An images' bombing. The sequence of Carlo Giuliani’s death, keeps
looping, over and over. Together with the riots, police charges, rain of
tear-gases and stones, devastations and fires, faces covered with blood,
shot from one thousand different angles. Images of a not so far war, not
any more in Palestine, Afghanistan, Ireland. A war exploded in Genova,
Western Europe, under the distracted eyes of the Great Eight, and then
suddenly vanished from the streets, as a flower of fire.
But, if the ghosts of this war keep popping up in the mediascape, the
disturbing images are nothing if compared to the direct reports of the
victims of police brutality. Testimonies of a blind and invisible
violence, unleashed in the dark of the school Diaz or amongst the opaque
walls of the Bolzaneto, Vercelli, Alessandria prisons. These oral
witnessing, coming from tens of English, Germans, French, Italian
demonstrators - all wildly beaten during and after the riots - leave the
deepest of the signs, indelible memories, beyond any magnetic
recording.
- The reports of the unexposed
This is the story of Mark "Sky" Covell, an Indymedia UK
reporter, 33 years old, arrested during the raid of Saturday night at the
Diaz school, and beaten as "a human football". After being
kicked several times, Covell simulated an apparent death. A policemen
touched his neck, and felt that he was still alive, continued, with
others, to beat him. After Covell fell in a coma, he was recovered in a
hospital, where he couldn't see anyone for three days. He reported a hole
in the lungs, some broken ribs and teeth.
This is the story of the freelance photographer Alfonso De Munno, 26
years, who was "deported" in the Genova prison of Bolzaneto on
Saturday afternoon reporting a broken foot, and other contusions. De
Munno, who was arrested during the riots whilst he was shooting pictures,
was forced, as many others, to stand for hours and hours in front of a
white wall. He was beaten from the back, from policemen singing a song
like which was an antisemitic and racist hymn to Pinochet. The story of
the fascist songs was repeated by many different witnesses: Bruno Lupi,
18 years, the son of the the mayor of a small village called
Monterotondo, was beaten with wet rags filled with soaps, cursed, spitted
in his mouth. His father, together with Norman Blair, an English citizen
of 38 years ended in the "lager" of Bolzaneto announced a legal
action against the Italian police.
Still, the most impressive report about Bolzaneto is given by
Fabrizio Ferrazzi, a 51-years old teacher of philosophy, arrested in the
streets of Genoa during a police assault against peaceful demonstrators.
"The men with the badge of GOM (Mobile Operative Groups, the special
Penitentiary Police accused of the heaviest brutalities) forced us to
stand for hours and hours, in front of a wall, and beat us with sticks on
legs and kidneys, in order not to leave visible signs. In the register
office, they constrained people to sign fake admissions of
responsibility. A french kid, charged with "pursued homicide",
refused to sign a paper written in Italian only. He was sent between two
lines of officers beating him up, who convinced him to sign".
Fabrizio Ferrazzi reported a deep wound on his head, with 20 points of
suture. He tells of a long march of terror, from a police department to
another, beaten up and blamed, psychologically brutalized, forced to howl
"Viva il Duce", until the arrival to Bolzaneto. He also saw a
Sicilian boy with a nipple piercing, that was brutally ripped off. Other
reports refer about cigarettes stubbed on the hands of demonstrators,
women threaten of rape with the police sticks and insulted as
"communist whores", boys kicked on their testicles.
- The cross-fire of the institutions
These stories tell us clearly that the abuses were practiced at all the
levels, by different police departments, from the barracks to the
prisons. Tough, the cross-fire amongst different institutional bodies has
already started. Alfonso Sabella, responsible investigative department of
the Penitentiary Police, said that violences and abuses were surely in
place, but that the demonstrators reached the prisons already hurt. The
Minister of Justice, Castelli, said to have visited Bolzaneto on Saturday
night, but to not have noticed anything abnormal. His version is
contradicted by an anonymous policemen of the same department who said
that the prison of Bolzaneto was turned into a "lager" the
Monday before the demonstrations, by a group formed by 100 units.
As regard the police raid of Saturday night in the dormitory and the
press office of the Genoa Social Forum, the Minister of Interior Claudio
Scajola denies any responsibility, affirming to be informed of it only
after its execution. Scajola, and the Government in general, defend the
police operate, and accuse the oppositions of a political
co-responsibility, being all the police functionaries nominated by the
precedent Government. Nevertheless, the temptation to use this episode to
fire the Head of Police, Claudio De Gennaro, is strong. Some voices at
the Minister of Interior, whisper that the raid at the school was an
operation coordinated by the Ros (high investigative agency of the
Carabinieri) and by the Police Sco (Central Operative Service) to put De
Gennaro in difficulty, after that the public image of Carabinieri was
dirtied with blood. In other terms, the Government defends the police
operate, but it's ready to substitute some heads with new nominees, more
faithful to the current administration. The internal enquiry commissioned
to three police officers, will probably give, in the next few hours, an
answer in this direction. The three officers found several
"mistakes" in the direction of the public order in the squares,
and violences in the perquisition at the GSF and in the prison of
Bolzaneto. Nevertheless, the suspicion that the decision of using the
"iron fist", was entirely governmental remains high. The raid
at the Genoa Social Forum was coordinated by 13 officers, amongst which
there are Arnaldo La Barbera, Head of the antiterrorism department
(Ucigos) and Franco Gratteri, Director of Sco. The Government might have
guaranteed them a coverage. Dropping them now, Scajola risks to get a
poisoned payback. What we will see in the next days is if the system of
crossed protections will keep, or new cracks will make fall the entire
castle.
- The opposition oscillates between challenge and compromise
On the other side, Genova signed the apparent re-birth of the Parliament
opposition. In particular, the Leftish Democrats (DS) are leading the
Ulivo coalition in a confrontation with the Government, also aimed to
recuperate a positive relationship with the historical militants and with
a part of the movement. As a result, the Ulivo required, until Wednesday,
the resign of the Minister of Interior and the institution of a
Parliament Commission of Enquiry, invested of the same powers of the
magistrature. The Government responded that the two request were in
contradiction, being impossible to institute any commission, since the
opposition had already expressed its judgment over Scajola’s operate,
presenting a motion of mistrust for Scajola. Solicited by the President
of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, majority and opposition finally
reached a deal, yesterday evening, at the Deputies Room: the
institution of an investigative commission, that we'll make a quick job,
without being invested of the same powers of a proper Commission of
Enquiry. Today, the motion of mistrust is being voted at the Senate and,
with any probability, disapproved.
The political mediation supported by Ciampi and the moderated wings of
both the coalitions, leaves very small results in the hands of the
Leftish Democrats, which may insist for the institution of a proper
Commission of Enquiry at the Senate. But the margins for a
Commission that would make a serious job, seem very reduced. The
ex-fascist party Alleanza Nazionale, whose leader and Vice PM Gianfranco
Fini has been reluctant to any political deal, is accusing, together with
Silvio Berlusconi, the Left of covering ideologically the extremists.
According to Berlusconi, the institution of the Commission of Enquiry
would be "masochistic for the image of Italy". The DS replies
that the "fascist" police abuses are connected to the presence
of Alleanza Nazionale in a Government, and threatens to continue the
mobilization in the country, with a collection of signatures and various
demonstrations.
- The list of the desaparecidos drops
In this context, with half of the country on holiday, the Parliament
battle has the effect of normalizing what was , until few days ago,
abnormal and to obscure, at least on a media level, the spontaneous
initiative of the movement. After the big demonstrations of last Tuesday,
that brought in the streets hundreds of thousands people to protest
against police abuses, the Genoa Social Forum is mainly collecting video
footage, pictures and any documentation necessary to make
circumstanced denounces of the police operate. In particular, the
nocturnal raid at the school, requires a detailed reconstruction of the
dynamic of the perquisition. In its report, the police keeps claims to be
assaulted in the dark of the school by the demonstrators; the non
confirmation of most of the arrests states the contrary. But the
policemen who wildly beaten the demonstrators had their faces covered
with kerchiefs. This is why the lawyers of the Genoa Social Forum asked
to the people who were in the school, including foreigners, to come back
in the school with the Magistrature for a detailed reconstructions of the
facts. This idea of the collective denounce is proceeding also on the
Bolzaneto's front. A German association of victims is preparing the
website gbolzaneto.de, which will be online in few days. In the meantime
the number of the arrested continues to drop. Not more than 40 are still
detected in the Italian prisons. The list of the dispersed is dropping as
well. The wish is that the death of Carlo Giuliani will remain the only
one.