Rodolfo Graziani, "the Butcher of Fezzan."

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In mid-January, the Italian press reported of a message that the leader of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb would send Mauritanian press agency Al-Akhbar to comment on the achievement of the cartel on the new government of Libya.
The message would contain direct threats rather particular to Italy, between the cartel founder countries: "For the new invaders, nephews Graziani, there morderete repenting the hands of entering the land of Omar Mukhtar and will come out humiliated."
In fact, the international press are not the authenticity of the message confirmations but we are talking of a video attributed ISIS-containing generic "threats to Italy" and packaged by putting together the pieces of Lion of the Desert, a film on 'Italian invasion of Libya financed by Gaddafi.
In any case, the reference to the names of al-Mukhtar and Graziani is quite interesting, because these two protagonists of the fascist colonialism in Libya: Omar Mukhtar, commander of the Libyan resistance in Cyrenaica hanged in 1931, and Rodolfo Graziani General fascist who led the military operations in Libya and Ethiopia as well as one of the worst war criminals in the history of Italy.
Italian Public opinion these two names today does not say much, and even newspapers that reported the name of Graziani played down and just talked about a reference to a "general who held various command positions in the Fascist era and during the colonial wars Italian. "
But just mention the fact that Graziani was a jihadi leader is quite interesting, because it shows-just when the possibility of a new Italian military intervention in Libya seems to become more and more concrete -that the crimes of our colonialism are still very vivid in the historical memory of those who have been victims, although they were systematically removed from the collective consciousness of our country.
The name of Omar al-Mukhtar had been "used for this type of claims," explained Matteo Dominioni, historian who for years dealing with the crimes of Italian colonialism and author of The collapse of the empire.
"In the early twenty-first century, for example, it has been used to claim various attacks in Iraq.
In this case, since it was a message addressed to Italy, was automated to link his name with that of his executioner, Rodolfo Graziani. "
The hanging of al-Mukhtar, head of the rebels of Cyrenaica, in 1931.
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Case Graziani is quite emblematic of the way in which Italy has come to terms with its colonial crimes.
Submitted by the UN in the list of war criminals, it has never been tried.
After the war he became honorary president of MSI.
On the website of the municipality of Affile, his birthplace and where a few years ago between the controversy he has even dedicated a shrine, is called a "is among the most popular and most criticized, rightly or wrongly" in Italian history.
"All this has been possible because after the war it was decided to put a lid on some experience, the Colonial, which had affected the whole country, not only the fascists," said Dominioni.
"We must consider that the most virulent stage of fascism, the one for whose crimes were made processes, was that from '43 to '45, but since '41 colonies were gone and settlers were deported to camps prison in Kenya or India. "
"When these people are back at the end of the war did not seem right colpevolizzarle," continued Dominioni, "because people who were the true fascist massacres and deportations had not seen him.
It was just something I was interested in too many people, and so for a quiet life we tried to forget everything. "
What is certain is that the desire to forget and was not overly blame supported an attempt to remove the Justice and their responsibilities the characters behind the crimes and atrocities that accompanied the Italian colonization.
Which, in the long run, he has had terrible consequences-because in fact has started a gigantic work of historical removal.
"There is not only the case of Graziani.
For example there is also Enrico Cerulli, another criminal trial ever war, which today is considered the greatest Italian expert on Ethiopia-when in fact 90 percent of the things I wrote on the subject have invented falsehoods to justify our occupation horn of Africa, "he said Dominioni.
"There are a lot of examples of this type of functional scholars to colonial policy and a desire to justify the cultural and political point of view.
And these people have written the textbook on which generations of Italians have formed. "
This is the main reason why the Italian colonialism is commonly perceived as a "sweet" colonialism, different from that of other European powers, and the reason why there is the myth of the "Italians good people" unable to really hurt someone .
The reality, of course, is different: the European press of the time regarded the Italian colonization in Libya even bloodier than that of other European powers and according Dominioni, "we Italians forget that in the years 1930-31 in Libya was perpetrated genocide. "
At that time, Libya was formally a colony, but the Italian authorities was limited to major urban centers on the coast; the rest of the country was in the hands of rebel groups.
To crush the rebellion, between 1930 and 1931 the entire population of Cyrenaica was deported to concentration camps.
"In Cyrenaica they acted groups of partisans that the techniques of guerrilla attuavano.
The same was also the case in Tripoli, at an earlier stage, and there the resistance was nipped with the Air Force use, "explained Dominioni.
"In Cyrenaica, however it was much more difficult.
So in 1930, Badoglio ordered to deport the entire population. "
So that was done, creating 13 concentration camps in the desert.
In parallel, the Italian army used massacres, torture and cruelty to sap the morale of the rebels.
Emblematic is the case of Kufra, city considered by Graziani the "collection point for all the Libyan fuoriuscitismo," which was bombed in the carpet and, once taken, sacked for three days of violence of all kinds.
The atrocities documented and re-emerged thanks to the work of historians like Angelo Del Bocasono impressive and speak of rapes, beheadings, castrations, quartered pregnant women, children thrown into the cauldron full of boiling water, to which elders were gouged out his eyes and torn fingernails.
In the case of Kufra, the Italian army also used the air force to strafe columns of fleeing rebels.
"The bombs have little effect because the target is diluted," reads the testimony of a pilot, "but the machine guns always make good hunting [...] Play continues throughout the day, the caravans of hope become a cemetery dead. "
Even chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene, which are prohibited by the League of Nations in 1925, continued to be used by Italy in Libya until 1931.
All these atrocities made great impression in the Arab world.
The Arab Nation, pan-Arab newspaper in Geneva, wrote: "We ask the Italian gentlemen [...] who now boast of having captured a hundred women and children belonging to a few hundred armed Cufra evil inhabitants who resisted the occupation column : what does all this with civilization? "
While in 1931 the Jerusalem daily Al Jamia el Arabia issued a manifesto in which they remembered "some of those atrocities that make one shiver: since Italians have assailed that unfortunate country, have never ceased to use all sorts of punishment without mercy on children or the old. "
Graziani, reporting the manifest text in his book Cyrenaica pacified, called it "replete with lies such that I do not know if they move more laughter or outrage."
According Dominioni, the result of this campaign of extermination were about "100 thousand victims and the social structure of the country completely changed," but in doing so the rebellion was put down and the most fertile area of Libya became free for the Italian colonization.
Internees in the field of Italian concentration of Al-Magroon.
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While in Italy, there was the political will to hide all this, Libya resistance against the Italian occupation has become the subject of nationalism, an argument often used by the propaganda of Gaddafi in his attempt to bring together the traditional culture and its hegemonic project.
"Gaddafi on this thing here a propaganda built there, catching al-Mukhtar as a father of the Arab nation and a martyr of pan-Islamism, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist figure," he said still Dominioni.
"Then when the regime collapsed, this mythology has been taken in a broader context, that of extremism."
Across the Mediterranean, on the other hand, the crimes of Italian colonialism in Libya are still one of the greatest unacknowledged secret of our historical memory.
According Dominioni it is made even more silenced than those made in Ethiopia in the next-colonialist phase also because in the case of Libya certain slaughter date back to before fascism.
A striking example of this is precisely the case of The Lion of the Desert, the film about the life of al-Mukhtar wanted to Gaddafi.
Considered "Italian Army honor detrimental," in Italy the film was censored and broadcast on television for the first time only in 2009.
"To make you just one example: in the latest issue of the official journal of the body Alpini is a long article dedicated to refute my research on a massacre carried out by the Italian army in 1909, "concluded Dominioni.
"There are documents and evidence: 800 women and children were besieged by the royal army in a cave for two weeks, flushed with gas and then, after they had surrendered, machine-gunned.
More than 100 years later, the Alpine yet officially deny that it happened and consider the author of that massacre their greatest hero.
So if there are still something like that, we can reconstruct the past as you want but it's useless. "
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