Interview with Silvia

The US President can do it: it has occurred with Irish terrorist Doherty,
delivered to his country in '92

Please have Italy urge the US to liberate me !

Interview of Silvia Baraldini published in Il Corriere della Sera

Silvia Baraldini: my condition must become central for bilateral relations
in the future.

Alessandra Farkas
From our correspondent

Danbury (Connecticut) - Humiliations imposed to visitors to the women 
prison camp of Danbury where Silvia Baraldini is spending her 15th year
of imprisonement are trifle compared to the ill-treatments to which the
prisoners of this "lager" are subjected.   "Last February I have been
transfered to a unit with much worse conditions -50 year-old Baraldini tells
Il Corriere - I dared to protest against an Italo-American guard who was
looking at me while I was undressing and this is against the rules."

But the most disturbing political prisoner in America is in a good mood 
today.   During his official visit to the US, Romano Prodi (with a mandate 
of more than 200 deputies from various parliamentary groups) requested
President Clinton the extradition to Italy (as stipulated by the Strasbourg
Convention) of the ex-activist, condemned in 1983 to 43 years of 
imprisonement for a crime connected to the anti-terrorism law.

Can Bill Clinton contradict the FBI and his own Minister of  Justice, 
Janet Reno, who 3 weeks ago literaly issued a final "no" to the transfer ?

Silvia Baraldini: "Sure he can, if he cares so much for Italy as an ally, 
as he says.   It has already happened with the presumed Irish terrorist
Joe Doherty, that the Americans delivered in 1992 to Great Britain, in 
spite of strong protests of the US public opinion."

Q: How do you explain the rigidity of the American establishment towards 
you ?

A: The Americans believe in "total war" and do not understand how Italy was able to adopt a
"subversive" like me.   They see the world as black and white and are still
outraged that Assata Shakur, the black rivolutionary that I was accused 
to help to escape has started a new life in Cuba.   There they cannot touch
her as she became a Cuban citizen and a member of the Party.   They do not
forgive me for never having repented.

Q: Would a "mea culpa" have been enough to be freed ?

A: Only if accompanied by delation.   The number 1 reformed terrorist of
the gang has only served 6 years, even though he was accused of felony,
because he testified against all the others.   This is the dramatic turn 
in the international juridic system that encourages more and more these 
deals.

The "big fish" that have a lot to sell serve always much less than the
"small fish".   It also happens in Ireland with the IRA and in Italy with
 the "pentiti" of the Mafia.

Q: Why do even the most leftist American media continue to keep silent
 about your drama ?

A: Because it would oblige them to reexamine a very painful period of the
American history during which a huge break between the US government and
a part of the population emerged.   After having crushed all opposition, the
regime exercised the right of the winner, among which the rewriting
of history.   They now say, for example, that the Vietnamese were wicked 
monsters.

Q: Are you angry with the country that ruined you life ?

A: No one has ruined my life which has been most interesting and full of
satisfaction.   Prison has made me infinitely richer, patient and tolerant.
If I hadn't been imprisoned I would not have worked with AIDS patient 
inmates and I would not have got a Master's degree.   And within these
walls I have known 5 extraordinary women with whom I developped a very 
deep friendship that only death will undo.

Q: Has it been difficult, at 34, to have to give up a major part of your
 feminity, that is sex ?

A: The majority of the inmates do not give it up and manage as they can. 
Sex, within these walls, takes place every day.   I, from the start, 
have prefered to make a vow of abstinence.   Because if you do not have a
special person with whom to have sex, it becomes an uninteresting and
abstract act. And in front of daily survival, one has to defend himself 
against abuse of power and humiliation of any kind and therefore sex 
becomes the last of the problems.

Q: Do you miss having not experienced maternity ?

A: Out of more than 1000 inmates we are only 20 that are not mothers.  
It is hard.   But I also was lucky to feel myself a mother, for a year, 
when I took care of a Jewish newborn whose mother was imprisoned for a
crime connected to mine.   It has been an extraordinary experience, 
interrupted by imprisonment.   Today I express my maternal feelings
towards the children of my friends.   After hysterectomy because of cancer,
I can only adopt a child.

Q: How is your health ?

A: Since I gave up smoking I am feeling much better but I should follow a
different diet from the fat and fried food we get.   The tumor is 
technically cured but last February the jail authority had me skip the 
annual control for security reasons because, according to them, their
security is more important than my person.   The last time I went to the
hospital I was escorted by 15 heavily gunned policemen and as many tanks. 
I tried to explain to them that I would not and could not escape as the 
movement in my favour is too important to damage it.   I want to go back
to Italy and write a book on my experience, embrace my sick mother that
I have not seen since 2 years. I want to work for and with the people.

________________________________________________________

Trudie van Os
e-mail home: trudie@skylink.it
e-mail work: trudie.van-os@jrc.org