Outbreak at San Foca
There are more and more undesirables in the world; so many people coming from the poorest countries and escaping war and famine. They search for a better life in 'Fortress Europe', in the same countries whose governments are responsible for their misery.
Because it's rich Europe and the U.S. who spread war, famine and desolation all over the world in the name of capitalist needs, and compel thousands and thousands of people to leave their homeland. Many die during their journey to the rich world, shipwrecked in crammed old boats or hidden in the rear of suffocating vans. Those who manage to arrive safely are soon arrested and taken to concentration camps for immigrants. These are actually prisons for men, women and children, guilty of being 'clandestine'. The few who are finally given temporary stay permits and get out of prison have to cope with sweat labour, terrible living conditions and all kinds of humilation. Most are given an expulsion order and, now deprived of any means of support, are deported to their countries to face almost certain death.
'Fortress Europe' shows off its capacity to defend itself from the undesirables: border guards and police stations are to be found everywhere and, as if this wasn't enough, detention camps for immigrants are built throughout the land.
In Italy these are called 'Centri di permanenza temporanea', temporary stay centres, and were first introduced by a law passed in 1998 by the leftist government of Massimo D'Alema. From that moment Italian anarchists began a struggle not just to have such concentration camps closed, but also to destroy the conditions which make them exist.
Anarchists find it disgusting for any human being (or animals) to be locked up, in this case only because they don't have documents. This particular infamy is part of a general one, the whole prison-society, but the management of a camp of immigrants is a very concrete fact and can be attacked.
Anarchists don't want detention camps to be nicer, more colourful and respectful of human rights, they want them to be raized to the ground.
In Salento, in the Puglia region of southern Italy, one of the worst prisons for immigrants is to be found. Located on the Adriatic shore, the Regina Pacis centre in San Foca, is run by the Italian Catholic organization 'Caritas', or more precisely by Cesare Lodeserto, a priest who is the manager of the camp, and Cosmo Francesco Ruppi, his boss and archbishop of Otranto.
A number of terrible deeds have occured in Regina Pacis since it was created, including beatings, forced administration of psychotropic drugs, attempted suicides.. Not to mention the many escape attempts, most of which unfortunately been unsuccessful. Father Lodeserto was even officially charged with ill treatment and injuries but he was not removed and he is still the manager of this centre of torture.
The local anarchists are engaged in the struggle against prisons for 'clandestine' people and they do this both through demos, debates, distribution of leaflets, meetings, etc. and by planning a series of attacks against the core of Regina Pacis management.
San Foca, where the camp is located, is a little seaside town which is full of people on holiday in summer. During that period the anarchists carry out a work of counter-information in order to let the inhabitants and the tourists know what really happens in those prisons. At other times the anarchists strike anything and anyone connected to the camp: the manager and his armed guards, firms providing any kind of service to the camp and are responsible for the ill treatment of immigrants, banks that keep the money of Regina Pacis, etc.
The forces of respression were just waiting for a good occasion to make the Salento anarchists pay dearly for such obstinate hatred towards Regina Pacis. Unfortunately they found the occasion last July 11 (2004), when they displayed their brutality against their worst enemy (the anarchists) as well as, once again, the imprisoned immigrants.
The anarchists were distributing leaflets and holding a public protest, one of the thousands, in front of the camp. Soon they realised that the immigrants locked up inside were protesting too, beating the bars and throwing objects out of the windows.
At a certain point a man, a north African immigrant, tried to escape after breaking a window pane. He jumped down and reached the outside gate. Both the cops and the anarchists ran after him, the former in order to stop him, the latter to help his escape. It was then that the cops got their truncheons out and started their brutal attack. That day in San Foca twenty anarchists were seriously beaten, a girl had her knee fractured whilst escaping towards the beach, a comrade was arrested (he has now been released until the trial) as he was giving his help to another who was surrounded by a group of furious cops. As for the prisoners in revolt in the camp, they were probably beaten and almost certainly deported immediately.
It must be said that never before had such violence been displayed against demonstrations in front of Regina Pacis, even if in the past high levels of tension had often occurred. This time, however, the anarchists were alone and no member of the Social Forum anxious to restore the 'peace' was on the spot to advance some cowardly pacifist mediation.
No need to say that the Salento anarchists, and us with them, are now even angrier than before. Their hatred, and ours, for concentration camps and for all prisons has grown and soon it will explode again.
Contacts:
Nemici di ogni frontiera
c/o Capolinea Occupato- Via Adua - 73100 Lecce (Italy)
www.guerrasociale.org