by Gina Doggett
L'AQUILA, Italy, June 4, 2009 (AFP) - Two months after an earthquake devastated L'Aquila in central Italy, resentment is beginning to boil over for the some 58,000 refugees from the disaster as reconstruction work stalls. Some 600 people, many wearing hard hats or bicycle helmets, crossed police lines to march into L'Aquila at the weekend under the slogan "Let's Take Back Our City," which remains an inaccessible "red zone" too dangerous for habitation. The protest defied a ban on demonstrations or assembly among the residents of the 180 tent camps dotted around the area, announced last Thursday.... Only civil protection officers and builders or authorised private contractors are allowed in the city, apart from the occasional team of accredited journalists.
In a surprise announcement three weeks after the earthquake, Berlusconi said this year's Group of Eight summit in July will be held at a military academy just outside L'Aquila to "show solidarity" with the earthquake victims. The summit was originally to be held on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, with meetings to take place on a luxury cruise liner. Berlusconi said staging the meeting at La Maddalena would have cost some 220 million euros (300 million dollars), money that could be better spent on rebuilding the L'Aquila region. The training school of Italy's militarised revenue guard, the Guardia di Finanza, is a sprawl of drab, grey buildings including barracks where the G8 delegations will be billeted.
Yuri Pittaluga, a civil protection press officer, said the decision to hold the G8 summit at the military academy "has meant major interference" in post-quake reconstruction planning. The academy has served as the headquarters for some 1,000 firefighters, Red Cross workers and volunteers and soldiers dealing with the aftermath of the quake.
Copyright (c) 2009 Agence France PresseAvailable from http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MWAI-7SQ523?OpenDocument
