TERRORISM and WARS can only BE STOPPED by DIPLOMACY. Police is Not Enough vs Fanaticism. Exclusive Analysis by ex INTERPOL Official
In the cover image, the former Interpol official Antonio Evangelista and the leader of the terrorists HTS Al Jolani of the new provisional Syrian government
by Antonio Evangelista – former Interpol official
All links to previous articles on Gospa News have been added retrospectively for relevance to the topics covered.
After my experiences in the judicial police in Italy, which were part of the ordinary, I had the opportunity to work abroad in investigations into organized crime, war crimes and terrorism. Abroad, it often happened to meet at dinner, beside business meetings, with the so-called experts, usually sent by the European Union or the United Nations, to get to know each other better in the future perspective of working together in the field.
Working with them in the field, it was possible to understand that they only had the title of expert, because their knowledge was based on ‘copy-paste’ of other people’s work and their analyses were the transcription of what was said by those who had really gained experience on the spot.
The moments of conviviality were very interesting, because it was at the table that the most important topics and questions came out. I remember an ambassador, I don’t remember whether from the United Kingdom or the United States, who then ended up working for the United Nations when he asked me: “how do you judge, as a policeman, your intervention and your role here in Kosovo in terms of effectiveness and efficiency?”.
I replied that our work was useless, because the police act in the acute phase, like the emergency room of a hospital, which means that when we arrive it is already late. It is obvious that when you are at the scene of the crime you act immediately and there is no plan B, like when a person is about to die and needs an intervention from the ’emergency room’.
The Social Culture of Terrorism Prevention
But if there is a lack of a prophylaxis department, health education, prevention, rehabilitation, etc., emergency intervention is an end in itself. Here we are the ’emergency room’ and if there is a lack of education, prevention, family, school… The situation, socially speaking, does not change.
When I give the example of the emergency room, I often refer to Kosovo. Because that’s where we were really operatives, while in Bosnia we played a role more similar to that of the adviser and, as far as I was concerned, having been in Bosnia in the last years of the EU missions in Yugoslavia, it was more a work of analysis, reading, research and study.
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However, the ambassador’s reaction to my reply was one of ‘surprise’ and curiosity. I realize that mine was not a ‘typical’ response as a policeman, but more as a civilian who was experiencing Kosovo at that time and who, outside working hours, stayed and ate with the locals, who interacted with children, old people, women… in short, the real victims of wars.
From my personal experience, particularly in Kosovo, I have learned that our work is useful if there is everything else. That if you intervene on the causes, you will see the results as early as the second or third generation. Because prevention means, then, educating. And the role of schools is fundamental in this sense, for their educational value and for the space of coexistence between the people they represent.
I remember that in Kosovo children went to school in two shifts, because many schools had been bombed. The two shifts covered morning and afternoon, so I observed the ‘new generations’ from dawn to sunset and asked myself ‘what will become of them?’ aware that my ‘police’ intervention was only a segment of what was necessary in that context, for those people. I compared myself with the young performers who worked with us, all graduates, very young… but grown quickly because of the war.
And I hoped to gain their trust to understand, confront, apologize… that was the real challenge! School, family, culture, traditions… they were the real tools for those people wounded in the soul even before in the body.
Territories afflicted by conflicts, terrorism and mafias have one aspect in common: radicalization takes root in basins where there is misery and poverty
, while ignorance and the impossibility of going to school do the rest, being two ingredients that prevent young people from formulating their own thoughts. Different contexts, the same mechanisms: it is necessary to intervene in schools and invest in education and culture, therefore not only in soldiers and policemen. And I am even more convinced of this now that I am retired and I limit myself to observing and, where possible, sharing my experience with those who know how to listen.
Politics without Vision of International Dialogue
Politics can and must play a role in building cultures of dialogue. It is politics, in fact, that should have a vision and make investments to give it concreteness in the long term for future generations.
But today, unfortunately, we have political classes that do not possess any vision, neither domestic nor international, and therefore navigate by sight. Each of their political interventions is characterized by highly short-sighted readings of events, whether it is school, health, security. Today we are witnessing the absence of visionary politicians or, at least, the absence of politicians willing to take care of collective interests.
It is not nonsense to say that the politicians of the past were different. Let it be clear: they too had as their main concern the maintenance of power, but at the same time they had visions, shareable or not, which are now completely lacking.
Let’s take the events in Ukraine and Israel as examples: in both cases it seems that the only intention of the leaders is to create the most total disaster in order to sell as many weapons as possible, even resorting to the creation of “counterfeit massacres”, where the corpses ‘do not bleed’, to name one. And if some, few in truth, war correspondents raise doubts, he is immediately silenced.
Today’s politics intervenes, yes, but in the most vulgar and material sense of the term: you find the casus belli to enter a country, then you plunder its resources to the point of causing the failure of the economy.
Today’s policy consists of wandering around the world in search of glass to break, having the new one, ready for replacement, in your pocket: creating the problem and proposing the ready-made solution in your pocket. However, this is not politics, not politics in the highest sense that is given to it, but extortion. We have also seen this in the pipeline wars between the United States and Russia, which peaked with the sabotage ‘announced’ by the US of Nord Stream 2.
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Diplomacy… Not Arrived!
I would say that, politics aside, diplomacy has not come anymore, at least from what transpires from public information.
Also because that of the diplomat, unfortunately, is a profession that, for career needs, can induce even the most talented to become yes men… this is the great problem of public administration officials. Career or ‘straight back’.
On the other hand, there are always those who choose fidelity to the office, to the oath, and who, if circumstances require it, would be willing to pull the jacket of the superior or to give advice that is neither requested nor welcomed. In this sense, the diplomat should be the one who suggests to the politician, both when the latter has a vision and when he does not.
My reading of the current and future international context is pessimistic. Although I wish myself to be wrong, I remember that a year ago, during an interview on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, I said the following: “if the Israelis make a clean slate, it means that the interests are geo-energetic”. I said this by giving the example of the Munich terror attack of 1972, to which Israel responded by identifying the perpetrators and masterminds of the massacre one by one.
Why is Israel proceeding with systematic destruction today, contrary to then?
Because it can allow you to control the entire territory previously inhabited by another people so that, in this specific case, you can exploit the Gaza Marina gas field and build, who knows, the much-discussed Ben Gurion canal. And in any case, we still do not know why the alarms of terrorist attacks coming from Egypt, the USA and the Israeli Secret Services themselves have been ignored.
The Israeli-Palestinian Tabula Rasa War
Reading the Israeli-Palestinian war from this geo-energy perspective, the strategy of the ‘tabula rasa’ makes sense: it is preparatory to the transformation of Israel into the energy and commercial hub of the southeastern Mediterranean.
And this is where the aforementioned lack of vision comes into play, an evil that afflicts Western and non-Western politicians alike, because it is necessary to ask questions about what fruits will emerge from the seeds planted by Israel in this war and how powers like Turkey will react to an empowered Israel in the years to come. planted, again in the course of this violent conflict with the Palestinians, seeds destined to take on a form: the terrorists of tomorrow.
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Mine is a prediction given by the knowledge of the Middle Eastern context, where the religious factor is still very strong and makes the future recurrence of a new wave of terrorism more certain than likely. Perhaps we will not get to have phenomena like the Islamic State, which was structured as a political and administrative entity based on the Koran, but we will witness the terrorism of hijackings, car suicide accidents, stabbings and suicide bombers. The latter form of terrorism will recur with greater vigour and will be difficult to deal with.
It is necessary, having the long term as a horizon, to invest in school, family, culture and diplomacy. And I am not only referring to the Middle East, but also to Europe, where Russia and Ukraine have preferred to elevate the clash to the highest power and abjure dialogue as a form of resolution of differences, even when ferocious.
This happened because diplomacy found an insurmountable obstacle in a ‘stone guest’: the arms lobbies… the only ones to make ‘infinite’ profits on the blood of innocents.
We need new ways of thinking about diplomacy.
Looking east, to the BRICS+, we have a great example of great power collaboration mixing political goals and economic interests. It is a time-consuming format, because the decision-making process is shared among peers, but it has proven to work. We cannot go on with the traditional policies of the past, based on the imposition of one’s will by force. We need to be resourceful to develop new ideas.
If I look back, I remember when we played football at the oratory or in the park, the owner of the ball always decided the field and the goalkeeper and everyone had to ‘concede’ if they wanted to play.
It is the same in politics: who is in control of the essential tools decides… often the most overbearing and not necessarily the most balanced. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about showing up on the field bringing your own ball from home, so as not to depend on others.
by Antonio Evangelista – former Interpol official
Originally opublished in italian version by MasiraX – republished with the author’s consentby and his translation
ALL ARTICLES BY ANTONIO EVANGELISTA ON GOSPA NEWS
Antonio Evangelista – Expert in transnational organized crime and international terrorism. A life dedicated to justice, in Italy and abroad, which began with a degree in Law at Sapienza University of Rome and continued with an international career in counterterrorism.Among the roles he has held: director of the Flying Squad and Digos in Asti, commander of the Italian police mission in Kosovo under the aegis of the United Nations, consultant for the Police Directorate of the Serbian Entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the context of the European EUPM mission, director of Interpol at the International Police Cooperation Service, first in Rome and finally in Amman.He is known for having intercepted and isolated, in October 2015, a premonitory tweet on the preparations of the Islamic State to strike Paris the following month. He is also the author of several books based on his investigative experiences, including “Madrasse – Piccoli martiri crescere tra Balcani ed Europa” and “Mediterraneo. Stesso sangue, medesimo fango”.
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