============================================================ Tips and tricks, introductions to breaking technologies, Updates on proven software tools, new ideas for old problems. Find it all in the developerWorks newsletter. http://click.topica.com/caaacCMb1ddNBb2HgmNb/developerWorks ============================================================ The globalisation debate - Observer special Rory Carroll Sunday July 22, 2001 The Observer A history student, petty criminal and outsider, Carlo Giuliani became an anarchist martyr on a street he knew well, sprinting through the cobbled lanes of his boyhood to challenge authority for the last time. He was the 23-year-old son of a trade union official and went to university, but no one called Carlo middle-class. He lived in a squat with Genoa's punkabbestia, beast punks, and raged against convention. The patch of asphalt that is now covered in blood and flowers was on his route to Piazza delle Erbe, where he used to beg and hang out with friends and stray dogs. For a supposed anarchist, he was not especially political, though he made a point of not paying at concerts, said Matteo Jade, the head of Genoa's Tute Bianche protest group. 'He did not appear aggressive to me,' said Jade. Carlo was on the fringe of the fringe. He never joined the Tute Bianche or the leftist communes, preferring to drop in for the odd meeting. The police yesterday released his criminal record: assault, carrying offensive weapons, public disorder, resisting arrest, drunken driving. 'He was a wild one,' said one acquaintance. Carlo occasionally returned home to Via San Pantaleo to see his sister and father, Giuliano, whose marriage had broken up. He did so last Friday, only hours before his death and was calm, sharing jokes with friends. Despite the images of his son attacking police, his father said Carlo was no thug: 'He was not a mixed-up person. He studied history at university and had nothing to do with violence. 'The police left the field free to the worst elements for the whole day. Then at the end they took it out on those who had nothing to do with it.' Distraught and angry, Giuliani Senior said his son was not linked to anarchists. 'That clash, he certainly didn't seek it. And the state should answer for this murder. I want an explanation. Giuliani works for the mighty left-wing CGIL union. He presents a local television programme about labour issues. But his father's activism was too mainstream for Carlo, who first clashed with the law when he was 15. The Reuters photographs of his death are likely to become icons for the militant Left, who see the killing as a state execution. A reconstruction of Carlo's final moments, however, reveals he was killed by a terrified youth three years his junior. Carlo was in a crowd of several hundred protesters running towards Piazza Alimonda. Some were throwing stones at the police, others were peaceful. When they ran into a street off the piazza, smashing shop windows, there was a Carabinieri van and two Land Rovers. Two of the vehicles roared away but one Land Rover was blocked in. Carlo was among at least six masked protesters who attacked it with heavy objects. He smashed the back window with a fire extinguisher, while others hacked at the roof. The three police officers inside, said witnesses, yelled in pain, terror and fury. When Carlo approached a second time with the extinguisher, a pistol poked from the window, two shots rang out and he fell, apparently hit in the forehead. Dylan Martinez, the Reuters photographer, continued clicking his camera shutter when the vehicle rolled backwards over the body. A red pool was forming around the head. 'Murderers!' shouted the protesters. 'Bastards!' One of the police shouted back: 'You killed him by throwing your stones.' Blood poured from Carlo's mouth while a nurse performed cardiac massage. He did not respond. She noticed he had blue eyes. Though the Interior Minister said his death appeared to be self- defence, the police were reported yesterday to have charged the Carabinieri officer who fired the fatal shots with manslaughter. Still in shock, the young conscript told investigators he remembered taking out his revolver but not aiming it or pulling the trigger. Umberto Pruzzo, a Carabinieri lawyer, echoed the Minister's claim of self-defence: 'That is what happened, it was a tragic fatality.' His revolver confiscated, the officer was in hospital with a head wound and shock. The Land Rover driver was reported as saying that he did not know a body was on the ground when he reversed over it. 'I panicked,' he said. He too may be charged. Any inquiry into the shooting will examine key ques tions: Why did other police vehicles, less than 30 metres from the besieged Land Rover, not intervene? Why were police armed with lead bullets rather than non-lethal rubber pellets? What strategic blunders allowed a young conscript to be so isolated and terrified? And what sort of training does this paramilitary police force give such conscripts? Yesterday he reportedly told investigators: 'We were surrounded. We thought we would be overwhelmed. We were terrified and wanted only to escape.' Visit and show your support for the Grass Roots Oyate http://members.tripod.com/GrassRootsOyate Clemency for Leonard Peltier. 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