last night (nov 15th) twenty people part of new global movements in South of Italy have been imprisoned with very heavy and fascistic accusations:
"Subversive association and political conspiracy finalized to disrupt Government functions, subversive propaganda and violent subversion of the economic order of the State".

Francesco Caruso, leader of the "No Global Network" from Naples and one of the main speakers of Italian Disobedients, has been arrested and deported to the prison of maximum security of Trani, reserved to Red Brigades terrorists. Together with Caruso, Italian Digos (political police) arrested Francesco Cirillo and Giuseppe Fonzino, leaders of the movement in Cosenza and Taranto. Other 22 people have been searched and investigated within the
same inquiry coordinated by the special investigative group of the Ros (Carabinieri) and the Procura of Cosenza.

According to the PM, Caruso, Cirillo and Fonzino are supposedly the heads of a subversive association called "Network of the Rebel South". The Network would have organized the riots of Naples in March 2001 (during the
Global Forum organized by the previous Government) and in Genoa during the G8 Summit. In this circumstance the Network would have organized a "red block" to be dislocated behind the black bloc. The inquiry would demonstrate clear relationships between the Network and the black bloc.

Beside the detectives speculations (explained in an ordinance of 360 pages), the arrests and the particular gravity of the accusations (used in the 70s to fight terrorism) are clearly an intimidating act after the
European Social Forum success which gathered last week 700,000 demonstrators in Florence against global war. The evidence of the movement vitality is given by the fact that few hours after the arrests presidium and sit-in of solidarity have been organized all over the country. And in
the next days initiatives are planned in various spots and under various forms.

The signs of a growing economic and social crisis in Italy are everywhere: FIAT, the Italian car brand, has announced recently the cut of 8,100 workplaces and the veiled intention to sell to General Motors within two years. Many observers state that the dismantling of the Italian car
industry will involve about 30,000 workers, including the external small factories which fabricate components for FIAT.

The crisis is particularly heavy in Sicily, where the closure of the implant of Termini Imerese will dramatically impact the overall occupational balance, already under-developed. The workers from Termini Imerese are striking since one week, blocking the ports and the airport of Palermo and Messina, cutting out the island from the rest of the country. The workers are also menacing the Government to increase the form of the protests, if Fiat will not present an industrial plan of investments and
re-launch of the production.

Sicily is also the region where the Government lead by Silvio Berlusconi got 61 deputies on 61. Therefore, it is highly symbolic that in the Region where the people believed most the Government promises, the hard reality ground is breaking them into pieces. Beside this, the CGIL (the largest European union, with 5 million members) was massively present at the European Social Forum in Florence. The alliance between such a traditional organization of the workers and the new global movement (rooted into
precarious, flexible, cognitive and "atypical" workers) is powerful and potentially winning. The total control on media that Berlusconi is exercising is unable to produce new consensus and to break into social networks of solidarity and to delegitimate a movement where the word-of- mouth and the Internet are powerful tools of organization and
resistance.

On a more general level, Italy is the EU country with the slowest growth in 2002 (0,4%). The Euro effect is eroding the buying power of the salary and the public debt has started to run again. The level of corruption is
dramatically increasing. The new laws on "fake in balance" allowed Berlusconi to cancel for prescription two of the trials in which he is involved as an enterpreneur. The new law on "legitimate suspicion" will facilitate enquired people to reject the natural judge and to move the
process elsewhere (Berlusconi is rejecting his judge in Milan for the accusation of "magistrature corruption"). The personal and private use of the political power, is unaccetable not only for the new global movement
but also for vast strata of the middle class, from school teacher to drugstore managers, from journalists to little enterpreneurs of the North East.

But Berlusconi has no will to leave the power. By keeping the control on secret services (after the nominee of the new Minister of Foreign Affairs) he sends a clear message. "I'm not quitting and i will use all the powers at my disposal to accomplish the political project of P2" (the subversive
lobby of which Berlusconi was member): break the independence of the magistrature, exercise a complete control over media and turn the Italian democracy into a modern oligarchy. A project that millions of people are
contrasting day by day, disconnecting themselves by TV propaganda and fear circuits and spreading consciousness and democratic participation.