The footage has been replayed relentlessly on the evening news broadcasts: Young people being carried out of a school building on stretchers; others, in handcuffs, walking out under their own power but bleeding copiously from head wounds.
It has been nearly a month since the disastrous Group of Eight summit in Genoa where three days of clashes between riot police and anti-globalization protesters left one protester dead and $20 million in property damage.
For most of the world, memories of Genoa are fast fading, but in Italy, the recriminations show a concern for the future. Italians are worried about a repeat of Genoa at next month’s NATO summit in Naples and at the UN World Food Summit scheduled for Rome in November.
The videotape of the late-night raid on the Armando Diaz elementary school leaves little doubt that Italian police used excessive force during last month’s G-8 conference. The school was being used as a press center and crash pad for the Genoa Social Forum, the umbrella organization that was coordinating the anti-globalization protests.
Published accounts and sworn testimony from many of the 93 arrested at the Diaz school, among them Americans, suggest the abuses by police continued at the hospital where many of the injured were taken and at police barracks where they were detained afterward.
Detainees’ accounts
Many of the detainees said that at the barracks they were forced to stand for long hours even though some of them had been treated for broken bones and head injuries. They also said the police taunted and physically harassed them while withholding food and water.
Morgan Hager, 20, of Portland, Ore., said she was kept in handcuffs at San Martino Hospital in Genoa, where she was treated for broken fingers and swollen hands. When she asked police to loosen her handcuffs, they tightened them.
Hager was one of four Americans released by Italian police two weeks ago. Three other Americans were released last week.
The U.S. Embassy in Rome has sent a note to the Italian government “urging a thorough investigation of the matter.”
For Italy, three days of pitched battles between police and thousands of anarchists armed with clubs, stones and Molotov cocktails stirred uneasy memories of the days when the Red Brigades held sway. Ordinary Italians appeared to be equally offended by the destructive behavior of young protesters and the excesses of the police.
Politicians, however, were quick to take sides and point fingers. Massimo D’Alema, a former prime minister and leader of the reformed communists, the Democratic Left, compared the three days of violence in Genoa to Chile during the rule of Augusto Pinochet.
The left accused Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his right-wing coalition partners of bad planning in Genoa. Berlusconi, in power for little more than a month, pointed out that it was the previous center-left government that picked Genoa in the first place and did most of the security planning.
Conspiracy theories
Conspiracy theories flew. The left, sympathetic to many of the causes espoused by the anti-globalists, accused Berlusconi’s far-right coalition partner, the National Alliance, of seeding thugs among peaceful protesters to undermine the anti-globalization movement.
With Italy’s trade unions playing a prominent role in protests, there also were suggestions that pro-business Berlusconi ordered the police crackdown to teach the unionists a lesson.
This seemed unlikely. Berlusconi spent the days before the summit making sure the potted palms at Genoa’s Ducale Palace were properly aligned. The last thing he wanted was a full-scale riot. His supporters accused the left of orchestrating the mayhem in Genoa to embarrass the new prime minister in front of fellow world leaders.
Interior Minister Claudio Scajola has thus far survived demands for his resignation, but three senior police officials have been removed. At least 10 investigations into what went wrong are under way.
Italy’s national police chief, Gianni De Gennaro, who remains in his job, admitted that police used excessive force in some instances, but he blamed it on “the guerrilla-like conditions created by . . . instigators.”
He said all complaints against the police would be investigated and those responsible would be punished.
The 20-year-old Carabinieri conscript who shot and killed a 23-year-old demonstrator has been charged with manslaughter, but photos and videotape of the incident suggest the officer, whose jeep was surrounded by crudely armed attackers, thought his life was in danger and acted in self-defense.
European reaction
What is perhaps more unsettling to Italians has been the reaction across Europe. As battered and bruised demonstrators returned to their home countries, local media carried reports of their mistreatment.
Demonstrations against the alleged brutalities have been staged in more than a dozen European cities. This week, major rallies in Berlin and Helsinki, Finland, are planned.
Not since the European Union placed Austria in temporary diplomatic quarantine after the rise of Joerg Haider’s far-right Freedom Party have European leaders been so quick in their condemnation of a fellow European nation.
Anger with Berlusconi
Criticisms from France and Germany were especially sharp, but they seemed to carry an undercurrent of unhappiness with Berlusconi for breaking ranks with Europeans and siding with President Bush on the Kyoto accord and the proposed missile defense shield.
This theme was echoed in Italy as well. Former Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini said Italy’s true national interests lay with Europe and European solidarity, not with Berlusconi’s eagerness to cultivate a personal relationship with Bush. “One cannot trade away national interests for friendship,” he said.
One constructive idea did emerge from all the blame-casting: A proposal for an inter-European anti-riot police force that would collect intelligence and develop tactics for dealing with the anti-globalization protesters who seem likely to become a permanent fixture at major international gatherings.
