Enda mer som tyder på at den Svarte Blokken og politiet var ute i
nøyaktig samme ærend...
Dear friends,
well, I was in Genoa. I have seen it.
Don't believe what is being told in newspapers and on television. It was
crazy, it was a massacre.
It is difficult to explain what happened on Friday and Saturday. I will rely
on what I have seen myself and what other dear friends who have been in
Genoa have seen.
Please take the time and have the patience to truly read this report of the
awful events, about which you will probably not hear in the mass media.
1) I arrive in Genova on Thursday after the demonstration about immigration
with its 50,000 participants. There are different sites where people gather
as we are so many -- thousands of absolutely peaceful demonstrators meeting
in a wonderful climate, discussing, singing and enjoying the time together.
On Friday morning, scouts and radicals, volunteers and professionals, we all
begin to set up thematic sites on public squares of this armored city:
several associations are to be found scattered in the city to besiege the
famous red line by partying, dancing, and by doing performances and
speeches.
At this point the famous Black Block arrives from the sea side. Some of them
are seen to speak with the police, others come directly from their ranks.
Most of them speak German.
They immediately start to provoke. The police and the carabinieri refrain
from reacting. The Black Block tries to slip into the procession of workers
supporting COBAS and other trade unions, attacks and strikes one of their
leaders, and is scuffed from the procession only with great effort.
Thereafter, the Black Block, bristled with weapons, hits the first thematic
site (social centres). The police pursues them, and the demonstrators find
themselves attacked first by the Black Block and then by the policemen, who
at this point start their violent assaults. The Black Block people move on
and reach the public square where the people of the Lilliput network are
(fair trade, catholic groups, Mani Tese etc.).
These people believing in peaceful resistance try to drive away the Black
Block. The police arrives, and flounces the square. People raise their hands
shouting "peace"! Cartridges of tear gas come flying and the police start
beating with their truncheons. People are injured. The Black Block moves on
and continues to destroy the city.
300 to 400 people belonging to the Black Block ramble about in Genoa, and
their leaders know the city very well, their trail of destruction hits all
the thematic sites where the activities of the movement are going on. It's
quite impressive.
They move in a disciplined, military way, they slip in somewhere, their
leaders give out orders and the others obey. And behind them the police and
the carabinieri arrive.
At this time everything still goes well at the the thematic site where ARCI,
ATTAC and similar groups are to be found. In the early afternoon it is
decided to withdraw a bit from the red line district which has been besieged
by people singing songs, doing little performances etc. So people move
towards the Dante square, when suddenly and without warning the police
deploy tear gas. Everybody tries to escape.
The hospitals are already filled with the injured, although many
demonstrators don't even go there: the police arrests everybody who arrives.
It's evening by now. People are very upset and many of them angry. There is
no more news of the Black Block.
At the camp to which the Genoa Social Forum has retreated we are about
10,000 people. The information arrives that one boy is dead. We are afraid
and there are more and more stories about violent beatings. Some boys and
girls cry. A lot of people are injured. An old man who has a bandage around
his head cries; he is a retired metal worker. And there is Don Gallo from
the order of San Benedetto. And the "mamma leader" of the "Madri di Plaza de
Mayo" from Argentina is there, too. In Argentina they spend years trying to
get hold of information about their sons, the "desaparecidos". She says that
she is shocked by what she has seen today, she is reminded of the
dictatorship in Argentina and had not thought this was possible in Italy.
At this point my brother, Luca Casarini of the "tute bianche" and Bertinotti
[leader of the Rifondazione Communista] (the only politician who had the
courage to come) intervene and try to calm down everybody: people should
walk around only in groups and not bear the challenge of violence.
It is decided that the answer should be the great demonstration on the next
day, that thousands should come and demonstrate peacefully against the
provocations of the Black Block and the police forces.
Senator Malabarba [of the Rifondazione Communista] says that he was in the
police headquarters. He saw people who were dressed as demonstrators and who
spoke German and other foreign languages. They spoke with the police and
then left freely.
All of a sudden, a bank close to the Cittadella starts to burn. Helicopters
fly above the fire, but for 40 minutes nobody arrives, neither firemen nor
police.
At night one of the camps where we sleep, the Carlini, is circumvented by
the police. They come in for an inspection and start to do whatever they
like. People beg them not to hit them again. The police enter, but find
nothing in the camp.
2) Saturday: the day of the great demonstration. We are truly a very large
crowd. The procession departs, thousands of colours are seen, people have
come from all over the world: Many associations, charity and voluntary
service groups, peasants, metal workers, Curds... songs, dances, and a
thousand flags.
We arrive at the Piazzale Kennedy. There have been no clashes, nothing has
happened. All of a sudden the Black Block appears. And without warning and
for no apparent reason the police divides the demonstration procession in
two parts. The war is started. They flounce everywhere, beating people with
truncheons. They go berserk. The police hits the metalworkers of the FIOM,
the young activists of the Rifondazione.... everybody. They start to pursue
people through the whole town of Genova. Who remains alone is chased, and
beaten. Tens of people testify that they were chased and beaten up only
because they were recognized as demonstrators. A journalist of the Sunday
Times was beaten by the police [see edition of Sunday, 23rd].
At a quiet point of the demonstration, on the coastal street, all of a
sudden tear gas cartridges are deployed from a roof and create a panic. They
use irritating gas, causing skin reactions. It is not possible to breathe.
And the Black Block? They appear and disappear again and nobody stops them.
They attack a boy of the Rifondazione. They break his flag pole and beat him
with it. They attack a speaker of the Genoa Social Forum throwing stones.
They break shop windows and set shops afire.
And they are bristled with weapons: but how could they have arrived in Genoa
like this?
The head of the large demonstration has remained calm, and the Genoa Social
Forum makes the appeal to retreat calmly and not to return to the inner city
alone. We turn towards Marassi where the coaches are of those who have
arrived this morning. We are stopped. We cannot go on: on the Piazzale
Kennedy they are fighting a war. So we sit down on the ground.
All of a sudden again there is tear gas. We try to escape. We try to return
towards the Cittadella of the Genoa Social Forum: police vans pass us out of
which they yell: We will kill you all!
The second part of the demonstrators never arrives at the square where we
had planned to meet again. Everybody was chased on the coastal street.
People who take the risk escape through the alleys towards the hill, where a
true and real hunt on people is going on.
On Saturday night, some hours after the demonstration is over, the police
enters the press centre of the Genoa Social Forum. They beat everybody who
is there with a truly impressive violence. In particular they are interested
in every kind of evidence (testimonies, videos, photos etc) that tell what
happened on Friday and Saturday: they take good care to destroy it all. And
they succeed in destroying all the computers and all the material they find.
The lawyer who coordinates the group of lawyers present at Genoa is
arrested. And they destroy or take with them the material which the lawyers
have collected in order to defend people arrested in Genoa. Now nobody knows
anymore neither who the accused are nor how many there are of them.
During the raid, which was performed without any mandate, parliamentarians,
lawyers, journalists and doctors were inhibited to enter the camp. And we
never saw the famous weapons which appeared yesterday during the press
conference... what remains are wounded and arrested people.
Of the Black Block nothing is heard.
I want to assert today, two days after the nightmare: the Black Block and
the police forces have perpetrated a massacre and they wanted to do it.
Policemen and Carabinieri were ready to fight already on Friday morning when
they were yelling around and insulting us... They have truly been
brainwashed.
And then, to watch TV and to read newspapers today: dio mio, it seems we
live during a time of dictatorship: where has anybody written the truth that
all of us who have been there have seen?
It makes me mad to think that some people will be able to think: "Oh, you
protestors, you are saying bullshit as usually."
Don't join in the fraud, have the courage to speak up and tell people about
our convictions concerning the wonderful police forces of Italy and the
democratic apparatus of our state!
In Genoa something completely crazy has happened. They have now truly
inaugurated the new government...
And please keep in mind another small thing. It's about the dead young man.
You know the first version coming from the police headquarters before they
knew there was a video? He was killed by a stone thrown by another
demonstrator.
And if you note that a lot of evidence was destroyed during the raid of the
center of the Genoa Social Forum... you see that we are left with the
"reliable" information of the police forces.
Put this information across and please let it spread. Make flyers and talk
to people, the truth needs to be told! Tell your friends, your parents and
colleagues.
I beg you not to surrender to the other side
Thanks
Stefano
P.S. My brother is devastated. He said: ``It's crazy, we seem to be in Latin
America in the 70's''.
Perhaps not even he had completely understood with whom we had to deal and
what the government and the people in charge of the police forces would
actually dare to do.
-- Un due tre, viva Pinochet, quattro cinque sei, a morte gli ebrei, sette otto nove, il negretto non commuove, sieg heil apartheid Italian police in Genova, 2001
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