[Nettime-bold] a week of desobedient's action in italy

[Florian Schneider <fls@kein.org>]

From: enrica sarto <enrica.sarto@tin.it>
Subject: A week of desobedient's action in Italy

Over the course of the last week, a national mobilization
against american military trains traveling through italy has
taken place. The week started last Friday, Febuary 21 when a
small group of desobedients took to the station of Monselice
to stop an american military train transporting war goods
from base Ederle in Vicenza to Camp Derby in Pisa.

The "train of the death" as it was called, was forced to
stop its journey in front of the station of Monselice.
Blocked by protestors and bonfires for over two hours, it
finally resumed its journey - but in the opposite direction,
returning through Padova and Vicenza, from where is had
first departed. Hundreds of people in a dissobedient action
succeeded in bloccading the train loaded with war materials.
But it did not stop there: The next day another train was
scedualed leave from the american base Ederle.

Protesters soon learned that there were a total of 24 trains
schedualed to make the journey in the coming days. On
saterday, the 22nd, nearly spontanious protests fermented
all throughout italy. All along the proposed routes, in
nearly every station, bloccades were set up, walls were
painted, banners were hung and flags from a wide range of
groups were seen: In fact, trainstopping soon became a
national focusing point for the antiìwar population.
Pacifists, ecologists, communists, socialists,
dissobedienti, even parlamentary delegates began attending
trainstopping actions throughout italy. Groups of
trainwatchers also formed, sending realtime reports to
Global Radio which conducted and informed all those involved
from the broadcasting station in Padova.

Along with a flux in the number of protesers, an wave of
police repression came down along all the railways and on
several occations protesters were beaten and drug from the
paths of these death trains.

By day three, the situation only seemed to be gaining
momentum. People began pulling the emergency brakes on
trains running along the route in an effort to stop or
hinder the shipments, “Because,” as one person commented,
“death trains must be stopped, as war is a danger to all of
us.” Likewise, Trainstopping transformed into Planestopping
in Pisa, where in the afternoon a group of disobbedienti
from Rome, Pisa and Naples occupied in two groups the
military airport, intruded on the the path and positions of
the planes in such manner to hinder the normal operations of
the airport. And if that wasn’t enough, reports of
disobedient occupations of the offices of Trenitalia were
reported from Pisa, Torino, Milano, Padova, Palermo, and a
handful of other locations.

While the forces of order tried to contain this anti-war
outbreak, governemnt representatives defended it, saying,
for example “"Who is the criminal? People respecting Italian
constitution art. 11 or the government allowing those death
cargo travelling through Italy on civilian routes protected
by the army and police?" refering to artical 11 which states
that “Italy shall repudiate war as an instrument of offence
against the liberty of other peoples and as a means for
settling international disputes.” Another representative was
quoted as saying, "…the political parties are on the rail
too. All death cargos must be blockled."

Wednesday the 26th undoubtably proved to be the most active
day yet for the protesters. The day started off with
carabninieri finding pisan activists chained down to
railroad tracks in the morning and were forced to hack
through the chians with industrial bolt cuttters. With the
arrival of several parlmetary members at base Ederle, a
civil inspection was organized giving the public thier first
bits of non-governmental information about the base
activities in years. With this first glimps inside the
activities of the american operations in italy, 20 year old
public rumers of the storage of nuclear weapons inside the
base were finally confirmed. A call for further civil
inspections were made throught the country met with
government scepticism. Luca Casarini, a prominent activist
in the dissobedienti movement commented, “We are for global
disarment, and if its worth it for the iraq, it is also
worth it for the United States who occupy our territory.”
Interrupted from the applauses, he continues: “…we will see
when the parlementary delegation leaves to negotiate, if
they have the right to enter, we will see if they will say
no, and what will the Italian government do when they answer
no to the inspection? Will they make trains of arms to bomb
the Americans at Ederle or Camp Derby? Because what is good
for one should be good for all.”

Wednesday evening proved to be no less exciting: At around
9:00 pm, a nearly 3 kilometer long caravan of trucks, tanks
and military arms was stalled in route on the italian
highway as they were attempting to transport these good for
loading at the Verona station. Activists could be heard on
Global Radio, live, running and shouting and attempting to
bloccad further movements of the auto caravan and at the
enterence to the loading port. Flags of peace were drapped
over american military trucks and met with bewildered looks
from the soldiers. The carabinieri, however, weren’t so
shocked. A first person report breifly desribes the events:
"Half hour ago two trucks arrived. We wanted to hinder its
entrance to the goods port,and we sat ourselves on the
ground offering passive resistance, but they moved us. After
we entered, we were about thirty in all, we sat ourselves in
the enterence because knew that more trucks would still
arrive". The veronan activists were all stopped, detained
and loaded into a police van. It seems that also Mario Tosi,
regional secretary of Rifondazione Communist party, was also
detained.

An all night vigil held on the part of a few trainwatchers
and by Global Radio ultimately culminated in an 8:30 am
manifestation at the station of Pisa, where a last effort
was made to stop the delivery of this arms shipment.
Although the activists were ultimately unsuccessful in
totally stopping the delivery, further stratagies for
putting a stop to italian complicity to war were made.

Thursday civil pressure continued, taking on a distinctly
international air. In London, an informative protest at the
italian embassy was held, in solidarity with the
Trainstopping movement. On the border between germany and
northern italy, further obstruction of military transports
were made, in some cases completely stopping the flow of
traffic.

Back in italy, the union of shipyard workers in Livorno
announced that they would refuse to load the warships headed
for Turkey with the war train cargo. In Novara, 3000 high
school and university students demonstrated against global
war. During the demo, two disobedience actions took place,
the first one at the armed bank BNL and the second at the
railway station. Here the students occupied the clients room
to demand explanation on Trenitalia policies.

Now, on the last day of Feburary 2003, actions continue to
take place throughout italy. We have just learned that
further occupations of military posts hare underway in
Napoli Catania and Rome. And with 20 trains of death
remaining, this buisness of Trainstopping is far from being
over.

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