There is not only Venezuela. With the yellow of the alleged briefcase with 3.5 million euros that – according to the Spanish newspaper Abc – would have been sent in 2010 by the regime of Nicolas Maduro to the party founded by Beppe Grillo and Davide Casaleggio and the statements that Alex Saab could make in Miami , the Colombian businessman close to the Chavista government who has just been extradited to the US. In spite of the Atlanticist path undertaken in recent years by Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, the birth and rise of the M5s have been marked by the controversy over relations with some dictators around the world. From Xi Jinping’s China to Ayatollahs’ Iran to other controversial South American leaders such as the Bolivian Evo Morales and Castro’s Cuba. On the Dragon there was a real turnaround, culminating in the agreements of the Silk Road, which started in 2018 when the grillini came to the government. At the beginning of the Movement, Grillo from his Blog did not spare ferocious attacks in Beijing. Then the attitude changed. On the blog of the founder, articles celebrating the wonders of the regime heir to Maoism have been appearing for three years. In February 2020, for example, the Guarantor vaticinava: “Coronavirus: China will come out stronger”.
So I come face to face with the Chinese ambassador in Rome Li Junhua. Two top secret meetings at the end of November 2019. Most recently the private visit on 12 June last. On that occasion, the announced presence of the then starred leader in pectore Giuseppe Conte sparked a controversy, forcing the former prime minister to cancel the appointment at the last minute. Going back in time, the first evidence of a contact between the M5s and China is dated June 24, 2013. It is a photo taken in the Milan offices of Casaleggio Associati. See Grillo, Gianroberto Casaleggio and ambassador Ding Wei. The chapter – Beijing is enriched by the controversy over the intervention of the CEO of Huawei Italia Thomas Miao at an event of Davide Casaleggio’s Srl in November 2019. And we must not forget the signing by Grillo of a “denier” document on the repression in XinJiang. The report, dated May 2021, was also signed by Senator Vito Petrocelli, president of the Foreign Affairs commission at Palazzo Madama. Petrocelli himself visited Azerbaijan in April, a country ruled by the Aliyev dynasty since the fall of the USSR.
The senator met with Tehran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on an official mission in April 2019. In an interview granted to Repubblica in June, Petrocelli explained that Italy should be “the best reference” for China and Iran. In November 2019, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Manlio Di Stefano also had a very friendly meeting with the Iranian ambassador in Rome. Alessandro Di Battista has always been tender with Iran, a nation from which he wrote a series of reports in February 2020. Sadly memorable was Dibba’s speech on August 16, 2014 – in the midst of Isis’s rise – on Grillo’s Blog. An invitation to “stop considering the terrorist an inhuman subject with whom not even start a discussion”. And then the pro-Maduro conferences in the Chamber such as the 2015 one organized together with Di Stefano. The latter in 2017 would have visited Caracas with Petrocelli. The latest feat took place last July 18th. An article by the Brazilian theologian Frei Betto appears on the blog of the founder of the M5s. A swordplay defense of the Castro regime in Cuba. “The Cuban Revolution will ensure you three basic human rights: food, health and education, as well as home and work”, we read. Clearer than that…
–
