On Saturday March 23 up to 2,000,000 marched in Rome against the proposed abolition of art.18, an article of the labour law preventing workers from being fired without valid reasons. The demonstration went ahead despite calls from the Berlusconi government to suspend it in the wake of the killing of Marco Biagi - adviser of the Minister for Welfare - on Tuesday 19th in Bologna.

The Italian Police deemed 'credible' a document published on Thursday 21st March on the website www.caserta24ore.org in which 'The Red Brigades Combatant - Communist Party' claimed responsibility for the murder.

The killing of Biagi has been widely condemned by the institutional left in Italy which quickly moved to use today's demonstration as a show of opposition to terrorism and as a call for "national unity" that in the 70's established the premise for a crackdown on social movements.

COBAS, Disobbedienti and the social centres movement have condemned the murder as a 'pro-regime homicide'.

The timing of the murder, and the way in which it was quickly linked by the Berlusconi government to the Left, raises memories of the 70's and of the 'strategy of tension' which saw state sponsorship of terrorist acts which were then blamed on the left.

A general workers strike against the reforms of the labour law will go ahead at some point during the month of April. Indymedia Italy | Foto