Sunday, September 24, 2006

"Alleged" Scandal of Missing Poles in Italy.... Just Yellow Tabloid Journalism

The ANNOTICO Report

 

In it's never ending attempt to discredit Italy, even the Legitimate Newspapers in England engage in 'Tabloid" Journalism.

 

The Headline, tells you of a Shocking Scandal in Foggia, but you have to dig through the article to determine that there is NO Scandal, and

that NO Missing Person can be attributed to Gangsters. 

 

A Polish Web Site was set up with the photos of 119 Persons who said they were going to Italy to work, at least half to Foggia, and Vanished,

 

The site could Not establish that all of those claimed made it to Italy in the first place !!!!!!

 

 One of the persons listed, Graznya Predotka reported from Tuscany, that she didn't want to be found, and had severed all family ties.

 

However a Journalist  trying to sensationalize a Non Story, and offered NO PROOF, but stated certain POSSIBILITIES to make his story,  that was actually CENTERED on poor working conditions for migrant farmers MORE READABLE.

 

The claims that 14 Poles COULD have been killed in Foggia, turned out to be: Some were road accident victims killed by hit and run drivers while walking along dark, country lanes. Some were alcohol-related, (we know those Poles and their Vodka), Others were drownings in irrigation canals. Others died in shanty fires Still others died natural deaths.

 

Only ONE has proved to be MURDER:  a Polish man, hit over the head with a shovel, by a FELLOW POLE, who has been arrested.

 

'We do NOT have a SINGLE case of violent death under investigation,' said Foggia's chief of police, Stefano Cecere.

 

BUT, Let's Not let TRUTH/FACTS get in the Way of a GOOD STORY !!! ????

 

===========================

 

Scandal of 'Missing' Poles Shocks Italy

Gangmasters hunt down illegal pickers who try to flee tomato fields

 

The London Observer

Guardian Unlimited
Barbara McMahon in Foggia
Sunday September 24, 2006

 

Graznya Predotka was calling from Arezzo in Tuscany, where she has made a new life as a waitress. 'I'm alive and I'm fine,' she told an official at the Polish embassy in Rome. She had seen her photograph on a website listing 119 people who had vanished over the past six years after saying that they were going to Italy to work.

Predotka said she had disappeared of her own free will, leaving Poland after divorcing her husband and quarrelling with her father. Seven years ago, she got a permit that allowed her to stay and she had no intention of renewing family bonds. 'I've never been missing and I've never been to Foggia,' she said.

Foggia, in the southern region of Puglia, has been at the centre of the inquiry into the 'disappeared' Poles, a mystery that has shocked Italy. According to Polish police, who set up the website, half of the missing came to work in the fields harvesting 'red gold', the tomatoes that make this area famous.

The brutal rule of gangmasters was revealed after a joint Italian and Polish operation busted a human trafficking ring. There are claims that 14 Poles could have been killed here. Among the alleged murders was that of a 45-year-old named only as Slamovit, whose burnt body was found last July outside Stornara, a small hamlet. His passport had been placed on his body. Others were reported drowned in irrigation tanks or run down on narrow country lanes.

There was added drama in the account of Italian journalist Fabrizio Gatti in L'Espresso, who went undercover to reveal the miserable existence of the immigrants. He said it was possible people could have been murdered. He said those who tried to run away were hunted down by gangmasters, and he talked of the atmosphere of menace in the fields.

Woyciech Unolt, at the Polish embassy in Rome, said about 40 people on the list had now been traced. He said the Polish authorities were still awaiting information on those who had died in Puglia in the past two years.

Italian police say they have investigated the Slamovit case. Tests show he was drunk when he died. Police believe he was probably asleep in accommodation that caught fire and surmise he was found by other illegal immigrants, who dumped him with his passport for identification, because they were fearful of being caught without work permits.

Road accident victims have been killed by hit and run drivers while walking along dark, country lanes. Some deaths were alcohol-related, others natural. Only one has proved to be murder, according to the Italian police: a Polish man, hit over the head with a shovel, was attacked by a fellow Pole during a row. A man has been arrested. 'We do not have a single case of violent death under investigation,' said Foggia's chief of police, Stefano Cecere.

What remains under investigation are the human rights abuses of the illegal immigrants who pick the 'red gold'. Forty per cent of all Italian tomatoes are grown in Puglia. There are 7,000 legal pickers as well as an estimated 6,000 who work in the 'black' - untaxed and unregulated. Although the work is poorly paid and the season lasts only a few weeks, it attracts illegal immigrants who put up with the back-breaking toil.

Two weeks ago, 150 farms were inspected by officials from the Ministry of Employment: 84 producers are now facing fines for hiring workers without proper work contracts. Pickers under 18, some of whom have entered Italy on small boats from Libya, have been handed over to social services.

An Italian woman and a Tunisian woman are said to be gangmasters who could assemble a team of pickers in less than half an hour. They reportedly sold workers polluted water. They were arrested three days ago. The Tunisian has also been charged with an assault last year on a Romanian whose arms were broken with steel bars after he complained about exploitation.

Police say they are continuing their investigations, but corrupt practices continue.

African teenagers John, Yusef and Bright wander around Foggia on a rare day off. All three entered Italy illegally from Libya after trekking from Burkina Faso and Liberia. Their home, a brick shack in isolated countryside near Stornara, has no windows or doors. Inside is squalor. Pieces of cardboard separate one ghastly dormitory from another. The building is without water, electricity or toilets.

A few hundred yards down the road is a similar building, also without cooking or toilets. The inhabitants are from Bulgaria and Romania. The men living inside the shack look absolutely exhausted.

Accommodation is, by choice, segregated on racial lines. The Africans - from Liberia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Senegal and the Ivory Coast - all stick together. The Moroccans and Tunisians team up and the Bulgarians and Romanians share. Poles and Romanians are dossing in a building nearby.

John, Yusef and Bright are paid 4 (#2.60) each to fill a box the size of a small skip with tomatoes. They have to pay the driver 5 to take them to work and earn in total about 20 to 25 a day. 'The work is hard. They talk to us without respect,' shrugs Yusef, who hopes one day to go to business school. 'We don't have documents. We have no choice."

The trio are unaware of the furore over the missing Poles in Puglia. They say they have lost touch with their families back home. 'These Polish people, they are lucky,' says John. 'Their families want to find them.'

 

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