shouldn`t come to
Italy. The good people stay in their own countries and here they send
the delinquents and the drunks, and they bother Italian girls, it`s
not a nice thing."


Stories that stoke people`s fears spread quickly. Camilla claimed
that, just days earlier, a "black man" jumped out of a nearby rubbish
container and raped and beat a girl. The local police said no such
incident was reported.


Just down the road, a middle-aged man who was trying to sell upscale
proposed residences out of an office in a trailer – and did not want
to be identified – said he does not condone violence, but the protests
were "right".


"This area is a very high level area. Every villa has a value of €2m
to €5m. It`s as if they put a gypsy camp in Parioli, the poshest
neighbourhood of Rome, but they don`t do that," he said, before
lamenting that young girls dressed in "cute leggings" don`t jog in the
neighborhood any more, because they are too scared of the
migrants.


There have been no reports of violence by the area`s new arrivals, and
the former school that is being used to house them is located at the
end of a dusty road. The closest large structure, the local pool and
tennis club, is 2km away.


Weeks after European leaders effectively scrapped a proposed system of
mandatory quotas that would have spread the migrants who are arriving
in Italy and Greece across 28 countries, the Italian prime minister,
Matteo Renzi, is locked in heated political and logistical fights in
regions and localities where conservative lawmakers are refusing to
cooperate.


The increase in tensions on the outskirts of Rome, some say, is a
reflection of the economic crisis in Italy coupled with disgust over
the endless stories about the plundering of social programmes meant
for migrants by corrupt officials.


Riccardo Magi, president of the leftwing-libertarian Radical party,
said: "Instead of approaching immigration with a firm plan, it is
always treated like an emergency. That way, the people who control the
contracts [for the immigration centres] make more money.


"The number of refugees who have arrived would not be creating
hardship if there was an established and functioning system to receive
them."


Magi and others believe Italy should be dispersing very small numbers
of migrants across the country and focusing on integration with the
local population, instead of creating large centres of hundreds and
even thousands of migrants, who are often isolated in facilities that
resemble detention centres.


Currently, migrants arrive in southern ports and are processed and
sometimes fingerprinted in reception centres. Renzi`s government is
seeking to disperse those who remain in Italy – about two-thirds move
on to northern Europe – across the entire country, but that effort is
being stymied by intense resistance from rightwing governors in
northern Italy, who are opposed to the plan.


In Treviso, an area north of Venice, local residents recently
protested violently against a plan to house 101 migrants in empty
apartments. Some broke into the units, removed mattresses and other
furniture and set them on fire.


Luca Zaia, the rightwing governor of the Veneto region, said the
placement of the migrants was like a declaration of war and that his
area was being "Africanised".


In the region of Liguria, six mayors said they would only accept
migrants if they could prove that they did not carry any infectious
diseases, a ploy that was denounced by activists.


Sebastiano Maffettone, a professor and political scientist at LUISS
University in Rome, said: "The politicians see that there is a hate
toward the immigrants, and they try to exploit it for political
reasons. The problem is that there is a mixture of populism and
anti-foreign attitude that is becoming very popular."


Alberto Barbieri, a doctor who helps run mobile health clinics for
migrants in Rome and other areas of southern Italy, said that while
protests in places such as Casale San Nicola are "unacceptable" – and
being fomented by young members of the the fascist group CasaPound
(named after the American poet Ezra Pound) – he has seen many acts of
goodwill by Italians. He points to a spontaneous centre that has been
started near Tiburtina train station in Rome, where hundreds of
migrants who are in transit have gathered and faced "very critical
physical and psychological situations".


He said: "We have seen a mobilisation by Roman citizens, giving
clothes, organising support, creating music shows, to say
`welcome`."


One of the biggest problems that has contributed to the current
tensions, said Barbieri, is the lack of information in the public
domain about what the migrants have survived to get to Italy. He said:
"The ignorance is the fodder."


The other problem is that the government has been incapable of
responding to the scale of the crisis, particularly when it comes to
processing asylum requests, which can take 18 months or more and are
overwhelming the Italian bureaucracy, he said. Barbieri believes the
structural and planning problems are making a bad situation even
worse.


"You can imagine a victim of torture or rape, arriving in Mineo, you
have to stay there, no one cares about you, your vulnerability
increases, it does not improve," he said, referring to the migrant
centre in Sicily that houses 3,000 people.


The manner in which some towns and regions in Italy have said "we
don`t know the migrants" is not altogether different from the way some
European countries have denied their responsibility, Barbieri
said.


"We don`t want to deny that if 170,000 land in a country, it is a
problem," he said, conceding the point that so many angry Italians
have made. But he added: "Yes it is a problem. But it is not an
unsolvable problem if you use rationale and have solidarity."