Italian Letter Bombs - An Excuse for Repression?

Media Blames Anarchists - Anarchists Blame Berlusconi

EU officials across Europe are being targetted by a series of small letter bombs. A previously unheard of Italian anarchist group is being blamed for the attacks.

As reported in The Guardian, a number of of letter bombs were sent in the last week of December to prominent EU officials including Romano Prodi (President of the European Commission) and Jean-Claude Trichet (Governor of the European Central Bank). All the letters were mailed from Bologna where a previously unknown group calling itself the Informal Anarchic Federation (FAI) claimed responsibility for two small explosions near Prodi's home earlier in December. No injury was caused by any of the devices. Despite the fact that one of them went off in Mr. Prodi's hands, the only damage done was some carpet burn.

Meanwhile, editorials in European newspapers have been declaring that we are witnessing a resurgence in "anarchist terrorism" (ABC - Spain) and that it's only been a matter of luck that no-one has been injured (Mitteldeutsche Zeitung). Britain’s Independent argued that the money used for the war on Iraq would have been better spent on surveillance of potential terrorists.

As Ireland took over the presidency of the EU, the head of the European Parliament, Pat Cox (PD) came out with the startling observation that the incidents were a "criminal conspiracy against democracy". Naturally, security measures have been stepped up within EU state institutions and on Monday, Italy's Interior Ministry announced the creation of a European task force to combat "anarchist insurrection".

The truth is that the vast majority of anarchists and leftists both in Italy and worldwide are opposed to such acts. The Italian Anarchist Federation (FAI), co-incidentally sharing the same initials as this strange new group and having suffered state repression under similar circumstances as recently as 1997, have denounced the indiscriminate violence of such devices. This was further put into perspective by a recent statement from the Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (FdCA) emphasising anarchists' commitment to "horizontal, anti-authoritarian, mass organisation" struggle.

Many are of the opinion that the recent events are merely the latest incident in the Italian state's "Strategy of Tension" - a clandestine campaign to discredit popular left movements from the 60s onwards which reached its climax in 1980 when officials of the Italian state conspired with the fascist group "Ordine Nuovo" to set off a bomb in a Bologna railway station killing 80 people. Similar attempts to isolate more militant groups from larger social movements were seen in the run-up to the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.

Further Indymedia links: Feature on indymedia.org - More on the Strategy of Tension