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protests in genoa
PARIS, France--More then 500 protesters were left injured and one dead after
two day of intense fighting in Genoa between Italian police and
anti-globalization demonstrators. The Italian Port City was the location of
this year’s G-8 summit, a meeting of the world’s seven most powerful
imperialist powers plus Russia. The summit was the target of
anti-globalization demonstrators who were protesting various social and
political issues associated with capitalist rule. The protesters included a
diverse set of political organizations including: non-governmental
organizations, reformist political associations, trade unionists,
anarchists, and communists.
The Genoa mobilizations included European sections of the Fourth
International, with whom Socialist Action holds fraternal relations with.
The French Revolutionary Communist League(LCR) and the Italian Party of
Communist Refoundation, which includes FI supporters organized as Bandiera
Rossa, played key roles in the massive mobilization to Genoa.
The demonstrations begin on Thursday, with a march of some 30,000 demanding
legal status for all immigrants. On Friday, tens of thousands marched
through the city center. Clashes between police and protesters begin when
protesters begin marching in the yellow zone of the city. Police had carved
up the city into two zones. The larger yellow zone did not permit
demonstrations, and the smaller red zone, contained within the yellow was
barricaded off with metal fences. Meeting of the G-8 delegates occurred
within the red zone.
Friday’s demonstrations were dispersed throughout the city. Small groups
of protesters, known as the black block, broke off from the larger
demonstration and begin charging police lines. The police responded by
charging the larger group of peaceful demonstrators and firing tear gas and
water cannons. While small groups of protesters were seen breaking windows,
throwing rocks at police, and attacking other demonstrators, the police
focused there assault on peaceful protesters.
Throughout Friday, police arbitrarily attacked and brutalized demonstrators
and even some journalists who were presumably mistaken for protesters. John
Elliot, Italian correspondent for the Sunday Times, reported his experience
in Genoa in the July 22nd issue of that paper.
“I was taking in the infernal scene of a water cannon truck cleaving through
clouds of tear gas when I felt a massive blow to the back of my head…I had
been hit by a police truncheon…Two policeman dragged me alongside the
ground, shouted at me in Italian and then hit me some more…They dragged me
over railway lines toward a signal box where I was ordered to put my head on
a steel rail…they started kicking my head back and legs….a senior officer
walked past me and said something like: ‘Resisting arrest with violence.
Take him to the station’.”
Elliot’s experience was shared by numerous demonstrators who had been
brutalized by Italian police.
The brutality of this police riot was intensified by the murder of 23-year
old Carlo Giuliani, an Italian protester, who was shot in the head late
Friday evening. Giuliani, the son of Italian trade unionist, was among
several demonstrators who approached a police van, when an unidentified
Italian police officer fired two shots from the vehicle. Giuliani fell,
blood gushing from his head. The police van reversed over Giuliani’s body,
then speed away from the scene. A young volunteer nurse tried to revive
him, but said “It was no use, he had a hole in the middle of his forehead.”
The killing was met with shock and anger both in Genoa and around the world.
Questions surrounding the circumstances of Giuliani’s death remain. The
Financial Times reported on July 23rd, “One question being asked was why the
police are armed with live rounds rather then rubber bullets in such
situations. Another was why the police forces failed to break up the crowd
or divert protesters rather then lining up for a pitched battle on the
streets.” Reports indicate that police were ready and willing to attack,
brutalize, and even kill demonstrators, peaceful or not.
Amidst the police violence, accusations of police provocation and
infiltration swelled. The black block, the alleged provocateurs of the
violence, were often seen talking to police and emerging from police lines.
In addition police often ignored the violent actions of the black block and
targeted peaceful demonstrators, fueling speculation that the black block
was infiltrated by police agents in an attempt at provocation in order to
justify police violence. Whether or not the black block was directed by
police agents, the fact that police arbitrarily targeted the larger groups
of peaceful trade unionists, church groups, political groups, and others
exposes the intent of Italian authorities. The Italian police were targeted
the demonstration as a whole with police violence, not just what the
bourgeois media has labeled “anarchist rioters”.
On Saturday, protesters were reinforced by new arrivals from across Europe.
A demonstration of at least 150,000 marched through the city center. Police
continued to attack the peaceful demonstrations, causing at least an
additional 250 serious injuries . Many injuries have gone unreported as
many protesters have avoided hospitals amidst reports that demonstrators had
been arrested on arrival to emergency rooms.
Stefano Agnoletto, a leading activist in the Genoa Social Forum, an umbrella
group of some 1,000 anti-gloablization organizations reported, “Saturday,
the demonstration started, [with] people from all over the world...Police,
with no warning or reason given, divided the demonstration in 2
parts...[Police] charged everywhere, people [were] beaten...Metal Workers,
the youth wing of Rifondazione (A left wing Italian Party) [were] charged.
Whoever was isolated was pursued and beaten. Many people are telling of
being beaten only for being recognized as demonstrators.”
The Independent Media Center (IMC) reported that at least 280 protesters
were arrested between Friday and Saturday. Of the 280, 67 were charged with
attempted murder for carrying “weapons of war”, according to The Sunday
Times. The IMC also reported that a delegation of lawyers and journalist
had found severe violations of human rights in prisons detaining protesters.
Prisoners tell of being beaten and tortured, including reports of police
officers throwing tear gas in prison cells holding demonstrators.
In addition to the hundreds of confirmed arrests, the IMC also said some 400
people were reported missing, many presumably arrested.
The arbitrary brutality of the Italian police against mainly peaceful
protests exposes the limitless bounds the capitalist class will go to in the
face of challenges to their authority.
The Genoa protests expresses the continuity of an anti-globalization
movement that was born on the streets of Seattle. Millions of young people,
trade unionists, and others around the world are responding to the onslaught
of capitalism and its disastrous affects on working people the world over.
The extent of this movement and its global reach can be seen in the
international reaction to the police violence in Genoa. Immediately after
the Genoa police riot, protests erupted across the world. On July 26, a
demonstration was held here in Paris of around 2,000 people at the Italian
consulate expressing outrage at the police brutality exhibited in Genoa.
Demonstrations were also held in various European, American, and Latin
American cities.
This movement remains very broad and diverse in both principles and tactics.
Many contradictions within the movement remain, in particular the
influence of some political organizations and NGO’s that call for mere
reform of existing international capitalist institutions such as the IMF and
WTO. These institutions, like all other bourgeois institutions can only
serve the interest’s of the capitalist class, and therefore activists should
demand the abolition of such imperialist bodies. Another contradiction is
the role of the trade union bureaucrats, especially in the United States,
who use nationalist and projectionist rhetoric in place of real class
struggle tactics.
However, the young students and workers who travel across the world to
express their outrage at the capitalist system in the Streets of Seattle,
Prague, Genoa, and elsewhere should not be confused with the cynical liberal
and bureaucratic elements of the anti-globalization movement. These young
people are involved in a genuine struggle to change the type of society we
all live in. These young students and workers are a part of a world wide
youth radicalization. These youth are the new forces in the long battle
against capitalist domination.
While the anti-globalization protests represent a positive movement for the
class struggle, it can go only so far. In order for the movement to grow,
the struggle against capitalism must extend from the streets of Seattle and
Genoa to the factory floor between workers and their bosses. It is only
through the power of the working class that the capitalist system will
brought down once and for all. This is the task of the new generation of
radicalizing youth; The mass moblization in Genoa was a step in the right
direction.
The article above was written by YSAer Dave Bernt.
