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Title: The Unwanted Children of Capital Author: Anonymous Date: 2006 Language: en Topics: Immigration, Immigrants, prisoners, Elephant Editions Source: https://archive.elephanteditions.net/library/the-unwanted-children-of-capital Notes: Elephant Editions 2006. Elephant / Detritus series 2017.
What is a CPT (the Italian for immigration detention centre)? It is a
place where the Italian State locks up all immigrants (children, women
and men) who do not have stay permits. It is a modern concentration camp
where undesirables are confined before being deported.
Immigration detention centres exist all over fortress Europe, as the
bosses establish that only certain immigrants are allowed to stay; the
others, those whose face doesnât fit and cannot be exploited as cheap
labour, are locked up in prisons especially created for them and held
until they are deported. They are âguiltyâ of coming from lands where
mere surviving is impossible, owing to famine and war, desertification
and ecological disasters, industrial reorganisation and mass dismissal.
To imprison people escaping from devastated countries is an infamy,
regardless of the treatment the prisoners are given. The latter,
however, is far from being respectful of so-called âhuman rightsâ; hence
the many protests organised by associations and even leftist political
party members, which started showing their dissent only when the infamy
became too obvious. After all, the CPTs were introduced in Italy by a
leftwing government and were initially supported by many of those who
now express their pacific indignation towards them.
On the contrary, angry protesters, disgusted by the fact that human
beings are imprisoned simply because they are foreigners, poor and
without the right documents, have been struggling fiercely against the
CPTs since their introduction in 1998.
This struggle led to the arrest of five anarchists in Lecce, southern
Italy, in May 2005. They had chosen not to delegate their protest to any
expert or politician, on the contrary they had gone outside the local
immigration concentration camp (the Regina Pacis in San Foca) thousands
of times and shouted their solidarity to the imprisoned immigrants,
openly denounced those responsible for the detention centre, where the
prisoners were inflicted all kinds of abuse and violence, and had
declared their hatred towards racism and confinement, exploitation and
the exclusion of the poor. The detention centre in San Foca was closed
down after the director was charged with private violence and
embezzlement, but two of our comrades are still in jail and another two
are under house arrest.
This pamphlet presents a few contributions concerning the struggle
against the CPTs in Italy and actions carried out in other countries in
solidarity with imprisoned immigrants and with the anarchists arrested
in Lecce.
âTo the Immigrantsâ, which introduces the discussion, offers an insight
into the question of immigration, the concept of âillegal immigrantâ (or
âclandestineâ, as they say in Italy), the creation of the immigration
detention centres and the possible way of arriving at the destruction of
both these hideous prisons and the machinery of expulsion.
If on the one hand immigration detention centres are the products of
this society-prison where social control has penetrated all aspects of
our life and where entire masses of poor have become useless to the
bosses, on the other hand the responsibilities for the immigration
centres are quite concrete and specific and we do not intend to turn a
blind eye to them. We do not want these centres to be more human and
respectful of rights and laws. We want them to be razed to the ground,
and thatâs that.
FREE SALVATORE, SAVERIO, CRISTIAN, MARINA
FREE ALL IMMIGRANTS
NO BORDERS, NO PRISONS
random anarchists
We asked for labour power, men came.
Max Frisch
No one emigrates from their country for pleasure â this is a simple
truth that many want to hide. If someone leaves their land and loved
ones peacefully, we donât define them migrants, but simply travellers or
tourists. Migration is a coercive form of moving, a roaming in search of
better living conditions.
At the moment there are 150 million âforeignersâ around the world due to
wars, ecological disasters, famine, or simply the management of
industrial production (the destruction of countryside and forests, mass
lay-offs, and so on). All these aspects form a mosaic of oppression and
misery in which the effects of exploitation become more or less direct
causes of suffering and uprooting in a never ending spiral that makes
any distinction between âdisplacedâ, âmigrantsâ, asylum seekers,
refugees, survivors, hypocritical. Just think how social so-called
ecological emergencies (lack of water, growing desertification, field
sterility) are: the explosion of an oil refinery, together with the
destruction of every local autonomy on which it rested, can sometimes
change the fate of an entire population.
Contrary to what racist propaganda would have us believe, only 17% of
immigration concerns the rich North, it involves all continents (the
African and Asian ones in particular); that means that for every poor
country there is one that immigrants are running away from. The total
mobilization imposed by the economy and States is a planetary symptom,
an undeclared civil war that crosses every national border: millions of
exploited people roam through the hell of the commercial heaven, jolted
from border to border, forced into refugee camps, surrounded by police
and army, handled by so-called charity organisations â partners in
tragedies whose causes they donât denounce for the mere purpose of
exploiting the consequences â piled up in âwaiting zonesâ in airports or
stadiums (macabre circenses for those who donât even have bread), locked
up in concentration camps called âdetention centresâ and, finally,
packaged and expelled in the most total indifference. For many reasons
we could say that the face of these unwelcome people is the face of our
time â and thatâs also why weâre so afraid of them. Immigrants scare us
because in their misery we can see the reflection of our own, because in
their wanderings we recognise our daily condition: the condition of
persons who feel more and more like strangers both to this world and to
themselves.
Uprooting is the most widespread condition in our present society â we
might call it its centre â not a threat coming from a terrifying and
mysterious elsewhere. Only by directing our gaze at our daily lives can
we understand what gets all of us into the condition of immigrants.
First though we must define a fundamental concept: that of
clandestinity.
[...] what are you? [...] You are not of this
castle, you are not of this village, you are
nothing. But you are something too,
unfortunately, you are a foreigner, someone
that is always inopportune and in the way,
one that brings a lot of troubles, [...] whose
intentions no one knows.
F. Kafka
An alien is simply someone who doesnât have regular papers. And this is
certainly not due to the pure pleasure of risk or illegality, but rather
because in the majority of cases, in order to own such papers he or she
would have to give certain guarantees the possession of which wouldnât
have made them aliens in the first place, but simply tourists or foreign
students. If the same standards were forced on everybody, millions would
have been thrown overboard. Which unemployed Italian, for instance,
could give the guarantee of a legal wage? What about all the precarious
people here who work for temporary job agencies, whose contracts are not
even worth a visa for immigrants? And by the way, are there as many
Italians living in a 60 squares metres flat with no more than two other
people? If we read all these decrees (from both the left and the right
wing) about immigration, it will be clear that clandestinization is a
precise project of States. Why?
An illegal immigrant is easier to blackmail, to make accept, under the
threat of expulsion, even more hateful conditions of work and existence
(precariousness, endless wandering, makeshift accommodation, and so on).
With the threat of the police, bosses obtain tame wage slaves, or rather
real forced labour workers. Even the most reactionary and xenophobic
right wing parties are perfectly aware that hermetically closed borders
are not only technically impossible, but are also not profitable.
According to the United Nations, in order to keep the present âbalance
between active and inactive populationâ, from here to 2025, Italy should
âtakeâ inside its borders a quantity of immigrants five times the
present yearly fixed amount. The bosses, in fact, continuously suggests
doubling the quantity fixed so far.
The granting or rejection of year-long or season-long permits
contributes to creating a specific social hierarchy among the poor. The
same distinction between immediate forced repatriation and expulsion (or
the obligation, for an irregular immigrant, who shows up at the borders
to be sent back home) allows them to choose who to make clandestine or
to expel right away â a choice based on ethnic principles,
economical-political agreement with the governments of the countries the
immigrant comes from and the needs of the labour market. In fact, the
authorities are perfectly aware that no one will ever spontaneously show
up at the border to be expelled; surely not people who have spent all
that they owned â sometimes even more â to pay for their trip here.
Businessmen define the features of the goods they buy (immigrants are
goods, like everything else after all), the State records data, police
carry out orders.
Warnings of politicians and mass media, anti-immigration claims build up
imaginary enemies to drive the local exploited to lay the growing social
tension on an easy scapegoat and reassure them, letting them admire the
show of poor and even more precarious and blackmailed people than
themselves, and allow them to feel part of a ghost called Nation. Making
âirregularityâ â the very irregularity that they create â synonymous
with crime and danger, States justify police control and the
criminalisation of a class conflict that is getting more and more
seditious. In this context, for instance, should be seen the
manipulation of consensus after September 11, summed up in the
despicable slogan âclandes-tine=terroristâ which combines, if read in
both senses, racist paranoia with the demand for repression against the
enemy within (rebels, subversives).
They shout out, from the right as well as the left, against the Mafia
that organises the journeys for clandestine people (described by the
media as an invasion, a scourge, the advance of an army), when itâs
their very laws that promoted them. They shout out against âorganised
crimeâ exploiting so many immigrants (which is true but only partially),
when itâs they who supply it with desperate and ready-for-anything
resources. In their historical symbiosis, State and Mafia stand united
by the same liberal principle: business is business.
Racism, a means for economic and political necessity, finds room to
spread in a context of generalised standardisation and isolation, when
insecurity creates fears that can be opportunely manipulated. A moral or
cultural condemnation of racism is of little use, since it is not an
opinion or an argument, but psychological misery, an âemotional plagueâ.
Itâs in the present social conditions that the reason of its spreading
ought to be sought and also, at the same time, the power to fight it.
To call the detention camps for immigrants waiting for expulsion Lagers
â centres introduced in Italy in 1998 by the left wing government by
mean of the Turco-Napolitano law â is not rhetorical emphasis, as most
of those who use this formula think. It is a strict definition. Nazi
Lagers were concentration camps where people thought by the police to be
dangerous for State security were locked up, even in the absence of
criminally indictable behaviour. This precautionary measure â defined as
âprotective detentionâ â consisted in taking all civil and political
rights away from certain citizens. Whether they were refugees, Jewish,
gypsy, homosexuals or subversives, it was up to the police, after months
or years, to decide what to do about them. So Lagers were not jails in
which to expiate some crime, nor an extension of criminal law. They were
camps where the Rule set its exception; in short terms, a legal
suspension of legality. Therefore a Lager is not a consequence of the
number of internees or of the number of murders (between 1935 and 1937,
before the start of Jewish deportations, in Germany internees numbered
7500), but rather of its political and juridical nature.
Immigrants nowadays end up in the Centres irrespective of possible
crimes, without any criminal trial whatsoever: their internment, ordered
by the police superintendents, are a simple police measure. Just as
happened in 1940 under the Vichy government, when prefects could lock up
all the individuals considered a âdanger for national defence and public
securityâ or (mind this) âforeigners in respect to the national
economyâ. We can refer to administrative detention in French Algeria, to
the South Africa of apartheid or to the present ghettos for Palestinians
created by the State of Israel.
It is not a coincidence that, with regard to the infamous conditions of
detention centres, the good democrats donât appeal to the respect for
any law at all, but to respect for human rights â the last mask in the
face of women and men to whom nothing remains but belonging to the human
species. Itâs not possible to integrate them as citizens, so they are
falsely integrated as Human Beings. The abstract equality of principles
hides real inequalities everywhere.
Immigrants that landed on Battery Park for the first time soon realized
that what they had been told about the marvelous America wasnât true at
all:
Maybe the land belonged to everybody, but the first come had largely
served themselves already, and to them there was nothing left but to
crowd together in dozens in windowless hovels of the Lower East Side and
work fifteen hours a day. Turkeys didnât fall roasted straight into the
dishes and the streets of New York werenât paved with gold. Most of the
times, they werenât paved at all. And then they realised that it was
precisely to get them to pave these streets that they had been allowed
to come. And to dig tunnels and canals, to build roads, bridges, big
embankments, railroads, to clear forests, to exploit mines and caves, to
make cars and cigars, carabines and clothes, shoes, chewing gum,
corned-beef and soap, and to build skyscrapers higher than the ones they
discovered when they first arrived.
Georges Perec
If we take a few steps back, it will become clear that uprooting is a
crucial moment in the expansion of the State and capitalist domination.
At its dawn, industrial production drew the exploited away from the
country and villages to round them up in the city. The ancient skills of
farm workers and artisans were thereby substituted with the forced and
repetitive activity of the factory â an activity that was impossible, in
its means and its finalities, for the new proletarians to control. So
the first children of industrialization lost both their ancient spaces
of life and their ancient knowledge, that which had allowed them to
autonomously provide for the most part of their means of subsistence. On
the other hand, forcing millions of men and women to similar living
conditions (same places, same problems, same knowledge), capitalism
unified their struggles, got them to find new brothers and sisters to
fight against that same unbearable life. The 20th century marked the
apex of this productive and State gathering, whose symbols had been the
factory-neighbourhood and the Lager, and at the same time the apex of
the more radical social struggles for its destruction. In the last
twenty years, due to technological innovation, capital has substituted
the old factory with new productive cores ever smaller and more widely
distributed throughout the territory, also breaking up the fabric of the
society within which those fights had grown, thereby creating a new
uprooting.
Thereâs more. Technological reorganisation has made trade faster and
easier, opening the whole world to the most ferocious competition,
overthrowing the economies and ways of life of entire Countries. So, in
Africa, Asia, South America, there has been the closure of many
factories and mass lay offs. Within a social context that has been
destroyed by colonisation, by the deportation of inhabitants from their
villages to the shantytowns, from their fields to the assembly lines,
all this has produced a crowd of poor people who have become useless to
their masters: the unwanted children of capitalism. Add to this the fall
of the self-styled communist Countries and the debt racket initiated by
the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and we will get quite a
faithful cartography of migration and ethnical and religious wars.
What we now call âflexibilityâ and âprecariousnessâ is the consequence
of all this: further progress in the submission to machines, fiercer
competition, a worsening of material conditions (trade, health,
etcetera). Weâve seen the reason why: capitalism has dismantled the
community that it created. Anyway it would be partial to see
precariousness in an economic sense alone, as the lack of a steady work
place and the old pride for professionalism. It is isolation inside
standardisation, or a fanatical conformity with a lack of common spaces.
In the distressing void of meaning and perspectives, the unfulfilled
need of community returns, mystified, giving birth to new nationalistic,
ethnical or religious counter-positions, a tragic re-proposition of
collective identities exactly where any real communality among
individuals has diminished. And itâs exactly within this void that the
fundamentalist argument finds its place, a false promise of a redeemed
community.
All this leads to a scenario that is more and more that of an ongoing
civil war, with no distinction between âtime of peaceâ and âtime of
warâ. Conflicts are no longer declared â as the military intervention in
the Balkans has shown â, but simply administrated to grant the
establishment of the World Order. This endless fight goes through the
entire society and the very individuals. Common spaces for dialogue and
struggles are substituted by adherence to similar commercial models. The
poor go to war against each other for a fashionable sweater or a hat,
since the possession or not of particular goods creates the illusion of
a social or clan-like hierarchy. Individuals feel more and more
irrelevant, so ready to sacrifice themselves to the first nationalist
blunderbuss or for whatever flag. Abused daily by the State, here they
come zealously defending any piece of land (desolated and polluted, with
factories and malls everywhere â is this the âland of the
forefathersâ?). Tied to that mirage of property that is left to them,
they are scared to face themselves for what they really are:
interchangeable gears of the Megamachine, in need of psychotropic drugs
to get to the end of the day, always more envious towards anyone who
even just looks happier than themselves. To an always colder, more
abstract and more calculating rationality, correspond increasingly
brutal and untold drives. So, what better than someone different by the
colour of the skin or religion to throw their grudge upon? As a man from
Mozambique said, âpeople have taken war inside themâ. A few external
conditions can be enough for all this to explode, just like in Bosnia.
And these conditions are being carefully prepared. Ethnic particularism
opposes itself to capital-ist Universalism in a tragic game of mirrors.
Under institutional order, with increasingly anonymous and controlled
places, the implosion of human relationships lies concealed. It all
looks like the same quicksand from whence totalitarian man arose in the
30âs.
Why have we talked so much about immigration and racism, as we are not
directly touched by problems of wandering and expulsion? Dictated by
some of its peculiarities such as precariousness and the impossibility
to decide for the present, this same capitalism is joining our lives
more and more: thatâs why we feel like brothers, in deed, with all the
exploited who land on the shores of this Country.
In the face of the despoliation of millions of individuals towards a
commercial imperialism that is forcing everybody to dream the same
lifeless dream, there can be no appeal to dialogue or to democratic
integration. Whatever the legalistic anti-racists might say, itâs too
late for hypocritical civic education classes. When the fields in which
misery is confined â from the shantytowns of Caracas to the suburbs of
Paris, from the Palestinian territories to centres and stadia where
aliens are locked up â are growing everywhere; when the state of
exception â or the juridical suspension of every right â becomes the
rule; when millions of human beings are literally left rotting in the
reserves of the capitalist heaven; when entire neighbourhoods are
getting militarised and armed (Genova doesnât tell you anything?), to
merely talk about immigration becomes a despicable joke. There are only
two ways out from these conditions of desperation and fear, from this
planetary civil war: the fraticidal clash (religious and clannish in all
its manifestations), or the social tempest of class war.
Racism is the grave of every exploited individualâs fight against the
exploiters, itâs the last trick â the dirtiest â played by those who
would like to see ourselves killing one another. It can only evaporate
in moments of common revolt, when we recognise our real enemies â the
exploiters and their servants â and we recognise ourselves as exploited
individuals that no longer want to be so. The social fight that took
place in Italy during the 60âs and 70âs â when young workers immigrated
from the South met those in the North in the field of sabotage, wild
strikes and absolute disloyalty to the firm â has shown. The
disappearance of the revolutionary struggles after the 70âs (from
Nicaragua to Italy, from Portugal to Germany, from Poland to Iran) has
crumbled the foundation of concrete solidarity among the dis-possessed
of the World. This solidarity will only be conquered again in the
revolt, and not in the powerless words of the new Thirdworlders or the
democratic anti-racists.
So, either religious and clannish massacre, or class war. And at the end
of this we can only catch a glimpse of a world free from State and money
in which thereâll be no need for money to live and no visa required to
travel.
A slogan in the 80âs said: âItâs not the noise of the boot that should
scare us today, but the silence of the slipperâ. Now theyâre both coming
back. With a holy war speech (the police as âarmy of goodâ protecting
citizens from the âarmy of evilâ, as the Prime Minister said recently),
day after day the State conceals its essence at the expense of
immigrants. Their homes are devastated, aliens are rounded up in the
streets, locked up in Lagers and expelled in total indifference. New
detention camps are already under construction in many cities. The State
wants to limit the number of visas according to the exact length of work
contracts, blacklist all immigrants, make being clandestine a crime and
re-inforce deportation. The democratic mechanism of rights and
citizenship, wide as that might be, will always presuppose the existence
of excluded people. To criticise and try to prevent expulsions signifies
realising a critique of racism and nationalism in act; it means creating
a common space for revolt against the capitalist uprooting that affects
us all; it means obstructing a hateful and essential re-pressive
mechanism; it means breaking the silence and indifference of the
civilized ones who stand looking on; lastly, it means confronting the
very concept of law with the principle âwe are all aliensâ. Finally, it
signifies an attack on one of the pillars of the State and class
society: competition between the poor and the in-creasingly seditious
substitution of social war with ethnic or religious wars.
In order to function the expulsion framework requires the collaboration
of many public and private structures (from the Red Cross which
cooperates in the manage-ment of Lagers, to companies which supply
services, to airline companies which deport aliens, to the airports that
put up waiting zones, to self-styled charity asso-ciations that operate
in collaboration with the police). All those responsible can easily be
seen and attacked. From actions against detention camps (as happened a
couple of years ago in Belgium and a few months ago in Australia, when
demonstrations ended up with the liberation of some clandestine
immigrants) to those against âwaiting zonesâ (as in France, against the
Ibis hotels chain that supplies the police with rooms) or obstructing
the flights of infamy (in Frankfurt, the sabotage of optic fibre cables
some years ago put all the computers of an airport out of order for a
couple of days), there are thousands of activities that a movement
against expulsion can carry out.
Today like never before itâs in the street that itâs possible to rebuild
class solidarity. Only in the complicity against police raids, in the
struggle against the military occupation of neighbourhoods, in the firm
rejection of every division that the masters of society want to impose
on us (nationals and foreigners, legal immigrants and aliens), aware
that every outrage suffered by any dispossessed on Earth is an outrage
to everyone, will the exploited from a thousand countries be able to
recognise themselves.
5 anarchists were arrested in Lecce on the 12th May [2005] following the
usual investigations for âconspiracyâ. âCapolinea Occupatoâ, the
anarchist squat in Lecce, has been raided and closed down.
These comrades, well known for their continuous, strong and
uncompromising struggle against the detention camp for immigrants, were
becoming a real pain in the neck. Detention camps are true concentration
camps, even if the language of the State calls them âtemporary stay
centresâ, and the brutality of the local âRegina Pacisâ towards
immigrants emerged so clearly that its director, priest Cesare
Lodeserto, has ended up in jail. Added to this, a great number of
imprisoned immigrants have started to revolt bravely and firmly, so the
voice of those who have been denouncing the crimes of the whole system
of immigration had to be silenced.
The comrades have been accused of attacking âRegina Pacisâ property and
its financial supporters, of sabotaging a few Esso petrol stations and
carrying out direct action against a number of Benetton shops.
We do not care if they are innocent or guilty, for us what is right
cannot be found in the penal code. If they are innocent they can count
on our solidarity. If they are guilty they can count on it even more. To
struggle against people who lock up men and women whose only âcrimeâ is
that they are poor and without the right papers; to present a small bill
to those who get rich thanks to the genocide in Iraq (Esso) or by
deporting Mapuche people (Benetton): these are practises we totally
agree with. The attack on the exploited is always the same: bombardment,
detention camps, banks, multinationals, etc. etc.
The same day as our comrades in Lecce were arrested, police in Turin
raided and evicted a gypsy camp, killed a man from Senegal at a road
block, caused another immigrant to die while he was attempting to
escape. You think thatâs enough? Well, itâs not.
Immigrants in via Corelli camp (Milan) have been on hunger strike for
weeks, protesting on the roof and shouting out their desire for freedom.
Meantime, hundreds of the refugees arriving in Italy are imprisoned in
âwelcome centresâ from which they soon try to escape at any cost
These are the cries from the remains of a rotten world in ruins. We can
pretend not to hear them. We can hypocritically celebrate the struggle
against nazi-fascism without realizing that concentration camps are part
of the present, not the past. We can find shelter in respect for the
law, the same law that is waved at millions of âundesirablesâ.
Alternatively, we can decide to stand up and find the sense of what is
right in ourselves, using hands and hearts.
We can either hide or fight.
The best way to solidarise with the Lecce anarchists is to carry on the
struggle to close the detention camps and stop the machinery of
expulsion.
For a world without borders.
On the trial of the Lecce anarchists and their struggle against the Cpt
The trial against 13 anarchists began on January 19. As well as a series
of actions against some of the multinationals that get rich on war and
genocide they are accused of the crime of having carried out a constant
and determined struggle against the concentration camps for immigrants
in San Foca. Two of them have been in prison since May 12 2005, another
two are under house arrest, a fourth is on bail. Once again this trial
is based on article 270bis or âconspiracy with terrorist aimsâ, with
which dozens of revolutionaries, rebels or simply left-wing militants
have been arrested over recent years without a trace of proof. Nowadays
a slogan on the wall is enough to be accused of âsubversive associationâ
(conspiracy).
But that is not what we really want to say here. We know that the laws
of the State are spidersâ webs for the rich and steel chains for the
poor, just as we have never looked for any sense of justice in the
articles of the law books. We want to point out what makes these
anarchists dangerous and what there is that is universal in their
struggle. There has been a lot of talk about CPT [Centri di Permanenza
Temporanea , i.e. Detention Centres] over the past months. Since some
investigative journalism has reported on the inhuman conditions that
women and men are surviving under in these structures, the various
political forces have come to blows over who is responsible for such
âmanagementâ. But the point is not how the CPT are being managed, so
much as the very nature of these institutions. Introduced in Italy in
1998 by the centre-left government with the Turco-Napolitano law
(approved also with votes from the Greens and Rifondazione Comunista),
the CPT are to all effects concentration camps. Exactly like the fascist
and nazi concentration camps (and before them the colonial ones, in Cuba
and South Africa), these are places where people are locked up and held
at the total discretion of the police, without having committed any
crime. Conditions inside are desperate. The disgusting food and ill
treatment are terrible consequences, but they are not the main problem.
It doesnât take much to realise that.
What for an Italian is a simple âadministrative misdemeanorâ (not having
documents), has become a crime worthy of internment for foreigners. As
history teaches us â it is enough to think of the racist laws of all the
States between the two world wars â in order for such concentration
camps to exist it is necessary to establish the equation foreigner =
delinquent. That is how the legislation on immigration â by both right
and left â should be understood in Italy (but we could say in Europe and
the world). If the same criteria were applied to so-called citizens as
that which immigrants require in order to be conceded a stay permit,
millions of us would be locked up or forced to live in clandestinity.
How many Italians can demonstrate that they have work âaccording to the
rulesâ? How many live more than three to a flat of 60 square metres?
Knowing that temporary contracts are not valid for obtaining a stay
permit, how many of us would turn out to be âregularâ? It is not
rhetoric to define all that State racism, it is a necessary observation.
Now, the CPT (but more generally all forms of administrative detention,
including the identification centres or âwaiting areasâ in which
refugees or those seeking political asylum are held) are the realisation
of this racism. Barbed wire has been the symbol of concentration camps
and totalitarian oppression for sixty years, and power has surrounded
these new camps with the same in its involuntary coherence. Just as it
is no coincidence that administrative detention, a device typical of
colonial dominion, is spreading all over the world today (from the
Palestinian ghettos to Guantanamo, from the secret British ones where
immigrants âsuspected of terrorismâ are locked up, to the Italian CPT).
At a time when bombing and massacring is being carried out in the name
of âhuman rightsâ, millions of undesirables are being brutally deprived
of any ârightsâ and are detained in camps surrounded by police and
entrusted to the âcareâ of some âhumanitarian organisationâ.
If the CPT are concentration camps â as many now agree â it is quite
logical to try to destroy them and to help the women and men interned in
them to escape. And it is quite logical to strike the collaborators who
build or manage them. This is what the Lecce anarchists thought. Amidst
widespread indifference, they publicly denounced the responsibility of
the direction of the CPT of San Foca â that is the Lecce catholic
church, through the foundation âRegina Pacisâ â and the infamous
conditions the prisoners were subjected to. They gathered first hand
accounts, data, and they organised themselves. They have become a thorn
in the side of the church and local power. Already in the summer of 2004
one of them was arrested for trying to help some immigrants escape
during a revolt that broke out inside âRegina Pacisâ. Then they went to
the village markets and made known the names and surnames of the agents
responsible for the beatings inside the CPT, the doctors who covered
them up, as well as the director who beat them, kidnapped and forced
muslims to eat pork. Without ever losing sight of their objective: to
close these concentration camps for ever, not to make them âmore
humaneâ.
While all this was happening, some anonymous actions struck the banks
that financed the CPT, as well as church property and that of the
director of âRegina Pacisâ, Don Cesare Lodeserto. And the anarchists
were quick to praise them publicly. The authorities could no longer hide
the problem. So what did they do? First they arrested Lodeserto on
charges of kidnapping, embezzlement, private violence and spreading
tendentious and false news (the prelate sent himself threatening
messages which he then attributed to âAlbanese criminal elementsâ), then
they had the San Foca CPT shut down. Lodeserto was put under house
arrest, then released. They then arrested the anarchists with the aim of
getting them out of the way for years. Important people strongly
defended the priest. For the most part, those who defended the
anarchists were simply honest previous offenders.
Justice has been done... But something doesnât tally. The tower of
accusations against the rebels is clumsy and tottering, but above all,
struggles against the CPT are gaining ground all over Italy.. In April
the internees of the concentration camps in via Corelli in Milan climb
on to the roof, they cut themselves and shout the most universal of all
demands: freedom! After them, the immigrants interned in the CPT of
Corso Brunelleschi in Turin, then the protest spreads to Bologna, Rome,
Crotone. Dozens manage to escape, while outside practical support for
the struggle begins to self-organise. Along with posters and initiatives
denouncing the responsibilities of those who get rich on the deportation
of immigrants (from Alitalia to the Red Cross, from the transport
companies to the private firms implicated in the management of the
camps), small acts of sabotage start to spread. With that spontaneous
convergence that is the secret of all struggles, the crimes that the
Lecce anarchists are accused of begin to multiply.
It is this movement â still weak, but it is growing â that has publicly
exposed the problem of the CPT, making left wing politicians run for
cover in their pathetic attempt to attribute full responsibility for the
concentration camps to the right wing government. That all this annoys
them is demonstrated in the declarations of home minister Pisanu
concerning anarchists and antagonists who âinciteâ the immigrants (as if
the inhuman conditions they are living in was not a constant incitement)
and on the need of the CPT to contrast âterrorismâ (itâs a well known
fact that anyone wanting to pass police controls in order to carry out
an attack goes around without papers).
Why?
The CPT lay bare the fact that exclusion and violence are the foundation
of democracy. They also expose the profound links between a permanent
state of war, racism and the militarisation of society. It is no
coincidence that the Red Cross is present alongside the army in war and
is at the same time implicated in the numerous concentration camps in
Italy. Just as it is no coincidence that it participates in the
âantiterroristâ exercises with which the government wants to accustom us
to war and catastrophe.
The criminalisation of the foreigner â scapegoat of the collective
malaise â has always been a distinctive feature of dying societies and
at the same time a precise project of exploitation. If they did not live
in terror of being locked up and sent back home â where war, hunger,
desperation often await them â immigrants without papers certainly
wouldnât work for two euros an hour on the building sites of some Great
Work, or die and have some cement poured over them when they fall from
the scaffolding. Progress needs them: that is why they are made
clandestine but not all are expelled. They are âwelcomedâ in the
concentration camps, they are sorted, selected on the basis of
agreements with their various countries of origin and according to the
amount of docility they show the boss. What awaits them is the
reflection of a society at war (against economic and political rivals,
against populations, against oneâs own natural limitations).
One of the first victims of this whole mobilisation is language. The
current use of expressions such as âhumanitarian warâ â or for a
concentration camp to be called a âwelcome centreâ â says a lot about
the deviation between the horror that surrounds us and the words they
use to describe it. And at the same time this deviation anaesthetises
the conscience. We call the CPTs âconcentration campsâ then we go and
vote for those who built them, we talk about âmassacreâ but we are
content to march peacefully against war, so long as nothing happens.
While the oceanic demonstration was taking place on the 25th April in
Milan, the rebels of via Corelli were on the rooftops shouting that the
resistance isnât over, but the rhetoric of âliberationâ did not budge an
inch, it carried on celebrating.
Perhaps something is changing. While State propaganda is equalizing the
enemy within â the rebel, the âterroristâ, the Stranger, the fanatic,
the kamikaze -, the resistance is arming itself and the âsuburbsâ two
steps from here, where the poor are burning the last illusions of
integration in this society, are exploding. Generous young people mean
concentration camps when they say it, and they organise as a result,
like foreigners in a foreign world. They are disposed to conquer freedom
along with the others, even at the risk of losing their own. They hate
prisons, to the point that they do not even wish them on the worst swine
(the many, too many, Lodesertos). These forms of active discontent are
spreading at a distance, but they already bear a trace of something in
common. False words are mutinying, and new behaviour is unleashing new
words into the reality of daily life..
We will not abandon to the revenge of the judges those who did not stay
in safety when others were overcome by the tempest. In these sad and
servile times, one choice contains all the others: which side are you
on?
EXPEDIENTS TO KEEP THE âCRIMINALSâ WHO STRUGGLE AGAINST IMMIGRATION
DETENTION CAMPS AND THE WORLD THAT PRODUCES THEM BEHIND BARS
One year ago, on May 12 2005, five anarchists are arrested and 13 more
are under investigation in Lecce, southern Italy, in the course of the
operation âNottetempoâ. The accusation for all of them is âsubversive
association aimed at subverting the democratic orderâ (article 270bis of
the Italian penal code), which is always used to repress any attempt to
react against the ruthless system based on exploitation. The specific
charges they are accused of, that is to say the methods of this
non-existent subversive project, are some damage to a number of cash
machines of Banca Intesa (where the catholic foundation Regina Pacis,
which ran the immigration detention camp in San Foca, had their account)
some writing on walls, a few âthreateningâ telephone calls, the side
door of the Duomo in Lecce damaged by fire, and the severing of two Esso
petrol pipes (which have been the targets of acts of sabotage all over
Italy owing to Essoâs responsibility in the genocide in Iraq).
Anyone who considers himself/herself antiracist couldnât fail to agree
with the above-mentioned actions, we donât care if our comrades carried
them out or not.
This operation, which is part of wider repression sparked off by Home
secretary Pisanu against anarchists at a national level, finds itself in
a particular local context where the powerful, involved in a turbid
mixture of political, clerical and mafioso power, are longing to silence
the individuals who, armed with tenacious determination, have disturbed
their sleep.
The anarchists on trial had for years been passionately engaged in an
unreserved struggle against the immigration detention camp (CPT) in San
Foca run by the Church and managed by a priest, father Cesare Lodeserto,
the archbishopâs right hand man. Solidarity towards persecuted, locked
up and deported migrants, and radical opposition to all CPTs, which they
denounced for what they are (modern concentration camps for immigrants
without stay permits), and to the violence perpetrated in the one in
Lecce in particular, have disturbed the managers and collaborators of
the latter to such a point that it was soon clear that the local mafia
would threaten the anarchists.
Obviously, the jailer priest was in a great hurry to see that his
misdeeds didnât come to light and he was scared. But the mafia didnât
intervene directly; the priest waited and his patience was awarded.
Shortly before the arrests, the CPT had to close down owing to
continuous uprisings and protests that broke out inside, and to public
indignation (only temporary) aroused by the news of the violence
inflicted by the priest-boss-manager who was accused and arrested (only
for a few days of course) following a number of charges such as private
violence, kidnapping, embezzlement, and extortion. Revenge soon
followed: one month later the anarchists were arrested and a media
campaign, with its following of political jackals, was launched against
them. The double attack of the State â against father Cesare on the one
hand and the anarchists on the other â has given some an impression of a
âdemocratic attitudeâ in the intervention of the judiciary; as if it was
a matter of enemies of equal dignity fighting on opposite sides (see
historical revisionism).
Father Cesare Lodeserto is now running a number of centres in Moldovia,
an area of crucial importance in Europe for weapons, drugs and organ
trafficking and where his foundation is the only foreign organisation
that the local government allows. He can still be seen walking in the
streets of Lecce escorted by police and a swarm of priests. He is
cheered by all the institutional parties.
One year has also passed for the arrested anarchists, who are being held
in jail or under house arrest waiting for the end of the trial
(preventive arrest). Two of them are continuously moved to and from
Voghera and Sulmona prisons respectively to the one in Lecce in order to
attend the hearings of the trial, three others are under house arrest (a
female comrade who had been released on bail in August is to be put
under house arrest again as the Cassation accepted an appeal presented
by the public prosecutor).
The trial, which not by chance started precisely when the time limit for
preventive arrest was coming to an end, has been going on since January
19 2006.
The hearings follow one another with the debating of bureaucratic
questions, formalities and postponements: cynical and cunning expedients
to keep the comrades in prison. It is sufficient to attend any one of
these hearings to realise that it is a farce performed with the
complicity of the various powers involved.
Against the State, the Church and the Mafia.
Enemies of all racism
The sixth hearing of the trial against the Lecce anarchists took place
on May 19.
First of all the judge claimed that a number of comrades who had worn
T-shirts that all together composed the words âEVERYBODY FREEâ at the
end of the previous hearing, were banned from attending future hearings
in court.
Then the first witness, chief of the Digos (political police) in Lecce,
was questioned by the public prosecutor. The latter, who wanted to
demonstrate at all costs that the defendants were dangerous to society,
tried to make the Digos chief say things that he was unable to
articulate, with the result that the officer gave a very poor
performance, like a student who hadnât studied the lesson.
The Digos chief went on to claim that anarchy was initially a pacific
doctrine, which became subversive and dangerous following the
introduction of the concept of âaffinity groupsâ. The defendants at the
trial, maintained the Digos chief, are representatives of the subversive
aspect of anarchy, as proved by 24 booklets written by Alfredo Bonanno
that had been found in the houses of the arrested anarchists. Alfredo
Bonanno, an anarchist comrade who was once accused of being the âleaderâ
of a non-existent organisation, is, the chief of the Digos stressed to
underline, a pluri-graduated philosopher ....also graduated in
philosophy...
When asked by the judge if those 24 booklets were copies of the same
text or 24 different texts, the chief of the Digos was unable to answer.
For his part, the public prosecutor revised the illustrative case of the
Marini trial, claiming that the latter had unveiled and dismantled a
dangerous subversive organ-isation. It must be pointed out, as the
defense will certainly do at the next hearing, that the Marini trial, in
spite of Mariniâs intentions, did not prove the existence of any
organisation because the aforesaid organisation was a pure invention of
the prosecution.
Finally, the jury accepted the appeal of the defence concerning
Annalisa, who had once again been put under house arrest. Annalisa was
therefore released on bail again, but uniquely for reasons concerning
her health and extraneous to the trial. On the contrary, the jury
refused the request for Cristian to get permission to work and for
Marina to get permission to attend university classes (Marina and
Cristian are under house arrest).
As for Salvatore and Saverio, they are supposed to have been moved to
the prisons in Sulmona and Voghera respectively after the trial.
The next hearing will be held on June 16.
31/08/02. A Town Council in Melendugno (Lecce) is disrupted to the sound
of football supportersâ trumpets in protest against the mayor who had
forbidden a demo and an exhibition against Regina Pacis in San Foca.
21/09/02. Four immigrants attempt to escape from Regina Pacis and put up
a fight with the carabinieri who are always in the camp. Unfortunately
two are arrested.
03/11/02. Demonstration in front of the church in Monteroni (Lecce)
where Archbishop Ruppi is celebrating a religious event. Exposition of
banner, exhibition on immigration and distribution of leaflets. Ruppi
doesnât show up to greet the crowd who were waiting for his blessing,
but runs away through the back door. A few inhabitants of Monteroni show
solidarity to the demonstrators.
12/11/02. Group of demonstrators gather outside the Prefecture in Lecce
where 11 members of parliament of the Adriatic-Ionic area are about to
have a gala dinner. The next day the same ministers are supposed to have
a summit to strengthen measures and a plan of âalert and rapid reactionâ
against illegal immigration. The demonstrators show their anger with
whistles, trumpets megaphones. Thousands of leaflets are handed out and
road blocks are carried out.
13/11/02. During the demo of the Social Forum against the summit of the
11 ministers, the anarchists throw some rotten fruit and eggs against
the cops, the journalists and the security service of the Social Forum.
20/11/02. In Casarano (Lecce) a conference on immigration organised by
Alleanza Nazionale (the Italian fascist party) in which Lodeserto is
participating is interrupted by 15 demonstrators who show a banner
against the deportation of immigrants.
22/11/02. 40 immigrants escape from Regina Pacis after a fight with the
carabinieri. In the following days most of them are re-captured, only 7
succeed in gaining freedom. The re-captured immigrants are violently
beaten in reprisal.
26/04/03. Four Romenians attempt to escape from Regina Pacis and beat
two carabinieri who try to stop them.
3/05/03. A group of North African immigrants destroy the canteen of
Regina Pacis in protest against their deportation order. Eight
carabinieri are injured.
10/05/03. Just before the start of âGiro dâItaliaâ, the most important
cycling event in Italy, some writing appears on the roads of the
trajectory in the Lecce area: âFree all immigrants, Ruppi is a killerâ.
11/07/03. The side door of the ancient baroque cathedral in Lecce, the
headquarters of Archbishop Ruppi, is set on fire. On the walls these
words appear: âFree the immigrants from the concentration campsâ, âRuppi
and Lodeserto are criminal bastardsâ.
September/October 2003. Local newspapers comment on the many writings on
the churches and palaces of Lecce against Regina Pacis and its
management.
12/10/03. Outside the CPT Regina Pacis about a dozen people show their
solidarity to the prisoners. From inside the latter reply by throwing
objects and rubbish at the carabinieri. At the end of the demonstration
a thick shower of eggs full of red paint leaves its mark on the walls of
the CPT.
October 2003. Four attempted suicides in Regina Pacis.
8/11/03. In Lecce and Lequile two cash machines of âBanca Intesaâ are
set on fire and destroyed. The bank is involved in Regina Pacis
management. In Lequile a few banknotes also burn and the inside walls of
the bank are damaged. A few leaflets about Regina Pacis are left on the
spot
9/11/03. Another Banca Intesa cash machine is damaged in Lecce.
24/11/03. An Algerian prisoner in Regina Pacis attacks Lodeserto with a
stick and injures him.
3/12/2003. A lot of posters and writings against Catia Cazzato appear on
the walls of Calimera (Lecce). The woman is employed in Regina Pacis and
is responsible for writing false reports about the beatings of
immigrants, maintaining that the prisonersâ injuries were self-inflicted
in order to try to escape.
Beginning of February 04. A North African immigrant detained in Regina
Pacis swallows two batteries and is taken to hospital, from where he
later manages to escape.
16/3/04. Failed attack on a Banca Intesa branch in Lecce.
01/04/04. About fifteen people gather outside the chapel where Monsignor
Ruppi is celebrating Easter mass.
11/04/04. Easter day, a banner against the CPT appears on the
scaffolding near the cathedral.
18/04/04. âProgetto Martaâ takes place in SantâOronzo Square in Lecce.
It is an initiative in which the Regina Pacis foundation tries to clean
up its image by collecting goods and redistributing them among poor
people, immigrants and homeless. Some comrades contest the initiative in
a leaflet. On their refusal to show their identity cards the police
react pushing and shoving but donât manage to take them to the police
station.
27/06/04. Twenty prisoners attempt to escape from Regina Pacis. Only
five gain freedom.
11/11/04. While there is a demo going on outside the CPT, the internees
rebel, destroying everything they can. One of them manages to climb the
wall, and is immediately chased by the carabinieri. The demonstrators
put themselves in the midst of this and the military charge. One girl
comrade has a broken leg and another is beaten and arrested. A few days
later he is sent home under house arrest.
12/11/04. Writings appear on walls and churches in the centre of the
town (Lecce) against deportations and CPTs, and for the freedom of the
arrested comrade.
17/07/04. Demonstration is held in Piazza Duomo in Lecce against the CPT
and for the freedom of the arrested comrade.
21/07/04. About twenty immigrants attempt to escape from the CPT, but
only two succeed in gaining freedom.
09/08/04. A Tunisinian attempts to escape from Regina Pacis but is
blocked by a carabiniere. A fight follows and the cop is then taken to
hospital.
10/08/04. Nine immigrants attempt to escape. Six of them are successful,
but a Moldovan man falls from the wall and is paralysed for the rest of
his life.
12/08/04. Another fifteen prisoners attempt to escape but only one
Romanian succeeds.
17/08/04. After what happened over the preceding weeks dozens of
immigrants tried to escape, some succeeded. Blocked by the carabinieri
they are then beaten up: the director father Cesare Lodeserto also
participates. That night a window of his house is struck by an
incendiary bottle. A leaflet claiming the action says: âAgainst don
Cesare and against CPTsâ.
29/08/04. While a demo is taking place outside the CPT, some prisoners
make it known that they are on hunger strike.
08/09/04. Fifteen immigrants attempt to escape but are blocked by the
carabinieri. A fight follows and two prisoners gain freedom.
26/09/04. During a fair in Calimera, leaflets denouncing Catia Cazzato
are distributed. The carabinieri order four comrades to hand over their
ID. As the four refuse, they are taken to the carabinieri station and
identified. One of them is sued for libel.
03/10/04. A mass escape attempt from the CPT is blocked by the
carabinieri. Only five immigrants manage to escape.
31/10/04. The cash machine and the window of Banco Ambrosiano Veneto (a
bank that belongs to Banca Intesa) are stained with red paint in
Sannicola (Lecce).
15/12/04. Demo outside the Paisiello theatre in Lecce, where Monsignor
Ruppi is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his priesthood.
08/01/05. Four North Africans attempt to escape from the CPT by jumping
from a window on the first floor, but they are blocked by some
carabinieri and the director. A fight follows, one carabiniere and
father Cesare are injured. One of the immigrants is arrested and accused
of âviolence and resisting a public officialâ, another is taken to
hospital with a broken leg.
13/01/05. Another attempt to escape from the CPT: three manage to flee
jumping from the first floor, whereas one is recaptured.
23/01/05. A lot of writings against Catia Cazzato appear on the walls of
Calimera.
Lecce (and in other parts of Italy) and against immigration detention
centres
13/05/05. LECCE. The day after operation Nottetempo culminated in the
arrest of five comrades, anarchists block the traffic, distribute
leaflets and hang a banner: âThe Struggle never stopsâ.
14/05/05. LECCE. Demo in solidarity with the arrested anarchists,
against prisons and immigration detention centres.
TURIN. Demo against the CPTs and in solidarity with the arrested
comrades.
21/05/05. LECCE. 400 anarchists from all over Italy demonstrate in
solidarity with the arrested comrades.
22/05/05. LECCE. Meeting to discuss prison and repression, detention
camps and deportations. Demo outside the prison.
A mail explosive device is sent to the chief police inspector Manara.
Explosive devices are also sent to Turin metropolitan police and to the
director of the detention camp for immigrants in Modena.
05/06/05. LECCE. Solidarity gig outside the prison.
09/06/05. LONDON. Benefit gig.
15/06/05. ATHENS. The Italian Institute of Culture is occupied in
solidarity to the arrested anarchists.
18/06/05. ATHENS. Solidarity demo at Propilea in the city centre.
19/06/05. LECCE. Demo outside the prison.
24/06/05. BARI. Demo in solidarity to prisoners and against detention
camps.
24/06/05. SALONIKI. Anarchists occupy offices of Italian consulate.
25/06/05. BARCELONA. During a demo in solidarity with Italian
anarchists, police attack and arrest 7 people.
27/06/05. ATHENS. A Benetton shop is attacked in solidarity with Italian
and Spanish anarchists.
29/06/05. ATHENS. Explosive devices are put on a few FIAT cars in
solidarity with Italian anarchists.
05/07/05. BARCELONA. Demo in solidarity with Italian and Spanish
prisoners and against FIES regime.
SAINTS (Spain). A Fiat car shop is attacked in solidarity withItalian
anarchists.
07/07/05. ATHENS. Demo outside the Spanish embassy.
BARI. Demo against the CPTs.
LECCE. Meeting to discuss immigration and CPTs.
12/07/05. MONTBRISON (France). Benefit dinner and gig for Italian
anarchists.
ATHENS. About 100 anarchists occupy Cervantes institute in solidarity
with Italian anarchists.
15/07/05. EL PRAT (Spain). A Fiat car shop is attacked with an explosive
device.
16/07/05. MILAN. Demo in Piazza Cadorna against the air company
Alitalia, responsible for the deportation of immigrants.
19/07/05. SALONIKI. Solidarity demo in the city centre.
27/07/05. MONTEVIDEO (Uruguay). During the night 3 explosive devices are
thrown against the Italian-Uruguayan chamber of commerce, the Italian
cultural institute, and the Italian consulate. Posters were put up on
the walls and doors written in Italian and Spanish with the phrase,
âRepression of the anarchist movement in Italy wonât stop the struggleâ.
Leaflets were also left denouncing operation Cervantes, Marini trial,
operation Fraria, etc...
July-October 05. A great number of solidarity initiatives (benefit
events, demos, meetings, etc) are organised all over Italy.
09/11/05. LECCE. On the occasion of the preliminary trial against the
Lecce anarchists a demo is organised in the streets of the town.
19/0106. LECCE. A roadblock by fits and starts with distribution of
leaflets is organised outside the court as the first hearing concerning
the operation Nottetempo finishes. Some of the participants in the
roadblock are later fined 3,000 euros for blocking the traffic.
A demo is also organised in the evening.
20/1/06. LECCE. Meeting to discuss strategies of struggle against the
CPTs.
21/01/06. LECCE. A group of anarchists disrupt a conference where the
president of the region also participates. They show a banner,
distribute leaflets and explain the reason for the interruption with a
megaphone.
02/03/06. LECCE. On the occasion of the second hearing against the Lecce
anarchists, a protest march is organised in the streets of the town.
03/03/06. LECCE. Meeting to discuss strategies of struggle against the
CPTs.
Puppet show in Piazza Apollo (Pulcinella against the cops) organised by
a few comrades from Naples. Distribution of leaflets and exposition of
banners.
05/03/06. LECCE. In the night a group of noisy friends greets the
prisoners in Borgo San Nicola, where Salvatore and Saverio are also
being held temporarily.
11/03/06. SALONIKI. A meeting about judicial operations carried out
against anarchists in Italy and a solidarity gig are organised by the
comrades of the squat Terra Incognita.
April 2006. Counter-information initiatives are organised in Lecce and
other Italian towns on the occasion of the third and fourth hearings
concerning the operation Nottetempo (April 11 and April 21).
03/05/06. LECCE. The morning after the fifth hearing concerning
operation Nottetempo, a group of anarchists occupy the building of the
Red Cross, responsible for the management of a number of CPTs in Italy.
Leaflets are handed out to employees inside the building and to
passers-by outside.
In the evening anarchists disrupt a conference held by a famous leftwing
journalist in Casarano, the town where Marina is under house arrest and
from where Salvatore was taken to prison a year before. Leaflets are
distributed and a banner is shown as one of the comrades explains the
reason for the interruption through a megaphone. Most participants to
the conference applaud the intervention.
04/05/06. LECCE. The prisoners in Borgo San Nicola prison are greeted in
the night by a by noisy group of friends.
05/05/06. LECCE. At the end of the hearing concerning the operation
Nottetempo a number of comrades take their jackets off and display their
T-shirts that all together spell out LIBERI SUBITO (freedom now) on the
front and NO CPTs on the back. Salvatore and Saverio enjoy the show,
which on the contrary is not at all appreciated by the judge. In fact,
the comrades wearing the T-shirts are banned from attending future
hearings.
In the evening a solidarity march is organised in the streets of the
town.
06/05/06. LECCE. Anarchists disrupt a religious event organised in
Piazza Duomo, where Cesare Lodesertoâs boss archbishop Ruppi and
cardinal Sodano, the right hand of the pope, also participate. Thousands
of fliers denouncing the responsibility of the church in the management
of Regina Pacis are thrown all over the place while a comrade shouts out
our anger towards Ruppi and Lodeserto through a megaphone.
26/05/06. LECCE. A comrade spits on father Cesare Lodeserto as he walks
along the street. He has since been charged with âinsulting religionâ.
A number of comrades writing to those in jail have been charged with
subversive association under article 270bis of the Italian penal code on
the basis of their correspondence.
In May 2005, five anarchists are arrested in Lecce following the
struggle against the local detention camp and three immigrants are
killed by the police in Turin. During the same period, uprisings and
protests break out in the immigration detention camp of Corso
Brunelleschi (Turin) and in that of Via Corelli (Milan), both run by the
Red Cross.
April 14. Writings appear and banners are hung in Turin in solidarity
with immigrants and against detention camps.
April 15. Itinerant intervention at Porta Palazzo market (Turin) to
inform the inhabitants about the hunger strike undertaken by immigrants
imprisoned in Via Corelli camp in Milan.
April 18. A huge banner in solidarity to the struggles in Via Corelli
camp (Milan) is unfurled during the marathon in Turin.
April 22. A few passengers on a bus distribute leaflets denouncing Gtt,
the public transport society, and its collaboration with police
concerning the deportation of immigrants. When two ticket inspectors
appear, a âloud voiceâ protest takes place: protesters noisily alert the
passengers that they have arrived. Some immigrants without tickets
succeed in escaping, and the ticket collectors get furious. In this way
the campaign âTrip ticket collectors up!â starts. Disruptions against
ticket collectors carry on for a few weeks all over the town.
May 1. The prisoners in Corso Brunelleschi camp start a hunger strike,
but no one outside knows about this. As they are not supported, the
prisoners interrupt the protest the following day. In spite of the
continuous raids against immigrants in Turin, the camp is never filled
to full capacity (70 people) because the prisoners of the camp are
quickly deported.
May 7. Aosta. Digos officers (Italian political police) stop and
identify two anarchists and accuse them of having put up posters against
the Italian Red Cross. In the following days the inspector of Red Cross
in the area sue the two anarchists for âlibel through written materialâ.
May 20. At dawn, police storm a gypsy camp in the northern suburb of the
town. On the grounds that they have to take a census of the inhabitants,
they gather about 20 people and move them to the police station. 14 of
them are deported.
In the evening, a boy from Senegal who had just arrived in Italy without
papers is chased along the banks of the river Po by the cops during a
raid in Valentino Park. The boy hides on the shore, but he slips into
the water and drowns.
May 11. In the evening police stop a car with four young men from
Senegal on board. One of them runs away, another two jump out of the
car. The fourth hesitates and when a policeman gets close to him, a
gunshot is fired. The young man dies shortly afterwards.
May 12. The houses of five comrades are raided in Valle dâAosta and the
Piemonte area, in connection with operation âNottetempoâ in course in
Lecce.
May 14. A great number of meetings are quickly held at Porta Palazzo
market to inform people of the death of Mamadou and Cheik, the two boys
from Senegal killed by the police, and to invite everyone to take part
in a gathering organised for the afternoon against police terror,
deportations, the arrests in Lecce and the Gtt transport company.
As Italians and people from Senegal intervene in great numbers, the
gathering quickly turns into a spontaneous march through the streets of
Turin. The banner leading the demo says: âCarabinieri and police:
killersâ. There is no sign of parties and organisations during the
march, just a lot of rage shared by everybody. Newspapers, when they do
not keep silent, describe the march as a peaceful demo organised by the
community from Senegal, disturbed by the âusual
insurrectionist-anarchistsâ who try to start fights. From that moment
on, all the dailies in Turin, with very few exceptions, will sing the
same song ad nauseam and border on the ridiculous: they claim that
immigrants have nothing to complain about, it is subversive anarchists
that are creating tension.
May 16. In the afternoon, a street meeting opens a debate on how to
defend oneself from the abuse and violence of the police in various
areas of the town.
May 18. Writings and posters against deportations and police terror
appear in San Salvario area. Some of the posters also incite to
self-defence against the police.
May 19. During the night, the prisoners in the detention camp revolt,
setting to fire mattresses and destroying everything they find in the
building. There are many self-inflicted wounds. Police intervene and a
hunger strike is begun. When a prisoner learns of his imminent
deportation, he breaks a window and swallows pieces of glass. He spends
the morning in hospital and misses the plane destined to deport him.
When he returns to the camp he is beaten and put in isolation.
At the end of the morning, Radio Black Out (a radio of the movement)
spreads the news. A friend of some of the radio reporters, in fact,
Tareq has been held in the camp for a few days. He listens to the radio
inside the camp, making his inmates listen to it too.
Around 6pm, about 150 people gather outside the camp. Inside, the
prisoners start beating on the bars, whereas outside supporters answer
by beating stones on pylons and road signs. Someone climbs up the fence
and hangs a large banner, the prisoners start shouting. Meantime Matilde
Provera, MP of Rifondazione Comunista, goes into the camp, inviting
everybody to keep quiet when she leaves. As prisoners ignore her,
demonstrators shout through a megaphone that the woman doesnât represent
anyone and that there is no reason to keep quiet.
A few demonstrators manage to open a small hole in the wall with the
help of sticks. After a few momentsâ hesitation, anti-riot cops attack.
It seems that during the fight a Digos officer is hit in the face with
shit. Demonstrators split after a while, and a big group of them march
towards the nearest bus garage to make drivers aware of the
responsibilities of Gtt society concerning the deportation of
immigrants. As the gathering ends, a few comrades are stopped by Digos
police and one of them, Giovanni, is arrested and accused of causing
âserious violenceâ and âinjuriesâ.
May 20. In the detention camp the hunger strike, undertaken by 68 out 70
prisoners, continues. Most immigrants are also on thirst strike. A few
immigrants who had inflicted wounds on themselves the day before and
ended up in hospital are taken back to the camp.
May 21. At dawn, inmates in Corso Brunnelleschi detention camp revolt
again in protest against the deportation of one of them; many threaten
they will commit suicide, some swallow batteries and pieces of glass. An
immigrant cut his abdomen so badly that he must be stitched urgently on
the spot. Police and Red Cross decide to release him in order to avoid
more serious consequences.
In the afternoon, a gathering in solidarity with the immigrantsâ
struggle and for Giovanniâs release is organised in front of the
detention camp. The gathering lasts for a few hours; a group of
immigrants manage to reach the roof and communicate with the protesters.
From inside the detention centre, someone throws out a shoe containing a
case file belonging to a prisoners affected with tuberculosis. Many
other stories of prisoners who should be released but are kept prisoner
by the Red Cross come to light. Meanwhile, Giovanni is released.
May 23. The detention camp is strictly watched by police, and anti-riot
cops constantly patrol the entrance. In the afternoon, Matilde Provera
pays another visit to the prisoners who talk about her as âthe one who
defends the copsâ. When she comes out, she denounces the terrible
hygiene conditions in the camp, ignoring the one and only thing the
immigrants in struggle are asking for: âfreedom!â.
In the evening, a meeting is held in San Salvario square market in
memory of the two boys from Senegal killed by police, and to carry on
the discussion about self-defence against police terror. Many people,
Italians and foreigners, take part in the debate, in spite of the huge
presence of cops surrounding the area.
May 24. Eight Romanian men held in the camp are deported.
May 25. At dawn, seven Moroccan men are woken up by police and informed
that the plane for their deportation is ready. In a few minutes the news
reaches the houses of a few comrades, immediately followed by Digos
cops. Ten houses are searched as well as âPorfidoâ documentation centre.
Among the deported immigrants there is Tareq, who manages to contact his
friends in Turin once again. He lets them know that he was taken to
prison and that all his money was stolen when he was deported to his
country. During the searches, police seize 1500 copies of a leaflet
denouncing Gtt. The search, however, is officially the beginning of an
investigation concerning an explosive device sent to the metropolitan
police in San Salvario area the morning before, an action that is
subsequently claimed by the Fai (Informal anarchist federation).
In the afternoon, a demo in the centre of the town reaches the âOlympic
Storeâ. Here demonstrators inform people about the relation between the
effective management of the Olympic games and police terror brought
about against immigrants in the town.
Meantime in the northern suburb of Turin, police surround a building
inhabited by immigrants and storm the flats. Eddy, a Nigerian boy
without papers who had just arrived in Turin to see his girlfriend,
takes refuge on the eaves in order to flee from the cops. He falls down
and dies. He is the fourth immigrant to die in fifteen days. Two girls,
the only witnesses of the accident, are taken to Corso Brunelleschi
camp. Determined and furious, Nigerian people in the area fight police
in the square.
May 26. In the afternoon, various Turin leftist organi-sations gather
outside the Prefecture in protest against police violence. Nigerian
people are very angry, but in the end a delegation goes into the
building to talk to the Prefect.
In the evening a debate, âTowns and concentration campsâ is held to
discuss the struggle against deportations in Turin, Lecce and Milan.
May 27. In the morning, a demo is held in front of the Moroccan embassy,
which is responsible for deportation of Moroccan immigrants along with
the Italian State. After a few hours, demonstrators move to the place
where, on November 2004, Latifa Saidi, a Moroccan girl, died after
falling from a roof in the San Salvario area while attempting to escape
from a control by metropolitan police.
In the afternoon, a ceremony is held in memory of Eddy, attended also by
comrades. The tension is high, the nearby road is blocked and there is
the real risk of a battle with police.
Leaflets calling for a demo the following day against police violence
are distributed in various parts of the town.
May 28. 3pm: the first demonstrators gather at Porta Palazzo. Apart from
the flags of an anti-racist association, there are no other flags of
parties or organisation to be found. There is a massive deployment of
cops, but they do not let themselves be seen. As the march is about to
start, there are already 1000 people. Eddyâs friends open the march, his
brother speaks with the megaphone. At a certain point, a few
metropolitan policemen are seen and the tension rises. No one can stand
the sight of uniforms this afternoon. The march joins a demo of the
COBAS (independent unions) for a while, then the demonstrators go off on
their own. A few messages arrive from the detention centre: the
prisoners would like the march to reach the camp, as an incentive to the
struggle. Eddyâs friends, on the contrary, want to take their rage to
the police station. In the surrounding area anti-riot police block the
road and try to prevent the march from carrying on. The immigrants are
furious, especially the women, most of them want to attack the cops with
their bare hands. So the cops go back, leaving free access to the nearby
railway station in order to block the way to the police headquarters.
Tension is high. The militants of the anti-racist organisation are
worried and call for non-violence. As no one listens to them, they go
away taking their banner and flags with them, and publicly dissociate
themselves from the demo.
After a few momentsâ hesitation, the march goes towards Porta Susa
station, where the rail tracks are blocked. Black and white people
together explain the reason for the rail block to the passengers: âNo
one should travel in a town where people are being killed!â. There is
some damage to the inside of the station, in particular against a cash
machine of the San Paolo bank. Half an hour later, the march reaches
Porta Palazzo and ends without incident.
June 1. Prisoners in Corso Brunelleschi camp claim they are on hunger
strike once again. During the week the camp is almost empty as only
twenty immigrants are left inside. As deportations continue, in fact,
raids in the town are suspended.
June 2. A group of Italian people bring their support to the immigrants
in the camp. They shout, make a noise and greeting the immigrants.
June 5. Raids and imprisonment of immigrants start again. Police also
storm the buses and capture immigrants with the help of ticket
collectors.
June 8. A group of comrades enters the town hall where the mayor and a
few councillors are trying to convince the inhabitants of a Turin
western suburb of the utility of a few projects concerning the area. A
banner and leaflets remind people about the immigrants killed by police,
while protesters shout out how some of the councillors there are also
responsible for the murders. Then the comrades quickly leave the place
shouting âKillers and slave traders!â. Shortly before, it had been a
group of sacked workers who had railed at the mayor; shortly after, a
group of furious inhabitants protest against the proposals of councillor
Viano.
A âdifficult evening for the administrators of the townâ is the comment
of the local press.
June 9. At the market of Vanchiglia area, a group of comrades protest at
the stall of âTorino Cronacaâ (a local paper). With the help of a
megaphone, demonstrators expose the paperâs responsibility in spreading
racism and the expulsion of immigrants in Turin over the past few
months. A banner is shown and leaflets are distributed.
In the afternoon, a few comrades take part in a gathering outside the
detention camp. Prisoners are greeted with megaphones, but they are soon
locked up in cages so that they canât answer. Anti-riot police and
carabinieri are lined up in front of the camp, whereas the surrounding
streets had already been cleared of parked cars. In the evening, a large
number of threatening carabinieri vans patrol San Salvario area.
June 16. Unknown people glue up the parking metres of the Gtt and spread
a false note announcing that the company has decided to grant a day of
free parking for everybody.
In the evening of April 18, a prisoner in one of the dormitories of Via
Corelli detention camp (Milan), âhurts himselfâ: we do not know whether
he swallowed toxic drugs, batteries, pieces of iron or inflicted wounds
on himself. We just know that, following this nth case of self-injury,
the other prisoners in the camp ask for an ambulance to be called. As
the latter does not arrive, the inmates of the dormitory decide that the
only solution is to start a protest, which soon develops into an
uprising. As usual, the Red Cross, which is responsible for the
management of the camp, call the police: searches are carried out,
personal belongings and books (especially copies of the Koran) are
destroyed, and beatings are inflicted. The immigrants begin a hunger
strike on April 9, which lasts at least ten days, and is carried on in
fits and starts over the following weeks.
On Sunday April 10 a demo is organised outside San Vittore prison, where
two of the immigrants, Gisela, a Brazilian, and Mohammed, a Moroccan,
who took part in the revolt have been moved: both are accused of âdamage
and arsonâ and arrested thanks to the reports of Red Cross operators
Inverinizzi and Sei.
Meanwhile, immigrants are being deported, especially the ones who had
been in touch with supporters. At the same time, however, a great number
of prisoners are freed in order to get rid of possible rioters.
The main thing the authorities want, in fact, is to put an end to any
attempt to provoke an uprising, but it must be pointed out that they do
not always attain their goal. The âmost exploited of the exploitedâ are
strongly determined to resist; so much so that, when released because
they are considered âriotersâ, they carry on protesting outside the
camp. Furthermore, those who were recently imprisoned to fill the empty
places in the camp (it must be remembered that the Red Cross are given
75 euros a day for every prisoner) were the first to get up on the roof
during the protests of 15th and 16th April. This happens to be a number
of Romanian women who had been rounded up from the ghettos created by
Prefect Bruno Ferrante. The protest, therefore, has extended to the
female sector of the camp, which had been more hesitant in the struggle
until now.
On April 25, official anniversary of the liberation of Italy from the
Nazi troops (25th April 1945), at the end of the annual march held by
victims and persecutors together, a gathering outside the detention camp
is organised in support of the struggles of the immigrants and to remind
people that concentration camps still exist. Police soon prevent the
advance of the comrades towards the detention camp by lining up cops and
vans along the street. Some demonstrators decide to give up; others
remain in the area as they think that the existence of the camp is a
problem that concerns everybody, including those who live next to it;
other comrades reach the nearby road from where the camp can be seen and
hang a banner that the prisoners inside the camp can see.
The immigrants get on the roof again because their requests âclosure of
the detention camps and an end to deportations and arrestsâ, have been
ignored. Police chief Aversa, who had intervened during the last
uprising promising he would put a temporary halt to all deportations,
also breaks his word. In the following month other protests are carried
out, some are supported outside and some others are unfortunately left
isolated.
In the night between 23 and 24 May, after breaking one of the cameras
that constantly spy on them, the immigrants go on the roof once again
and shout âFree everybody, we donât want to be prisoners any more!â.
They stay there until police drag them down: some immigrants end up in
the infirmary, some in the hospital, some in San Vittore prison.
In the morning of May 24, without the lawyers of the arrested immigrants
knowing, all 21 arrests are ratified: 9 people are sent to prison, the
other 12 are taken to the Via Corelli camp or to the detention camp in
Bologna. That day, the accused who choose to be judged immediately, are
sentenced to 6 and 8 monthsâ jail, more than the public prosecutor had
asked, by judge Fabiana Mastrominico. The sentence for the others will
be decided June 23, in the presence of their accusers: Romano Pili,
chief inspector of Lambrate police headquarters, and Alberto Bruno,
representing the Red Cross. Once again the Red Cross reveal what they
are and for whom they work.
Now in the detention camp a new section for the cops is being built
along with an identification point for asylum seekers. Paradoxically, it
is exactly by jumping from this structure of bricks and concrete that
two immigrants managed to escape. They have gained the freedom they
craved with one simple gesture.
Along the banks of the Rhine stood a shantytown where the undesirables
live, as usual, on the fringes of the society, clandestine immigrants
who provide the workforce that bosses and little bosses need in order to
multiply their profits.
On the night of 10 April, as the river swelled fearfully, risking
sweeping away the fragile little houses made out of cardboard and
corrugated iron, the shanty-dwellers called the fire brigade. The
firemen arrived along with the cops, who dismantled the houses and took
nine Romanian immigrants without papers to the concentration camp in Via
Corelli (Bologna) so that they could eventually be deported. The morning
after, the judges on duty wasted no time in ratifying the âarrestsâ of
the previous day, apart from that of a boy whom they released owing to
some legal flaw. In the meantime, an uprising broke out inside the
detention camp: the prisoners went on hunger strike and, after holding a
meeting, they drew up an open letter to the citizens of Bologna and
Europe in which they exposed the reasons for their struggle, following
the example set by the immigrants imprisoned in the Via Corelli
detention camp in Milan. The jailersâ response soon arrived: cops and
staff of Misericordia (the religious association that runs the camp),
armed with truncheons, raided the camp, just to remind everybody what
can happen to those who dare to protest. Despite the actions carried out
in the town and outside the camp to support the protest and denounce the
situation inside the camp, the prisonersâ sensation that they were
isolated must have prevailed and the protest was over in a couple of
days.
On Saturday 14th May, an information point and exhibition in the centre
of the town reminded the inhabitants of Bologna what detention camps are
like and why the horrors that happen inside such places cannot be
ignored. Moreover, struggles inside and outside the other detention
camps in Italy were mentioned, including those concerning Regina Pacis
in Lecce, where a few comrades had been arrested two days before owing
to their struggle against the camps. Demonstrators distributed leaflets,
spoke with a megaphone and played music for a couple of hours.
Afterwards they marched noisily up to Piazza Maggiore, showing the
banner âClose detention camps, the terrorists are those who run themâ.
This is the text of a leaflet distributed in February 2004 at Waterloo
station (London), where border guards meticulously control the documents
of passengers arriving from and directed to France, as they have to
guarantee that no âillegal immigrantâ is among the respectable
passengers, the commuters and the rich tourists.
Our abhorrence of borders extends to this whole society of slaves where
each has a role to play in maintaining a system of globalized plunder.
In its ruthless selection of the cheapest of everything, the latter
knows no borders at all.
The best-loved slaves are cheerful and compliant, content to surrender
their lives in exchange for status, a monthly salary, lavish expense
accounts. To them we leave their illusions, determined to do our best to
make them short-lived. Millions of others carry out their daily routine,
clinging to what theyâve got in an uncertain world where the unions have
joined the bosses under banners of âwork mobilityâ âflexibilityâ
âparticipationâ. But there is a level of exploitation beyond which they
will not go, a level indispensable to the smooth running of the
production machinery. The supermarkets, the services industry,
electronics assemblage, etc therefore all rely on a huge mass of
underpaid, uprooted slaves who have nothing left but chains of debt,
exclusion and fear. Housed in prison-like conditions which they pay for
at extortionate rates, they work around the clock, until they drop.
They are the undesirables, âbarbariansâ from far off lands ripped apart
by war or famine, (natural disasters of capitalism drawn up in buildings
just a stoneâs throw from here), stripped of everything that qualifies
them as âcitizensâ, âpeopleâ or even âhuman beingsâ. Without them the
whole death machinery of capital would collapse.
For a couple of hours some from all of these categories sat side by side
in the Eurotrain, superb transporter of human merchandise, assisted by
smiling hostesses. Now, having reached their final destination, the
moment of truth is about to dawn. Because, precisely here, behind this
great hall festooned with enticements of weekends in Paris for romantic
lovers, lurks a place where Gestapo-style operations are constantly in
act. The undesirables are identified, held, criminalised and dispatched
to concentration camps surrounded by barbed wire, left to languish for
months before being dispatched to their country of origin. Some of the
âluckyâ ones are presented with papers and allowed to join the
super-exploited which the bosses in this country need so much.
We are here because we feel a common bond with the wanderers. We too are
aliens, undesirables in a world of which we want no part. We have not
come to appeal to dialogue or the democratic integration of âpapers for
allâ. Zenophobia, hierarchy and racism cannot be fought with such means.
Nor can they be fought with fratricidal wars sworn on bibles or
patriotic flags.
In breaking the silence and indifference of the civilized we want to
widen the space for revolt, increase the possibilities for direct attack
on the pillars of this world. The objectives can be seen everywhere: the
concentration camps, the airline companies that deport aliens, the
âwaiting zonesâ, the slave traders, the lines of communication, etc etc.
Only through direct solidarity shall we be able to refuel the social
tempest of class war, sabotage and relentless attack where the division
into nationals and foreigners, legal immigrants and aliens dissolves in
joyous collusion against the enemy that oppresses us all.
Vagabond hearts, enemies of all borders.
the world wide web of insurgents
On Saturday April 8 a No Borders demonstration was held at Heathrow,
which saw the presence of various groups and individuals. Pushed by
their desperate situation and encouraged by the manifestation of
solidarity, 120 people presently being held in Harmondsworth De tention
centre began a hunger strike to draw attention to the outrage that
exists within those walls.
Here is the text of one leaflet distributed the following days:
The good people of Oswiecim, better known as Auschwitz, knew little
about the production of the death factory on its periphery except that
sometimes âthere was a very bad smellâ emanating from its chimneys. That
shocks. Yet how many of the good people of London are aware of the
âcleanâ concentration camps that exist today and are essential in the
production of segregation and slavery that are at the basis of the
smooth running of capital.
Times have changed, the old camps have become museums and the
humiliation and suffering of the millions of slaves on whose backs the
present civilization was built has been dismissed in a few words of
apology by statesmen and clergy. The persecuted have become persecutors,
and the great wars of reciprocal carnage have given way to the massacre
of peoples by the policemen of the planet using cutting edge weaponry.
Meanwhile, there is an undeclared civil war in act that does not heed
national borders or democratic euphemism. This war is raging and taking
its toll on millions of excluded all over the world in the form of
âecological emergenciesâ resulting from intensive monocultures, nuclear
testing, the plundering of the earthâs resources, climate change, post
colonial political meddling, extortion rackets by the world bank, etc.,
etc.
This has led to a total mobilization of millions of exploited people
coerced into moving in their search for better living conditions or
simply for survival from the catastrophes imposed by economy and States.
We are not talking of a passive, amorphous mass, but of millions of
individuals, many of whom have struggled in their homelands against the
global enemy in its local manifestation. Many have been imprisoned,
tortured, have escaped from massacres of epic proportions. They are the
undesirables of the planetary system of profit and plunder, the ones who
are no longer useful to the great migration industry which has found new
raw material more suited to the needs of a flexible economy that has
moved into the tertiary sector. The heavy industrial sector that was
developed on the sweat of past migrants (starting from Ireland and
Scotland and extending to the other colonies) can now be worked out of
sight in far off lands at rock bottom costs thanks to information
technology and local taskmasters free from the restrictions of the
politically correct.
Fortress Europe is putting up its defences, walls are being erected, the
barbed wire is extending. One such structure is that at Heathrow
airport, known as Harmondsworth Detention Centre, which is to all
extents and purposes a concentration camp. People are held within its
walls for weeks, months, even years, and have no rights at all, not even
the minimal ones of the worst prison in the land. As in all similar
structures, the suffering of the interned is aggravated by lack of
medical care, disgusting food, lack of exercise, abuse and punishment,
and constant threat of repatriation.
Not everyone is indifferent to the sort of those whose misery mirrors
our own, that of the open prison of the world of the privileged.
Demonstrations and actions have taken place against concentration camps
and those responsible for them in Italy, Belgium, France and Australia
as well as this country. Solidarity with the immigrants exists in many
forms. In Lecce, southern Italy, the camp Regina Pacis was shut down as
a direct result of the constant denunciation of local anarchists. Some
of them are now in prison themselves as a result, and they and others of
the group are presently on trial, accused of subversive association,
that all encompassing law for locking people up without the need for any
concrete evidence. Similar to becoming a âcriminalâ because you donât
have a stay permit.
On Saturday April 8th, a no borders demonstration was held at Heathrow
which saw the presence of various groups and individuals. Pushed by
their desperate situation and encouraged by the manifestation of
solidarity, 120 people presently being held in Harmondsworth Detention
Centre spontaneously began a hunger strike to draw attention to the
outrage that exists within these walls.
There are thousands of ways that anyone, group or individual can show
their solidarity and subvert this world of controllers and controlled.
The first is deciding on which side we stand. That of the barbed wire
and the negation of life in the fear of the different â or the rejection
of every division that the masters of the world want to impose on us,
the refusal of an existence of passivity and apprehension.
Forward, for the destruction of the lie and of the phantoms! Forward,
for the complete conquest of individuality and of life!
SOLIDARITY WITH THE HARMONDSWORTH HUNGERSTRIKERS
SOLIDARITY WITH THE LECCE ANARCHISTS
FREEDOM FOR ALL!
DESTROY ALL BORDERS AND PRISONS!
random anarchists
On January 19th, 2006, the trial began of anarchists arrested this past
May in Lecce, Italy. In Belgium, solidarity leaflets and posters were
distributed and put up in Kortrijk (Courtrai), Ghent, Geel,
Saint-Nicolas, Antwerp, Louvain-la-Neuve, Leuven (Louvain), Bruges, and
Hasselt. In Antwerp, one person was detained for 10 hours for
distributing the leaflets. In Lecce, the trial will resume March 2nd,
2006.
Text of the leaflet distributed in Belgium:
On the 12th of May 2005, five anarchists were arrested in Italy during
âOperation Nottetempoâ. Today, the 19th of January 2006, their trial
starts. They fought un-interrupted against the asylum camp of Lecce,
against the deportations of people without papers, against raids... They
chose to attack those responsible for the asylum camps and the
deportations directly â their property, the banks who arranged the
financial aspect of the camp, collaborators... They didnât hesitate to
support the immigrants, locked-up up in the asylum camp of Lecce, in
their rebellions...
[Politicians are the terrorists]
Two comrades are still held in prison, the other three are under house
arrest. Of course our comrades were labeled as âterroristsâ, but we all
know that those who lock up, beat up and deport others are the ones who
sow the terror. This pamphlet wants foremost to explain the struggle
they fought and will fight against the asylum policy in Europe. They
didnât let their struggle be blinded by empty words like âhuman rightsâ
and âcharityâ... used by politicians and official refugee organizations,
but they held everybody who is involved in the asylum policy responsible
for the incarceration, ill-treatment and deportation of people without
papers. They didnât hesitate to unmask and denounce the involvement of
the Red Cross, NGOâs (Non-Governmental Organizations), politicians,
charity organizations... in the management of asylum camps.
Every day people are drowning, choking, freezing of disappearing during
their attempts to reach or survive within Fortress Europe. Every day
people are deported to defend the âadvancedâ States.... But everywhere
the struggle against the asylum policies is igniting. In numerous asylum
camps all over Europe, hunger strikes, insurrections and revolts are
followed one after another. Deportations are facing more and more
militant, determined and efficient resistance. The masks of
collaborators are falling to the ground. We are not alone! Everywhere
there are brothers and sisters struggling against the borders and barbed
wire of Fortress Europe. Here also: the occupation of the St-Boniface
church in Brussels by people without papers, the actions against
deportations and razzias (raids) in Brussel and Antwerp, the growing
self-organisation of people without papers (e.g. UDEP â Union for the
Defence of People without Papers)...
Our solidarity with the arrested comrades in Italy consists of
understanding their struggle, and continuing and spreading it locally,
here and wherever it is possible.
As anarchists, we see the struggle against the asylum policy, the asylum
camps and the deportations starting in the streets. More than ever
before it is possible to build solidarity in the streets. In complicity
with resistance against police raids; with the struggle against the
constant controls which militarize our neighbourhoods; in the restless
rejection of every nationalist and racist separation that the rulers of
this society try to force upon us (belgians vs foreigners, legal vs
illegal immigrants...)
As long as our sisters and brothers are being locked up in asylum camps
and murdered like the boat refugees in the seas surrounding Fortress
Europe, are being deported because they donât have legal papers, as long
as States and borders exist â just as long we will continue to fight and
struggle for a world without barbed wire, without customs, without
police and without rulers. We ask you, readers of this pamphlet, for
complicity in this struggle for a free world. Long enough have
politicians recuperated (like the foolery about the controls on the
metro in Antwerp or the boat refugees that arrived in Antwerp) our
struggle by on the one side protesting against âundemocratic situationsâ
or âhumanitarian tragediesâ, and on the other side approving in
parliament the construction of new asylum camps. Long enough has the
charity of those who have everything to lose destroyed our dignity and
militancy. Our struggle without compromise for freedom is taking place â
not only here, but in the whole of Europe and the whole world.
NO BORDERS, NO NATIONS; STOP DEPORTATIONS
LOVE AND STRENGTH FOR ALL PERSECUTED PEOPLE, FUGITIVES AND REBELS
29/01/2006, Closed Centre Vottem, 14h, Demonstration against asylum
camps
25/02/2006, Brussels-North Station, 14h, Demonstration against the
asylum policy
âLet us be clear: asylum detention centres are camps. To call asylum
centres where immigrants await their deportations camps is not a
rhetorical stressing but a strict definition. The camps of the Naziâs
were concentration camps for people the police considered as a danger
for the State. It was âpreventive incarcerationâ, without any form of
trial. So camps werenât places where you had to pay for a crime. Camps
were places where power imposed its exception; the legal postponement of
legality.â
â Extract from the Italian anarchist magazine âTempi Di Guerraâ
A brief communique about the situation of immigrants in Greece, the
recent torture of Afghan refugees in Ag.Panteleimonas police station in
Athens, and one view of the action of anarchists, antiauthoritarian and
autonomous comrades who attacked the station.
The end of the Olympics and of the biggest part of the construction
works means for the Greek state the beginning of a new period, where
immigration policies are being redefined as long as large numbers of
immigrants who were used as expendable slaves for the realization of the
«grand idea»[1] are now considered useless. At the same time, a wider
repressive attack against those who resist is in progress, in accordance
with the global «anti»terrorist crusade of domination which includes the
fortification of the borders to confront the waves of refugees deserting
regions that have been turned into war-zones.
Today, an operation of «law and order» â as it was named by the minister
of interior P.Pavlopoulos â is launched in order to reduce the number of
immigrants, to register them and put them under control so that the
interests of the bosses will be better served within an environment that
is more convenient for them. An environment imposing suffocating terms
of survival for the immigrants and making more effective the regulation
of their movement from one country to another according to the needs of
the market.
Practically this operation means that the forces of repression are
intensifying the intimidation campaign and escalating the terrorism
excercised on immigrants, and the Media are cultivating an atmosphere of
defused nationalism-racism, in order to gain consent from parts of
society.
This operation has many aspects, moments and tactics: The racist pogrom
against Albanian immigrants by cops and fascist thugs of the state after
a football match in the beginning of September.[2] Deportations taking
place on a daily basis. Hundreds of deaths on the borders, either in
minefields or shipwrecks. Numerous incidents where police guns are
supposed to have «accidentaly» gone off and shot somebody in police
blockades in the streets. Torture and humiliation suffered by immigrants
inside police stations every day. Concentration camps. The cover up that
all institutions of democracy offer to cops-pimps who rape immigrant
women.[3]
One more moment of this campaign was the torture of dozens of Afghan
refugees by the cops during the first days of December, first inside a
house they live and then in Ag.Panteleimonas police station, where they
were taken by force and tortured in order to give information about
another Afghan immigrant who had previously escaped from that police
station.
For days, people who could not defend themselves were chained and beaten
in the cells of Panteleimonas station, suffered the torment of
«phalanga» (repeated flogging of the soles of the feet until they bleed
and swell), were forced to strip naked, children and juveniles
threatened with rape unless they speak. Bruises and wounds on the abused
bodies of people harassed and hunted, fear in the eyes of those
experiencing State brutality on their skin.
Against the systematic violence of the State and the bosses, militants
oppose tactics of social anti-violence strengthening the social-class
struggle.
Among others, one important moment of this struggle was the
demonstration of 150 enraged anarchists, antiauthoritarians and
autonomous comrades on Friday 24/12/2004 from Ag.Paneleimonas square
towards the police station, who attacked the station causing property
damage to the building and to many police cars parked outside. It was an
assault against a police station that had already been targetted in
society after torture had been revealed, reminding us of Guantanamo and
Abu Graib).
The forces of repression, after experiencing the outburst of social
rage, arrested 18 persons. 17 were immediately released without any
charges and one comrade, badly beaten by the cops who satisfied their
vengeance on him, was finally accused. This comrade, N.M. who
participated in the demonstration in solidarity with the immigrants
refused all police charges. His arrest created a new wave of solidarity
and on Wednesday 29/12 he was released on parole.
The attack against the Ag.Panteleimonas police station was an action of
social justice. An action that has spread wider than the specific
neighbourhood the message that social and class solidarity among the
oppressed finds its significance in the struggle against the domination
of the state and capital, in the struggle against the brutality and the
daily crimes of authority.
LETâS NOT LEAVE ANY CRIME OF THE STATE AND THE BOSSES UNANSWERED
LETâS OPPOSE SOCIAL ANTI-VIOLENCE TO THE VIOLENCE OF AUTHORITY
December 30, 2004
Open Assembly of anarchists -antiauthoritarians
On July 12 2007 the sentences of the first grade of the Nottetempo trial
were pronounced after almost two years imprisonment (preventive arrest)
had been inflicted on Salvatore (who also spent a period in isolation in
the Salerno prison), Saverio and Cristian. As it was impossible for the
jury to confirm the accusation of subversive association (article
270bis) they turned to article 416 of the Italian penal code and accused
four comrades (Salvatore, Saverio, Cristian and Marina) of forming a
âcriminal associationâ and gave them from 1 to 5 yearsâ suspended
sentence.
The arrest of five comrades in Lecce, which was carried out
simultaneously with others all over Italy, offered the occasion for a
deceptive and denigrating campaign.
The accusation of having formed a subversive association aiming at
subverting the democratic order of the State only exists because it has
been theorized by the investigators. The media have also played an
important role in this context. Having repeated statements such as
âanarchist cellâ, âassociationâ, âviolent actionsâ etc, something will
remain in peopleâs minds, no matter what the conclusion of the trial is.
This terrible way of speaking is still employed today and often ends up
in total invention of news.
With fury and hysteria they have tried to silence anarchists and, as
happens with all rebels, present them as monsters. That is why some of
us have been held under arrest for almost two years, while the appeals
that the prosecution incessantly presents against our release have
turned our freedom a kind of lottery. Rules are mere instruments of
interpretation: those who decide do not care about the individuals
involved, individuals who in this case are aware of what they are and
what they want. In fact, in spite of everything, anarchists have
continued to defend their dignity and their ideas. Hence the fact that
they are considered dangerous: in an era when dissent must be erased,
this trial, like many others, is more than a trial against intentions,
it is a trial against our convictions, desires, ways of being, thinking
and acting.
Anarchists love freedom and are against any kind of prison, but they do
not only say that. They express, demonstrate and practise that with
their best weapon: solidarity. And it is also for this reason that they
are considered dangerous. In a society where individuals are more and
more isolated and where terror is inculcated in everyoneâs mind, real
solidarity, that which links people who donât know each other or is the
product of their common feelings, cannot be considered anything but
dangerous. For this reason, even when protests are clearly social and
derive from the awareness of the people promoting them, they are
labelled as terrorism. Today it is sufficient to write on a wall to be
considered a terrorist. Solidarity is suspicious to the inquisitors just
as love and friendship are. Glaringly clear evidence of that is given by
this court, where various witnesses for the prosecution have talked
about relations, meetings, links and closeness between people. It is not
specific crimes, therefore, that are being persecuted, but an idea and
the individuals who hold it. It could be argued that the democratic
State allows everybody to express their opinion in respect of personal
rights and guarantees. Well, my arrest has been justified by the fact
that in 2004 I sent emails in which I communicated the arrest of my
partner.
I think that these miserable manoeuvres aimed at humiliating and
frightening us and making us renounce our lives, affections, past and
future, demonstrate yet again the groundlessness of this theorem and
their concern to keep it alive.
Another element that I consider even more damaging for my identity is
the attempt to confine me in a rigid, closed organisation. This proves
the inquisitorsâ inability to understand a horizontal way of life that
does not know hierarchies and is based on mutual respect; on the
contrary they have individuated leaders and subjects among people who,
like us, refuse these concepts. Moreover, as the prosecution records
state, if you are a woman you can only be the fiancée or partner of the
most influential male, or, according to occasional circumstances, his
manipulator. That a man and woman have a horizontal relationship cannot
be understood.
It is however important to talk about what is being discussed in this
trial, that is to say the existence of a terrorist organisation. If we
consider the classic definition of terrorism, âuse of indiscriminate
violence aimed at conquering, consolidating and defending political
powerâ, we can well understand who the terrorists are and where they can
be found. Imposition, authority and violence inflicted on harmless
people are their instruments and their weapons. They declare and wage
wars that kill millions of civilians and, by deception, present them as
useful and necessary; they impose by strength infrastructures that
devastate nature and the life of its inhabitants and take vital
resources away from them. All these considerations are linked to another
element of this trial: the criminalizing of the struggle against the
detention centres for immigrants. Today these are called concentration
camps even by the left that introduced them to Italy and intend to keep
them there, whereas many individuals have been trying for a long time to
unveil their real nature and affirm that, even if the media and the
investigators still call them welcome centres, CPTs are prisons for
foreigners whose only guilt is that they do not have regular documents
and who, almost always, have escaped from wars, misery and catastrophe
or are simply looking for better living conditions, and this search
often costs them their life. If on the one hand there is the attempt to
present all illegal immigrants as criminals and to hide the real nature
of the places where they are imprisoned (of which the CPT in San Foca
was an outstanding example), on the other there is the attempt to
silence and isolate with all means necessary the anarchists who consider
these places an intolerable reality. This has happened in Lecce, where,
also thanks to the media, anarchists were called terrorists with the aim
of scaring the public. This was not sufficient, so repression also
struck anyone who demonstrated his/her solidarity to the accused
anarchists so that that would be the end of them in Lecce.
Furthermore two places open to the public, where initiatives, concerts,
discussions, social dinners have been held and books were at everybodyâs
disposal have been labelled as criminal dens. Relations between
individuals have been presented as an organized group with a leader. Any
action that took place in Lecce and surroundings has been attributed to
these individuals, whereas phrases, quotations and opinions, have been
rigorously quoted out of context, and their superficial and false
interpretation have been used to insinuate vicious activity by these
individuals. This method has constantly been used in this court, where
the prosecution has systematically omitted everything that could be on
the defendantsâ side. This grotesque picture has been completed by the
exasperating attention that the men in uniform have given to books,
magazines, leaflets, posters and other material that has been around for
years. I think that is why the inquisitors try to get rid of anarchists
and give them so many years in prison as if it were nothing, simply
because anarchists think and write too much.
In conclusion, I want to say that the repression hitting us is being
inflicted day after day on the rebels and excluded of this wealthy
society on the edge of the abyss, and that the lack of freedom inflicted
on us during these months (isolation, deprivation of affection, morbid
and obsessive control of our personal life), is also experienced,
sometimes quite dramatically, by the millions of prisoners in Italy and
all over the world and by the foreigners locked up in the CPTs, whereas
a generalized delirium points at the question of security and conceals
the widespread precariousness that is affecting more and more people.
And it is exactly because I am a foreigner among the foreigners that Iâd
like to remember Vasile Costantin, a Romanian who remained completely
paralysed on August 10 2004 while attempting to escape the detention
centre in San Foca. His story, like many others, testifies where the
real violence is, a violence that takes life away from millions of
individuals day after day. The management of this deprivation, which is
propagandised as charity, but which is so false that it has been
uncovered even by the magistrates, has often been justified by those in
charge (such as in the case of Regina Pacis) as a simple and necessary
execution of the law. The many escapes and revolts that have occurred in
the CPTs, including the Regina Pacis, demonstrate better than anything
else the reality of such places and what that law was and still is: the
product of racism, exploitation and repression. After all, even the nazi
camps were legal and so were the Italian racial laws, but they certainly
were not legitimate.
With these words, I return the appellation of terrorist back to the
sender.
Marina Ferrari
Lecce, June 28 2007
Finally there are situations when a passionate man must write. When the
stage is empty and the people are crushed, when a society of slaves has
a shopkeeper as king, when all those who think are condemned, it is well
necessary that the latter, exiled from the present, dwell upon the
future.
Ernest Coeurderoy, Days of Exile
First of all I want to clarify that this declaration does not intend to
be a justification because I have no reason to justify myself. Then, any
clarification in this court is pointless because my words can hardly be
understood in all their meaning in this place. Not that I think you are
stupid but because we belong to opposing âsidesâ â you represent power
and I represent its enemy â and our ways of understanding and
interpreting reality are absolutely different and alien to each other.
This trial, however, is obviously and exclusively political, and
therefore social, and I cannot help expressing what I think. I want to
point out that my thoughts are addressed to beyond this court, to the
vast mass of exploited and excluded to which I belong and to which I
have always addressed myself with the means and methods that I have
acquired through time.
First of all I return to the sender the epithet of âterroristâ that has
been used to define me since this story began, and also before, aimed at
producing satisfactory public opinion, which âis made by idiotsâ, as
Stendhal rightly said, and the persecution and repression that ensued; I
will come back to this later. For my part, as I have already done many
times, I reaffirm that terrorism has always been the favourite weapon of
States, be they old empires, more recent nazi-fascist or socialist
dictatorships or advanced democracies. Even if those who hold power, and
therefore the manipulators of History and Culture try to change its
meaning, the word âterrorismâ means âuse of indiscriminate violence with
the aim of conquering, consolidating and defending political powerâ.
Anarchists, on the contrary, even when they have decided to use
violence, have never used it in an indiscriminate way. Then it is
absolutely ridiculous to think that anarchists want to conquer power,
given that their aim is to destroy it! After all, the bombs in the
squares and on the trains, the massacre of entire populations and the
âexporation of democracyâ are certainly not anarchist practises.
As far as the appellation of subversive is concerned, I candidly admit
that that is what I am. What is an individual who despises all kinds of
power and struggles for a completely different society and for the
freedom of all living beings without distinction, if not subversive? All
this is certainly subversive in a world where social relations are based
on exploitation, plunder, exclusion and abuse of the weakest.
Furthermore, I could never belong to any subversive âassociationâ, which
would really be a very miserable thing and would not match with the fact
that I am anarchist, which I assert and for which I am accused in this
trial. As an anarchist, I have two fundamental principles: that of the
individual and anti-authoritarianism. Therefore I could never organize
myself in a vertical way â even if I have been defined âleaderâ and
âchiefâ and, according to the prosecution, I occupied a âleaderâs
positionâ. I strongly refute these words. I could never organize myself
in a rigid way either, because in that case it would be the organisation
that dominated me and I would become a mere instrument and appendix of
it, and my being a unique individual among other unique individuals
would disappear behind it. On the contrary I establish my relations
according to the necessity of the moment, the love, friendship and
affinity that link me to others. I can agree for a moment on one
question and soon after be in total disagreement concerning another. But
this relation is always horizontal, informal and never hierarchical,
according to the principle of anti-authoritarianism. In this free and
temporary relation, I am free to move by myself or with whoever wants to
move with me. On the contrary, in an organized structure, individuals
only move inside the âassociationâ, exactly like in political parties.
If I acted in this way I would follow a religion, but as anarchist I am
against political parties and religions, no matter what they say. I
would even be against anarchism if the latter were to become a dogma and
therefore religion.
Another accusation made against me and that I want to clarify because I
find it disgusting is that I would carry out âproselytismâ. This
practise does not belong to me; it belongs, for example, to the armed
forces that go around schools in order to convince kids to enlist, and
to priests and to missionaries all over the world. But I have always
been extraneous to the âmissionary logicâ. I do not think that social
change is a historical mission that I have to carry out nor do I think
that it is an inevitable event according to some determinist dream. On
the contrary I think that it is an open possibility that can become true
or not, that can be fair or not. And it will not be any âpartyâ of
anarchists to radically transform the world; it will be the exploited
that organize themselves together with anarchists. If I were to live my
life and thought according to an historical mission, this too would
overcome my will and transform it into an instrument of something that
does not belong to me and that would be the opposite of individuality. I
would disappear behind the historical mission, behind the ideology. On
the contrary I have never had the arrogance to claim that I know the
truth in the place of ignorant masses that have not understood anything
and that I should âconvertâ and âindoctrinateâ; in this way I would be
putting myself in a vanguardist position, which anarchists historically
refuse; I have never wanted to be a vanguard. What I do, through
articles in our papers, posters, demonstrations, meetings, distribution
of books, which is being judged in this court, is called propaganda,
that is to say an instrument for expressing my thoughts and ideas. Mind
you, I said Ideas, not mere and stupid opinions. Opinions only represent
the empty shell of ideas, as they do not have the subversive potential
of the latter. Ideas are something more, they are dangerous, especially
in times of social anaesthesia as those we are living in, and it is for
this reason that they scare.
This is the real point: what is on trial in this court exactly?
Certainly not âcrimesâ, most of which the investigators had to construe
âevidenceâ and interpret in their own way words, sentences, concepts,
highlighting what was convenient for them and omitting all the rest in
order to justify. No, it is not this. Here it is the Idea that is on
trial, anarchist thought and practise. Nobody can believe in the old
fable of the âState of Rightâ, also because, as Hobbes rightly says,
ârights being equal, strength winsâ.
It is therefore clear that the courts defend class interests, the class
of the included against the big majority of the excluded, which is
growing. It is sufficient to observe the social provenance of prisoners
in the very democratic Italian jails to find the best confirmation to my
statements. So it becomes intolerable for individuals desiring freedom,
the destruction of all power and a dignified life for everybody to be
set free. It is not by chance that there exists a continuous and
constant attack against what can be defined the âanarchist movementâ.
This attack has been increasing over the last ten years, and is also due
to the politics of emergency that the State has adopted for a long time
and upon which it now bases its very existence: it is a consolidated
rule to create a fictitious enemy towards which to address subjectsâ
fears so that they create a common front against the âdangerâ of the
moment and cannot see who are really responsible for their misery: one
day it is the mafia emergency, another it is environmental emergency,
then the immigration emergency comes out. Following this logic today
there stands an external enemy â foreigners in general and Arabs in
particular â and an internal enemy â all those who oppose the present
state of affairs, and anarchists in particular.
Dozens of conspiracy court cases have been rigged against anarchists,
most of which have fallen through. What the prosecution is trying to do
here, therefore, is not so much to put me and some other comrades in
prison, which would be too little a thing, but to obtain a final
sentence that could be useful in future penal procedures and help to get
rid of anarchists for a few years, while sending a warning to all the
others. The thinking heads of the State have certainly realized that,
for a series of reasons, Lecce is the ideal place for such a precedent
to be created: it is a little town on the suburbs of the Empire, where,
in their opinion, there would be little resistance, and then there are
no specific precedents. The most extraordinary thing, however, is that
to obtain such a sentence, instruments that have failed elsewhere are
being used, i.e. the usual old joke that fills the documents of
investigators and public prosecutors about anarchist organising
themselves on a double level â one public and the other clandestine â
and the intentionally distorted interpretation of one comradeâs words
published in a number of books. There is, in fact, a repressive thread
on a national level that is put into practice on a local level only to
make it easier. A few more steps in this direction and, who knows,
anyone who has certain books in his house will be criminalized! After
all, it is precisely books that were seized in the course of the
searches carried out when we were arrested... It might be useful to
remember that the âdangerous booksâ hunt was carried out during the holy
Inquisition and during Nazism, and it is also useful to remember that a
few days ago in Bologna searches were made and an investigation on
conspiracy was opened on the pretext that comrades were distributing a
book that criticized the infamous âBiagi lawâ. And it is quite bizarre
that some books are being considered the source of certain theories and
strategies, in spite of the fact that your own magistrates have
sentenced the falsity of these constructions!
Contrary to what the prosecution is trying to establish, I am a
dangerous individual not because I speak and act in a clandestine way
but because of the exact opposite: because I do not need to do so. I
think I am a free individual coherent with himself, at least I try, so I
openly say what I think and do what I say: theory becomes practise and
practise becomes theory. I understand how this can be disturbing and
unpleasant to power. It must be in fact unpleasant to mayor Poli [the
right-wing mayor of Lecce] that in her âpolisâ, that is to say a town
ruled by a bunch of exploiters under which slaves are subjected, there
is still somebody who wants to take back the âagoraâ, that is to say a
free piazza where there can be free discussion and where the Idea, this
thing that is so frightening, can be spread. After all, as the
inquisitors have tried to stop me many times, they know perfectly well
that I cannot stand the closedness of what they call âdensâ, especially
as the excluded to whom I address myself are not frequenters of such
places.
My anarchist thoughts and practice are even more dangerous to the
inquisitors when they are aimed at striking the terrorism of very
important men and the violence perpetrated inside the new concentration
camps of the State, the so-called CPTs. The pretext under which I was
put in jail and for which I am on trial is exactly my radical opposition
to these places.
I loudly claim my struggle against the detention centres for immigrants
and against Regina Pacis in particular. It was an infamous place that
was luckily closed down but whose corpse continues to spread a horrible
stink and whose walls are still impregnated with the blood and anger of
millions of individuals who were locked up there and raped of their
lives. In my opinion such places should not only be closed down, but be
totally razed to the ground so that not even the memory of their infamy
will remain. Yes, for a few years there has been the custom to celebrate
âremembrance dayâ [in memory of the victims who died in nazi
concentration camps]: if we did not live in an upside-down world, they
would probably celebrate âoblivion dayâ, the total destruction of all
concentration camps. And I want to point out that I do not use the word
âconcentration campâ as rhetoric or because it has become fashionable
among left-wing politicians who created the modern camps, I use it
because it is a rigorous definition. As in the old colonial and nazi
camps, in fact, people locked up in the CPTs did not commit any crime,
they are only undesirables at the mercy of police and exploited by the
bosses of the moment. Besides being jails for immigrants, the CPTs are
places where foreign labourers, who can be blackmailed more easily, are
selected from. It is in fact important to remember that the exploitation
of this kind of labourer is very important to capital.
The last thing that I would like to say concerns the particular time in
which comrades and I were arrested. It was soon after the arrest of
Cesare Lodeserto, the director of Regina Pacis, and when many members of
his staff, including doctors, operators, and cops were (and some still
are) under investigation. It was necessary to distract public attention
from these episodes that uncovered the true nature of that CPT and
opened a crack in the wall that I had been trying to open myself for
years so that everybody could see through it. It was at this point that
attention had to be deviated and diverted and focussed on the worst
enemies of the State. That does not surprise me: it is one arm of the
State that goes to secure its other arm. There is a popular saying that
sums up the concept: âone hands washes the other and both hands wash the
faceâ.
During the time I was detained I was able to personally experience the
fury that the State has towards words, against which it has waged a war,
as also proved by years of phone tapping and bugging used against me and
by the great quantity of papers confiscated from my house. It is hatred
towards all the aspects of the word: the written and spoken word and
therefore, basically, thought. It is the attempt to kill Cartesioâs
statement âI think, therefore I amâ because in a social system where âto
haveâ is much more important than âto beâ, individuals must stop being,
and it is not just a question of auxiliary verbs substituting each
other.
I was able to see that when censorship went for my letters and books
when I was in prison (and still does). The inner meaning of the matter
can be found in one single sentence that was repeated many times by a
prison officer who, when I insisted on having books that had been
witheld for two months by the censors, used to say; âYou read too
much!â.
This short phrase is very significant and sums up the sense of my
incarceration and trial: âYou read too much!â. If this is true, I am
sorry, but I canât reassure you, I will keep on thinking, reading,
writing, speaking and therefore struggling. It does not matter if in the
future I find myself on this side or that of the bars of this open
prison called society, because I am convinced that in the court justice
is not administrated but rather that vengeance is executed.
Unless you agree with Dostoevskji, who wrote: âWhen they became
criminals they invented Justice and imposed a series of codes to
preserve it, and to preserve the codes they invented the guillotineâ. In
this case, innocence is the worst thing ever.
I do not have anything else to say.
Lecce, June 28 2007
Salvatore Signore
There are two fundamental reasons for which I am sitting in this court
as a defendant, the only role that, against my will, I could ever play
in a court room.
First of all I am a revolutionary and an anarchist; and if you consider
how many comrades are still being held in Italian jails, that in itself
seems to be reason enough. After all, what can those who want to break
this damned murderous social organization based on misery and
exploitation, expect from the ruling class, which does not intend to
renounce its power, and the interests of which this court is bound to
defend?
The second reason is closely linked to the first, or rather it is its
direct and logical consequence: the struggle that, as an anarchist and
revolutionary in this society, I have been carrying over the past few
years.
So, after the ground had been prepared with a long period of preventive
criminalization thanks to the usual journalists of the press and TV,
imprisonment was not surprising. First, imprisonment in a proper cell of
8 square metres, that three people shared twenty hours a day, then house
arrest where the bars on the doors and windows cannot be seen, yet are
there. House arrest, which is certainly less hard in certain respects,
serves the project of total isolation carried out by the State even
better: you do not have any contact with other prisoners and your only
way of communicating is by mail, which, as this prosecutor well knows,
is not at all reliable.
One year and ten months have passed since May 10 2005, during which my
comrades and I have endured isolation, transfers, continuous
intimidation and abuse of all kinds, but always cheered by practical
solidarity by many other exploited like ourselves. Certainly it was not
easy, as it never has been for all the men and women who have locked up
throughout time all over the world, but I do not intend to complain or
to present myself as a simple dissident who, by a judicial mistake or
for whatever other reason, finds himself involved in a sensational
judicial frame-up and is now waiting for justice.
Nothing is more extraneous to my way of thinking and living.
Condemnation or absolution, justice â real justice â cannot be found in
a courtroom.
It is true that this is a frame-up, quite a clumsy one, and in some
aspects even a ridiculous one. The prosecutor, in fact, not having any
evidence in his hands, relied on the old and always useful habit of
inventing it by deforming reality, transforming conversations that he
infamously listened to and omitting the context in which they occurred,
so that he could make us members of a subversive association punishable
by article 270bis. When you are a liar by profession, as time goes by
you probably end up losing track. I think that it is how this
prosecutor, trying to conciliate what cannot be conciliated, went quite
further and established that anarchists, who refuse all authority, were
part of a hierarchical structure composed of leaders and followers.
Apart from these dirty tricks, power was right as regards me: it has
singled out an individual who refuses the State, does not care about its
laws and strongly desires the subversion of this system, the destruction
of all authority and the creation of a free life for everybody. This is
the dangerous idea that power cannot tolerate, in spite of what they
declare, and which is well beyond the worn-out old chatter about liberty
and rights upon which the ideology of the regime is based.
Actually there is no freedom in rights. The latter are a concession
given to vassals and as such they can be suspended or suppressed, and
they strengthen the power of those who concede them. In other words, the
State concedes and removes rights according to its needs. This said, it
is not surprising that article 270bis, which we are accused of, comes
from old article 270, which was first produced by the fascist
dictatorship (Rocco code) in order to repress rebels, and eventually
passed from the fascist regime to the Republic that boasts it was born
from the Resistance. In other words, the most efficient legal weapon
against dissent during the time of dictatorship is being used today;
moreover it has been refined and adapted to the different social
conditions, going through decades and governments of all colours, as a
sign of continuity between two powers that, basically, are not so
different from each other. This article, which establishes a six-month
imprisonment that can be reconfirmed every six months up to two years,
cost us to be locked up for quite a long time before any jury decides
our sentence. In this way the principle of âpresumed innocenceâ, which
any good democratic subject feels he is protected by, has been
clamorously denied.
Many of the specific charges against us concern the struggle for the
closure of all detention centres for immigrants and in particular the
infamous Regina Pacis in San Foca, which was run profitably by the
homonymous Foundation Regina Pacis [a foundation of the Lecce clergy] up
until March two years ago. CPTs and deportations are another thread that
links past and present: fascist and nazi concentration camps, before
becoming centres of systematic massacre, were places where people were
locked up without having committed any crime. It is exactly what happens
in all CPTs. That is why I have always called them concentration camps.
In these places immigrants who managed to reach Italy but do not have
the right documents to stay in the country are locked up, after enduring
terrible journeys during which they risked their life: The Mediterranean
sea bed is now a cemetery without crosses or names. For them, guilty of
being poor and foreigners on the run desperately searching for a better
life, State racism has established that they be imprisoned, following
what is a mere administrative question for an Italian. They are kept
there until they are identified â officially 60 days â and, with the
collaboration of companies such as Alitalia and Trenitalia they are
eventually deported to their country of origin or, and this is what
counts, somewhere else outside fortress Europe. Otherwise they are
handed a deportation order compelling them to leave the country within a
few days. Those who do not obey are put in prison. As they do not have
any other choice in the face of misery, hunger, and war that they have
escaped from, they are forced to live in hiding, constantly chased by
the police, escaping raids and facing prejudice and hostility stirred up
by the media propaganda that depicts illegal immigrants as criminals and
possible âterroristsâ. In order to survive they have to accept even more
hideous working conditions because they can be easily blackmailed under
the threat of deportation. They live constantly with the terror of being
captured, thrown in CPTs and then sent back from what was their journey
of hope. The condition of âclandestineâ hanging over immigrants,
therefore, serves a precise project of exploitation: on the one hand the
bosses ask the State for legal labourers, according to the established
quota; on the other the latter have at their disposal a considerable
number of undesirables without any rights that they can exploit to
death. These âundesirablesâ are used to threaten the legal immigrants so
that the latter do not stand up for better working conditions (without a
work contract immigrants cannot stay in the country).
Everything in this world is submitted to the rules of economy. It is
such an obvious truth that power does not even try to conceal it; on the
contrary it tries to make us think that it is an inevitable reality from
which everybody will gain something.
When they do have to conceal reality, on the contrary, their most
effective trick is to call things with names that do not match their
meaning. It this way the expression âhumanitarian warâ was introduced,
concentration camps for immigrants are called âwelcome centresâ and the
prisoners inside these structures are called âguestsâ, as Cesare
Lodeserto, a âbenefactor-jailerâ ex-director of Regina Pacis did in this
court. According to the stories of many prisoners, the detention centre
of San Foca was a theatre of violence, beatings and abuse of all kinds,
especially after revolts had broken out. But even if such atrocities had
never occurred, my struggle for the closure of Regina Pacis would have
been the same because the real problem is not the way a CPT is managed
but its mere existence as a place where people are locked up. For a long
while now these places have been called concentration camps even by the
left that contributed to creating them and by a large part of civil
society, without any practical consequences. The new governors, who out
of pure political calculation had expressed their intention to vaguely
âgo beyondâ the CPTs, have now changed their cards: this âgoing beyondâ
is nothing else but a different setting. The CPTs would be reduced in
number, become more secure and serve as prisons âonlyâ for the
âirreducibleâ, that is to say those who do not collaborate with the
police to be identified and voluntarily deported. A real disappointment
for the people who voted the new governors. The truth is, as the
political class admit, that the CPTs are necessary to the current
politics of immigration. The State cannot do without them, even if they
represent the total demystification of the democratic lie and show how
exclusion is at the base of democracy. As far as I am concerned, this
does not make any difference, as I have always known that CPTs will
disappear only if and when we have the social strength to impose it.
This is the reason why, today like yesterday, I am continuing my
struggle against detention camps and deportation, focusing my attention
on the responsibility of those (managers and collaborators) who allow
their existence and activity. Furthermore, I always bear well in mind
that there exists a strong link between CPT, permanent war and the
militarization of society.
The regimeâs incessant propaganda has always used fear as a means to
produce consensus. The continuous creation of a threat, highlighted
according to the circumstances, justifies a more and more suffocating
control over all aspects of life and allows power to introduce more and
more liberticidal laws. The enemy is everywhere, it is called
âterroristâ and can be an immigrant or a revolutionary. Reality is
turned upside down: those who massacre entire populations in order to
control resources accuse those who struggle for freedom of terrorism.
But if terrorism is, according to its historical definition, the
indiscriminate use of violence aimed at conquering and consolidating
power, then it is well clear that THE STATE IS THE TERRORIST!
Cristian Paladini
LECCE, June 28 2007
[1] The olympic games were referred to as the new national «grand idea»
by all the political and economic bosses and their lackeys in the Media.
[2] After the albanian national football teamâs victory over the greek
team in a match that took place in Albania, on September 4 2004,
hundreds of Albanian immigrants went out in the streets of many greek
cities to celebrate. They faced a pogrom by cops and fascists â
nationalists. A 21year-old Albanian worker, Gramos Palusi, was murdered
and two of his friends seriously injured in Zakinthos island by a
fascist who attacked them with a knife. In Athens at least 70 immigrants
were taken to hospital, and in the rest of the country the wounded
Albanian immigrants were more than 300.
[3] The latest incident (December 23, 2004) is the acquittal by the
court of the cop Nikos Brékolias who had raped in 1998 the 19
year-oldUkranian immigrant woman Olga B. Olga was forced into
prostitution after coming in Greece.