GENOA SPECIAL

Genoa frontpage

In Italy that other world became closer 1

In Italy that other world became closer 2

Meanwhile in the rest of the world

The long road to Genoa

Reaction after witnessing the attack on the Diaz school

A broad statement from People Not Profit

After Genoa: why we need to stay in the streets

Piece by John Pilger

In Italy that other world became closer - Page 3

After phoning friends back in England, all but one of our group left the media centre, the person staying wanted to go to a meeting there, about a demo planned in support of those arrested the next day. We went across the road to the Diaz School and chatted to a couple of friends from London, who were sleeping there, I felt something strange in the air. An hour before the school was attacked we went back to the stadium. As we walked towards the stadium, we saw coach loads of people leaving, Italian people. The demos had finished; they had no reasons for staying. We arrived at the stadium. That morning when we left for the Pink March, there were around 10,000 people there, now the place looked like a ghost town, rubbish scattered all over the stadium, a small number of tents still standing, at estimate their were about 150 people left. There was talk that the police would come there that night, I had visions of Chile, Pinochet and the famous stadium; some people talked of setting up security, I was exhausted, and thought I don’t care if the police come, I’m too tired, and fell asleep on top of my sleeping bag. At around 1am we were awoken by the tanoy and were told to immediately gather all our possessions, come up to the main gate, and prepare to leave the stadium, the tanoy kept repeating the message every few minutes, re-affirming the urgency. I packed up my tent, shoved as much in my rucksack as possible, and then began helping other people. When we got to the gates - our hosts told us the Diaz school was being attacked by the police and soon they may be here. And it was important that we leave to go somewhere else, a place they believed would be much safer. At around 1.30am about 150 of us, (many struggling to carry bags, of friends etc who had stayed at the media centre to organise the solidarity march,) left the stadium, we waited at the end of the stadium road, for the media to arrive, then began walking through the eerily deserted streets, 4 cars – patrolled along side of us. I bet all were wandering whether we would arrive at a safe place (it reminded me of the film ‘The Warriors’, when they are trying to get back to Coney Island - In times of danger, I always revert to joking). At the time I wasn’t aware that the assault on the school was as severe as it was but I know getting freaked out, serves no useful purpose in those circumstances. I was also trying not to think to much about one of our number who had decided to stay at the media centre, I was partly cursing her for deciding to stay there and not come back with us; after all we had agreed to stick together but I was also worried about her and was praying (not in a religious sense) that she would be OK.

After about 1 hour walking, exhausted we arrived at the ‘safe’ place, I couldn’t work out how it would be safer, but trusted our Italian hosts that it would be. We tried to find out information about our friend, but nobody had any, we were all worried for her. I fell asleep on the tarmac outside, then was woken by someone saying the transport had arrived for the IndyMedia centre. ‘Which transport?’ I asked, I wondered; I thought it was a set up. No-one had told us about the transport. But lots of people were grabbing their bags, including our people, so I thought; well if we all get done in, we all get done in together – I found out it was 4am. We all piled onto two buses and drove through the silent, deserted streets, we drove passed the stadium again, I saw lights on in the main box, at the top of the stadium, and saw what looked like about 20 people in there. Later I heard the police had arrived, saw no-one was there, so just destroyed everybody’s stuff that was left. About 5 minutes later, the two buses stopped, and the driver told everyone to get out – I looked behind and suddenly my fears were confirmed, there were around 50 cops dressed in riot gear at the end of the road and we seemed to be too far away from the media centre. I literally thought, we’ve been set up. I got off the bus, the riot cops were all gathered together looking at us – ‘this is it’ I thought, I waited for the rest of our people (strange though at these times I do get an incredible calm feeling – maybe it’s a feeling of well-being, that despite what happens I will be OK) amongst ourselves we encouraged everyone to carry on walking towards the media centre, away from the police, to say nothing and to not look back. We were in fact only about 5 minutes away from the centre. Luckily we arrived, the people there seemed just as confused as to why we had come. Later I read about how someone in there had said they felt relief when a hundred or so people had arrived from the stadium, I am glad now we went. We went inside, then began to hear the horror tales – some you can read in the witness statements. When I heard them it was only then I allowed myself to panic, I did not see our friend anywhere, had she gone across the road to the dreaded Daiz school to sleep? I had visions of her forced up against the wall while the police beat her again and again. We had to explain to the people who had taken on security, that we needed access to where everyone was sleeping, we wondered the corridors into ever room all the way up to the 7th floor. I saw people trying to sleep in the corridors, some were bruised, some had bandages on. In every room people were trying to sleep, in every room we searched, we did not find her, the panic in us increasing. When we had been in the final room, we began asking could she possibly be somewhere else in the building; we were getting people shaking their heads, sympathetically. We had almost given up hope, when on returning to the ground floor, she was sitting there – smiling.

I and another PNP person went on the Internet – sending out info about what had happened. At around 6.30 I put my head down on top of my sleeping bag, there was a young lad of about 17 years of age, next to me, a bandage around his leg, covered in blood, it looked like he had been shot. Some of the wounded had been brought there. One man in there looked like he had completely lost it, walking around from room to room like he didn’t know where he was. I dozed off for a couple of hours.

The five of us from PNP with two friends we had picked up during our time there (A Swedish and American guy) left the city that morning, everybody was leaving, and the Italian people had somewhere to go. To do anything else would have been suicide. We tried to leave by train but the train station was still closed. We walked the empty Sunday morning streets, tired, warn out. I’ll never forget the friend who was with us, and his Marlboro bag with its wheels trundling along the cobbled roads, almost echoing around the buildings; the rest of us had rucksacks. All the time we were trying to avoid the police. Before we left the media centre, we kept hearing stories of people getting picked up; we feared that we would suffer the same fate as those in the school. Along the way we met some people, who guided us in the right direction, we jumped almost on the first bus we could, that we knew would be going to a train station that was open, on the outskirts of the city. We’d already been stopped and questioned, and managed to bluff our way out – it was like an Oliver Stone film, we either got out of the city or we end up in some prison, on some trumped up charge, getting tortured. The bus seemed to take hours to get out of the city, each time we thought we were safe, the bus would began to descend, back into the city and we would see riot cops everywhere. At one point the bus stopped and police in riot gear started talking to the bus driver, we thought our number was up, but luckily after about 1 minute the bus driver closed the doors and drove off. Eventually the bus went no further and we ended up at a train station, we caught a train to Savona, and after much debate and realising it wasn’t as we hoped it would be, we caught another train which took us to a tacky tourist resort. Finding a space on a tacky beach next to a broken down factory we slept on the beach for the night. We thought we would be safe here, even the police helicopter that towered over us twice, didn’t bother us much, we thought maybe they would think we were just regular backpackers. It was only afterwards when we returned home, and we heard of people getting picked up miles outside of Genoa, did we realise we weren’t as safe as we thought.

The next day our two non-British friends headed West towards France, and one of us had to catch a coach in Genoa, we headed back to the city with her, only to the station though – to catch a train to Levanto – we hoped we could have some holiday time now. The further we moved away from Genoa – the more relief we felt. In Levanto, a lovely little coastal town to the east of Genoa, we found a campsite – and chilled out for a week, though a sort of disturbed chill out. It wasn’t until we arrived back in the UK that we were able to let out a sigh of relief. We were lucky.

Genoa for many people was the beginning of a new stage in the struggle, some say it was the loss of innocence; for many people who’d experienced police brutality their innocence may have already have been lost. We believe the actions of the police were well planned and deliberate, and that they had a number of major aims 1) to discredit the movement by infiltrating it then attacking indiscriminate targets (small shops, cars) and this would then, 2) justify their attacks on all sections of the march. And of course to destroy the movement, by teaching us a lesson. The police along with the Berlusconi government were hoping to impress their friends in the G8. There is much evidence now linking indiscriminate actions of people dressed in black to the police, be they police themselves dressed as black block or fascist gangs recruited by the police. Their tactics did not work, on two counts, - people saw and photographed people dressed as black block with cops and 2) they failed to destroy the movement; the police were too sloppy, and they have too much evidence against them. But despite their brutal and murderous attacks and despite the protests in Genoa initially leaving many people feeling depressed it also left many more feeling determined and angry. Our movement is moving onto fresh terrain and our movement is growing massively. Meanwhile the global economy is changing faster and faster. For me at least, we have no choice but to fight back; the polarisation between the type of world they would like to see; of obedience, control, maximum profits; and the type of world we would like to see, of equality, justice and an end to poverty, is getting bigger. There is a global war going on, with the third world bearing most of the brunt of it. We must decide, to either, except their brutal false world, submit to their aggression, and fall on our knees. Or stay on our feet, encourage others to do the same, and fight for the world we want. Simple do we live on our knees or stay on our feet. Do we side with them by doing nothing, thus become part of the problem or do we take action and become part of the solution.