This is the main government center for the city of L'Aquila. And this city is where G8 leaders might meet in July if Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has his way.
As anyone can see, a deadly earthquake in April has left L'Aquila devastated. Beyond this main city square, and what I saw on a recent visit, is only more hard luck. An estimated 35,000 men, women and children are living in tents, more than a month after tremors battered the Abruzzo region beginning on April 6. Another 30,000 people are living in hotels or bunking with nearby friends and family. Broken houses and buildings tremble from daily seismic jolts, aftershocks that still hit 4.0 on the Richter scale.
Monuments and churches, from hilltown to hilltown, are cracked and crumbled. The main university, about an hour's drive from Rome and a lifeblood for the economy, is shuttered. Thousands of volunteers and civil protection officers are working yeomen hours to forge basic repairs and help the displaced population.
All these good people are headquartered in the vast training police center of the Guardia di Finanza in town. And for some reason, that is exactly where the Italian prime minister plans to hold a G8 summit.
Berlusconi raised L'Aquila as a G8 venue in the early days after the 5.8 quake. His words were seen as sympathetic sentiment for L'Aquila. No one imagined that the leaders of industrial powers of the world would really end up sitting among the ruins.
But Berlusconi persisted. He swiftly scrapped the original site, near the Sardinian port city of La Maddalena, and appealed to G8 members to give L'Aquila a go as a worthy substitute. (Berlusconi's speed to abandon the planned venue--a former NATO and U.S. Naval base on the island of Santa Stefano that closed in 2008--raised eyebrows and some questions about whether preparations may have gone awry. Folks in La Maddalena, hurting economically since the base loss and hoping for a G8 boost, are irate.)
Berlusconi should walk through L'Aquila and talk to the hard workers there before he goes further. Every single person I met described the G8 as a huge distraction. It will hamper efforts to rebuild homes and offices, people said, in a mountainous region where snow can fall as early as September. The demands of a G8 summit will upend work at the Guardia di Finanza center, the nerve center for recovery, they said.
Police were already cutting off traffic routes to enforce security checks in order to be ready for July. Workmen told me that supply runs took twice as long because trucks had to maneuver detours. Every rooftop and abandoned building in the dusty, dilapidated town was seen as liability. How much time and money should be spent on making L'Aquila ready for primetime politics, people asked, instead of pushing forward on the recovery effort?
G8 member countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, have been publicly mute about the change but apparently quietly voiced concern. Berlusconi last week raised the idea that G8 leaders could bunk in Rome and be flown daily by helicopter to L'Aquila for talks.
G8 members should just say no.
Berlusconi needs to stick to business when it comes to L'Aquila: Document the region's losses to compete for European Union reconstruction grants. Investigate whether mafia-linked construction companies should be blamed for the way the city crumbled. Join in the hard work of rebuilding a tourist area that is on the edge of long-term disaster.
Italy should help L'Aquila and its cultural heritage rise from the dust as soon as possible. Berlusconi does not need this mid-summer photo op. Let the people who are engaged in that dawn-to-dusk effort work in peace.
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