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Genoa: RAI TV journo on agent provocateurs / Forza Nuova

Genoa Update | 19.07.2002 05:43

At a screening yesterday of a film about the life of Carlo Giuliani (the protestor shot dead by Italian police in Genoa) attended by his mother, an ex RAI TV journalist, Bruno Luvera presented accusations regarding the activities of fascists from Italy's extreme right-wing Forza Nuova party during the G8 protests in Genoa last year. The accusations have just been published in a book.


Eye witness statements are detailed about a group of 25-30 fascists from the Forza Nuova social centre, which was located just on the edge of the security red zone in Genoa.

Accounts say this group of fascists were seen exiting the centre and donning black masks and talking with Carabinieri and undercover police. There have long been claims that there was a co-ordinated strategy of agent provocateurs operating in genoa, supported by many images of undercover police dressed as protestors / black block operating on foot, from vehicles and motor cycles and mopeds - as time passes and more information surfaces the picture becomes clearer. It is suggested that this group were also involved in the first clashes with police seen around 12.30pm on 20th July 2001, and also perhaps in a clash between COBAS union and black block protestors outside Carlini (sp?) Stadium.

Immediately after the bloody events in genoa much discussion centered around the black block tactic with some trying to blame the repression of all protestors on the actions of black block in destroying property - a gross oversimplification and indeed a misleading claim. Equally misleading though was the accusation that the majority of the actions of black block protestors were due to infiltrators, fascists or undercover police. Certainly there were several reports of 'rogue' black block groups who seemed out of place and who would not engage in dialogue with other black block groups. Many eye witnesses also noted the fact that on several occasions the riot police chose to attack fully non violent peaceful protestors, instead of pursuing nearby groups of black block.

What ever the complex truth may be, it is certain that some form of agent provocateur strategy was operating, what is more difficult to discover, and which will probably never be known, is the scale of that operation.

Of course the use by the state of such agent provocateurs is nothing new and has been seen many times at large scale mobilisations against the summits of International Institutions. During the anti IMF / World Bank protests in Prague (Sept 26th 2000) the police openly collaborated with right wing fascists and used agent provocateurs in the initial attacks on a MacDonalds in the main square (the same undercover police then later violently arrested people in the square), as confirmed by OPH the Czech Legal Monitoring Group. Similar occurrences have been documented by protestors, independent media activists, and even the corporate media on multiple occasions at many protests. Even Reuters reported on the badly staged attack on a Reclaim the Streets party during the protests in Barcelona last year, where undercover police dressed as masked up protestors staged a fight which was then used as the excuse by riot police to baton charge and tear gas the entire crowd.

While many protestors would say these state strategies must be expected on the past performance of police services and governments around the world, they become even more worrying in our present climate where the policing of demonstrations is becoming more militarised and security service led, and where many countries just like the EU have redefined 'terrorism' to include definitions which could easily encompass many 'anti-globalisation' protests.

Returning to Italy and Genoa, any such strategy of the use of agent provocateurs can only be one part of the jigsaw. Taken alongside the brutal attack on the GSF and Indymedia headquarters and the Diaz school, where around 60 people were hospitalised, the systematic torture of those arrested, the political cover ups, obstruction and interference with the ongoing enquiries into the events in genoa, it's clear that something is very rotten in Italy indeed.

Genoa Update

Comments

Display the following 10 comments

  1. WHOis mr.B Lovera? — manimal
  2. It's true, fuck minimal akas Police — police detector
  3. Bruno Luvera' — boh?
  4. Good Source — goodsource
  5. REGOLA AUREA — manimal
  6. apart from that — left right left
  7. check it out — realistick
  8. Important new news — Leonardo
  9. smash the ya-bastards lies — truth
  10. provocateurs — try and be objective