Europe

Quake victims at the G8

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This year’s G8 summit takes place in L’Aquila, Italy, the site of a devastating earthquake in April. Some locals who’ve been living in tents since the quake are protesting. They say too much went into preparing for the summit, and too little into helping L’Aquila recover. Anchor Lisa Mullins has details.
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LISA MULLINS: This G8 summit wasn’t always going to take place in L’Aquila. The first choice was the Sardinian island of La Maddalena, but Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, switched the venue to L’Aquila after the city was hit by a strong earthquake in lives in such a camp, and he belongs to a group that’s called, 3:32, that’s a reference to the time, 3:32am when the earthquake struck L’Aquila. Today, the group put up a sign on a hillside overlooking the summit venue. Instead of reading, Yes We Can, it read, in huge plastic letters, Yes we Camp. He says that the group’s aim is to protest the government’s contention that the reconstruction of L’Aquila is going well, and that residents are doing fine.

MATTIA LOLLI: Our houses are still broken, and then the works aren’t starting.  The only works we have seen, they were for preparing the G8.  And it’s really a shame for L’Aquila citizens to see everybody working day and night to prepare the G8, and our city is still like the day after the earthquake. It’s all the same, nothing’s changed.

LISA MULLINS: Mattia Lolli says his group didn’t limit the Yes We Camp slogan to the hillside, in fact, it tried to put it right in front of President Obama himself, as he moved around town.

MATTIA LOLLI: And this afternoon we went outside where the car of the president passed by and the show this message, Yes we camp, but the police tried to cover it.  It’s really a shame.  We are just trying to express a message, use this moment of the G8, because we know that after this no one will talk about our city.  And all of the problems, all the people that are suffering in the tents will be left alone.

LISA MULLINS: Mattia Lolli, earthquake survivor and one of the many protesters vying for attention today in L’Aquila, Italy.

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