By a special correspondent in Italy RECENT dramatic disturbances in the new "temporary holding centres" in Sicily are some of the first effects of the recently passed Italian immigration law.
The law, passed by the Romano Prodi government in March '98, is the first ever attempt by an Italian government to deal with the overall situation of non-EU foreigners coming to Italy for any reason whatsoever (work, study, tourism or humanitarian reasons).
Up till now this issue has been covered by, a series of piecemeal, sometimes contradictory, legislative decrees.
The new law has both positive and negative aspects. Amongst the positive ones is the introduction of a "permanent" residence card, which can be obtained by an immigrant worker and his/her family after five years' legal residence in the country, and can be withdrawn only for serious offences.
There is also the right for the family of an immigrant worker to be united with the working father or mother in Italy, the guaranteeing of the rights of immigrant minors regardless of their parents' situation, and the right for workers to obtain a permit to enter the country to look for work, although the full implications of this latter clause are not yet entirely clear. The negative aspects of the law, apart from the failure to give immigrants the vote in local elections - a clause that was blocked on constitutional grounds by the right wing in the Italian parliament - include the setting up of the already infamous "temporary holding centres".
The law states that foreigners without regular documents can either be expelled instantly or held in these locked, guarded detention centres for up to thirty days (20 days plus the granting of an extension) before being repatriated.
During the summer, over 1000 newly arrived foreigners, mainly Tunisians, Moroccans, Albanians and Kurds, were imprisoned in centres in the south of Italy and Milan, amidst scenes of extreme violence and rioting, with injuries, arrests and three mass escapes (between 50 and 100 people a time).
The opening of the detention centres is part of the law's attempt to regulate the flow of immigrants entering the country. But one of the biggest shortcomings of the new law is its failure to grant any kind of "amnesty" for foreigners without regular documents who were already in the country before the passing of the law on March 27.
In fact, although the newly approved "entry flow control" mechanism (agreed on July 31 by the Cabinet) allows any "irregular foreigners" who were already in Italy before the 27th of March to become "regularised", under certain conditions, this decision has not as yet actually been implemented.
And so, the new law, whilst making some definite improvements for regularised immigrants in Italy, has in many ways failed to resolve one the most pressing and controversial questions of all: that of illegal immigration.
The explosive situation in the new detention centres is the living example of this failure. clearest evidence to the contrary, that the west will intervene in of Kosovar independence.
Much KLA criticism of Hill's. proposed deal focuses on the nature of the proposed delegation - from which they are excluded -for talks with Milosevic.
They insist that they are 'Europeans' and look towards 'Europe', in the naive belief that EU politicians will support independence for Kosova.
It is this political weakness, much more than the military defeats the KLA has recently suffered, that holds back the Kosova struggle.
Despite this, socialists cannot stand on the sidelines. We support the right of Kosova to independence and the right of the Kosovar people to determine their relations with other states, including the right to unification with Albania if they so choose.
We need to ensure this debate is taken into the labour movement and support won for the right of Kosova to self-determination and rejection of any attempts by imperialism to impose a solution on the people of Kosova.
Finding a use for advertising posters: families eking out a living in improvised shacks in Polho SOCIALIST OUTLOOK I6