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[casi] Guernica Cover Up




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>>UNITED NATIONS -- As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell presented evidence to help U.N. 
>ambassadors decide whether or not to go to war against Iraq, there was one important thing they 
>did not see: Pablo Picasso's "Guernica."

A tapestry version of one of the world's greatest antiwar works that adorns the wall outside the 
Security Council chamber was covered Wednesday by a blue curtain with U.N. logos. A U.N. commentary 
on war and peace? ambassadors wondered. Trying to avert a diplomatic incident, the U.N. spokesman 
explained.

When U.N. media officials moved a microphone where diplomats stop to talk to journalists in front 
of the tapestry to accommodate the crush of media covering Powell's presentation, TV reporters 
complained that the wild lines and screaming figures on the tapestry made a bad backdrop. And in 
head shots, a horse's hindquarters appeared just above the face of the speaker.

U.N. officials covered it, but they deny that they were intentionally hiding a symbolic statement 
about both the horrors of war and the art of diplomacy.

The work portrays a Spanish Civil War aerial bombing.<<

http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-guernica6feb06004424,0,7556991.story



<<On April 27th, 1937, unprecedented atrocities are perpetrated on behalf of Franco against the 
civilian population of a little Basque village in northern Spain. Chosen for bombing practice by 
Hitler's burgeoning war machine, the hamlet is pounded with high-explosive and incendiary bombs for 
over three hours. Townspeople are cut down as they run from the crumbling buildings. Guernica burns 
for three days. Sixteen hundred civilians are killed or wounded.

By May 1st, news of the massacre at Guernica reaches Paris, where more than a million protesters 
flood the streets to voice their outrage in the largest May Day demonstration the city has ever 
seen. Eyewitness reports fill the front pages of Paris papers. Picasso is stunned by the stark 
black and white photographs. Appalled and enraged, Picasso rushes through the crowded streets to 
his studio, where he quickly sketches the first images for the mural he will call Guernica. His 
search for inspiration is over.<<

http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html








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