Syndicate: reports from Rome

[snafu <snafu@bbk.org>]

dear syndicalists

this is the report that i tried to send 2 days ago... i send it again
hoping in a better luck...

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i start my first message to this list apologizing with all of those who are
living days and nights of terror under the bombs -- to be italian, to to be
part of a country that is doing what it's doing...

 so, even if i don't know personally any of you i send to all of you many
soft kisses and tender embraces, wishing you to come back to a decent life
very very soon...

about italy i have to say that italiano doesn't necessarly means Aviano...
most part of the italian people, according to the "offcial" polls, is
against the war, even if only small minorities have begun to demonstrate it
clearly...

yesterday, saturday 29, we woke up to the news that on friday night the
french government have decided to close the frontier of Ventimiglia to
3.000 thousand people that were trying to reach Paris by train, to
demonstrate for a Europe without borders and wars...

Since the 2 trains were occupied, the 3.000 decided to step 7 km under the
rain, in order to cross the frontier by walk, where no tickets are
required... Unluckily they found (again) the frontier obstructed by a wall
of police tracks and CRS ready to fight. No officials reasons for this
denial, just the power to open and to close according to the necessity of
the State. Do you remember Schengen?

In any case yesterday we saw also the first significant italian
demonstartions against the war: about 10.000 students in Milan in the
morning, and 7.000 people in the afternoon in Rome, where the demo ended up
with pretty violent riots.
A group of around 300 demonstrators attacked the house of the PDS, the main
party supporting the italian governement, while the police answered
shooting lacrimogenous bullets on the level of the bodies (a woman had
reported a deep wound upon the head)... Later on a part of the demos tried
to reach the american embassy, but was forced to stop in front of the large
amount of security services...

During the same day, other demonstrations were taking place front of the
Aviano and Gioia del Colle basis... in the next period the mobilization
will probably grow in extension and intensity...

the position of the pacifist movement is to give on one hand the maximum
support to refugees and disertors and on the other hand to push the italian
government to re-open the diplomatic channels or -- where it's not possible
because of an american-serbian denial -- to withdraw its partecipation to
the war, to not share any others responsibilities with a conlict, that day
by day exacerbates the problems instead of resolving them...
 
the italian government seems to be at the moment the weakest and most
uncertain of the Nato's ring... it relies in fact upon the votes of one of
the two italian communist parties, which is continuosly threatening to
withdraw its support if the bombings don't cease immediatly... on the other
hand the right-wing catholics supporting the government, affirms that Italy
must fight toghether with Nato until the end of the conflict...

in this situation the D'Alema government could fall from one day to
another, also because the pubblic opinion doesn't seem to suffer so much
the intervention... the mainstream media seems to be much less interventist
than during the Gulf War...

in the next week we will see if the situation of war will turn in the
people's perception into something "normal" and "ineluctable", or if the
deep feeling of anger that beats our guts will grow and explode in the
pubblic space...

with love much l-ov-e

xxx snafu xxx