Iraq - Interview with Maurizio Scelli

In the Midst of the People to bring support and hope
He brought back the body of Quattrocchi, and was a key figure in the intense effort to bring home the other Italian hostages. We spoke with Maurizio Scelli, the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Italian Red Cross, the last such humanitarian group remaining in Iraq

edited by Alessandro Banfi

Maurizio Scelli, a lawyer, is the Extraordinary Commissioner of the Italian Red Cross. Italians have come to know him above all for his humanitarian commitment in Iraq. He is the man who brought home the body of Fabrizio Quattrocchi and who sought to bring home Agliana, Cupertino, and Stefio as well, before they were freed by the American Marines. But this is not all he has done. Over the course of the past year, the Italian Red Cross has provided assistance and aid to the Iraqis, especially in the former Saddam Hospital. Here are a few statistics: 8 thousand liters of water made potable and packaged daily; a total of 507 Italian people who have been involved since the beginning of the mission, including 35 serving as doctors and paramedics; 92 Iraqis treated in Italy, of whom 55 have already returned home cured. We met Scelli on behalf of Traces readers, in the Italian Red Cross headquarters in Rome.

What has been the deep motivation of your effort during all this time?
Anyone committed to volunteer work must be guided by a vocation. This vocational impetus drives you to become engaged, even to risk your life, if necessary. But, at the same time, it makes you feel useful for your own existence, in giving something to others. I’ve been on a walk of Christian faith through volunteer work, first with UNITALSI, the association that for a hundred years now has been bringing the ill to Lourdes [Scelli was General Secretary of this group], and there I have found the answers to many “whys.” Then, I have been motivated by the experience in this neutral and humanitarian organization in which I have lived and live the commitment, guided by the spirit of service, to those who need help, support, and, above all, hope.

Many other humanitarian organizations have withdrawn from Iraq, after the terrorist attacks last September. Why have you remained and, especially, why did you go even to Falluja, exposing yourselves to great risks?
We remained because leaving would betray the spirit of the Red Cross movement. The Red Cross was born 140 years ago on a battlefield, in Solferino, precisely to assist all the wounded, without discrimination, regardless of which part of the conflict they came from. In a context like that of Iraq today, I thought that the Red Cross had stronger motivations and traditions than the other organizations, coherent with what gave it life, and this led us not to think so much about the threats to our safety.

What kind of relationship do you have with the Iraqi population?
In the beginning, the Iraqis were enthusiastic, grateful, and appreciative, but then, as if they were polluted by politics, they perceived us as friends of the Americans, and so we became enemies. My role has been somewhat that of a defense lawyer for the fifty-six million Italians who, for the Iraqis, had changed from being wonderful to being presumed killers, especially after the battle of the two bridges in Nassiriya. They said to us, “You also shot, you also killed. Why do you follow the Americans?” But then we were always accepted with the pressing requests for what they want from Italy: Bring us your doctors, architects, engineers; the best you have. Bring us fewer weapons, because at this time we want peace. We want to dream, we want a future of peace, and not of violence.

You have said you are Catholic. Has your faith caused problems, even personal ones, in this Islamic environment?
The Italian Red Cross organization is secular. However, my intimate Christian convictions have not stopped me from working in a context in which neutrality is reaffirmed daily in all its aspects, both from the political and from the religious points of view. Finding a thread for dialogue with the Islamic world has not been easy; in fact, we have had to endure and overcome moments of real tension. For example, I found my interlocutors sulky and irritated by the fact that the Pope received President Bush in the Vatican. And these were people who were extremely pleased by the Pope’s position on dialogue between the West and Islam, who remembered well the Assisi meetings, but for them the Pope’s receiving of Bush was incomprehensible, inconceivable. The Pope, who had opposed the war… I had to employ a lot of patience to clarify that this meeting as well could be useful for peace and not war.

You have lived an intense dialogue with the Ulema, the religious leaders…
It is living proof that inter-religious dialogue is possible, but a great effort is required. At times, religion, for the fundamentalists, becomes an alibi, a cover, a shirking of responsibility, a way to justify even the most horrible crimes. We also turn to God, but to ask for His help to guide our lives. On the other hand, when you think that they decapitate hostages in the name of God, you understand that we are in front of something monstrous, diabolical. It should also be said that perhaps it’s easier for us to understand them; for them it’s more difficult to understand us. The Pope is doing and has done great things in inter-religious dialogue. Let’s hope that their leaders will also be able to take great steps ahead.

You’ve been a key figure in the intense effort to bring home the Italian hostages. What have you learned from this experience?
I believe that I had an important role because I had a very strong card in hand: our credibility, our having worked back when we were not suspect, having been present since May 2003, and having already realized concrete things. It was also a very hard confrontation. I obtained the body of Fabrizio Quattrocchi because my interlocutors knew that it was our right to have it back. I told them, “Last June, we brought a gravely ill boy to Italy to treat him and he died on the way, and we brought his body back within the time stipulated by the Koran for burial.” The Koran, as well, prescribes care for the dead. In this difficult situation, I felt as if I were the only Italian interlocutor, because I was seen as not belonging to politics, but as an exponent of a humanitarian organization that because of its neutrality had for a long time been appreciated, well-considered, and accepted unanimously by the entire Iraqi population. All the others weren’t credible, and this fact has been documented. In my daily talks with the Ulema, in addition to responding affirmatively to every humanitarian request of theirs, I pleaded with them for proof that the three surviving hostages were well and that they were treated with dignity. Precisely in virtue of the regard in which we were held, I was given assurances that the kidnappers repeatedly received very clear messages. They should not proceed to the execution of the other three hostages; it had already been an error to execute Quattrocchi. I also had to endure some criticism about my presumed media exposure, but I had the duty to give positive messages to the families–of hope, of strength–until we met with the family members when I brought the body of Fabrizio Quattrocchi back to Italy. During those weeks, I told the families of the three surviving hostages, “Have faith, have hope, because there are good chances that they will return home.”

And now we hear that the kidnappers were common criminals…
Now it’s emerging officially that these bandits were stupid, but I said so from the beginning, because the Ulema had communicated this to me. They held that politically, delivering the Italian hostages to the Italian Red Cross as soon as possible would have meant a slap in the face to the Italian government’s commitment and that of the coalition members operating in Iraq. Instead, the epilogue of the kidnapping with the liberation of the hostages through a military blitz by the Americans, undertaken in agreement with the Italian government, proved that the kidnappers were a group of poor losers, people who let themselves be used, politically as well. There were those who kept the hostages, and those who politically exploited the kidnapping. If they had given the hostages to a neutral reality like the Red Cross, it would have reinforced the need for aid for the Iraqi population, much more deeply felt than the need for weapons.

What is the way out of the nightmare in Iraq?
As a neutral element, I have spoken with everyone, with the Sunnis, the Shiites, with the Vice of Moqtad Al Sadr, and their requests share a common denominator. If you keep the humanitarian level elevated, and intervene in work, security, and health care, automatically the consensus of the people for the new direction will extinguish that for the terrorists. The terrorists are riding the wave of the people’s discontent. It’s necessary to continue helping the population, responding as much as possible to their needs. Leaving would be madness; it would mean leaving the field free for an interminable civil war in which those who pay most dearly would be, as always, the weak and the defenseless.