Berlusconi's Earthquake Gaffe Causes Outrage

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has caused outrage (again) for apparently making a disrespectful comment about the thousands of survivors of Monday's earthquake in Italy. Berlusconi told a German TV reporter that the 17,000 earthquake survivors should simply pretend they are on a "camping weekend," reports the Times Online.

Touring camps set up for survivors of Monday's disaster, in which at least 250 people were killed, Mr Berlusconi told a reporter from N-TV: "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary. but they should see it like a weekend of camping."

Berlusconi got into trouble twice last week for gaffes made during the G-20 and NATO meetings. He appeared to upset Queen Elizabeth II by shouting over her shoulder at President Obama, and then he appeared to upset German chancellor Angela Merkel by chatting on his cell phone rather than formerly greeting her in Germany.

But being insensitive to the victims of Italy's worst earthquake in three decades seems to be in its own category. As the Times reports, "his comments to the German TV station must rank among the most undiplomatic of a long career that has seen him comparing a German MEP with a concentration camp guard and describing Mr Obama, two days after his election as president, as "young, handsome and suntanned"."

The Guardian, however, reports that the actual video clip produced by the German TV station does not show the clip.

But a video clip from the interview featured on the site did not contain the remark, which is bound to prompt intense controversy.

See a slideshow of the earthquake:

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (C) meets on April 7, 2009 with people who took shelter in the San Demetrio camp in L'Aquila after a violent earthquake that hit central Italy the day before. Earthquake aftershocks rocked the Italian city of L'Aquila on Tuesday, raining fresh lumps of debris as rescuers pulled out more survivors and the death toll passed 250.

For more on the earthquake in Italy, go here.

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Comments

[lisa from rome]

Interesting: the phrase as reported by HT, the UK times etcetc and in the US press is this:

"Mr Berlusconi told a reporter from N-TV: "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary. but they should see it like a weekend of camping."

Here's the actual transcript­-translati­on of the German TV programme in which he is said to have made the above statement:
http://rtv.rtrlondon.co.uk/2009-04-08/461233e.html

3068-ITALY­-BERLUSCON­I/CAMPING L'AQUILA, ITALY APRIL 8, 2009 NATURAL WITH ITALIAN SPEECH DURATION:01:43

SOURCE:NTV / REUTERS
(...)
SHOWS:
(...)
1. ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI WALKING TOWARDS REPORTER
2. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI REPLYING
TO REPORTER'S QUESTION (...):
"The people are doing well because they have a lot of assistance,
a lot of kindness, receive lots of love from our volunteers who are
extraordinary people. They have everything they need, they have medical
attention, they have medicines available, they have hot meals and there is
shelter at night which, at the end of the day, is a temporary measure. It's a
like a weekend of camping and then we need to reach more concrete solutions,
which are there and which are the hotels"

Not quite the same thing, eh? Which explains why the so-called "outrage" over Berlusconi's so-called "gaffe" is absent in Italy.

[swimviking]

you are quite the Berlusconi fan.

poor Italy.

[lisa from rome]

I'm not a fan, I've always voted against him and will continue to do so - but even I must admit he's been up there with the victims day and night since the quake hit, didn't sleep for 44 hours at a stretch and has made his own empty villas available to accomodate the homeless. So I'll continue to criticize him where he richly deserves criticism (mafia-friendly, graft-friendly and effs-around with the Italian constitution) but will defend him when he doesn't: he's devoted his efforts non-stop to the earthquake emergency and its victims with NO insensitivity whatsoever to the suffering caused.

[lisa from rome]

P.S. "swimviking", I see from your profile you've been making a big effort to provide info on how to donate online for the earthquake victims via the Italian Red Cross etc - bravo! I've been doing the same thing on UK and other press threads so we have at least one thing in common. PAX! :-)

[lisa from rome]

Mystery solved! the phrase that's reported in HP quoting the UK times is this:
..........­..........­....
"Mr Berlusconi told a reporter from N-TV: "They have everything they need, they have medical care, hot food... Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary. but they should see it like a weekend of camping."
..........­.......
But here is the transcript of the NTV reportage with his actual statements:
http://rtv.rtrlondon.co.uk/2009-04-08/461233e.html

3068-ITALY­-BERLUSCON­I/CAMPING L'AQUILA, ITALY APRIL 8, 2009 NATURAL WITH ITALIAN SPEECH DURATION:01:43
SOURCE:NTV / REUTERS
(...)
SHOWS:
(...)
1. ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI WALKING TOWARDS REPORTER
2. (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER SILVIO BERLUSCONI REPLYING
TO REPORTER'S QUESTION 'WHAT'S YOUR IMPRESSION OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING
HERE (IN TEMPORARY SHELTERS)?, SAYING:
"The people are doing well because they have a lot of assistance,
a lot of kindness, receive lots of love from our volunteers who are
extraordinary people. They have everything they need, they have medical
attention, they have medicines available, they have hot meals and there is
shelter at night which, at the end of the day, is a temporary measure. It's a
like a weekend of camping and then we need to reach more concrete solutions,
which are there and which are the hotels"

Not quite the same thing, eh? Which explains why so-called "outrage" over Berlusconi's so-called "gaffe" is absent in Italy.

[timafi]

omg Berlusconi shut ye trap!

[swimviking]

I just watched the German interview where this started. I listened to Berlusconi speaking in Italian, and the translation into German. The translation is PERFECT.
The news as reported here on Huffington Post is correct. There have been nothing lost in translation.

Freedom of speech is essential to democracy. Let us speak here, where we can, since in the Italian media it is becoming more and more difficult.­..

[Francesco Totino]

I dont think MR Berlusconi make gaffe... especially now in Aquila Abruzzi earthquake is giving his best of his past professional experience of business organizer ..and problem solver.

[mazzetta]

I think this is usefull to understand what we're dealing with: the main hospital in L'Aquila, after 30 years from the first stone and tenfold the original price, was finished and delivered by IMPREGILO ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impregilo ), not exactly a small builder, nothing less than Italy's Halliburton

some years ago a parliament commission stated it was poorly built, from the project to concrete's formulation, as we saw nothing happened

[Prakosh]

I guess this makes his bonding with Bush so much understandable. They both share a lack of empathy for anyone not of their class.

[lisa from rome]

If you really want to know: Berlusconi's not of upper-crust origin, his family was average-mi­ddle-class not wealthy, mother worked as a secretary father as a bank-clerk - but the bank he worked for was Banca Rasini owned by a certain Michele Sindona - high-flying Sicilian financier with ties to the mafia and US "mob". Quite a story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Sindona
Then after Sindona's death, all-of-a-sudden - after a mini-career as cruise-ship crooner + law-degree - some.... "unknown benefactor­s"... mysteriously lent/entrusted a huge pile of megabucks to penniless young Silvio to start up as a property developer on a vast scale... and he's never looked back. His closest associate Marcello Dell'Utri is - not altogether surprisingly - under investigation for mafia ties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcello_Dell'Utri#Collusion_with_the_Mafia
To be quite honest, Berlusca gets on better with Putin than with Bush ;-)

[Free2Speak]

Wht isn't the media covering this earthquake­.300 people dead and may be more while people are still looking for survivors,the media is fixated over thugs in Somalia who captured some one from a ship it pirated.

[All in All]

What a trip.....

[CR46]

Was he reading "My Pet Goat" when the earthquake happened?

[haramagoti]

That's it. He's gone, there's no backing out of this cold hearted fiasco.

[themodernleader]

Apparently, the Church schools fared well in their instruction of the thinking ot the Italian Prime Minister. If the members of his organization can only escape stark suffering and horror of reality by retreating into the recesses of their minds, horrendous events and stark reality can do no harm. Even if I am freezing, I am hungry and dying of thirst, I am without shelter or hope, I am safe and unconcerned for nobody or event can harm me in the inner citadel of my soul.
That is the status of enslaved mankind throughout broad spans of changeless human history.

[BlueStateMan]

This guy was a crooked media executive before becoming PM.

A BOOR of galactic proportions.

I would be like having Rupert Murdock as President with Bush's mouth.

[peggyhill]

How does Italy keep electing this guy. This Italy's version of Bush!

[hommie]

lol i cant believe it too....

[DoctorDonut]

http://www.theweeklydonut.com/index.php/2008/11/08/the-sarah-palin-of-italy-silvio-berlusconi/