Social Control
The Finger and the Moon - Operation 'Cervantes'
This text is a contribution to explaining what has been happening in Italy, and what the so called 'Operation ‘Cervantes’' is, following which a number of anarchists are under investigation for conspiracy and four comrades have been arrested since July 2004.
What keeps these comrades being imprisoned is the will of dominion that is trying to take victims among its enemies.
Laws, thought up and imposed in defence of the interests of the ruling class, are nothing more than instruments serving those who practise oppression. The attacks of repression, therefore, that is to say the law itself, not only hit those who are today behind prison bars, but like a collective scourge, they also strike all of us. This is why fighting back without taking time is an absolute necessity, which everybody must accomplish according to their own aspirations and means, passion and anger.
Dominion is vindictive
No less are the oppressed
"Do not think that we are only a few people
and that the deed is too hard for us.
Do you think that two or three bunches of clouds
are little things in the summer sky?
In a flash they can spread everywhere…
Lightning then strikes, thunder roars,
and rain pours everywhere.
Do not say that we are few,
just say that we are."
- Lee Kwang Su
What follows is the text of the order of search and investigation that on July 27 2004 was addressed to dozens of comrades in various areas in Italy at dawn on July 27 2004. Four of them were arrested. Arrest warrants were issued by preliminary investigation judge (GIP) Muntoni.
"Public Prosecutor’s Office
Court of Rome
Search warrant
(Articles 250 and following of the penal code)
The public prosecutor orders search and investigation towards…………..following articles 270 and 270bis of the penal code. The above mentioned… together with others, was promoting, forming, organising and taking part in a subversive association aimed at subverting with violence the economic and social order of the State, and at committing acts of violence to subvert the democratic order (such as acts of sabotage, attacks to people and property, and other), and which was structured according to the subversive scheme of double level (a clear and apparently legal level and a hidden and practically illegal level). The association was formed by ‘AFFINITY GROUPS’.
The latter:
- Acted on a local basis; were characterized by the highest degree of intimacy, knowledge and reciprocal trust between the members and were open to anyone who agreed with their project;
- Were connected to one another by informal communication and bond together by a common project of ‘small actions’ of attack against institutions through armed struggled carried out with criterions of simplicity, direct action and a generalised attack against the State and the symbols of the EU;
- Had different names but operated under a common alliance called Informal Anarchist Federation (Federazione Anarchica Informale or FAI);
- Were engaged in mutual assistance characterized by:
. revolutionary solidarity towards arrested and/or hiding comrades;
. adhesion to REVOLUTIONARY CAMPAIGNS carried out anonymously by individuals or affinity groups;
. mutual adhesion to actions of struggle.
In Rome, Viterbo, Arezzo and other towns (sites of local affinity groups, of the targeted objectives and of informal meetings of the various groups). From summer 2003 till now."
The so-called operation ‘Cervantes’, orchestrated by the R.O.S (carabinieri special unit) and by the D.I.G.O.S. (political police), ordered by home secretary Pisanu and executed by Roman antiterrorism judges, such as public prosecutors Vitello, De Falco and Capaldo, and co-ordinated by judge Ionta, focuses its ‘attention’ to the ‘insurrectionist-anarchist’ movement: the accusation states that there exists an association ‘aiming at subverting with violence the economic and social order of the State’ and attributes penal responsibilities to a number of individuals for various attacks against dominion.
As Judge Marini’s trial had concluded, the inquisitors having obtained a sentence from the Court of Cassation condemning eight comrades for various crimes and accused five of them of belonging to an armed and subversive association aiming at committing acts of terrorism, once again the theorem of the double level was put forward: ‘a clear and apparently legal level and a hidden and practically illegal level’, which would refer to a well structured organisation pivoting on the constitution of affinity groups.
Police and judges, therefore, tried to connect the investigation to what they call ‘the complex phenomenon of insurrectionist-anarchism’, and they also took the trouble to establish the origin of it. This new investigation, in fact, makes reference to an armed group called Revolutionary Action that operated in Italy at the end of the Seventies, and to a great number of writings by anarchist comrade Alfredo Bonanno, who is today in jail following Marini’s trial and who has been identified as ‘the ideologist of insurrectionist-anarchism’ since that investigation. In particular, the inquisitors used a number of extracts from a text, ‘Affinity and Informal Organisation’. Moreover they mentioned the latter as the new text of reference of the ‘Insurrectionist-Anarchist Revolutionary Organisation’, and in doing so they seem ‘having forgotten’ that the hypothesis of the above-mentioned organisation had already been dismantled in the first grade of the Marini trial; through this new investigation they are attempting to propose the same accusation on ideological grounds.
And soon they found what they call the ‘generating source’ of the current activity of the most radical part of the anarchist movement in Italy, the one that in this penal procedure has been identified as the Informal Anarchist Federation.
It is important to point out that this operation is part of a general project of repression against those who practise direct action. Hence it is backed by a series of investigations and arrests that strike a great number of comrades all over Italy.
At the beginning of June the houses of a dozen of comrades and the site of the radical ecological group ‘Il Silvestre’ are searched in Pisa. It is the investigation on the C.O.R. (Revolutionary Offensive Cells), a group that since July 2003 have claimed a series of explosive attacks against members of Alleanza Nazionale party [The Italian fascist party, translator’s note], journalists, institutional unionists, job agencies and the yard where a carabinieri headquarters was being built.
Alessio is immediately arrested, whereas another four comrades are arrested in the evening. A comrade is released after two days, while house arrest is conceded to the others after four days in prison. During the summer other comrades from Pisa are searched and arrested. Alessio and Willy are today still in prison following the C.O.R. investigation; Francesco, who was under house arrest, resolved to escape and he is now on hiding [He would be recaptured on May 11 2005 in Barcelona and extradited to Italy in January 2006. Willy and Alessio would be put under house arrest after a few months, translator’s note].
In Genoa, at the beginning of the summer, during one of the usual police raids against immigrants, two comrades, Errico and Paolo decide to intervene. They are arrested and accused of resistance, and of insulting and attacking public officials. After three days they are put under house arrest, and eventually released, but they must sign every day at the police station.
On June 12 three comrades of ‘Circolo Fraria’ in Cagliari (Sardinia), Carlo, Luca and Vinicio, are arrested and accused of having set fire to the site of Forza Italia [The Italian prime minister’s party, translator’s note] in Quartu Sant’Elena (Cagliari). Another ten comrades and ‘Circolo Fraria’ site are searched. The latter is closed down for sixty days following a 1931 law. The official reason is that ‘the members of Fraria have caused serious inconvenience to public order and security and have created a widespread state of alarm. It is strongly believed that they might plan further and more serious crimes’ (…)’. The order that stated the closure of ‘Circolo Fraria’ will be delayed for another two months. The three anarchists are put under house arrest after a month and a half.
At the end of June Luigi, Stefano, Marco, Mattia, Massimo and Lorenzo from Rovereto are arrested and taken to Trento prison, following a fight with a group of fascists that had occurred two years before. A great number of houses are also searched. After a few days the six comrades start a protest in order to put an end to their isolation and to be released (they refuse to go out in the yard and to take showers). After a week they will be released.
On June 11 Salvatore is arrested in Lecce following riots outside and inside the concentration camp for immigrants ‘Regina Pacis’, where a revolt had been broken during a demo in solidarity with the immigrants. After two days he is put under house arrest.
In October, following a Molotov device attack against a carabinieri station in Catania (Sicily), anarchist comrade Giuseppe is arrested. After four months in prison he is eventually released for a legal flaw.
This text is a contribution to exposing what the latest attack of repression, the so-called operation ‘Cervantes’, is like, and to examine a series of other facts following which still today a number of comrades are under investigation for belonging to a subversive association aiming at committing acts of terrorism, and four of them are being held in prison. Our intent, even through this pamphlet, is to bring solidarity to all the comrades hit by repression. We want that, with active solidarity, new forces can be found to help in the resistance against the attacks of dominion and to destroy the current social- political-police apparatus.
No self-pity: we do not expect anything from our sworn enemies, nor will we claim anyone’s innocence.
As we are extraneous to the moral and legal concepts of ‘guilty’ and innocent’, we do not recognize as our interlocutors the State nor its courts, its judges, its codes and its laws, that only condemn or absolve.
The law, thought and imposed in order to defend the interests of the ruling class, is just an instrument serving those who practise oppression.
The attacks of repression, therefore, i.e. the law itself, not only hit those who are behind prison bars today, but like a collective scourge, they strike all of us. That is why fighting back without taking time is an absolute necessity, which everybody has to accomplish according to his or her own aspirations and means, passion and anger.
To Tittarello, Sergio, Simone, Tombolino.
To all our comrades in prison.
To all the prisoners.
Soon again with us!
June 17 2003 – During the night an explosive device detonates close to the Spanish Cervantes institute in Rome. The explosion damages the entrance door and other structures of the building. The explosive device is made of about 500 grams of explosive substance placed in a pressure cooker along with bolts and a primer triggered with a timer. The action is claimed by the ‘5 C’, ‘Cellule contro il Capitale, il Carcere i suoi Carcerieri e le sue Celle’ (Cells against capital, prison, jailers and cells).
This is an extract of the claim:
‘TODAY, 17/6/2003, AT 4AM WE HAVE LASHED AT THE CERVANTES INSTITUTE, ONE OF THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPANISH DOMINION THAT EXIST IN ITALY. THROUGH THIS ACTION WE STRONGLY SUPPORT THE CLAIMS OF THE FIES PRISONERS WHO ARE STILL STRUGGLING WITH DIGNITY. WE THINK THAT ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO IS NO TAMED BY THE FALSE WELL-BEING OFFERED BY DEMOCRACY HAS TO EXPRESS HIS/HER ANGER IN DEEDS AND IN SOLIDARITY TO THE OPPRESSED. WE WANT TO REMIND THOSE WHO ATTEND THIS INSTITUTE AND WHO ARE ACCOMPLICES OF THE TORTURE INFLICTED INSIDE THE PRISONS OF THE SPANISH STATE THAT THEY ARE NOW AWARE ENOUGH OF THE GRAVITY OF THEIR INDIFFERENCE, THEY NO LONGER HAVE ANY ALIBIS. THEY MUST BE READY TO ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT. (…) WE DO NOT THINK THAT A SINGLE ACTION IS A VICTORY, SO WE WILL KEEP ON DISTURBING YOUR DREAMS, YOUR ECONOMIC INTERESTS, AND YOUR TRANQUILLITY, WHICH IS BASED ON THE CERTAINITY OF A FALSE IMPUNITY. YOU WILL SOON TASTE THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR GUILTY INDIFFERENCE’.
October 2 2003 – Three explosive parcels are respectively sent to the Ministry of Work (where it detonates), to the offices of Sardinia region in Rome and to the carabinieri station in Stampace (Cagliari, Sardinia).
October 4 2003 – A European summit discussing the EU constitution is held in Rome. In spite of the fact that the town is under siege, a group of comrades attack a number of targets: they try to set fire to a job agency, ‘Adecco’, and damage a few banks and petrol stations. Police officers who stop 32 people are also attacked.
A carabinieri infiltrator is recognized and beaten by three masked comrades. Owing to the massive presence of cameras, not only journalists immediately capture images of the action, but the latter are also broadcast in the Internet. It is precisely following this kind of evidence (videos and photos) that public prosecutor Vitello orders the search and arrest against a few comrades who are supposed to have assaulted the carabinieri infiltrator Massimo Boraccini on October 4 in Rome.
October 8 2003 – An explosive device is found and defused at the site of the Spanish air company ‘Iberia’ in Parioli area (Rome). The device is formed by a pressure cooker containing nitrate and connected to a timer by electric wires. The action is claimed by the ‘Armed Cells for International Solidarity:
‘SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES ARRESTED IN VALENCIA AND BARCELONA AND TO EVERYONE WHO STRUGGLES AGAINST THIS SYSTEM OF EXPLOITATION INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE PRISONS.
IN MEMORY OF PACO ORTIZ’.
October 16 2003 – A mail explosive device is sent to the police headquarters in Rome. It is defused before it detonates.
October 18 2003 – Following public prosecutor Vitello’s order, ROS and DIGOS search the houses of four comrades in Rome and Viterbo area. The latter are considered responsible for the incidents that occurred on October 4 in Rome during the demo against the EU summit. A comrade, Massimo Leonardi, is arrested and accused of having beaten the carabinieri infiltrator. The evidence justifying the arrest is given by videos and photos published in various newspapers, which show three masked demonstrators beating a cop infiltrated.
October 21 2003 – Massimo refuses to be questioned by the preliminary investigation judge. Meantime the forensic police department examines a few objects that had been seized from Massimo’s house on October 18. These objects are eventually handed to the R.O.S. as they are considered ‘relevant’ to the investigation on the mail explosive devices sent to Rome and Sardinia on October 2. Following these facts, a hideous slanderous campaign is carried out by the media against Massimo.
October 22 2003 – During a demo in solidarity to Massimo in Cagliari (Sardinia), fights with the cops occur, 14 demonstrators are stopped and 3 of them are arrested. A comrade is injured to the head and must be taken to hospital. The morning after a summary trial is held. It is postponed on January 13.
October 24 2003 – An explosive device formed by a few petrol cans filled with inflammables is found outside the entrance door of the site of the Social Services for Adults Centre (C.S.S.A.) in Viterbo, a structure belonging to the ministry of Justice that is engaged in the ‘rehabilitation’ of prisoners.
About 50 comrades demonstrate in solidarity to Massimo and show off the banner: ’Free Massimo, Fire to all prisons’.
October 25 2003 – A great number of comrades gather outside Regina Coeli prison in Rome, where Massimo had been taken the day before. The deployment of anti-riot cops, DIGOS and carabinieri is massive. When they reach the prison, the comrades learn that Massimo has been moved to Rebibbia prison, following the procedure typical of the isolation regime he is being inflicted: blindfolded, handcuffed and with chains to his feet. The comrades, who had come from various Italian areas, move towards Rebibbia prison in small groups, followed by the police. They start distributing leaflets in front of the tube station close to Rebibbia, surrounded by DIGOS and carabinieri in plain clothes. As soon as the comrades move towards Tiburtina (a main road that leads to Rebibbia prison), anti-riot cops attack and start kidnapping demonstrators. A few comrades manage to escape by throwing down some rubbish skips and launching firecrackers against the cops. In the end 14 comrades are arrested and taken to Regina Coeli and Rebibbia prisons. They will be released two days after. The trial is fixed for the fifth of February.
November 2 2003 – In Mar del Plata (Argentina) a few writings in solidarity to Massimo appear on the building of the Italian embassy.
November 3 2003 – An explosive device is found at the prefect’s office in Cagliari. The action is claimed the day after by the A.S.A.I. (Anonymous Sardinian Insurrectionist-Anarchists), which send a leaflet to the police headquarters claiming Massimo’s freedom.
November 4 2003 – Writings in solidarity to Massimo appear in front of the Italian embassy in Buenos Aires (Argentina). The court refuses to concede house arrest to Massimo. Meantime two mail explosive devices are sent, one to the police headquarters in Viterbo (which is defused)) and the other to the carabinieri station in Viale Libia in Rome. The latter blows up in the hands of marshal Stefano Sindona, chief of the station, who loses two fingers. The two devices were made by an envelope containing a videocassette box with about 100 grams of gunpowder inside and a broken light bulb connected to a 9-voltage battery. The primer was made by a clothes peg with a few drawing pins attached on it and taken apart by a plastic stripe stuck to the inside of a corner of the envelope.
November 5 2003 – A mannequin dressed with a police uniform is found hanging in the park of a super store, which is immediately evacuated. Artificers are called to the spot. The episode is thought to be in relation to a few writings in solidarity to Massimo that were left in the area.
November 10 2003 – Another mail explosive device, sent to the site of the daily ‘Il Corriere di Viterbo’, is defused by artificers in Rome. The mail was addressed to journalist Gianluigi Basilietti, and was made using a CDs container. The investigators put forward the hypothesis of a ‘punishment’ against Basilietti, who had written a few articles about the explosive devices of October 4 maintaining that the action could be related to Massimo’s arrest.
November 14 2003 –In the night a few gas bombs filled with petrol blow up outside five banks in front of the site of ‘New Democracy’ party in Athens. The claim, among other things, expresses solidarity to the comrades arrested in Italy.
November 26 2003 – The front door of Atri court (Teramo) is set to fire. On the outside wall is written: ‘Free Massimo Leonardi’.
December 2 2003 – An explosive device detonates outside the front door of the provincial palace in Cagliari. The action is claimed by a leaflet signed A.S.A.I., which says “Massimo a forosa” (Free Massimo, in Sardinian).
December 3 2003 – A great number of searches are carried out in the house of a few comrades and in two squats in Rome, Torre Maura and La Cascina. The latter is evicted the same day. It seems that the searches are related to the arrest of anarchist Marco Ferruzzi (Tombolino) from Viterbo, which occurs in the morning in Naples. Marco is accused of being one of the three people who had beaten the cop infiltrated in the demo on October 4 in Rome. The evidence is once again a video film. He is taken in Regina Coeli prison in Rome.
December 3 2003 – An explosive device detonates outside the building housing the Province offices in Cagliari (Sardina). A few hours before an anti-subversion summit with police and DIGOS high officers of the island and the deputy chief of the police of State Antonio Manganelli was held.
December 4 2003 – Public prosecutor Vitello gives the ok for conceding house arrest to Massimo, decision that must be ratified by preliminary investigation judge Finiti.
December 6 2003 – A demo in solidarity to Massimo and Marco is held in Viterbo.
Preliminary investigation judge Finiti refuses to notify house arrest to Massimo.
December 18 2003 – Preliminary investigation judge Finiti finally ratifies house arrest for Massimo, who is taken home two days after.
December 21 2003 – At around 10pm an explosive device made by a pressure cook, camping gas bombs and a timer blows up inside a rubbish skip in Bologna in the area where EU commission president Romano Prodi lives. Soon after another device detonates inside a skip close to the first.
December 23 2003 – A communiqué claiming the explosive action carried out in Romano Prodi’s area is sent to the daily ‘La Repubblica’.
‘2 PRESSURE COOKS HAVE BEEN PLACED IN TWO DIFFERENT PLACES AND MADE BLOW UP AVOIDING ANY INCONVENIENCE TO INNOCENT PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THE SAME AREA WHERE THE DEM OF ROMANO PRODI AND HIS FAMILY IS. THE PIG MUST KNOW THAT WE ARE GETTING CLOSER TO HIM AND HIS MATES. SEE YOU SOON’.
In the second part of the claim, ‘Open letter to the anarchist and antiauthoritarian movement’, the project of F.A.I. (Informal Anarchist Federation) is exposed. The letter is signed by F.A.I./Cooperativa Artigiana Fuoco e Affini occasionalmente spettacolare (F.A.I./Fire and Similar Craftwork Cooperative, occasionally spectacular), F.A.I./Brigata 20 luglio (F.A.I./July 20 Brigade), F.A.I./Cellule Contro il Capitale, il Carcere, i suoi Carcerieri e le sue Celle (F.A.I./Cells against Capital, Prison, Jailers and Cells) and F.A.I./Solidarieta’ internazionale (F.A.I./International Solidarity).
OPEN LETTER TO THE ANARCHIST AND ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN MOVEMENT
As the consolidation of the EU is going on quickly and assuming all the wickedness of the political, economic, military-repressive choices of the various States, and as a European constitution that re-establishes and legitimates EU dominion is about to be ratified, the first Informal Anarchist Federation struggle campaign has started. We could not deny ourselves the pleasure of actively criticising the six-month’s Italian presidency of the EU, which is coming to an end. We are aware that, behind any official rhetoric, the decisions that have been taken during the last months will bring about new practises of exploitation and dominion. In Fortress Europe, where not only the borders between exploiters and exploited are defended with the arms, we oppose trade agreements and the militarization of the territory with free agreements between those who struggle against dominion, as we want to demonstrate that not only is the struggle possible, but it is also an absolute necessity.
Today we have attacked the repressive apparatus that plays the democratic farce and that will bring the main characters and institutions to the new European order:
-The various police departments, which will soon be backed by a European army, besides their traditional task of internal repression, have the basic mission of filtering the huge masses of poor people who want to step into Fortress Europe. In fact, only the workforce needed by the bosses is allowed to get in, the others are sent back to be exploited in their countries of origin.
-A prison system, which is more and more crowded and widespread, is consolidating its main role into repression. It is the last bastion in defence of the system, whereas starving salaries and the last remnants of the welfare are not sufficient to stem the anger of the exploited.
-Bureaucrats and politicians are always ready to plan and promote any adjustment that serves to keep the system alive. The actions carried out today, as well as the ones that will follow, are planned so as to avoid the possibility of striking innocent people. We will carry on demonstrating our profound hatred for the State and capital and our unbounded love for a world free from the dominion of men over men and of men over nature. We are not the only ones, nor are we the last. In every street, in the day and in the night, we see that the same destructive-constructive tension for a better world is growing. We were in Genoa, we were in Saloniki, we were on the Italian roads last night, and tomorrow we will be on new roads to fight the misery of the existent.
Attack and destroy the responsible for repression and exploitation!
Attack and destroy prisons, banks, courts and police stations!Revolt is contagious and can be reproduced!
Social war against capital and the State!
WHO WE ARE
We have created the Informal Anarchist Federation, that is to say a federation formed either by groups of action or by single individuals, in order to go beyond the limits implied in single projects and to experiment the real potentialities of informal organisation. We strongly believe that only a chaotic and horizontal organisation, without bosses, authorities or central committees taking decision, can fulfil our need for freedom here and now. Our goal is to have an organisation reflecting the view of the anarchist society, which we struggle for. This is intended as an instrument and not as the copy of some old armed party or as an organisation looking for adepts. If it were not an instrument to be used for testing the efficiency of informal organisation and its capacity of strengthening quality and continuity of the revolutionary action, it would be absolutely useless and would certainly die out. Through widespread actions it is possible to conciliate organisation and theoretical/practical debate on the one hand, and the anonymity of groups/individuals on the other. Actions, in fact, besides bringing their specific message of destruction/construction, also propose other kinds of message, such as the ones implied in their methods and instruments. In this case the damage caused does not matter. We are aware that it will not be a well-armed minority group that will stir up revolution, and we are determined not to postpone our insurrection waiting for everybody to be ready: we are more and more convinced that a simple direct action against institutions is more effective than thousands of words.
FEDERATION because of its widespread horizontal structure, that is to say federation of groups or individuals, free and equal men and women bond together by common practises of attack against dominion and aware that mutual support and revolutionary solidarity are instruments of freedom. Relationships inside the federation are stable and flexible at the same time; they evolve continuously thanks to the ideas and practices brought in by new individuals and groups that will join. We do not want any democratic federation, as this would involve representatives, delegates, official meetings, committees, and organs implying the election of leaders, charismatic figures and the imposition of specialists of speech. In the informal federation, communication must be based on a horizontal and anonymous debate, which will come out of the practise (claims of actions) and of the widespread of theories through the means of communication of the movement. In other words, the meeting will be substituted by an anonymous and horizontal debate between groups or individuals who communicate through practise. The federation is our strength, that is to say the strength of groups or individuals that help one another through a well-defined pact of mutual support.
ANARCHIST because we want the destruction of capital and the State. We want a world where only freedom and self-organisation ‘dominate’, and a society where exploitation of men over men and of men over nature does not exist. We strongly oppose any Marxist cancer, which is nothing more than a fascinating and dangerous siren that claims freedom for the oppressed but actually denies the possibility of a free society and just substitutes one dominion with another.
INFORMAL because we do not believe in vangards nor do we think that we are an enlightened active minority. We just want to live as anarchists here and now and this is why we consider the informal organisation as the only kind of organisation capable of preventing the creation of any authoritarian and bureaucratic mechanism. It allows us to keep our independence as individuals and/or groups and to resist power with continuity. The Informal Anarchist Organisation practises the armed struggle but it refuses classic monolithic organisations implying a base, regular and irregular members, columns, executive cadres, huge amounts of money and living on hiding. We think that this kind of structures is an easy target for power. In fact, an infiltrated cop or an informer is sufficient to have the whole organisation or a good part of it collapsed like a house of cards. On the contrary, as the informal organisation is formed by 1000 individuals or groups that do not know one another (as they recognize one another through the actions they carry out and the mutual support bonding them), if by some unfortunate chance infiltrators or informers should come out, this would affect a single group without spreading to the others. Furthermore, whoever takes part into the Informal organisation is a militant only when preparing and carrying out an action. The organisation, therefore, does not affect the entire life and projects of the comrades so that all kinds of armed-struggle sectarianism are avoided. Once we are well rooted, power will find it very difficult to destroy us.
The pact of mutual support is the strong point of the Anarchist Informal Organisation and it pivots on three key points based on the above mentioned anarchist revolutionary project, and that come into play when individuals or groups decide to join the Anarchist Informal Organisation:
1. REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY
Each group of action in the Anarchist Informal Organisation is engaged in showing revolutionary solidarity to comrades who are arrested or are on hiding. This solidarity will show itself mainly through armed action and the attack against men and structures responsible for the imprisonment of comrades. Solidarity will always be practised as an indispensable feature of anarchist way of life and action. Of course we do not refer to legal and technical support: bourgeois society offers a sufficient number of lawyers, social workers and priests, which means that revolutionists can be engaged in another kind of activities.
2. REVOLUTIONARY CAMPAIGNS
When a group or individual starts a revolutionary campaign through the deeds and related communiqués, other groups and individuals in the Anarchist Informal Organisation will follow according to their methods and time. Each group or individual can launch a struggle campaign on specific targets through one or more actions signed by the single group or individual and by the claim of the Federation. If a campaign is not agreed by the other groups, the critic will show itself through actions and communiqués that will contribute to correcting or discussing it.
3. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN GROUPS OR INDIVIDUALS
The groups of action in the Anarchist Informal Organisation are not required to know one another. This will avoid repression to strike them and possible leaders or bureaucrat from emerging. Communication between groups or individuals is carried out through the actions and through the channels of the movement without them to know one another directly.
P.S. Any reference to the FAI Italian Transport Workers Federation (Federazione Autotrasportatori Italiani), to the FAI Italian Anarchist Federation (Federazione Anarchica Italiana) and to the FAI Italian Fund for the Environment (Fondo Italiano per l’Ambiente) is a pure coincidence. We apologise to the people concerned.
-A few comrades from Bologna are eventually investigated.
December 27 2003 - A mail explosive device is sent to Romano Prodi’s house in Bologna and is addressed to the wife of the latter. The device produces a flame that ignites in the MP’s hands.
December 29 2003 - A mail explosive device is sent to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt (Germany) and is addressed to the director Jean Claude Trichet.
-Another mail explosive device is sent to the site of the Europol in Ajax (Holland).
December 30 2003 – A mail explosive device addressed to the responsible for the Eurojust, the new European Power of Attorney, is found in Ajax.
-A mail explosive device blows up in the head office of the European Popular Party in Bruxelles (Belgium); another one is addressed to the European responsible for the Spanish Popular party.
-A mail explosive device blows up in the head office of the Labour party in the site of the European Socialist Party in Manchester (England).
January 8 2004 – Tombolino is conceded house arrest.
January 9 2004 – Massimo is notified that he must face trial on January 27 for beating the cop.
January 13 2004 – Gathering in solidarity to the comrades arrested on October 22 in Cagliari following a demo in solidarity to Massimo Leonardi. The hearing is postponed on April 7.
January 17 2004 – Massimo is released, but he must sign at the police station every day.
January 19 2004 – In the night an explosive device blows up outside Viterbo court. Two armoured doors situated at a distance of 15 metres are damaged. The air conditioner system and the recording equipment used during hearings are also seriously damaged. The device is made by 500 grams of explosive. Here is the text of the leaflet claiming the action.
‘VITERBO, JANUARY 19. WE HAVE LASHED AT THIS COURT WHERE THE STATE POWER GUARENTEES THE VIOLENCE OF THE OPPRESSORS OVER THE OPPRESSED EVERY DAY. IN NOVEMBER WE HAD STRUCK THE LOCAL SITE OF THE C.S.S.A., WHERE THE SAME POWER CONTROLS AND BLACKMAILS PRISONERS IN ORDER TO OFFER LOW COST LABOUR TO BIG AND SMALL BOSSES. POWER SENDS PEOPLE TO PRISON AND THEN CREATES DIVISIONS AMONG THEM AND ENSURES PEACE IN THE JAILS BY GIVING PRIVILEGES TO SOME OF THEM. THROUGH THESE TWO ACTIONS WE GREET ALL PRISONERS KIDNAPPED BY JAILERS. ATTACKING POWER IS POSSIBLE AND NECESSARY, UNTIL THE END OF ALL EXPLOITATION, UNTIL ANARCHY’.
-At 5am some comrades’ houses in Viterbo are searched.
February 2 2004 – The preliminary investigation judge concedes three hours’ freedom to Tombolino three days a week, but under restrictions.
February 10 2004 – Massimo is notified an order of censorship on his mail.
February 17 2004 – 40 houses are searched in Rome, Latina and Viterbo by the Digos, which also notify 40 warrants of investigation for conspiracy (articles 270 and 270bis of the Italian penal code). The investigation, led by public prosecutor Vitello and companions, aims at striking various comrades who had taken part in public events such as gatherings, distribution of leaflets, and demos against prison and in solidarity to prisoners. It is a clear repressive operation against any form of solidarity showed by the most radical part of the movement in the region. In fact, various groups and different people are all considered part of a ‘subversive association’. Furthermore the media pay great attention to this police operation, which is presented as a successful attempt to find the responsible for the latest explosive attacks. The intent of the investigators is to intimidate anyone who takes part in public events, to control the movement as a whole and to lay the foundations of further waves of repression.
March 19 2004 – In the night an incendiary device is found outside the door of a butcher’s shop in Arezzo, which had previously been daubed with red paint. The device was made by 4 camping gas bombs and two plastic bottles containing inflammatory liquid, which were connected to 4 primers made by matches. The action is claimed by ‘Animal and Human Liberation of the Earth’:
‘IN THE NIGHT BETWEEN 17TH AND 18TH MARCH WE DAUBED THE WINDOWS OF 20 BUTCHER’S SHOPS WITH PAINT. WE RESTRICTED OURSELVES TO DOING A SYMBOLIC ACTION AGAINST THOSE WHO MAKE A PROFIT FROM DEATH AND SUFFERING. THE FOLLOWING NIGHT WE PUT AN INCENDIARY DEVICE OUTSIDE CORSO CAVOUR BUTCHER’S SHOP. UNFORTUNATELY, FOR REASONS WE DO NOT KNOW, OUR INTENT TO ATTACK A SYMBOL OF MERCIFICATION OF LIFE WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL. WE ARE GOING TO STRIKE WHOEVER DECIDES NOT TO RESPECT OUR MOTHER EARTH AND THE LIFE THAT SHE GAVE US. FOR THE ANIMAL AND HUMAN LIBERATION OF THE EARTH’.
March 30 2004 – Two explosive devices blow up outside Sturla police station in Genoa. The explosions follow each other in a few minutes. The action is claimed by the Anarchist Informal Federation/July 20 Brigade. The text of the claim, which is sent to a few newspapers, is seized by the police and is not made known.
April 2 2004 – Two mail explosive devices addressed to two prison high officers are intercepted in a post office in Rome. The action is claimed by the Anarchist Informal Federation/Armed Cells for International Solidarity. The press publishes only a few parts of the claim, where the DAP is considered as the responsible for violence and exploitation over detainees and Baleno is mentioned.
April 5 2004 – The first hearing of the trial against Massimo and Tombolino, accused of having beaten a cop, is held. Massimo is sentenced to 1 year and 2 months’ imprisonment, whereas Tombolino is sentenced to 1 year.
April 7 2004 – Tombolino, who was under house arrest, is released but he must sign every day at the police station.
May 20 2004 – Anarchist comrade Sergio Stefani from Arezzo is arrested in Rome. He is accused of having carried out an incendiary attack against a butcher’s shop in Arezzo in the night of March 19. Another comrade, Agnese, is notified of an order compelling her to stay at home from 9pm to 7am.
May 27 2004 – Two incendiary devices made of petrol, camping gas bombs and a primer are put outside the local Blockbuster shop. One of them catches fire and damages the entrance door and the sign. In the neighbourhood a claim written in solidarity to Sergio is left. The investigation on this attack is led by public prosecutor Ionta and by the antiterrorism squad from Rome.
May 29 2004 – A gathering in solidarity to Sergio and Agnese is held in Arezzo.
- A great number of butcher’s shop doors are blocked in Barcelona, and writings in solidarity to Sergio are left in the neighbourhoods.
June 4 2004 – Sergio, who is in isolation in Regina Coeli prison (Rome), writes the following communiqué:
‘I’m writing as I heard that a few comrades in Italy and in Spain have carried out actions against various symbols of dominion and left the writing “Free Sergio”. Structures of the dominion of man over animals, like butcher’s shops and fish shops in Barcelona as well as a Blockbuster shop in Latina were struck.
I’d like to thank the comrades who made these actions and those against Benetton shops in Arezzo, which were dedicated to me, as I was told, and those who were close to me with their letters, in particular Finn and Swiss comrades. I’d also like to reassure everybody about my condition. It is true that I’ve been in a jail for two weeks under a regime of special surveillance (as explicitly requested by the national prison authority!), but it is also true that I’m in fact free.
I’ll be detained as long as the investigation on attacks against butcher’s shops in Arezzo comes to an end. The accusation is pretty serious: manufacture and use of war weapons (!!!), which implies from 3 to 12 years’ imprisonment. The real reason for this detention, however, is my ideas. As it can be easily understood from the public prosecutor’s delirium, largely shared by the preliminary investigation judge, my imprisonment is justified by little, ridiculous and irrelevant evidence; moreover it is justified by the fact that they found in my possession “papers related to anarchist and animalist groups”, that the crimes I’m accused of were committed following a “precise ideological choice” and that a note from the DIGOS was addressed to me.
But as I’m prisoner because of my ideas, I’ll stay free as long as the latter remain firm. And my ideas will never stagger as long as there are comrades who keep on struggling and are close to me. Let’s keep on struggling against all forms of dominion and exploitation because any single act of liberation, first of all personal liberation, is worth the risk of all their prisons.
A free comrade detained in Regina Coeli.
June 26 2004 – Sergio is conceded house arrest in his home in Rome.
July 1 2004 – ‘This afternoon the carabinieri have notified the date of the trial, which will be held on July 5 in Arezzo, to Sergio and Agnese. It will be a summary procedure.
It is disgusting that the cops have conceded the “privilege” of 8 days house arrest to Sergio, and on Sunday night they are going to lock him in a police van in order to drive him to Arezzo for the trial. It is quite astonishing that a summary procedure is applied after 4 months of the facts, whereas such procedure is normally used in the act or for defendants who plead guilty. A special law, however, allows the procedure to be applied also when arms and explosive are involved. The clear intent of the public prosecutor is to put a quick end to this case, before the summer holidays, so that he can go to the seaside after having condemned two more people. In his papers he claims that there exists “reasonable certainty” about Sergio and Agnese being guilty. So he will push for a conviction and will be supported by about ten witnesses (almost all of them are cops) in order to achieve a “brilliant conclusion” of a case that has shocked the sleepy town Arezzo’.
July 5 2004 – At the opening of the trial against Sergio and Agnese, the lawyers requested the introduction of a normal procedure instead of the farce of the summary one. Luckily they obtained it and the date of the hearing has now to be fixed. This is a small but important step forward, considering that the inquisitors want Sergio and Agnese to be convicted at all costs and as soon as possible. Sergio is still under house arrest, whereas Agnese must live in Arezzo and can’t go out from 12am to 7am.
July 8 2004 – Preliminary investigation judge Marina Finiti notifies the end of the investigation on two anarchists from Soriano and another comrade. The investigation was related to the existence of a subversive association acting from June 17 2003 to the present time in Viterbo, Soriano, Rome and other towns in Italy. According to the judge, the three anarchists “manufactured explosive devices and brought them to Rome in order to subvert the democratic order”. On June 17 2003 the ‘Cervantes’ institute was attacked in Rome and the action was claimed by the Five C (Cells against Capital, Prisons, Jailers and their Cells, Cellule contro il Capitale il Carcere, i suoi Carcerieri e le loro Celle).
July 27 2004 – At dawn the operation ‘Cervantes’ starts. The same day a few newspapers ‘announce’ the police raid. Following the same order that had been notified to the three comrades on July 8, a great number of anarchists are searched. The investigation is called ‘Cervantes’ and includes all the attacks that had been carried out in Rome, Viterbo, Arezzo and other towns, that is to say: all the actions claimed by the FAI, an attack against a butcher’s shop in Arezzo, the attacks against a C.S.S.A. site and the court in Viterbo, the mail explosive devices sent in Rome and Viterbo on November 4, anti-prisons gatherings, solidarity to prisoners, etc. 40 warrants of investigations of ‘subversive association’ (art. 270) and on ‘subversive association aimed at carrying out acts of terrorism’ (art 270bis) are notified. Four comrades, Marco Ferruzzi (Tombolino), David Santini (Tittarello), Sergio Stefani and Stefano Del Moro, are arrested. They are accused of belonging to a subversive association and of a series of specific charges all of them related to explosive attacks.
Sergio, who was under house arrest in his parents’ house, is taken to Regina Coeli prison and put in isolation.
August 2 2004 – Sergio writes the following communiqué:
‘I have been refusing to take food since I entered the prison. This is not a hunger strike aimed at obtaining any immediate benefit. I simply do not accept this nth imprisonment, not because of its particularly harsh conditions, which are certainly inflicted on the other comrades too, nor because do I think it is more unfair than theirs, but because it is motivated by abuse of power and by mere dull violence; I’ m carrying out this form of protest because it is the only one I can undertake in isolation. I won’t highlight how absurd these accusations are, but I think it is very important to point out how the latter aim at striking solidarity between comrades (which is considered as evidence of the existence of an organisation) and the fact that the anarchist and anti-authoritarian movement is engaged in a struggle against prison. It is clear that they want to suffocate the particular characteristics of anyone who hates authority; and it is also clear that we must not let them frighten us and that we must carry on the struggle against their violence.
Solidarity to the arrested comrades (I regret not having met you in a better time and situation).
Solidarity to all the comrades who have been arrested in all the countries because of their thirsty for freedom and of their joy.
Solidarity to all detainees who have attacked the system, without using rhetoric, but just following their instinct, and have spit to the laws that imprisoned their desires.
Their prison will not take away my freedom of enjoying’.
A free comrade in isolation in Regina Coeli
-Tittarello and Tombolino also begin a hunger strike.
August 6 2004 – The lawyers of the four arrested comrades request the latter be released. Five days later they obtain a negative response, but the reasons for the rejection will be made known only a month and a half later.
August 7 2004 – A gathering is organised outside Regina Coeli prison in solidarity to the comrades arrested on July 27, followed by the distribution of leaflets in Trastevere area. A comrade who was writing on a wall is blocked by the carabinieri. As the latter attempt to arrest the comrade and the other demonstrators try to block them, a violent attack by the cops starts. Five comrades are arrested. They will be released two days after, but are forbidden to be in Rome for one year and must sign at the police station three times a week. The trial, fixed on October 18, is then postponed on February 28 2005.
August 22 2004 – Another gathering in solidarity to Simone, Sergio and all the prisoners in Regina Coeli is organised outside the prison.
August 27 2004 – Tittarello writes the following communiqué from ‘Le Vallette’ prison in Turin:
‘Dear comrades, I’d like to sum up the events that led to my arrest and to that of another three comrades’. I don’t know how many others are accused of belonging to an inexistent subversive association. After spending more than 20 days in prison, I resolved to write down what I think. I am also accused of having put an explosive device outside Viterbo court, together with another comrade who was also arrested.
It seems that the accusation are based on phone tapping. Those who read the order of arrest could not help themselves from laughing, as it contains a great number of vulgar lies and mystifications. I don’t intend to analyse the nature of the accusation, especially as I couldn’t be in two different places at the same time. But I want to claim my solidarity towards whoever struggles for a really free society. I want to say that I interrupted the hunger strike after 16 days because my blood test revealed that I could have problems with my kidneys and need to undergo dialysis for the rest of my life. All the same, I accuse the DIGOS from Rome and Viterbo for what they did to us. I accuse the incompetence of the DIGOS from Viterbo and the dirty trick they used against me, as they invented phone-tapping conversation that never in fact took place. I accuse those who once again plotted against the anarchist movement and boasted that free individuals formed an inexistent subversive association. But, you know, after 7 and more years of searches, numerous bugging devices found in cars and houses and many comrades from Viterbo shadowed by police without any result at all, these geniuses of investigation had no other choice than to appeal to their imagination. They could not keep on playing the fool any longer. And, as technology did not help them much, these Sherlock Holmes who are not worth a penny, created an inexistent subversive association. As if this was not enough, they also falsified phone-tapping conversations so as to finally arrest a few anarchists who had been making their miserable lives difficult for too a long time.
I’m totally indifferent to their accusations. I’ll keep on struggling along with my comrades on the side of the exploited, of those who die at work for the exploiters’ sake, of those who struggle to claim their right to a house, of those who are compelled to flee from their countries and find themselves fighting against repression and racism. I’ll keep on struggling on the side of those who are repressed and arrested because they claim a word freed from these atrocities. Someone has recently told me that my struggle is right but useless because the power I fight against is so strong that it will crush me. So what should I do? Should I be a coward and be on my own while others struggle, even knowing that the struggle is right? This would be cowardly and depressing. All this said, I greet and hold all those who have my same desires in their heart.
'THE FUTURE IS OURS'.
Tittarello imprisoned in Le Vallette prison in Turin
August 29 2004 – Sergio interrupts his hunger strike and writes this communiqué:
Regina Coeli 29/08/04
'I decided to interrupt my hunger strike after 32 days in order to safeguard my health and answer the appeal of all my comrades and friends.
I want to point out that the end of the hunger strike does not mean that I stopped struggling, and I still don’t accept passively this imprisonment.
I have never appreciated the so-called ‘justice’, but this time more than ever I can’t understand what our ‘crimes’ are.
It seems that our crimes are our hatred for any form of dominion and exploitation and our luck for having so many comrades who show solidarity to us. Most importantly, it seems that our main crime is to be anarchist and to claim that not only is the struggle against this oppressing system possible, it is also an absolute necessity.
If there is anything wrong in all this, then I can say that I don’t regret anything at all ever.
I would like to remind my comrades in jail that the prison bars cannot lock up our mind. When we find ourselves in front of the dullness of our jailers, let’s think of the cages that oppress their brains and hearts, and let’s laugh till their ears start bleeding’.
A free comrade in isolation in Regina Coeli'
September 2 2004 – The walls of the building housing the Italian vice-consulate in Burgos (Spain) are targeted with red paint and eggs. A writing left on the wall claims the action: In solidarity to anarchist David, Simone, Sergio and Marco kidnapped by the Italian State on July 27 2004, who were on hunger strike in August and who are now detained waiting that some judge decides about them’.
September 9 2004 – Simone and Sergio are moved to Carinola prison and Palmi prison respectively for security reasons. It seems that this transfer is related to the trial against the new Red Brigade, which will take place a few days after.
September 18 2004 – Solidarity demo outside Le Vallette prison in Turin, where Tittarello is detained.
A communiqué from Tombolino, who is being held in Poggioreale prison in Naples, is issued:
'I was arrested on July 27 2004 during an operation carried out by all the species of existing pigs: R.O.S., DIGOS, carabinieri and police; the vultures the journalists were ready to record the event.
They entered my and my partner’s house at 4am and, as they didn’t found anyone in, they militarised the whole town. Meantime the press agency broadcast the news of an anarchist who had escaped arrest. At 11.30am I was stopped by carabinieri in Torre Del Greco, who said they had to notify an order. Once I got out of the car, I was handcuffed and taken to the carabinieri station. After a few hours and a lot of pressure, they notified me of an arrest warrant from the public prosecutor in Rome, following articles 270 and 270bis. In particular, they accuse me of having manufactured two mail explosive devices and having sent them the one to a carabinieri station in Rome, where a marshal lost two fingers, and the other, which was defused, to the police headquarters in Viterbo. The evidence used to accuse me is, incredibly enough, a letter in my possession containing a drawing (a hand with two fingers missing). The public prosecutor thinks that this is sufficient to establish that I made the mail explosive device and sent it to the carabinieri barracks in Rome. I claim my innocence as regards the above-mentioned accusations, but I express my solidarity to those who struggle for freedom against the State.'
On July 29, after a few days that I was in Poggioreale prison in Naples, I refused to answer the judge’s questions. On July 30 I was notified of an order of censorship on my mail and was taken to the EIV section, where people considered socially dangerous are detained. The aim of the censorship is to keep me isolated and, most importantly, to extrapolate from our writings further pretexts for strengthening their ‘imaginary’ investigations. I know, however, that the passion of my comrades will not allow anyone to rot in jail. This nth judiciary frame-up is going on also thanks to the judges who rejected the request for my release that was presented on August 8 2004, but they haven’t inexplicably made known the reasons for the rejection yet. This stalemate prevents me from sending in any other requests for appeal. In other words, the judges are taking time in order to find new inexistent evidence.
In the section where I am there exists an unbearable situation, for example the hygienic conditions are very bad and I’m only allowed to take a shower twice a week. Furthermore, my position as a prisoner (accused of ‘associative crimes’) should allow me to have 4 hours’ visit and 2 telephone calls per month, but I’m still denied all this. I’ve also the right to be out of the cell 4 hours a day; on the contrary they only let me out for two hours and I’m also forbidden one hour of socialisation with the other prisoners. If a doctor, provided that I succeed in seeing one, prescribes me some therapy, I have to wait 36 hours before it becomes effective. We all are in isolation cells and we can’t talk with one another. Nothing is let in from the outside. And in spite of the fact that there is a censorship order, people who want to send us books have to post them by registered post. I should be allowed access to the library, but they deny me this on the basis of ridiculous reasons, such as lack of personnel.
The jailers all come from the 41bis section and they apply the same rules of the latter (for example, mirrors and razors have to be put out of the cell in the night, and they would also take my camping gas away if I didn’t protest as I do). Moreover, I’m inflicted body and cell searches every day, as if I was in 41bis regime. It is clear that my prison condition and the one of the other comrades aims at total isolation, and goes far beyond what is officially decreed.
They have denied my partner to visit me on various occasions, even if visits are authorized. They want to exercise a psychological and physical oppression on me, as they hope to annihilate the rebellious spirit that feeds me. On the contrary, my will to struggling grows and grows. I won’t give in to their arrogance not will I react to it; it is what they want me to do so that they can show off their craving for punishment.
Sometimes pressure on detainees is so hard that the latter commit suicide, but these State murders are often kept secret. Fuck the bourgeois press, which points out such problems only when it is a politician who dies in jail (like the major of Roccaraso) and when the prisoners’ protest is manipulated by the institutions. On the contrary, the thousands of crimes committed every day by the States in their prisons, in Italy as well as in the Spanish FIES units and in the Turkish prisons, are never made known because States have to appear ‘good’. If we want back the freedom they took away from us, we don’t have to wait for an amnesty, for general pardon or for political support or compromise; on the contrary, let’s be determined and stand up against jails and jailers so that not even a stone of their prisons is left standing.
I want to reassure all the comrades about my condition: my spirit is high and proud and my thoughts are more and more daring. A big hug to all the comrades, those who are free and those who are kidnapped by the State.
An angry and daring prisoner from Poggioreale
October 13 2004 – A fridge van and another vehicle belonging to a butcher’s company are set to fire in Parma. The former is burnt, the latter not. The action is carried out to claim Sergio, Alessio and William’s freedom and in solidarity to the activists of Il Silvestre, who are under house arrest or in hiding.
October 20 2004 – Tombolino sends this communiqué from Poggioreale prison:
‘Dearest comrades, I’m writing to tell you that last week I experienced one of the most dreadful situations in my life. As you know, I spent a week in the so-called punishment cells after the director of the prison denounced me of misconduct. Besides what he is doing to me, which is quite exaggerated, this gentleman is responsible for what happens every day in the concentration camp of Poggioreale. He wants to safeguard his reputation in front of the authority and public opinion, who think that it is possible to control the anger of more than one thousands prisoners held in Poggioreale (whereas this prison can host only 1000 of them) through peaceful methods.
This unscrupulous director tell his agents to terrorise the prisoners of this section, ‘Genova padiglione zero’, using any means necessary. Nothing happens by chance here, since the very arrival of a detainee. Some of them cannot bear the situation, especially as they arrive in this section after being beaten (luckily this is not my case). Then violence becomes psychological for everybody and physical for some. There are special cells for those who have psychiatric problems, where the bed is attached to the floor and the closet is a hole in the floor. The other cells have a table, a stool, the toilet and a basin.
Psychological torture, which is inflicted on everybody, also derives from the fact that the cells are dirty, cold and dump; they don’t have any light switch or plugs. It is the pigs in uniform that decide about our use of electricity, furthermore they keep the emergency light (a yellow one) switched on during all the night. We can’t have a radio, read newspapers and the chance of getting out of the cell. We can’t cook and even smoking depends on the jailers’ cruelty.
This is allowed and guaranteed by ‘democratic power’: not only do they commit the crime of locking up individuals, but they also allow their servants to vent their anger on us, anger that comes to them from the awareness of being just handled puppets without heart nor dignity. They don’t care about prisoners, be they political prisoners, mafia offenders or junkies.
The servants of the servants just torture prisoners without mercy and without knowing why. These cowards don’t have the courage to play their dirty games openly, so they always hide themselves behind armoured doors. But one can hear them and, as I’ve got ears I did hear them, fucking cowards. I witnessed the real manslaughter that guards inflicted on defenceless men: buckets of cold water, verbal insults and even invitation to hang themselves. It was painful to see all this, but luckily I was aware of the violence of the State. So I didn’t allow any psychological violence to affect me.
Comrades, I hope that all of us will reflect and react against the horrors that occur every day in the ‘padiglione Genova’ isolation section and in all prisons. I’ll keep on struggling with dignity even if I might be beaten for that. I will never ignore a man in trouble. Then what you do outside to support me and the other prisoners is great and fantastic. I could never denounce any infamy to their justice, but I can denounce it to our justice, which will remember everything. Solidarity to all detainees who struggle with dignity against the violence guaranteed by power.
A big hug, always stand up’.
October 23 2004 – A demo in solidarity to Tombolino, Titto, Simone and Sergio is held in Viterbo. Here is the text of the poster inviting to join the event.
‘The show of democratic dominion, be it leftist or rightist, tries to obtain consensus on the one hand and to keep on its work of total destruction on the other, making it softer through a great deal of ‘glorious and humanitarian’ lies. Unions, political parties, judge and various kinds of cop: they all defend their vested interests and the ones of their servants, who are always ready to be submitted and become cannon fodder when the right time comes. Every time that someone expresses dissent and decides to act, democracy, civilization and progress show their true face: the one of the torturers and murderers, the one of ferocious and cowardly repression. This face is kept well hidden and safe by the mafia-style media, with the result that the Home secretary can openly declare that he’s going to modify the law on subversive associations so that whoever rebels can be jailed more easily. The economic system, the media, technologies of control, and various religious and scientific sects are peripheral ramifications of power. Armies, judiciary, prison guards, industrialists and professionals of ‘health’ and social ‘illness’ destroy and ravage consciences, towns, natural resources, the life of entire peoples, communities and nameless individuals. There exists one and only way against all this: the union between rebels and the exploited. There exists no other way: sharing our memory and experience to act as autonomous beings, not as automatons. There exists no other way: revolt.
AGAINST ALL FORMS OF REPRESSION
AGAINST ISOLATION, CENSORSHIP, ARTICLE 41BIS, FIES REGIME AND ALL SPECIAL PRISON REGIMES
AGAINST ALL PRISONS
FREE OUR COMRADES AND ALL PRISONERS
WHOEVER ATTACKS DOMINION OPENLY IS OUR ACCOMPLICE’.
November 5 2004 – A letter that David had written to a few comrades on October 26 arrives at destination near Turin.
‘To the comrades in the anarchist and antiauthoritarian movement and to all good-hearted men and women.
My name is David Santini and I’ am an anarchist kidnapped by the State and locked up in the concentration camp ‘Le Vallette’, where censorship, isolation and searches are everyday events. I was accused of belonging to a subversive association that acts under different names but that has a common one called Anarchist Informal Federation.
I claim my identity as an anarchist, but I deny the accusation. I’ve never belonged to any association, nor will I do that in the future, but I show my plain solidarity to those who ‘denounces’ the great injustices that occur in our society. I firmly oppose the accusation concerning the double level. The only double level that I know is the one of the judiciary investigating on us. The first level, open and apparently legal, is employed by the judges when they sustain the necessity of our arrest; the second, hidden and practically illegal, and also, I add, dirty and infamous, is employed when police (especially Digos and ROS from Rome and Viterbo) falsify the evidence and tell lies about our struggle and our ideas.
This is the democratic tyranny governing us and that finds in the prison an ideal place where to give vent to its persecution methods. In the Vallette prison, as well as in any other, thousands of detainees are in the hands of their jailers. It is here that, on October 10 I involuntary experienced an episode that I’m going to tell you. As I had to receive a parcel, I was taken to the mail section by the guard who ‘take care’ of censorship. As soon as I came into the room, I felt a strange nip on my abdomen. Then I realized that the guard who had to give me the parcel had put a knife on my belly. I reacted and told him not to repeat such a gesture again. He answered that he was surprised that the knife had not penetrated my stomach. When I came back to my cell I was very angry. Then, while having my hour outside the cell I met the guard who had taken me to the mail section. I started arguing with him about what had happened and he pretended he hadn’t realized it.
The day after I was notified that a letter in which I had exposed the fact had been seized. I refused to sign the order of seizure and told them that it was a dirty trick they were using to prevent the fact from being known. The day after I was called by the director who tried to show me, with the penal code in his hand, that the seizure of my letter was perfectly legal. Then he told me that he had denounced the episode to the public prosecutor. I replied that I didn’t believe in their justice, that’s why I hadn’t denounced the fact by myself. This is just an example of what happens in this hellish place. I won’t go backwards; on the contrary, now more than before, I want a society free from bars and locks. Rebel greetings!’
Tittarello
November 8 2004 – Two explosive devices blow up one after the other outside San Vittore prison in Milan. The action is claimed by F.A.I./international Solidarity:
‘WE BRING ANOTHER WORLD HERE,
IN OUR HEARTS. THIS WORLD IS
GROWING IN THIS VERY MOMENT’.
B. DURRUTI
MILAN – IN THE NIGHT BETWEEN SUNDAY AND MONDAY WE HAVE TRIED TO ATTACK THE COPS IN SAN VITTORE CONCENTRATION CAMP WITH TWO EXPLOSIONS AND IN SOLIDARITY TO:
-THE ANARCHISTS WHO ARE DETAINED IN ITALY, SWITZERLAND, SPAIN AND GERMANY
-THOSE WHO ARE STRUGGLING IN THE FIES REGIME IN SPAIN
-THOSE WHO ARE INFLICTED TORTURE AND VIOLENCE IN JAIL EVERY DAY.
THROUGH THIS ATTACK WE TAKE PART IN THE STRUGGLE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRISONS AND JAILERS THAT WAS LAUNCHED BY THE ARMED CELLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY. WE ALSO WANT TO ANSWER THE APPEAL OF THE ANARCHIST COMRADES IN ITALY AND GERMANY. WE WON’T TALK NOW ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF DESTROYING ALL PRISONS, THE PILLARS OF THE REPRESSIVE SYSTEM NEEDED TO SAFEGUARD THIS SOCIETY BASED ON AUTHORITY AND EXPLOITATION. PRISONS, COPS, JUDGES AND SOLDIERS ARE THE FORTIFIED RAMPART BEHIND WHICH THE POWERFUL ARE BARRICATED. ANY CRACK THAT THE EXPLOITED BRING TO THESE WALLS IS A STEP TOWARDS THEIR DESTRUCTION. OUR REFUSAL FOR THAT MIX OF CONCRETE AND PAIN THAT IS PRISON DOES NOT ACCEPT COMPROMISE. OUR EXPLOSIVE DOES NOT KNOW DISTINCTION BETWEEN GOOD GUARDS AND BAD GUARDS, BETWEEN THOSE WHO ARE AWARE OF THE INFAMY REPRESENTED BY THEIR UNIFORM AND THOSE WHO ARE NOT. AS REPRESSION STRIKES ANARCHIST COMRADES AT RANDOM, SO WE WILL STRIKE THE COPS, WITH THEIR HANDCUFFS AND BUNCHES OF KEYS.
WE WANT TO MAKE CLEAR A FEW POINTS CONCERNING THE OPERATION CERVANTES AND THE CONFUSED WAY BY WHICH WE WERE CALLED INTO QUESTION. THE JUDGES DRAW A LONG LIST OF ATTACKS THAT HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT FOR THE LAST YEARS AGAINST DOMINION. SOME OF THEM ARE ANONIMOUS BUT THEY HAVE ALL BEEN ATTRIBUTED TO THE F.A.I., WHICH MAKE THE WORK OF RPRESSION MUCH EASIER. WE INVITE THESE MISERABLE JUDGES WHO HAVE LOCKS INSTEAD OF BRAINS TO REVISE THEIR GRAMMAR FIRST OF ALL, THEN TO READ AGAIN OUR DOCUMENT CALLED “OPEN LETTER TO THE ANARCHIST AND ANTIAUTHORITARIAN MOVEMENT”, IN WHICH WE EXPOSE WHY THE F.A.I. WAS CREATED. WE WANT TO REMIND ALL COMRADES AND REBELS THAT THE ACTIONS OF F.A.I ARE JUST THOSE WHICH ARE CARRIED OUT BY INDIVIDUALS WHO SHARE THE SAME PROJECT OF THE F.A.I. AND THEREFORE DECIDE TO CLAIM THESE ACTIONS AS F.A.I. THE STRUCTURE THAT WE HAVE CREATED TOGETHER WITH OTHER COMRADES HAS NO INTENT OF HEGEMONY AS OUR ANARCHIST ETHIC DOES NOT ACCEPT ANY LEADERSHIP OR AUTHORITY.
THE ORGANISATION IS AN INSTRUMENT THAT SERVES TO MULTIPLY METHODS AND QUALITY OF THE ATTACKS. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN FORMING A POWERFUL GROUP THAT IS REGARDED WITH ADMIRATION OR FEAR IN THE DISTANCE. ON THE CONTRARY, WE ARE TRYING TO INTERTWINE THE THREADS OF REVOLT SO THAT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A CHANCE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
FREE ALL IMPRISONED REBELS !!!
FIRE TO PRISONS AND JAILERS !!!
REVOLT IS CONTAGIOUS AND CAN BE REPRODUCED!!!
PS: IN ORDER TO AVOID INCONVENIENCE WE INVITE MEDICAL AND FIRST AID STAFF, FIREMEN, BYSTANDERS AND TOO APPREHENSIVE OWNERS OF CARS TO KEEP AWAY FROM PLACES WHERE EXPLOSIONS OCCUR AND CARS AND BIKES BLOW UP, ESPECIALLY IF THE LATTER ARE CLOSE TO PLACES OF DOMINION. LET ONLY POLICEMEN APPROACH THE AREA, IF THEY ARE REALLY CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT’S HAPPENING.
F.A.I./INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
1st BASKET: PICNIC BASKET CONTAINING EXPLOSIVE POWDER
2nd BASKET: COFFEE MACHINE FULL OF DYNAMITE.’
- In the same night another explosive device blows up against an ‘Adecco’ agency in Milan. The action is claimed by the ‘Metropolitan Cells/Anarchist Informal Federation’. A few newspapers publish the text of the claim:
‘WE CLAIM THAT WE CARRIED OUT DIRECT ACTIONS AGAINST WORK AGENCIES IN MILAN: “MAN POWER” IN VIA IMBONATI (ATTACKED ON OCTOBER 29 2004) AND “ADECCO” IN CORSO LODI (ATTACKED ON NOVEMBER 11 2004).
THE SOCIETY WHICH WE LIVE IN IS A CAGE AND IT FEEDS ITSELF BY EXPLOITING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
WORK IS THE CRITERION FOR COLLOCATING MEN AND WOMEN IN SPECIFIC COMPARTMENTS OF SOCIAL HIERARCHY.
IT IS WORK THAT ESTABLISHES OUR PLACE IN THE PYRAMID, THAT DECIDES WHO OUR BOSSES ARE AND WHO OUR SUBORDINATES ARE. WORK AGENCIES ARE AN EFFECTIVE INSTRUMENT OF THE POWERFUL FOR INCREASING THEIR POWER AND THEIR PROFIT. AS A RESULT, FURTHER EXPLOITATION IS INFLICTED AND FREEDOM IS DENIED.
ANARCHIST INFORMAL FEDERATION/METROPOLITAN CELLS’.
November 12 2004 – Sergio, Simone, Tittarello and Tombolino are searched in their cells by the Digos on order of public prosecutor Vitello. The reasons for the searches are clearly exposed by Sergio through this communiqué:
Friday November 12 I was searched by Digos officers on order of public prosecutor Vitello. My three co-defendants were searched too. The official reason for the search is that they had to find “documents” connecting us to the FAI. They also looked for evidence linking us to the recent direct actions in Milan and to the threatening letters sent to the prison authority that keeps us prisoners.
When reading their motivations, I noticed that their witch-hunt presents a few constant points.
First of all they can’t understand that anarchists don’t need anyone to tell them who is guilty of the misery in which we live. Certainly these people are so accustomed to obey orders that they can’t understand what individual action is. No less can they understand that whoever lives as a free being and is reconciled with his/her wild part will no doubt follow his/her instinct and his/her desires against the enemy.
Secondly, they are always surprised that people we don’t know personally call us “comrades” and want our freedom. My comrades are those whose heart tell them to struggle, those who love life and hate whoever tries to tame it with laws, morals and false needs. There exists no anarchist organisation; on the contrary there exists a common desire to take our life back. Those who think that struggling for their own desires is a necessity are my comrades, brothers or sisters, even if I don’t know them personally. Finally, prosecutors can’t accept the idea that there exists active solidarity; in fact they persist in giving great importance to small actions. They probably think that the practise of direct action can spread. Well, this means that certain tactics can really disturb them…think about it.
I must point out that there wasn’t any interesting object in my cell, so they got nowhere with their search. However, I’d like to thank Digos inspectors Fulvia Corfese, Carlo Giuliano, Francesco Iacopino and Bruno Doldo for having interrupted our boring prison routine. I’d also like to thank prison police inspector Antonio Spano and my beloved landlord Oreste Bologna, director of Palmi prison, for their participation.
I say hi to you with a smile on my lips, as life is still strong in me. I hope the noise of your laugher will soon reach me as well as the chaos of your desires.
A big hug to all comrades’.
A free comrade
November 24 2004 – Sergio writes this communiqué from Palmi prison:
'I’ve been in prison for a few months and there is a concrete possibility that I might have to stay here for another long while. I have to say that this experience is turning out to be less devastating than I expected. This is not a lack of respect towards those who are suffering in jail; nor do I want to minimise the violence that welcome you since you enter this place, with body searches representing an offence to our dignity of men and women; not to mention all the other provocations and real torture that the guards inflict on you and that aim at destroying your inner being, your freedom and intimacy. It is possible that those who see the bars and chains from outside do not suffer the less, but certainly they are not traumatised by being face to face with the most brutal form of dominion: prison.
Those who end up in jail following the revenge that the State is taking on them because of their struggle and desire of freedom have the certainty that they have escaped the prison of obedience and resignation. It is hard to be denied the closeness of one’s own comrades; it is unbearable to be handcuffed, it is hideous to be forced into inactivity.
The dream of most detainees are disturbed by the noise of closing gates, but I have to say that I’m lucky compared with those who think of human relations only in terms of exploiter and exploited, or those who have their days bit in seconds, minutes, hours and whose watch ticks like chains. I’m lucky compared with those whose horizons are limited and hidden by the concrete of buildings, factories and fences; I’m lucky compared with those who are so dazed by the cacophony of cars, domestic appliances, mobiles, TV and radio (in other words the well-being of technology) that they can no longer hear the voice of Mother Earth, which on the contrary invites all of us to take back our existence and joy of life and action.
A few comrades asked me to write about my experience as a prisoner, and I’m really enthusiastic that they did. But in fact prison doesn’t give me any particular inspiration and what must be said is always the same. Maybe my ideas got stronger and I’m more convinced than before that the system must be destroyed with any means necessary, the system that not only produces prisons but also legitimates them.
If I’ve learnt a lesson from this experience, it is that it is better to risk one’s life and freedom rather than to live in grey and suffocating towns and have one’s consciousness asleep. It is easy to lose one’s freedom in this industrial-capitalist technocracy that does not accept any opposition apart from reformism based on compromise.
I will never complain about not having reached the aim of my struggle. Just having decided for the destruction of whatever transforms animals and our Mother Earth into goods and resources to be exploited: this is my liberation. Maybe my way as a green anarchist and the fact that I love life deeply in all its forms took me to prison, but it does not matter how big this obstacle will be, I will never forget all the people I met and all the joy I experienced on my path. I have the sensation that I’m freer than the miserable beings that hold the keys of my cell. I strongly hope that the comrades who are furious about my situation will turn their rage into a weapon against the system that keeps me imprisoned and that the struggles I have always supported will go on.'
November 2004
A free comrade
December 6 2004 – A trial against the squatting of houses in Viterbo that happened in 2001 is held in Viterbo court. As Simone and Tombolino are among the defendants, a solidarity demo is organised outside the court. The trial is postponed and will take place in January 2005.
December 10 2004 – An envelope containing a videotape connected to an explosive device is sent to the head office of the ‘S.A.P.P.C.’, the union of police prison, in Rome. The explosive is recognized and defused.
December 11 2004 – Another mail explosive device is sent to the National Association of Carabinieri. It will also be recognized and defused.
The claim by the Armed Cells for International Solidarity arrives a few days later:
"THERE EXISTS NO PACIFIC AND LEGAL WAY TO
SORT THE SITUATION OUT. ONLY VIOLENCE CAN
FACE THE VIOLENCE THEY INFLICT ON US.
ONLY VIOLENT REVOLUTION."
ERRICO MALATESTA
“WE ATTACKED SOME OF THE DIRECT RESPONSIBLE FOR VIOLENCE AND TERROR OF THE STATE, THAT IS TO SAY THE EXECUTIONERS THAT EVERY DAY IN JAILS AND POLICE HEADQUARTERS INFLICT TORTURE AND ABUSE ON REBELS WHO DO NOT ACCEPT STATE DOMINION AND REPRESSION FROM ITS SERVANTS IN UNIFORM.
WE HOPE THIS ACTION WILL BE EFFECTIVE AND SET AN EXAMPLE SO AS TO REVENGE ON ALL INFLICTED VIOLENCE AND TO TERRORISE THOSE WHO LEGITIMATE THEIR POWER WITH VIOLENCE.
THROUGH THIS ACTION WE RE-LAUNCH THE REVOLUTIONARY CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRISON THAT STARTED IN APRIL WITH THE ATTACK ON DAP IN APRIL, AND THAT WAS THEN STRENGTHENED BY THE ACTIONS CARRIED OUT BY THE COMRADES OF INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY.
SOLIDARITY TO THE PRISONERS IN STRUGGLE AGAINST THE PRISON SYSTEM, ITS TORTURES, ITS BRUTALITY AND ITS ISOLATION.
SOLIDARITY TO ALL ANARCHISTS HIT BY THE REPRESSION IN ITALY, SPAIN, GERMANY AND ALL OVER THE WORLD.
WE WANT TO SAY TO THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR REPRESSION, NAMELY JUDGES, COPS AND THEIR COLLABORATORS: AS YOU SHOOT IN THE CROWD OUR RAGE GROWS, AND WE ARE READY TO MAKE IT EXPLODE IN YOUR HANDS WHEREVER YOU ARE.
YOU WON’T STOP US.
LONG LIVE THE F.A.I
LONG LIVE ANARCHY
ANARCHIST INFORMAL FEDERATION/ARMED CELLS FOR INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY”.
December 12 2004 – Two squats in Rome, ‘Marmitta’ and ‘Bencivenga’ are searched by carabinieri. The search warrant was signed the day before by public prosecutor Vitello following the investigation for the ‘Cervantes’ operation.
In particular, the search was aimed at finding material used to manufacture the mail explosive devices that were sent to the sites of the prison police union (Sappe) and of the Carabinieri National Association on December 10 and December 11 respectively.
December 18 2004 – A demo in solidarity to Tombolino and to all prisoners is held outside ‘Poggioreale’ prison in Naples. Here is the communiqué launching the action:
INSTEAD OF PRISON: NOTHING!
The aim of prison has always been to guarantee respect for the rules and laws that power creates. Prison is the punishment inflicted to rebels and poor people who cannot obey the law and are therefore locked up and tortured, both physically and psychologically. As more and more people get poor and social unrest is spreading, power strengthens brutal repression and social control. In fact, it fears that revolt breaks out as well as the consciousness that subverting this inhuman system, which produces only death and desperation, is now an absolute necessity. Repressive laws that kill any form of freedom, hundreds of cameras controlling every moment of our life and a massive militarization of our territory are a few instruments that power employs to eliminate dissent.
Those who do not resign themselves to the imposed rules have to face one and only reality: the jail! Politicians want us to think that prison has the task to re-habilitate detainees and get them back into society. The truth is actually very different. Prison is punishment for the detainee as well as hell is punishment for catholics. Overcrowded jails, dozens of ‘unclear’ deaths, beatings, isolation and harsh treatment regimes (such as the 41bis) try to destroy human dignity every day in the attempt to gaining obedience from those who do not fit into the scheme power imposes, or to physically annihilating them.
‘Poggioreale’ is one of the most striking examples of hellish prison. It is a very old and dilapidated building, where overcrowding is well beyond an acceptable limit; hygienic and health conditions are just ridiculous, a weapon used by the guard dogs to humiliate and torture those who are under their fire. It is precisely in this prison that our comrade Tombolino is being held following a Digos and ROS operation, which also led to the arrest of Simone, Tittarello and Sergio and to the investigation of many others. Our comrades were arrested on July 27 on the grounds of mere hypothesis and suspicion.
The court, which admitted the total lack of evidence, keeps on refusing their release. We are not here to discuss whether our comrades are guilty or innocent as our solidarity to them is beyond dispute. We are here to make once again clear that the only solution to the ‘problem of prisons’ is their total destruction. If we want our freedom back, we do not have to wait for any amnesty or political support nor do we have to come to a compromise. We have just to be determined and revolt against prison and jailers so that not even a single stone of their jails is left.
DEMO AGAINST PRISON ON SATURDAY DECEMBER 18, PIAZZALE CENNI (close to the new built court).
December 20 2004 – 'David Santini (Titto), who was arrested on July 27 and has endured isolation for five months in ‘Le Vallette’ prison in Turin, was moved today to a high surveillance section, where detainees arrested for Mafia crimes or drug trafficking crimes are held.
As always occurs when certain types of detainees are involved, David was ‘presented’ to the others before his arrival and he now has a reputation he certainly didn’t want.
As David’s section has changed, procedure concerning his mail has also changed. As a result, more strict control will be applied and his mail is luckily to undergo further delay. Furthermore, being David the only prisoner of his category all other prisoners’ letters will be checked in fear that mail is send to David through other detainees. This will probably affect relationships inside the prison, but we hope that the other prisoners will understand the real reason why further restriction has been inflicted on them. Our unrestrained solidarity goes to David, Alessio and to all the arrested comrades.
Anarchists from the Alps
December 29 2004 – Another letter from Titto gets out of the prison:
‘A hearing concerning the squatting of a place that took place in Viterbo in 2001 will be held on January 21 at the Viterbo court. I am among the 25 defendants. As I’m quite far from Viterbo, I was uncertain whether to go the hearing or not. In the end I resolved to go, which will give me the chance to meet a lot of dear comrades I haven’t seen for months. I’d like to express a few considerations about the trial we are going to face. First of all it must be said that a simple and, in my opinion, legitimate squatting of houses is going to be exploited by investigators and servant journalists in order to add new false evidence to the inexistent criminal plan that the comrades from Viterbo are supposed to be carrying on.
I want to answer this delirium and point out that the real criminal plan is the Digos’, as the latter is now using its repressive logics against people who had taken a few houses away from the most hideous decay and made them inhabitable and decent. These houses had been occupied after years of abandon by a few people who think that having a house is a right, and it must be taken back if denied. The real criminals are those who throw out people who want something more than simply obeying and surviving, even if it is well known that dozens of families in Viterbo can’t afford paying rent for a house.
No one said a word about how rent prices are growing and how it is difficult to get a house. In spite of the fact that Viterbo is a brainwashed town, there are still some who can see that what surrounds us is not what they want us to believe. In the Bagnaia squat we did just that: we took back what had been stolen from us. Judges, you are going to decide if we are innocent or guilty, you are going to ask yourself questions. I don’t care about your sentence. What I care, on the contrary, is the solidarity I found in the other squatters (apart from those who were friends of the cops). I realized that even the other squatters hated the privileged exploiters who promise things just to safeguard their position.
I talked with one of the inhabitants of the squatted houses, and he warned me about the sudden repressive response that would follow. His belief was unfortunately due to a previous experience of him, as he and his family had squatted another house in Viterbo and they had been violently evicted by the police. If we are called “terrorists” how can be called those who beat, threaten and insult men, women and children who can’t pay rent, and then kick them out of their home?
Honestly I can’t find a more appropriate word than “terrorists” to define these “officers”. It is terror what they do; it is terror what they are ordered to do.
As usual, history repeats itself.
Repressive organs are servants of power and use terror in order to satisfy the latter, whereas the exploited follow their will to take their life back.
I express therefore my solidarity to those who took part in that squatting, which was an experience of struggle; to those who think that we do not have to content ourselves with the scrap that the bosses lavish on us; to those who think that squatting places is legitimate and reminds a model of life free from institutions and political parties.
Squats are places that we take away from dominion and from where we can expand our desire for freedom.
ONE OF THE DEFENDANTS.
December 31 2004 – A communiqué from Tombolino gets out of prison:
'Dear comrades, first of all I want to reassure you about my conditions, then I want to tell you that the solidarity demos outside “Regina Coeli” prison, inside Viterbo court on December 6 and outside “Poggioreale” prison in Naples has given me great strength that helped me to face my life as a prisoner.
I’m writing to let you know about the nth intimidatory act I was submitted by the jailers I have to cope with.
On December 21 I was called to be visited by a doctor. As I was in the infirmary, I realized that two shit guards were there too. So I kindly asked them if they could go out because I had to take my clothes off and be visited by the doctor. As always, they regarded my request, which was my right, as if it was a challenge to their power. The guards, in fact, answered that I had not understood anything about “Poggioreale”. Then I addressed to the doctor and told him I wouldn’t undertake the visit because my right to privacy was denied.
The doctor, who obviously belonged to the same dirty face of power, said he didn’t know the regulation concerning 41bis or E.I.V. prisoners. So I said both the doctor and the guards that they should be ashamed of themselves, and I went away. I was later called by the inspector of the section, who wanted to provoke me. In fact he wanted to know what I had said to the doctor. I explained him calmly that his role was not to question my talks with the doctor, nor was it to ask me, as he had done previously, the meaning of some words, appropriate in my opinion, which I used in my letters to mention the jailers.
On December 27 I was accused by the disciplinary committee of having insulted the doctors and the guards. Unfortunately I attended the disciplinary board session and I also tried to justify myself. It was useless: the right to a defence is denied to you when are outside, imagine to detainees! Anyway I am now in “the cells” and I will be staying here for two weeks. What makes me angry is not so much the fact that conditions are harsher here than they were in the “Venezia” section. Here the cells are cold, damp, dirty, there’s no TV, an emergency light is always on, and I’ve got no chance of cooking and going to the courtyard. The other detainees in this section are compelled to wear a special pyjama provided by the prison, they are also beaten and then injected medicines. You will have understood that I was put in the psychiatric and contagious disease section, even if I should stay in the punishment section. What makes me angry is that the jailers found a way for satisfying their will of power over me. They are wanna-be “bosses”, even if they chose to submit to their own bosses for all their life.
A lot of humiliation has been inflicted on me over these months, but they will never inflict the most hideous one: resignation to their cowardly methods. Last month has been particularly hard, and I start thinking that all their reprisals against me depend on the strong solidarity that was expressed to me by all of you outside. It might also depend on the fact that detainees in the “Venezia” section are in protest against the prison conditions and are refusing the food provided by the administration. Consider that nothing like that had ever been seen in this section, even if I think that the protest should be stronger.
I hope they won’t give me another occasion of telling you about some other infamy inflicted to me. I also hope that in this society of bosses and servants the instinct that is in everyone of us will prevail: the one of REBELLION!
I’d like to greet you one by one, but as this is not possible I send a big hug to all of you. A pride new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TOMBOLINO
January 18 2005 – Valeria, Tombolino’s partner, writes about the latter: ‘On January 8 he was called by the prison director, following another order of the disciplinary board. This time he refused to take part to their miserable and sordid show. This is the fourth time in five months. This is the way they are trying to torture him psychologically. In fact on January 3 Tombolino had just finished his punishment period in the ZERO section, that is to say the psychiatric and contagious disease section!! Marco should not have been confined in this section as the reason for this punishment was, as they said, a breach of discipline.
The real reason is that he does not resign himself to these infamous people. On January 9 he was taken by 15 guards to another section and was not allowed to bring his belongings. Once he was in the basement, he was searched and ordered to do knee-bends, which he refused. As he was wearing only his underpants, he was given a pyjama like the ones they give to those they call mad people, a very big pyjama without bottoms or strings. He was not even allowed to keep his shoe laces. They said it was for security reasons, which I can’t really understand; in fact they also gave him very strong sheets, knives, glass and razor blades. Very strange objects to be given to mad people, indeed! In the last month their anger against Tombolino has grown, but I want tell you that THEY WILL NEVER CONQUER HIM!!!
Whoever knows him also knows that he will never give up. All in all he is doing well and is determined to resist and struggle against those who want him to resign himself to their infamous and cowardly methods. I want also tell you that for once Marco witnessed a very nice event: one of those people that they call mad, and that I consider genius, threw some shit on the inspector of the section using a toilet brush.
Tombolino RESISTS with great dignity and is waiting for of all you at the hearing on January 21 in Viterbo.
WARM AND REBEL GREETINGS’
January 21 2005 – A few comrades organize a solidarity gathering outside Viterbo court, where Tittarello, Sergio and Tombolino are facing trial for the squatting in Viterbo in 2001.
January 25 2005 – At 4am an Y10 car blows up in the park outside ‘Buoncammino’ prison in Cagliari (Sardinia). It seems that the explosion is very strong and that it throws metal sparks 100 metres away, reaching the area of the prison. -A few minutes later, a bomb explodes just outside the door of the house of a carabinieri officer in Quartu Sant’Elena (Cagliari, Sardinia). It causes damages to the official’ s house and car. The day after the latter was supposed to attend a hearing in Genoa following the G8 summit in 2001.
January 27 2005 – A gathering in solidarity to Sergio and Agnese, accused of having placed an explosive device outside a butcher’s shop in Arezzo, is organized outside the court where the two comrades are facing trial. The hearing is postponed to March 7. A leaflet, ‘Time of repression – Time of solidarity’ is distributed on this occasion.
Sergio also writes the following communiqué:
‘Today Agnese and I are going to be scarified on the altar of social peace in one of the many “temples of justice”. What am I talking about? I’m talking about how investigators were so quick in finding the responsible for the facts that occurred in Arezzo, and how they accused two anarchists; I’m talking about how all the abuses inflicted in 8 months of detention are justified by little suspicion and no evidence at all; I’m talking about how the accusation (manufacture and transport of war weapons), which is quite serious and derives from a special law of the Seventies, and the related sentence (3 to 12 years imprisonment for manufacturing weapons and 2 to 10 years imprisonment for carrying them) prove that the system cannot accept any dissent that is not expressed in words alone. And if it strikes so hard it is not because of the gravity of the facts but because of the reasons that are beyond them.
I don’t intend to confess that we are not the responsible for the actions against shoppers who make profit from death. I don’t plead guilty nor do I plead not guilty because I support the actions that I’m accused of and because I don’t recognize any authority to the judicial machinery. On the contrary, as anarchist, I despise the latter and I want to destroy it. My lawyer is the one who has to cope with these surly people in gown, he’s paid to make clear that they need evidence; otherwise they can’t prosecute me and at the same time keep up their image of guarantors of justice. I can just watch the farce and clap my hands when it is finished.
It doesn’t matter if I’m cleared or condemned, what matters is that I still believe that criminals are those who make profit from life, not those who make it free. Criminals are those who go around armed with a gun and with the arrogance of a uniform. Criminals are those who go around armed with a penal code they didn’t ask you to approve, not those who are armed with their desires and struggle for what they believe in. My contempt is for jailers, exploiters, cops, judges and, most importantly, for the resigned accomplices of what they don’t want to destroy. My love and respect is for those who struggle, those who defend our Mother Earth and for all the comrades who are always so close to me.
If I end up in jail it will not be because of bombs, as my inquisitors know all too well, but because of my ideas and words, which frighten them to such a point that they consider them weapons. You are right in being frightened because our war will not stop until we smash down the bastions of dominion and exploitation.
An enemy of those who lock cages
A friend of those who open them
'A free comrade'
February 2 2005 – A gathering in solidarity to Tombolino is organised outside ‘Poggioreale’ prison in Naples.
-A mail explosive device is sent to ‘Mammagialla’ prison in Viterbo. The press say that the device was made by 250 grams of explosive powder collocated in a DVD box. The mail was addressed to Francesco Rutelli, vice-director of the prison.
March 3 2005 – An explosive device located in a skip blows up behind the carabinieri headquarters in Pra’ area in Genoa. A few minutes later another device explodes in the neighbourhood. Twenty minutes later, a third device placed in a skip blows up outside the carabinieri headquarters in Voltri area in Genoa. About an hour later, an explosive device detonates in the surroundings of a carabinieri headquarters in Milan, followed by another one in the same area, which detonates when police is on the spot.
Here is the text claiming the actions:
‘GENOA, 7.45PM: INCENDIARY DEVICE EXPLODES IN THE SURROUNDINGS OF THE CARABINIERI HEADQUARTERS IN PRA (GENOA)
GENOA, 8.30PM: EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (PRESSURE COOKER FULL OF CHLORATE) BLOWS UP IN THE SURROUNDINGS OF THE CARABINIERI HEADQUARTERS IN VOLTRI (GENOA)
MILAN, 9.30PM: EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (METAL PIPE PLUS DYNAMITE) DETONATES IN THE SURROUNDINGS OF ONE OF THE CARABINIERI HEADQUARTERS THAT INFEST VIA MONTI AREA
SANREMO, 11.38PM: EXPLOSIVE DEVICE (ELECTRIC BOX PLUS DYNAMITE) BLOWS UP INSIDE ARISTON THEATRE DURING THE LIVE BROADCAST OF THE ITALIAN SONG FESTIVAL.
OPERATION ‘VIVA VILLA’ – A WARNING TO THE SYSTEM OF DOMINION AND PRIVILEGE
IT IS POINTLESS TO BARRICATE YOURSELVES BEHIND HUNDREDS OF CAMERAS THAT WATCH YOUR MISERY AND INEPTITUDE… TODAY WE CHOSE THE STAGE TO REMIND YOU OF THE REALITY OF FACTS AGAINST YOUR CALM, FALSE AND DEMOCRATIC CERTAINTY. WE DON’T LIKE THE LIMELIGHT, WE JUST EXPLOIT IT WHEN NECESSARY, ESPECIALLY IF SOME FRIGHTENED ARSE GETS UP FROM HIS VELVET SEAT, TERRORISED AT THE IDEA THAT PRIVILEGE IS NOT ETERNAL NOR IS IT PAINLESS… WE REMIND YOU OF THE REALITY OF THINGS:
-PRISON IS EXPANDING AND STRENGTHENING ITS METHODS OF ANNIHILATION.
-SUICIDE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE ARE THE RULE INSIDE ITALIAN PRISONS (BEATINGS, NO CHANCE OF MEDICAL TREATMENT WHEN NECESSARY, COMPULSORY MEDICAL TREATMENT WHEN NOT REQUESTED, TILL THE LAST REFINED TRICK: THE FORBIDDEN BOOK AS HAPPENED IN BIELLA PRISON).
-WE KNOW THAT THE STATE KILLS AND THAT COPS, CARABINIERI, ETC ARE THE ARMED MEN OF DOMINION AND DEFEND IT DAILY (THAT IS WHY WE WOKE THEM UP THE FIRST).
-WE KNOW THAT TORTURE DOES NOT EXIST ONLY IN EXOTIX PRISONS SUCH AS GUANTANAMO OR ABU GRAHIB, ON THE CONTRARY IT IS ALSO HERE.
WE EXPLOITED THE FRIVOLOUS SCENARY OF ‘THE MOST LOVED ITALIAN SHOW’ TO GET ACROSS A MESSAGE OF FREEDOM AND SOLIDARITY TO ALL PRISONERS, AND TO MAKE YOU AWARE OF WHAT THE PROPAGANDA OF THE REGIME TRIES TO HIDE. WE WILL ALWAYS FIND THE WAY OF BREAKING INTO YOUR EXPANSIVE THEATRES, UNTIL THE DAY WE SET A TABLE UPON YOUR GRAVES. JAILERS IN ALL ITALIAN PRISONS MUST KNOW THAT WE WON’T DELAY IN FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE OF THE SARDINIAN REVLUTIONARY RESISTENCE MOVEMENT, WHICH ON JANUARY 25 STRUCK THE HOUSE OF A CARABINIERE, A TORTURER IN BOLZANETO, IN QUARTU SANT’ELENA, AND AT THE BUONCAMMINO PRISON IN CAGIARI.
JOY AND FREEDOM FOR SIMONE, MARCO, DAVID, SERGIO, FEDERICO, ALFREDO, CLAUDIO, MARCO, AMANDA…
JOY AND FREEDOM FOR GABRIEL POMBO DA SILVA, JOSE FERNANDEZ DELGADO, BART DE GEETER!
JOY AND FREEDOM FOR THOSE WHO STRUGGLE EVERY DAY IN THE PRISONS ALL OVER THE WORLD AGAINST OPPRESSORS!
JOY AND FREEDOM FOR EVERYBODY!
ACTION COMES FOR US AND FOR THEM WITHOUT DEADLINES, IT APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS FOLLOWING ITS BREATH, IT MAKES FOOL OF RULES AND BRINGS ABOUT THE CONSCIOUS ANSWER OF THE OPPRESSED.
PS: AS YOU STRIKE AT RANDOM AND THROW THE FISHING NET IN THE SEA OF ANARCHIST MOVEMENT IN ORDER TO CAPTURE SOMEONE TO BE SACRIFIED ON THE ALTAR OF JUDICIAL REVENGE, SO WE WILL STRIKE AT RANDOM AND HIT AT YOUR FILTHY MASS OF TERROR LABOURERS. COPS AND JUDGES, YOU ARE PLAYING A DIRTY GAME AND ARE GOING ALONG THE SAME PATH AGAIN, BUT ALL YOU WILL GET IS SHOWING OFF YOUR MISERABLE EXISTENCE OF BUREAUCRATS OF TORTURE. IN THE PAST WE MADE IT CLEAR THAT OUR FREE SOLIDARITY BOND TOGETHER VARIOUS GROUPS THAT SUPPORT ONE ANOTHER. THROUGH THIS CAMPAIGN WE EXPRESS STRONGER SOLIDARITY TO THOSE WHO STRUGGLE INSIDE THE JAILS OF DOMINION: TO THE IMPRISONED ANARCHISTS AND TO THE PRISONERS OF THE SOCIAL WAR BETWEEN EXPLOITERS AND THE EXPLOITED. BEAR IN MIND THAT IF YOU MAKE CANNON FODDER OUT OF ANARCHISTS, WE WILL MAKE THE SAME OUT OF YOU, WHICH WILL BE PURE JOY. WE CAN MAKE A LOT OF PROMISES BUT WE ARE NOT IN ANY PARTICULAR HURRY TO FULLFIL THEM. TIME WILL WITNESS OUR PRECISION IN COMMITTING OURSELVES TO THAT. THE SPARKS OF ACTION WILL TURN INTO A RAIN OF KNIVES STUCK IN THE HEART AND IN THE LIMBS OF DOMINION. THIS CAMPAIGN IS DEDICATED TO MARCELLO LONZI, A BOY MURDERED DURING A WILD BEATING IN LIVORNO PRISON.
F.A.I./FIRE AND SIMILAR CRAFTWORK COOPERATIVE
(OCCASIONALLY SPECTACULAR)
F.A.I./JULY 20 BRIGADE’.
The following communiqué is sent along with the claim of the actions:
CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEBATE INSIDE THE ANARCHIST AND ANTIAUTHORITARIAN MOVEMENT
1) About revolutionary elites, specialists, relations with social reality and simple projects…and the concreteness of utopia!
The anarchist movement is and must be a revolutionary movement. It is not a movement of opinion that makes propaganda about civil liberties to be conquered through folk dances, colourful and bloodless parades; nor is it the exclusive club of a little group of pedantic theorists of insurrection who cope with society according to which way the wind is blowing.
Our actions and the answers to those who criticise us come from these assumptions.
One of the most common critiques that are addressed to us is that we run the risk to turn ourselves into specialists of ‘militant practise’, doing actions for the action’s sake and that we lack a project. On the contrary, what we are doing is to work in order to widen social awareness on a revolutionary level. What we are doing is action through deeds, but our detractors insist on affirming that results must be obtained gradually and they therefore undertake partial struggles that do not have any revolutionary issue. We employ certain means because we have an objective vision of reality. We therefore combine our revolutionary tension towards the subversion of the existent with the times and places we live in.
Western society in 21st century is not at all a pre-revolutionary terrain, even if it is not totally at peace. In this context we use action through deeds as the most effective means that give immediate and long lasting results, means that can be easily imitated and that help to make our ideas understood. Social conflict cannot be triggered by boring analysis to be spread through leaflets and pamphlets as if it was the new secular Word of the exploited. The latter are either aware of being exploited or fight to arrive at work in time, and in this case they don’t deserve to be considered as workers on struggle against exploitation. Some proposed analysis claims that any meaningless event is a moment of class struggle and that it represents a good step that the exploited take towards revolution. In this way many comrades invest their energy in fruitless struggles that come to nothing and that have meaningless slogans.
Sometimes, and this is even worse, aberrant and authoritarian attitudes come out from the obsessing attempt to relate with ‘people’: it is typical of those who are full of themselves and think they are above the social context, who engage in partial struggles and are convinced they have the truth in their pocket. Anarchists are a minority in the social tissue, so they cannot pretend to be prophets or priests; nor can they use soft and confused slogans in fear of disturbing the audience.
This is the reason why, nowadays, an explosive device sent to a carabiniere or to a journalist servant of power, or a bomb that causes even a little crack in the wall of a prison are basically very useful means: in one moment they show how dominion is vulnerable, point out who the enemy is and how diversified are the means to fight it back. Moreover they give everybody the chance of acting directly against the oppressors.
As concerns projects, we are just showing you, through deeds, how effective a project of multiple and co-ordinated attack can be. We are already putting into practice the anonymous dialogue between numerous groups of action, and this is certainly much more effective than any meeting open to the public, which, besides boring the attendants with the verbal catwalks of some refined lecturer, do not bring nothing more than new names to be added to the lists of repression… Au revoir! Revolt is contagious and can be reproduced.
2) Who is responsible for repression?
We have read or heard of comrades who, more or less openly, have talked about our unacceptable guilty. According to them, all the comrades who, like us, carry on wild struggles with wild methods and aiming at untamed purposes are responsible for the waves of repression that periodically hit at the movement. It is true! Rebellion against the system and revolt against dominion create repression, no matter if the guarantors of innocence like it or not. Repression kills, tortures and locks up people; it is part of the State and is always there; it is the litmus paper of the deadly essence of dominion. It changes its forms and intensity, for example it can be more ‘indiscriminate’ when dominion is weak, but this is another story. If we prefer to oppose revolutionary violence to the violence of the State instead of being bored to death with a leaflet or a banner in our hands, the State will certainly produce its defensive antibodies… Our task is not only to inflict innocuous wounds but also to pave the way for further and more deadly blows. A State that allows you to protest and lets you parade in colourful and harmless ways knows that you are not even an already defeated enemy, but a clown down on his knees in front of the boss. We do not intend to adapt our practices in accordance to the fears of the clowns on duty.
3) A life of spectacle (the media and us)
The media and their relation with us have been the subject for animated discussion inside the movement for years. Beyond any simple sociological analysis and hypocrisy, it is evident that there exists the fear of being engulfed by the monster. ‘Recovery of dissent’ plans are the main concern of the strategies of dominion carried out by the democratic regime. The media are the spokesman and champion of these plans (consider, for example the no-global phenomenon). As a matter of fact, there is a TV set switched on in every cell of the Italian State prisons and newspapers are read. Similarly the hideous appliance can be found in every house (or so), hospital, public places, etc. Passing through the media (via TV, the press or internet) is risky but inevitable. We are luckily to be censured or misrepresented by, but all of us, do we like it or not, must pass through the bloody media.
We are convinced that a cash machine is worth more if someone is interested in it besides its usual customers, and does something that can be imitated. We prefer it to be the effectiveness of the comrades’ actions that compelled the press to talk about the latter, rather than their being moved to pity by harmless and picturesque demonstrators writing some indulgent article about it.
F.A.I./Fire and Similar Craftwork Cooperative
March 4 2004 – The request for the release of Sergio, Simone, Titto and Tombolino has been rejected once again by the judges of the Court of Cassation.
March 6 2005 – In the night a pressure cooker filled with herbicide blows up in Ostia (Rome) and damages part of a wall of the court and the windows of the surrounding buildings. A few local newspapers publish the text claiming the action, which is signed by the Anarchist Informal Federation – “Horst Fantazzini” Cell.
‘IN THE NIGHT OF MARCH 6, WE PLACED AN EXPLOSIVE DEVICE, MADE WITH A PRESSURE COOKER HIDDEN IN A FLOWER POT, OUTSIDE THE MAIN ENTRANCE OF OSTIA COURT. WE HAVE HIT AT ONE OF THE MANY PLACES WHERE EVERY DAY, WITH CYNICAL CALM, THOSE WHO DO NOT SUBMIT THEMSELVES ARE CONDEMNED TO YEARS AND YEARS IMPRISONMENT. AS WE REFUSE THE STATE AND ITS LAWS, WE ATTACK IT AND ANYTHING THAT KEEPS IT ALIVE, AND WE DO THIS WITH CYNICAL CALM. WITH THIS ACTION WE TAKE PART TO THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRISON THAT WAS LAUNCHED BY THE F.A.I./C.A.S.I. (FIRE AND SIMILAR CRAFTWORK COOPERATIVE). WE EXPRESS OUR SOLIDARITY TO THE COMRADES ARRESTED FOLLOWING THE MARINI INVESTIGATION, TO THE FOUR COMRADES ARRESTED FOLLOWING THE OPERTION CERVANTES AND TO THE ANARCHISTS ARRESTED IN GERMANY IN JUNE’.
March 7 2005 – The first hearing against Sergio and Agnese is held in Arezzo. A great number of comrades take part to the solidarity gathering organised for the occasion.
March 16 2005 – Massimo and Tomblino are cleared of the charges concerning the events that occurred on October 4 2004. As they had been arrested and accused of beating a cop, at the first degree trial they had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment and to paying a fine of 1000 euros each.
March 19 2005 – A solidarity gathering is organised outside ‘Poggioreale’ prison in Naples, where Tombolino has been held for more than 8 months.
April 1 2005 – Another communiqué by Tombolino gets out of the prison:
‘Long live anarchy, no resignation ever.
On July 27 2004 the State, which spreads terror by creating internal enemies, arrested me and three other comrades following the operation “Cervantes”. As usual, the accusations are related to 270 (subversive association) and 270bis. There are also other charges, for example I was accused of having sent the mail explosive device that caused a servant of the State to lose a few fingers, which implies that I could be charged with massacre.
My responsibility in this event is attributed to a letter that I had written when I was held in Regina Coeli prison (12/12/03) because they had accused me of beating another servant of the State during the protest march which occurred on October 4 2003 in Rome; after one month in prison and three months under house arrest, the court of appeal in Rome cleared me. In the above-mentioned letter, there was a drawing of a hand with a few fingers missing and the writing: “more mutilated hands”. Furthermore, they found other letters addressed to me in the same period (December 2003), where it was written: “more brave men around, more fingers around”.
This is, according to them, the evidence proving that I am guilty. I cannot explain why they arrested me after 5 months, given that the letters were found in my house, where I was under house arrest, on 20/02/04 during a search for weapons and drugs! Was it because the accusation was still being manufactured? As I refused to answer the questions of the judge (29/07/04), I was notified of an order of censorship on my mail. On 06/08/04 the lawyers made an appeal to the court, but no one took the responsibility of claiming that my arrest was not justified (I want to point out that as far as I’m concerned no arrest is justified, no matter if the arrested is guilty or not guilty).
In the meantime I started a protest against this nth judicial frame-up against people who do not accept the rules of the State and rebel every day. The only possible protest I could undertake was a hunger strike by fits and starts, as I had health problems at the time. On 10/08/04 the court of appeal “finally” refused the request of release; I say “finally” because waiting in the hope of being released is real suffering for a prisoner, one of the worst.
After a few days I decided to interrupt the anger strike and react differently to hurting myself. Then I was denied the possibility of being visited by my partner (even if she was not investigated) and my family. Visits were allowed again only on September 13, after fifty days! I’ve been waiting and waiting for the official motivation for the refusal of the request for release, as another request cannot be presented if such motivation is not known. When the court finally let me know why I wouldn’t be released, I realized once more that this is nothing more than a frame-up. The text of the motivation is confused and full of contradictions, but no one, be it the public prosecutor or the judges, took the responsibility of deciding for my release.
The lawyers are going to present another request to the Supreme Court on November 3. Meantime, solidarity to us has never stopped and I just hope that no repression will stop it! On the first days of November, various explosive devices blew up in Milan, and soon our cells were searched; an order of search, in fact, was sent to the directions of the four prisons where we are being held in order to find some evidence of claim. I have to say that I was submitted to censorship on my mail at the time, all the same 6 Digos officers from Naples took a few letters and pamphlets away from my cell. On the first days of March other explosions occurred in the neighbourhood of carabinieri headquarters in Genoa and in Milan, and an explosive attack was carried out against a prison in Sardinia; the home office then declared: ‘Anarchists have intensified their attack in Sardinia, as they used a car containing a bomb instead of small explosions’.
Don’t you think, therefore, that the reprisals against me are a “deterrent” to others? On December 16, during a hearing held in Viterbio for the squatting of abandoned and dilapidated houses in Bagnaia area (2001), I had the chance of seeing a lot of dear comrades I hadn’t seen for months. That was the most intense moment I had experienced in months, even if the deployment of cops was huge. Once again the “deterrent” methods of the State could be observed. On January 21 I experienced the same joy as I do every time I know that you are outside the prison walls and shout your anger out. On February 2 2005 censorship of my mail was dropped.
On February 8 I was notified the nth warrant of investigation, as I was suspected, together with the F.A.I./international solidarity, of having sent a threatening letter to the director (“little pig”) of Poggioreale prison (articles 610-110) on November 11 2004. Two days later I refused to be questioned by the investigators about the matter. This is another trick they used to make psychological pressure on me, and if I think of the absurdity of the accusation I can only laugh at it.
But it is exactly this that I would like to discuss here: why all this pressure over the past few months? I dare say that our accusers hoped that we would resign ourselves to their dirty tricks. They wanted us to declare guilty and confirm what some miserable Digos officers and ROS carabinieri told the judges about us, after they worked hard to exploit phone tapping and build a frame up. It is good to have the certainty that not even one single anarchist ever resigns himself/herself to the violence of the State! I’ve never lost my spirit of rebellion nor have I given in to their provocations and humiliation.
Even if I’m a prisoner I keep on struggling as I think is right, and one of my methods of struggle is solidarity with the other detainees: never have I turned a deaf ear to an argument between a detainee and a guard. Unfortunately I realized that many prisoners don’t act like that, and they I asked me why I do. Those who know me can guess why, to those who don’t know me I want to say that selfishness is part of the brainwashing that power inflict on people in order to keep the gap between oppressors and oppressed.
At the beginning I thought that prisoners were more determined in struggling to get at least better living conditions, on the contrary I realize now how an illusory law like the ‘Gozzini’ appeased the anger and wiped off the situations that occurred in the Seventies and Eighties, when a great number of detainees would struggle fiercely to obtain their rights. Unfortunately I find it difficult to discuss anything deeply with other detainees, and this hurts me.
At least I think that everybody here is aware of the fact that the jailers deliberately isolate the ‘rebels’ among prisoners. I can tell you that isolation is not brought about by walls and bars, but it is given by the impossibility to talk about what one believes in. I’ve been waiting for the decision of the Cassation, which was supposed to be known on March 4, with great anxiety. But it happened that on March 3 the jailers came to me and told me that my father had died.
It is quite difficult to accept that someone you loved has died, but in this case was even worse, as the jailers pretended they were sorry for me, and they had to shut up because of my expression of anger, especially towards them: ridiculous! On March 4 I was taken to my village for my father’s funeral, where besides the presence of many comrades who had come to support me, there also were a great number of cops. Quite a horrifying scene. This is not what my father would have liked to see!
As usual, the cops try to exploit the situation to create the “fear” of a dangerous terrorist. I think the terrorist is the State, which uses any little episode, be it related to anarchist struggle or to Muslim facts, in order to condemned the suspect to years imprisonment. In the following days I heard about the negative response of the Cassation.
Once again I claim I’m anarchist and I refuse any trial inflicted by the bourgeois State. From now on whoever opposes power, even if only by words, can find himself/herself in jail. But this will never bring to our defeat! Even if I don’t believe in the justice of the State, I resolved not to refuse the defence and to attend all the hearings in order to see my comrades. I express my solidarity to all rebels and prisoners and I hope to see you at the Viterbo court on April 29, where we can show our anger against the oppressors.
Anarchist greetings to all of you!
Tombolino
April 2 2005 – During a gathering in solidarity to Tittarello, Alessio and the other prisoners organised outside ‘Le Vallette’ prison in Turin, a few written contributions from the arrested comrades are distributed.
Communiqué from David Santini (Tittarello):
‘First of all, greetings to all those who take part in this gathering.
I would like to express a few considerations about our arrest and our situation as prisoners. I’ll sum up our story for those who don’t know it: on July 27 2004 three comrades and I are arrested on order of the public prosecutor in Rome, and accused of belonging to a subversive association. In particular, we are accused of having carried out various attacks against institutional sites. I’ve been held in the High Surveillance section of ‘Le Vallette’ prison in Turin for more than two months. Here I had the chance of meeting and discussing with people who, like me, are living as prisoners.
The reasons why we are detained as well as our single views on the subject are of course different from one another, but in fact we all are in the same boat. As I talked a lot with my companions in prison, I realized how widespread the infamous practice of tampering with phone tapping is, sometimes even inventing them totally. Ingenuously I thought that when the investigators did this to me it was for personal revenge against me (of course it also is). On the contrary, at least 10% of the detainees I spoke to were victims of the same cowardly practice. In other words, in order to justify our arrest, the investigators took single words from hours of conversation and ended up creating statements we never made. This is something we should discuss and be worried about. When the investigators can’t demonstrate that someone is guilty by employing “legal” means, they turn to this practice. What do they have to lose? Nothing, of course, absolutely nothing.
Moreover, a great deal of money would be needed in order to show how our phone tapping was manipulated, which makes the thing very difficult. So the responsibility of these gentlemen stays unstained. They can claim that there were some mistakes in the transcription and carry on with their dirty job. The prisoner, meantime, keeps on thinking over the statements that he/she never said, and so days, months and sometimes even years pass. In my opinion this is a new and very effective practice of repression: it strikes hard and is used in silence. Of course the servant press is more than happy when social rebels like anarchists are arrested. On the contrary it is not so happy with the truth. That is why not a single line is written about how the arrests develop.
Sensationalism is created by the gravity of the inflicted sentences, and not by chance Italy is the country where phone tapping is more used. Even the justice minister Castelli, who is known for being all but magnanimous, admitted that there exists a problem concerning phone tapping, and the telephone company Tim complained about the same thing. It is in this context that the various investigators work, and they cut, manipulate and invent conversation. In spite of all this, if someone complains is only because privacy has been violated. No one says a word about the many detainees who are still in prison because they can’t afford a good technician to demonstrate that their phone tapping is false. This is another example of how life today is controlled and monitored by repression. And it is also another reason for subverting all this as soon as possible.
David Santini, an anarchist detained in High Surveillance regime.
Communiqué from Sergio Maria Stefani:
‘I take this opportunity to greet you, Titto and Alessio, so that you can hear my words instead of reading them from a piece of paper. I’m sure that those who are going to shout outside your cells feel the same anger that twists my guts, the same passion that runs in my veins and the same brotherhood that unites us. Their voice will therefore sound as mine would do. I’d like to shout myself and let you know how I feel and to embrace you as I used to do once, but the current situation compels me to use written words. So, before I become rhetorical, I want to say that I’m with you!
You just stroke the bars of your cell, and take one of them when you get out: we will soften it with the flames of our anger and mould it under the strikes of our determination. And when the iron is sharpened enough and filled with the memories of all the abuse we endured, we will use it to lash at our enemies so that the latter will be able to taste their own weapons, but turned against them this time. I’m sure that you will resist and get out with your head held high. I just hope you will have the same smile you had before and I can’t wait to embrace you again.
I’d also like to show my solidarity and complicity to the other detainees of ‘Le Vallette’ concentration camp, not because they are victims of the violence of the State but because they challenged the laws of power. I’m much closer to social rebels than to the many anarchists who vomit words and never act. I’ve nothing to say to the comrades in struggle, as they know very well what the horror of prison is like and they feel instinctively that locking up men and women in a cage is unacceptable.
A protest gathering outside a prison is very important and it gives the imprisoned comrades and all detainees the chance to hear the greetings of those outside, and this gives them great strength. Most importantly, gatherings outside prisons break the silence and remind everybody that it is men and women, and not ‘criminals’, who are locked up. And that these men and women are suffer violence and humiliation at the hands of the jailers every day; that the most hideous form of violence and the most serious crime is to take a man or a woman’s freedom away. Furthermore we are anarchists and we want to demonstrate that we don’t intend to stop our struggle and that we know how to fight back, especially when repression gets harder.
They are wrong if they think that locking up comrades is a means to stop the struggle; in fact it is not: someone else will take the imprisoned comrades’ weapons. And they are wrong if they th