NP - Genoa: covered in blood

[Doug Millison]

Le Monde reported yesterday that some of the people arrested in the Genoa
Social Forum hq (the school site of the bloody raid that's been widely
reported elsewhere) were injured by police and then were interrogated while
held prisoner in hospital beds.  Tortured, in other words.   Not a very
pretty picture for global capital, I'd say, but of course I'm not trying to
defend the tactics and the goals of the power elite or blame the victims for
the crimes of the aggressors, either.  

We have a long tradition in the U.S. of civil disobedience and peaceful
protest, and an equally long tradition of the government and police
instigating riots (and more generally creating and taking advantage of an
informer/agent provocateur culture to set up peaceful protesters for violent
treatment at the hands of police who are "just doing their job" -- the
history of police and military involvement on the side of companies against
U.S. labor is particularly depressing for all but the most inspired
activist) and beating, injuring, killing protesters. And, unfortunately, a
long tradition of apologists for the powers-that-be trying to blame the
protesters and esculpate the police and the people who give the police their
orders -- during the Civil Rights campaigns of the 50s and 60s, the anti-war
campaigns of the 60s and 60s, the anti-nuclear campaigns ongoing since the
50s. There's always somebody ready to blame a peaceful protester and defend
the club-wielding cop. 

This is a situation that has shaped the environment in which Pynchon writes,
and which finds reflection in his works. And I believe it takes some fancy
footwork and a lot of obfuscating bs to bring Pynchon in on the side of
global capital against the protesters, as some of our "contrarian" P-listers
seem to want to do. But, hey, go for it. I read Pynchon in a different way,
and have written much about what I perceive to be Pynchon's politics as
reflected in his works -- I don't think you have to reach very far to find a
Pynchon thoroughly steeped in the politics of the Civil Rights and anti-War
campaigns and more generally the 60s counterculture rebellion, albeit
well-tempered with a nuanced understanding of the System's power to make us
all complicit in its crimes. If there's any doubt about where P stands
politically , he lays his cards on the table pretty clearly in his obvious
sympathies with labor and IWW radicals in Vineland, and his antipathies for
Reagan/Bush (following on his ridicule of Nixon in GR), as more than one
critic has noted.  

from the article previously quoted by "David Morris" 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,528180,00.html
The dark side of Italy's paramilitary force
Rory Carroll
Friday July 27, 2001
The Guardian
[... speaking of four Britons who had been brutalized, arrested, and
detained by Genoa police...] The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman,
Menzies Campbell, said: "The Foreign Office must make the strongest possible
representations to the Italian government. The people who have returned give
all the appearance of having been subjected to pretty brutal treatment." 

Mr Campbell also expressed concern that the four who returned had not been
allowed to see consular staff or lawyers until Wednesday. 

Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said the lack of consular access was
"barbaric" and called on the European Union to examine whether the Italian
authorities had contravened the Vienna Convention. 

Amnesty International is monitoring the Italian authorities' actions and
will demand an independent commission of inquiry if it feels that their
investigations prove unsatisfactory. 

In Italy there is mounting consternation at how the Britons were treated,
especially following the "confession" of one unnamed officer in the
newspaper La Repubblica. 

He said: "They [the police] lined them up against the wall. They urinated on
one person. They beat people up if they didn't sing Facetta Nera [a fascist
song]. One girl was vomiting blood but the chief of the squad just looked
on. They threatened to rape girls with their batons." 

Francisco Martone, a Green party senator representing the Genoa
constituency, told BBC Radio 4's World at One pro gramme: "We do think this
behaviour has no place in a democratic society, so this is why we are going
to ask formally to the government to explain the behaviour and to have an
investigation into these facts." [...]