Genoa Nightmare

Claude Marks (claude@freedomarchives.org)

Possibly 3 Fatalities, 2 in Comas, Hundreds Beaten, Dozens Hospitalized,
200 Unaccounted for

I've finally escaped to what appears to be a safe place to try to
describe what I've seen in Genova. I say "appears" because its not at
all clear that the repression is over. The police are hunting down
activists all over the country, picking up 30 "suspected" anarchists
in a small town on Monday, beating and arresting people in Parma
yesterday while yelling "this is the end of your communism", and
raiding the homes of people's families as far away as Napoli. A van
with a radical theater troop was stopped and weapons and bombs
"discovered" on Monday, internationals are being detained while
trying to leave the country and bomb scares continue across Italy
(obviously orchestrated by the government and their neo-fascist
allies). As the attached report makes clear, this repression has not
been seen in "democratic" Europe since the 70s in Italy, and in fact
it reminds many people here of precisely that era.

Its very important that everybody wherever they are help to put
pressure on the Italian government to end the terror and release the
prisoners. One of the most disturbing things going on is beatings and
torture of prisoners. People being released now are leaving the jails
covered in blood, with talesof being forced to stand for as long as
12 hours in groups and being beaten if they attempted to sit. Police
spit in their face, threatened to kill them
and told them that they had called their parents and told them they
were dead. This has all been reported on Italian radio this morning.
There are approximately 200 people unaccounted for, so it is very
important for activists to find out if all of their comrades are
safe, since the police have been committing their worst atrocities
when they feel no one is
watching. Among the unaccounted for are several reported fatalities
and at least 2 women said to be in comas which the media has stopped
reporting.
Some people think that the government will only release the injured
when they don't look as brutalized and announce the dead when the
situation has "cooled off".

Right now the situation has not cooled off. More people marched in
the streets of cities around Italy than participated in Genoa. This
is a good sign that the terror and propaganda have not intimidated
everybody. Nevertheless, the only person who has had to resign his
post so far is the head of the Genoa Social Forum (the protest
umbrella group) who was head of the Italian AIDS association, the
police commander and secretary of the
interior are still in power despite the demands of the left. It
remains to be seen what will happen, but it is clear that if the
state and the G8 get away with this a terrifying threshhold has been
crossed.

The raid on the school on Saturday night has become more
controversial for the Berlusconi regime than the police murder of
Carlo Giulianni. Carlo has been vilified as an anarchist-squatter
"punka-bestia" (beast punk) by the Italian press and a "ne'er do well
who lived on the street with his dog" by the Financial Times. Since
he was attacking the police when he was shot his killing is
considered "justified" and his life expendable. The state was hoping
that they could also get away with the terror at the school, but it
appears they may have gone too far. The Diaz school was alleged by
the police to be the headquarters of the "international Black Bloc"
and thus fair game for reprisals. In fact, it was one of many spaces
donated by the city at the last minute to house the tens of thousands
of protestors in Genoa. While it may be true that some real Black
Bloc were there (more on
this later), it is important to remember that anyone (myself and
everyone I know included) could have been there when the bloodbath
began. I saw on TV one young man with a Catholic anti-debt shirt
being taken out, a 62 year old man who was inside on an errand was
beaten, and a reporter for a conservative Italian paper had both arms
broken. The government probably thought that after all their
propaganda about the Black Bloc that the public would accept this
treatment, but since the police violence was indiscriminate as it
always is it is more controversial.

The school assault was an attempt to critically injure and perhaps
even kill a group of dedicated activists who have been relentlessly
scapegaoated as "violent anarchists". There is no other way to
explain the viciousness of the assault. Police were allowed an entire
hour to beat people while the media and rescue workers were kept
outside. Without repeating the information from the other reports I
have sent I will mention just a few things which may not have been in
the media. As of this morning 30 people are still in intensive care,
at least 3 of whom are in serious and one in critical condition. Some
activists insist that one of the 2 body bags brought out for
psychological warfare (as described in the article) actually had a
body in it, but this is unconfirmed. It is very possible that the
police were seeking out certain people identified by the intelligence
forces of various countries (some German undercover officers were
recognized by German activists) who were then singled out for
crippling injuries. 42 of the 92 arrested were German, with the
others from Spain, France, and other countries (3 from the US). The
alleged "leader" of the British black block
is surrounded by 4 police officers around his hospital bed and three
others outside the room. Those seriously injured are being given
tranquilizers against their will under a law dating back from the
draconian Emergency anti-terrorist laws of the 70s. Police tried to
wash the blood off the walls, floors and radiators but couldn't get
all of it, and this has made for bad PR with the media here. Everyone
hospitalized (throughout the city) is also under arrest and those in
the school are being charged with resisting arrest and belonging to
an illegal organization (another 70s law - I'm not sure the wording).
According to the London Times, 5 of the 7 British arrested are facing
5 year prison sentences, so this should give some idea of the legal
nightmare to come. While most of the Carabinieri (police) are
very young and inexperienced (a point which has been used to
criticize the "unprofessionalism" of the handling of the
demonstrations) the police sent to the school were veteran national
police. The report I sent earlier said that some of them were
undercovers from the "fake black bloc" (more later) and that these
were the most brutal. The entire operation was conducted with
military precision, from the staged provocation to the ubiquitous
helicopters over the school and police checkpoints to round up the
escapees.
Simultaneous raids took place at most of the other sites associated
with the Movement, with the result that thousands of people (myself
included) spent a night of terror roaming the streets after having
had all of our possessions
destroyed at the "safe" spaces.

It is clear that military planners at the highest level orchestrated
this event with the intent of breaking the spirit of the movement .
Classical "psy-ops" tactics were used throughout. The whole thing is
being justified with a massive campaign of lies initiated well before
this week that the "violence" is initiated by the demonstrators (see
July 23 Newsweek for
example). Tony Blair's remarks, before the summit, that a more
"robust" response to protest was necessary, can be seen as a
softening up of the public for the planned repression. Finally, once
the riots started, the media is filled with images of property
destruction and very little of the violence wrought against human
bodies by the police. I am sure that the coverage in the US is much
worse, and is undoubtedly over now. In Italy, the
country in the overdeveloped world which has the civil society most
receptive to the Movement, Berlusconi's polls show that a majority of
people think the police were too tolerant. Hopefully this will change
once the truth of the police provocation comes out.

The previous article I sent documents the use of the fake black bloc
provocateurs in Genoa quite well. The provocation has had the desired
effect of causing many demonstrators to vilify the actual Black bloc
and anarchists in general, while persuading large numbers of the
public that the movementconsists solely of violent terrorists.
(Berlusoni's line is that the Genova Social Forum is a front for
violent anarchists, in sharp contrast to Clinton's line in Seattle
that we must separate the good protestors from the bad). The movement
must now deal with the question of police provocateurs as a matter of
high priority - and this means opening up a dialogue with militant
sectors of the movement which are now woefully inarticulate and
dangerously isolated. The fact is that Carlo Giulianni and many of
those
wounded and arrested are actual Black Bloc and anarchists - what a
disaster if the movement were to abandon its solidarity with them
because of a disagreement over tactics. Contrary to the media and
police lies, the black bloc and anarchists do not engage in mindless
violence or in actions which will endanger other demonstrators. While
most activists may disagree with them, the BB consistently targets
police, chain stores, jails and banks not small shops and the cars of
ordinary civilians, as happened in Genoa. Since
Seattle, the BB in north America has defended other protestors with
their bodies, not thrown rocks from the back of a crowd in a way that
would endanger them. Never has a black bloc physically attacked other
demonstrators, as happened in Genoa. In Genoa, too, it must be made
clear that the overwhelming majority of street fighting and much of
the property destruction was not done by the Black Bloc (real or
fake) but by "ordinary"
protestors who were acting in outrage and self-defense. All of these
points are being lost in the simplistic narrative that the Black Bloc
(infiltrated or not) caused all the violence in Genoa. The truth is
that the police initiated the violence in the time and place of their
choosing, sometimes using a fake black bloc other times through
unprovoked gassings and
beatings. But in Italy, which prior to Genoa did not have a US style
"violence\non-violence" debate, many thousands did in fact come
prepared to confront the police and damage corporate property.

By not making their politics clear, militant anarchists have made
themselves vulnerable to police provocation, most people in Italian
or American society will believe ANYTHING about them. The spate of
fake "anarchist" bomb scares over the last 2 weeks creates an even
more frightening pretext for acrackdown on radicals.

The crackdown on radicals is already here and it will undoubtedly be
global. For this reason, it is important not to abandon "alleged
anarchists" to the brutality of the state even if we may disagree
with their tactics. The blitz on the school shows that the G8 and
capital have now unleashed Latin America or Indonesia style fascist
techniques against those who it has effectively marginalized, and we
must not allow this to happen. The G8 and capital are clearly
counting on the movement splitting over tactical lines, with mutual
recriminations and distrust between militants and the mainstream that
will poison the joyful and powerful atmosphere that has characterised
the last few years.

For militants, the lessons are different. The Black Bloc strategy is
obviously finished, as it is clear that the state will continue to
use provocateurs in the manner that was so successful in Genoa. It
may be that de-escalation of militancy would be a wise move, now that
capital has shown that it will sacrifice its figleaf of democracy in
its desire to (literally) kill the movement. Nothing could be worse
now than for militants to go underground, as happened in the 70s -
this is exactly what the state hopes for, what the "strategy of
tension" is all about. The hope for the movement is that it has the
discipline and courage to continue to grow, make connections and
sharpen its analysis, as the G8 and capital have demonstrated that
they have given up trying to defend themselves intellectually and
have resorted to pure terror. I have seen here that, despite
everything, the spirit of the movement is not broken, but a whole new
phase is beginning.

Hasta sempre,

Eddie