Italian city of Frascati joins Mayors for Peace during moving 64th commemoration of 1943 bombing

September 8, 2007

High resolution pictures on http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/pages/296

Frascati is a small beautiful Italian town (20,000) overlooking Rome from peaceful hills in the southeast. They joined Mayors for Peace this weekend with three days of activities marking the bombing 64 years ago.

Frascati was bombed on September 8th 1943 by the US, and 1,000 people, mostly civilians, died. The bombing remains a traumatic experience for the inhabitants. A day where the silent blue sky was ripped apart and death fell from the sky.

Since 2001, under the impulse of the new Mayor, Mr. Francisco Paolo Posa, the City of Frascati started organising annual commemoration events. Every year they invite a city which has been a victim to war: Cassino (2001), Marzabotto (2002), New York City (2003), Mostar (2004), Guernica (2005) and Hanoi (2006).

This year they invited Hiroshima and they also decided to join the Mayors for Peace with a special ceremony during the commemoration. They invited Mr. Yakushiji and Pol D'Huyvetter to represent Mayors for Peace and 2020 Vision Campaign. Also Ms. Seiko Ikeda, a Hibakusha, was invited and gave very moving testimonies.

During a 3 day program they had youngsters involved with a multi-media project and they opened a Peace Pavillion which will serve as a new activity center for the elderly. During the commemoration many mayors from surrounding towns were called to raise their voice against war and to join Mayors for Peace. During the final ceremony Ms. Seiko Ikeda was given honorary citizenship of Frascati, a moment where most present couldn't hold their tears in the face of the testimonial of a survivor of the A-bomb.

Mayor Posa agreed to assist the 2020 Vision and offered to help to built capacity. He will contact the mayors of the region to invite them to become members of Mayors for Peace. He also agrees to sign a cross-party letter to members of Mayors for Peace to encourage them to vote a resolution supporting financially the 2020 Vision campaign. For Frascati he thought it should be possible to donate 1,000 euro/year. Frascati is also interested to print the Mayors for Peace and 2020 Vision campaign flyers in Italian.

Mr. Posa is also very eager to help with communications to advertise Mayors for Peace though weblinks, a plaque on city hall ... or having the annual music festival of Frascati coincide with Hiroshima and be dedicated to Mayors for Peace. He made a very good suggestion to ask Mayors to dedicate existing events to Mayors for Peace.

In November Mr. Posa and some members of the Executive and City council are also interested to visit Ypres, as they will pay a visit to their sister-city Kortrijk. Also Kortrijk is a member of MfP.  Our new friends in Frascati are very interested to meet Belgian members of Mayors for Peace.

Finally, we wish to say that all of this wouldn't have happened without the support of Lisa Clark. Lisa Clark is playing a very important role in Italy for the 2020 Vision campaign. She is working closely together with the Mayors of Ghedi and Aviano, the mayors of the cities where US 90 US Nuclear weapons are stored in Italy. Ms. Clark is also working closely with others mayors and provinces, such as Milano and Rome.

She inititiated a legal initiative to delare Italy a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, using the Austrian constitution as example. Next September 30th this initiative -supported by a very broad network of NGO's- will be launched in Ghedi. The Mayors of Ghedi and Aviano have agreed to be the first signatories for a legal petition-drive where they plan to get 50,000 signatures within 6 months.

Find more information about this NWFZ campaign on www.unfuturosenzatomiche.org
More information about Frascati on http://www.comune.frascati.rm.it/