ANARCHIST BLACK CROSS - UTRECHT

c/o Paria Collective, Postbus 1332, 3500 BH Utrecht

"The greatest conspiracy against anarchists in the second half of the century"

Betuwelijn - TAV :

Solidarity with Italian anarchists

Since 1996, the Italian anarchists/squatter movement has suffered a wide repression under Judge Marini's commands following the struggle against the TAV (Treno Alta Velocita). Like the Betuwelijn, the TAV is part of the European Community of Railways, a wide project that aims at improving the ways of fast communication between the various countries of the EU and accelerates the transnationalization process that remains very interesting for several industrials as it's gonna improve their commercial exchanges with the rest of the EU and companies such as Fiat, Banca di Roma, Banca di Napoli, Oil National Company, Credit Lyonnais, SNCF, or even the Torinese council participates in the financing of this project. Huge investments are made to build the service Lyon-Torino that will go through the Alpes by a tunnel of 54 km long, destroying on its way the wonderful Val de Susa in the Plemont region. Even before the beginning of the construction of this tunnel, the companies that support/finance this project are targeted and suffer various attacks. Some anti-TAV militants glue posters mentionning : "The TAV sums up itself a global conception of the world : the one that wants our lives, our areas and our time swallowed as merchandises. Striking today the masters of our lives means as well striking the masters of the TAV". On 23rd August 1996, the first direct action (throw of molotov cocktails) takes place against the TAV, followed by an intense Christmas night and an action on 26th January 97 that, causing several millions of Lires of damages, will be the starting point of the repression against anarchists, then pointed out as the main suspects.

However it has to be clear that the struggle against the TAV remains basically a struggle of the local population from the Val De Susa who defends her living area. Unlike media, judges, journalists and politicians who want to attribute these actions/ assaults to an avant-guardist group cut off from the people's claims, this struggle constitutes a gathering of local people and and of all those who wanna support it with a revolutionnary perspective. It is true that some actions have taken place and claimed by "The Grey Wolves" but these actions ("Grey Wolves, solidarity against the TAV, taxes, churches, capital/consumerism, prisons, schools, etc") and represent only a minority of all the actions that have taken place against the construction of the railway and those who hold interests in it.

Still, the actions claimed under this name are gonna become the basis of investigations against anarchists accused of "eco-terrorism".

On 20th January 1998, some documents are stolen at the city hall of Capris that afterwards is set on fire, followed by the explosion of the garage. Three anarchists from Torino are directly suspected for this one action, only action attributed to them before their arrest. 5th March, Silvano Pelissero, Soledad Rosas and Edo Massari, accused of belonging to the Grey Wolves are arrested during a spectacular force operation of "Carabinieri" who attack the squatt of Collegno in Torino and evict it right after the operation. Finding an ending oil lamp and some bottles of oil, the Carabinieri speak highly of having proves for the fabrication of artisanal bombs. A wide media operation of criminalization starts then in collaboration with the Italian authorities, spreading slogans such as "squatters = terrorists" to weaken the anarchist/squatter movement within this period of intense confrontation. On the same day, cops invade and evict the Asilo while their attempt on the Alcova fails thanx to the resistance of the inhabitants.

A wave of protests and demonstrations takes place in Torino and Bologna following these operations that wanna be justified by a wide media conspiracy. A serie of 13 bomb attacks are attributed to the 3 anarchists, while the accusation is about arsons...

On 27th March, though it recognizes that they have nothing to do with these attacks, the Chamber of Accusation confirms their detention till... 28th March : Edo is found dead in his cell, "hung up" according to warders. The rage and the hatred then explode and this period is marked by numerous confrontations, riots, protests and solidarity actions all over Italy among them a demo of 10 000 people who smashed the Justice Court with 10 000 stones, while in Athens and in the Basque Country, Italian interests and representations are targeted. About this "suicide" and before the same thing happens to her on July, Soledad declares in a letter : "The hatred dominates me at this moment. I've always thought that each of us is responsible for his/her acts. But this time, there are guilty people and I wanna say very load who killed Edo : the State, judges, persecutors, journalists, the TAV, the police, jails, laws, rules and this subjected society who accepts this system.

We've always fought against these compulsory things and that's why we are now in jail. Jail is a place where you're tortured physically and mentally; definitely nothing is available. You cannot decide when you wanna stand up, what to eat, who to talk with, to meet and on what time you wanna see the sun. For everything you must make a demand, even to read a book. Noises of keys, of iron gates that close up and shut down, voices that say nothing (...), a flashlight that controls your sleep, your mail checked, the ban to speak...

All is chaos, all is Hell, all is death. It's on this way that they kill you slowly everyday, so that you suffer even more. Edo wanted to end up immediately with unstandable torture. He offered himself at least a last gest of freedom, the one to decide, himself, when to end up with this torture".

In the same time, some assassination attempts claimed by the Red Brigades and other guerilla groups give a good pretext to the State to persue its persecution of anarchists and squatters. Bologna is now the target of investigations and thanx to the article 41bis, squatts are carried out a search without any mandate and 18 people are arrested for "association eventually terrorist" among them one will be sentenced to 6 months imprisonment. Hundreds of arrests take place all over Italy thanx to this article-law. State intervention and anti-terrorist commandos are operating these search that have no other goal than to keep rising this wide conspiracy against anarchists, pretending looking for weapons and self-made bombs, without any result.

Besides, only one guy is still held by the jail industry for the struggle against the TAV :

Silvano Pelissero. Basically isolated in the high-security prison of Cuneo, he was finally assignated to residence after 2 hunger strike sand a lot of protests outside, on the international level. But in Italy, assignation to residence means imprisonment in a special department of the jail and Silvano has now remained for almost 2 years already behind the bars for accusations he has always denied and from which he was proved and recognized innocent by "Justice" itself.

But Justice needs someone to lay its vengence on and Silvano is now accused of 18 bombs attacks, his trials take place on the same way as 30 years ago for the Red Brigades, with search and identification at the entrance and 80 journalists aiming at him with their cameras like if his face of "criminal" had to be watched by the all country to show people and anarchists in particular what a State vengence means. His origins from the Val De Susa morover don't help his case for that, and the fact that he was a very active anarchist militant for a long time either. Lately, the prosecutor required 7 years of imprisonment against him. The last audience focused on the defence took place on 21st January. More infos about this case in the first ABC-Utrecht bulletin. Contact us to receive it and follow the case. We also distribute a flyer "Writing to prisoners" that will advise you if wanna write to him and also some lists of prisoners if you're interested in different kind of cases. You can write to him in Italian or in French (or ask the ABC to translate your mail) at:

Silvano Pelissero, Com. Mastropietro, Via Ferreri Noli 2 San Poso, 10 080 Torino, Italy

Note: The Italian "Grey Wolves" have NOTHING to do with the Turkish "Grey Wolves".

Anarchist Black Cross

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