 Fresh violence grips Genoa =============================== The globalisation debate - Observer special Special report: globalisation John Vidal and Ewen MacAskill Sunday July 22, 2001 The Observer Hundreds of specialist Italian anti-terrorist police, backed by armoured personnel carriers, fought running battles against masked anarchists for the second day of the G8 summit in Genoa. The anarchists were seeking revenge for the death of one of their number - shot dead by police on Friday as he attempted to attack a police car with a fire extinguisher. The new battles in the historic city came as more than 100,000 largely peaceful protesters staged a sombre and nervous march. The self- stewarded marchers - campaigning on issues from debt relief to fair trade - sought to distance themselves from the worst violence in 18 months of anti-globalisation protests. The violence has overshadowed both the summit and the message of the majority of protesters. Many of the marchers chanted 'murderers' and 'assassins' at police as they passed the spot where 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani had been shot in the head. Police used tear gas to push back several thousand anarchists who had moved ahead of the main group of marchers. Protesters who hurled paving stones and firebombs at riot police 'were 500 people in a peaceful march of thousands,' said 31-year-old demonstrator Simona Tatarini. 'They had clubs and firebombs - what were we supposed to do to get them out of the march?' Yesterday the Corso Torino, the main route of the march, was a scene of devastation with shops and offices wrecked, and cash machines pulled from walls daubed with graffiti. The scale of the devastation - estimated to have cost the city millions of pounds - has thrown into doubt the future of international summitry. Despite assurances from leaders inside the summit centre that they would continue to meet in future, few cities are likely to be keen to welcome them. Evidence emerged that extremist groups from Germany, Italy and France had travelled to Genoa to escalate the violence. Among them, the German anarchist group, the FAU, which has a long history of street violence. Meanwhile the chief prosecutor for the city, Francesco Meloni, said the police officer who shot dead Giuliani would face an investigation to determine whether murder or manslaughter charges should be brought, or whether he acted in self-defence. It was revealed yesterday that Giuliani had a police record. Despite the widespread international horror at the killing of Giuliani, the conduct of the police was defended by Tony Blair, who blamed a minority of demonstrators 'bent on violence'. Blair insisted that the G8 leaders should be able to meet to do their work, despite calls by Italian papers and local people to suspend the summit. 'To criticise the Italian police and the Italian authorities for working to make sure the security of the summit is right is, to me, to turn the world upside down,' Blair said yesterday. 'Of course, it is a tragedy that someone has lost their life. But it's very difficult for the police when they are faced with people throwing petrol bombs and using extreme forms of violence.' Yesterday leaders of the Genoa Social Forum, the umbrella group of 700 protesting organisations, also began its own inquest, accusing the government of colluding with the anarchists, of provoking violence and of justifying the massive attack made on several marches. No one in Genoa including the police, doubts that the anarchists started Europe's worst riots in years but the leaders of the forum respect that their 'movement' against globalisation cannot now control its own people. 'It is a young movement, it is very naive at times, it is idealistic. It must learn to defend itself from the nihilists and seek protection from the state,' says Claudio Martini, president of the Tuscan region. 'How can it?,' asks Jose Bove, leader of the confederation of French peasants.'Yesterday the state organised the provocation. It is scared the response will be bigger and bigger, we are not afraid.' But the demonstrators are scared of splitting what they call the global movement developing so rapidly against the G8 world bodies and corporations. In the past year it is estimated that more than three million in more than 20 coun tries, north and south, have taken to the streets to oppose 'neo-liberal policies' of most governments. Almost everyone has ended in tears. Four people have now been killed. There is broad consensus that if splits occur they will be over the violence. Yesterday Drop the Debt, Oxfam and other British charities withdrew from the march against debt which they had intended to lead as much as anything they feared being associated with the violence. But others, notably older communists and socialists, were yesterday underlining the need to confront the state even more by whatever means possible and were refusing to condemn publicly anyone who retaliated against the police. 'We are being split by ideologies,' said ecologist deputy editor Paul Kingsnorth. 'There is a massive power struggle going on. People must recognise the potential for violence within the movement. There is an emerging, vibrant group, putting forward radical ideas about how movement should develop, but for other who just want to seize power and take it over. The next focus of protestors will be the meeting of the World Bank and IMF in Washington at the end of September which some fear could see the biggest demonstrations in the US since the Vietnam war. Who's who: the
militants
AP (Arbeiter Partei or Workers Party): Party affiliated to the FAU. TIKB (Union of Revolutionary Communists of Turkey): Militant Turkish Kurdish group, particularly active in Germany and the UK. Its banners were much in evidence during the violence. AntiKapitalist/ISCI Demokrasisi: Turkish militant group. Ya Basta!: Italian radical anti-globalisation group, declared war on G8. Tute Bianche (White Overalls): Italian-based direct action group, using home-made equipment against alleged police violence. Globalise Resistance:
British-based socialist organisation, opposed to 'the global growth of
corporate power' |
