>From: "Ya basta!" <yabasta at tin.it>
TWENTY THOUSANDS STEPS FURTHER TOWARD THE CLOSURE OF THE LAGERS
On January 29, Saturday, an extraordinary demonstration broke the routine of the denounce remaining a verbal action. The disagreement became civil disobedience. Among the twenty thousands, there were two thousands "White Coveralls" and about ten thousands women and men ready to put themselves at risk to break the unacceptable internment condition enforced in via Corelli.
In twenty thousands from all over Italy we marched in the streets, more than 150 associations, social centers and political parties gave shape to one of the nicest demonstrations in this last political year. Such a success is due to the determination and the reasons which made people stand against the lagers.
During the demonstration there have been episodes of meaningless violence from the police. The "unauthorized" part of the demo, led by the White Coveralls and asking admission into the lager in via Corelli, was immediately blocked by a huge number of policemen, which were driven back only by the resistance and the physical pressure of more than ten thousands bodies. The police reacted with hundreds of teargas bombs and with a wild attack with sticks which the demonstrants managed to resist, breaking the lines of the police squads. People stopped only near via Corelli, in front of a second police squad made by over 300 policemen with armoured busses, horse police and so on. But all this could only delay the entrance of a delegation made of demonstrants, journalists, Tv operators -- the first time they can apply the right of information about via Corelli.
All Italians could see with their own eyes the unbelievable living conditions in this lager.
The demonstration had the right to visit Via Corelli, and reacted to the denial of this right with a form of passive resistance. We expected heavy consequences for this decision, and that's why we equipped ourselves with paddings all over our body, helmets, gas masks and shields made of truck wheels inner tubes. It has been a winning decision under all points of view: Via Corelli will be closed, and no one was wounded -- no demonstrant, no policeman -- in the heaviest riots in Milan since many years. This, for us, it's a success.
The grassroot, political investment toward the most active and sensible part of the Milan civil society has yelded good fruits. Those who worked to hold demonstrations in Milan, Florence and Trapani characterizing them as three different meetings of a unified antiracist action day -- so, breaking someone's logic which wanted them in competition -- worked to amplify the possibilities of the antagonist movement which struggle against neoliberism in all its forms. From Seattle to Milan, from Davos to "La Realidad".
Thanks to those who put their bodies at risk in the Milan antiracist day, this unforgettable Jan 29 starts the count-down toward the closure of a lager: still 14 days to go. A forced decision for Minister Bianco, an announcement which will be closely checked by the Milan civil society and by the demo organizators to avoid its transformation into a "politician's promise" or, even worse, into the relocation of the lagers somewhere else, thus perpetuating the denial of the basic civil rights currently enforced toward the largest part of this planet inhabitants.
Associazione Ya Basta! Per la dignità dei pooli e contro il neoliberismo. Centro Sociale Leoncavallo