From: Eric Hayes Patkowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 16:25:34 -0500 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [pttp] Genoa: Imperialism kills also in the West Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 16:09:14 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: Antiimperialist Camp News Imperialism kills also in the West: The Genoa events call for Struggle, Unity, Criticism No to the Police State ! Free the arrested comrades! Solidarity and unity against repression! Down with the Berlusconi government! Imperialism kills in Cuba, in Iraq, in Yugoslavia, in Palestine, in Colombia and even in the West - the West which has been pacified and made opulent through, that's what is being said, democracy and the free market. The Anti-imperialist Camp honours comrade Carlo Giuliani, who was killed in Genoa by the armed guards of imperialist capitalism. The Anti-imperialist Camp expresses its full solidarity with the hundreds of injured, arbitrarily arrested and disappeared. "The days of Genoa" deserve a political reflection on globalisation, which is nothing else than imperialism, and also on the movements against it. 1) Genoa is neither Cuba, nor Iraq, Yugoslavia, Palestine, or Colombia. But if Gothenburg was not enough, Genoa must finally have clarified that imperialism and bourgeoisie do not hesitate to use their armies whenever they feel this is necessary to defend their interests. As long as they can they try to absorb the potential antagonistic movements invoking democracy, the respect for human rights, the promise to set up a market economy (they never call it capitalism) which focuses on the individual. Unfortunately, they often succeed in doing so. But as soon as the traditional "humanitarian" weaponry proves to be inadequate they do not hesitate to set fire even to their "peaceful and prosperous" corner of the world. They do so by creating the conditions necessary to justify the most brutal repression and to blame someone else for it. What happened in Genoa is, in fact, not due to the cynical and brutal will of destiny. On the contrary, an armoured city, a war-like prepared policy, and army - all this had contributed already in the days before the summit to the impression that the mobilisations would certainly not be easy-going walks. The system had been preparing in order to attack, and that is what it actually did de facto revoking the most basic constitutional guaranties and using measures recalling the worst Latin-American dictatorships. MPs, lawyers, journalists were beaten up and driven away from the zone of police intervention. Sometimes they were even arrested. Information centres were destroyed, people kicked and beaten arbitrarily. All this did not happen due to exaggerated or incapable elements of the police force, on the contrary it did happen upon an exact political mandate. 2) After Seattle, Prague, Gothenburg and other similar events, Genoa represents a turning point. It clearly shows how incorrect it was to subsume all forces under the expression "Popolo di Seattle (people of Seattle)". If so, one had to speak about peoples since the very numerous organisations have always had differences in terms of political projects and consequently political practice as well as in terms of ways of struggle. Subsuming all these different movements undoubtedly helped certain movements, organisations and "left-wing" parties, all of which from a clear bourgeois background to claim that there was unity between the different forces, and that they would lead these united anti-globalisation movement. This fake unity also helped the bourgeoisie to select those organisations as their interlocutors that were most appropriate to their purposes. Thus, they hoped to eliminate and suffocate any possibility of a really antagonistic conflict, antagonistic in its political project more than its methods of struggle. 3) Already during the preparation of the Genoa protest the alleged united movement showed some cracks. With the exception of a few, like for instance the Anti-imperialist Camp, all organisations and tendencies rushed to gather under the umbrella of the Genoa Social Forum (GSF). But at the same time all these forces did their best to organise initiatives in order to distinguish themselves from the GSF. Forms of struggle were, however, more important than the political platform. In the meantime, the GSF spokespersons assured to completely control the situation and that the protest would take place in a peaceful and calm way, whereas it was already clear to everybody that they did not control anything. From the other side, the rulers of the world claimed that their intentions were just the same as those of the protesters and that the G8 summit was actually focused on the problems raised by the protest movement. Naturally, both sides were always speaking about globalisation with a human face, globalisation of human rights, about famine, Third World debt and possible measures without ever mentioning its cause, that is imperialist capitalism. 4) What happened on July 20 has clearly shown that such a unity of organisations did not exist. Each force tried to perform their own initiative, sit-in, demonstration or break-through to the "red zone". Each of them did it independently, applying their own methods and without any form of coordination in order to guaranty success or at least the safe return of the majority of the comrades. The results are clear to everybody, just like it should be clear to everybody that who is really responsible for all this, including the killing of Carlo Giuliani, is not the "black block", unlike some "leftist" forces claim, but imperialist capitalism and its apparatus. 5) The Anti-imperialist Camp did its best, together with the grassroot trade unions (SLAI-Cobas), to make the anti-imperialist demonstration of July 20 a success. Thousands of participants celebrated a combative and organised demonstration despite of the extremely threatening climate. Although our demonstration was boycotted by the media, our contribution was very important. At the end of the demonstration we managed, in spite of the threatening atmosphere, to hold our anti-imperialist sit-in and to perform the speeches of the numerous representatives of various peoples struggling against oppression. Among these who had come to Genoa to join the anti-imperialist mobilisation there were delegations from Yugoslavia, Mexico, Turkey, Greece, Sardinia and others. 6) We call upon all anti-capitalist forces to join the mobilisations against repression, for the truth, for the liberation of the arrested comrades. Only a united movement can get the comrades out of prison and ensure continuity to the Genoa rebellion. Contemporarily we confirm that this year's Anti-imperialist Camp is going to take place as scheduled from July 28 to August 5 in Assisi. We will do our best to make the Anti-imperialist Camp the real counter-summit and thus hope that after the Genoa days the best forces of the Genoa protesters will launch a campaign of political reflection focussing on the contents and aims rather than on methods of the anti-globalisation struggle. Moreover, we hope that these forces will have the courage to overcome the limits of the institutionalised left and the civil society movement as well as, on the other hand, the temptation to use a kind of disorganised rebellion. Based on these political ideas but, with the most determined intention of unity we would like to meet in order to evaluate the possibilities of giving birth to a national and international coordination with clear political contents and with the most adequate methods to guarantee success. Let's make together a step forward towards liberation of all oppressed and exploited. Information on the Ant-imperialist Camp: http://www.antiimperialista.com/en/view.shtml?category=15&id=994628584&keywo rd=+ For further information: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************ Antiimperialist Camp PF 23, A-1040 Vienna, Austria Tel&Fax +43 1 504 00 10 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.antiimperialista.com/en ************************************ _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
