Time doesn't just heal wounds, it also clouds the memory. They know it, or they should know, from the parts of the Italian left (be it politics or the media). Veltroni today, Pd, Republic and company harshly criticize the closure of Italian ports implemented by Salvini (and Toninelli).

Yet yesterday, when the Ulivo governed with Romano Prodi, they implemented the same policies (if not worse) and they openly praised them in the newspaper pages.
It was March of 1997. Prodi had only won the elections a year ago and had not yet had time to get used to the comfortable armchair in Palazzo Chigi that he’Albania it transformed into the Africa we know today. A powder keg in the throes of an impressive political crisis (also called “Albanian anarchy”), with the country broken in two, victim of the economic crisis and with armed gangs managing large areas of territory in defiance of the official government.

In that crisis year of the nineties, the government team could field first-rate ministers. Lamberto Dini was in charge of Foreign Affairs, Beniamino Andreatta at Defense and at Interior Giorgio Napolitano. Also with them was the Minister of Transport and Navigation (responsible for ports), Claudio Burlando. Well. What did the left-wing government do when thousands of Albanian immigrants tried to leave the Balkans by sea and land on the coasts of Puglia? The ports opened? They put humanitarian boats into the sea? Nope. If on the one hand they offered “temporary protection” (temporary!) to refugees and supported Albania economically, on the other they implemented a real naval blockade (much harder than Salvini did today).
Not only that. Because who didn't have the right to welcome, he was immediately escorted home by King George. “Minister Napolitano – Prodi explained to the Chamber – he worked tirelessly to issue directives and formulate legislative proposals that (…) have allowed for careful supervision aimed at ensuring that those who need help and hospitality from our country have it, as it should be, but those who belong to organized crime should be promptly and dutifully expelled or rejected“. And many greetings (do-gooders).
Right, Prodi in front of the deputies (it was the 2 April 1997) he tried to explain that “naval blockade” it wasn't exactly the exact name he would have called the operation, defined by him instead “activity aimed above all at stamping out the organized crime that manages expatriations“. But it was semantic masturbation.
Already, because to understand how much the left supported the stop to the arrival of Albanian migrants, just go and reread one old news piece published by Republic. Title: “Naval blockade to stop the Albanians“. It begins: “The hard line began yesterday. They are no longer refugees, but illegal immigrants. And therefore they must be rejected“. Pay attention to the words, that weigh like a boulder. “Illegal immigrants” stands for “illegal immigrants”. And then we ask ourselves: because if it was the Professor who stopped the foreigners, Everything OK (On the contrary: to be praised) and if instead the naval blockade bears the signature of the League, At that time Africans become “hostages” of the minister? How come twenty years ago it was possible for refugees and economic migrants to coexist on the same boat (a criminal), while today everyone is defined (on principle) “refugees fleeing the war”? The Undersecretary of the Interior, Giannicola Sinisi, in '97 he explained: “No more refugees are arriving on our shores, scared people, but men and women who come from areas where the revolt has not even arrived. They seek a better life, a more profitable job, I am, In short, immigrants”. It will have been Northern League member him too?
No, Obviously. It was common sense. Common sense that the left then recognized in its rulers and which today it denies to Salvini&Co. Veltroni, to name one, now he criticizes the government because i 626 migrants from Aquarius “they are human beings, not objects, and they flee from war and hunger”, ma in that distant time 1997 he was deputy prime minister. Not exactly the last of the arrivals. Because he didn't oppose it then too?
And to think that the policies of today's Interior Minister are much less harsh than those implemented by Study Program e Napolitano. Salvini in fact it limited itself to keeping the Aquarius at a standstill, ensuring doctors, relief and food. With the agreement signed then with the Albanian prime minister, Instead, Italy undertook to block the mass emigration from Albania with naval means. The Italian frigates were to achieve “distancing maneuvers” at sea to intimidate boats full of immigrants and force them to turn back. Just two days after signing, the Albanian patrol boat Katër i Radës was rammed by an Italian Navy ship Sibilla. It was a massacre: 81 dead and 27 missing.