Beijing Protests Berlusconi Baby Comments
- From: "Chim" <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 28 Mar 2006 15:27:34 -0800
Updated:2006-03-28 17:13:37
Beijing Protests Berlusconi Baby Comments
By MARIA SANMINIATELLI
ap
ROME (AP) - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said communists in Mao's
China boiled babies for fertilizer, prompting Beijing to express
"strong indignation" Tuesday over the comments.
Italy's Foreign Ministry, seeking to limit the damage, said the
premier's words were a reference to "episodes that took place in the
past," and stressed that Berlusconi did not intend to stoke tension
with China.
Berlusconi, who is running in an April 9-10 election against
center-left leader Romano Prodi, has a history of getting into trouble
for speaking his mind. In 2003, he told a German lawmaker in the
European Parliament that he should appear in a movie as a Nazi
concentration camp guard.
The conservative premier, who has made a habit of lashing out against
communism, made the latest comments Sunday at an election rally in
Naples.
"They accuse me of having said over and over that the communists eat
babies. Read The Black Book of Communism and you will discover that in
Mao's China, the communists didn't eat babies, but they boiled them to
fertilize the fields," Berlusconi said.
"The Black Book of Communism" is an 846-page history of communism by
six academics that was published in 1997. It concluded that communism -
through deportations and famine, labor camps and executions - killed at
least 85 million people in the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and
elsewhere.
In one section recounting China's repression against peasants in 1959,
the Italian edition of the book states "the blunders of the repression
were terrifying: systematic torture of thousands of detainees, children
killed, boiled and then used as fertilizer."
The Foreign Ministry's statement listed the page where the passage
could be found.
Berlusconi reiterated the point late Tuesday.
"I spoke of something from 50 years ago. It's a historic fact. It
cannot be denied," he said on a TV talk show.
Prodi, whose coalition includes Communists, seized the opportunity to
accuse Berlusconi of discrediting Italy's reputation abroad.
"Do you realize what kind of an image is reflected by a country whose
premier says such a thing?" Prodi was quoted as saying by Italian news
agencies.
The Chinese embassy in Rome "expressed strong indignation for the
unfounded words of Premier Silvio Berlusconi." An embassy statement
said China hoped instead "the words and actions of Italian leaders can
favor the development and stability of bilateral relations between
China and Italy."
Berlusconi has often portrayed himself as communism's most strident
opponent. In February, he compared himself to the wartime British prime
minister, saying "I fight against communism the way (Winston) Churchill
fought against Nazism."
Berlusconi, a cruise ship singer in his youth and Italy's richest man,
is known for his outlandish, headline-grabbing comments, which
occasionally have proven offensive to other countries or cultures.
In 2003, Berlusconi told German socialist Martin Schulz, "Mr. Schulz, I
know there is a producer in Italy who is making a film on the Nazi
concentration camps. I will suggest you for the role of `kapo.' You'd
be perfect." "Kapo" is a German word that was used in Nazi
concentration camps for privileged prisoners who guarded other inmates.
His comment led to a diplomatic spat with Germany. Berlusconi expressed
"regret" but would not apologize.
In December 2001, during a European Union summit in Belgium, Berlusconi
tried to lobby for the Italian city of Parma to house a new EU food
safety agency amid competition from Finland, which wanted the agency's
headquarters to be in Helsinki.
"Parma is synonymous with good cuisine. The Finns don't even know what
prosciutto is. I cannot accept this," Berlusconi was quoted as saying.
At a news conference in Berlin a few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001,
Berlusconi said Western civilization was superior to Islam - breaking
ranks with the United States and other allies at a time they were
trying to reach out to the Muslim world.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the
AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated
Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
03/28/06 17:10 EST
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