GENOA 2001 WE WERE THERE http://www.appellogenovag8.splinder.com/

GENOA 2001. WE WERE THERE


We were there and we have witnessed.

We have experienced the ruthless violence of those days, the
indiscriminate hunt for harmless people, the arbitrary management of
public order. Then we were forced to acknowledge  - to our own
bewilderment  - the decision of the Attorney General not to verify the
responsibilities of police forces for the serious violence suffered by
participants to  the "march of the 200 thousand" that took place on
July 21, 2001.

Bolzaneto, the Diaz School, together with other names, such as
Alimonda, Manin, Tolemaide, represent  one of the darkest  heritage of
our  history. We have been waiting for seven years to have a public
acknowledgment of what we have seen and experienced, and to eventually
look into the eyes of those responsable for such a havoc.
The sentence on the Diaz trial rendered last November 13 is a further
outrage and insult to our call for justice and transparency, and  to
the confidence we still had that truth be eventually reinstated.

Those that were found responsible - and eventually  sentenced - for
what the then assistant chief of police of the questura di Roma
Michelangelo Fournier described as "mexican butchery" are lower rank
officials under the command of Canterini, then commander of the I
Reparto Mobile of Rome. No top commander of the Police forces has been
indicted. Neither Francesco Gratteri,   promoted to the post of
Director of the Anticrime department, and then chief of SCO , nor
Gilberto Caldarozzi, promoted to the post of Chief of the Central
Operative Service (SCO), neither Giovanni Luperi, promoted to the
highest ranks of civil intelligence and then vicedirector of UCIGOS,
nor Spartaco Mortola, then director of Digos and know promoted to the
post of  assistant chief of police in Turín. They have all been
acquitted. While the then chief of Police Gianni de Gennaro,
responsable for public order during the G8 in Genoa has been advanced
to the rank of Director of the general Intelligence Services of the
Presidency of the Council of Ministres.

What we are left with are forged minutes,  unfair arrests, the molotov
cocktails that were smuggled into the school to provide a
justification for the Police raid, their disappearance from the office
of the Genoa Police headquarters where they were kept as crime
evidence. A dark page for democracy in Italy.

We were there, and this is why we  call for a democratic reaction. A
public, peaceful, and nonviolent reaction to show that this country
still has a democratic culture, and that civil coexistence must be
based on the principle of responsibility, the acknowledgement of the
rights for all, and on a justice that protects the victims and applies
the principle of equality of law.