Are the Black Bloc police agents?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>There is very little doubt that the police infiltrated the demos at Genoa,
>including the black bloc rioters. But it is ludicrous to suggest that the
>black bloc are agents of the police.
>On the friday most of the "black bloc" were unmistakebly under recruitment
>age - they were just young kids. On Saturday the black bloc was all of a
>sudden composed of rather large men (wearing brand new black clothes!).
>
>I spoke to a group of the rioters on Friday night (from the region around
>Ancona on the Adriatic)- they were all under 18 - I asked them what there
>plans for the next day were. They said, genuinely incredulous - "do you
>think we will stick around after what we did today"?  But on the friday too,
>several of the "black bloc" got into conflicts with those who they saw were
>not part of them - and these kids also helped reporters and photographers
>who had been attacked by these mysterious elements.
>
>In Genoa the local population was genuinely disgruntled - not at the
>protesters - but at the police for putting their city under siege. On
>Berlusconi's earlier visit to view the city's defences he had complained
>about unsightly underwear hanging out to dry. On the Thursday many locals
>responded postively to the protesters demands of "mutandi, mutandi" and
>waved their knickers in solidarity.
>
>Much of the violence I saw was directly insitigated by agents provocateurs
>and I can only imagine that the destruction of insignificant property, small
>shops etc. was a deliberate act by the state to justify the excessive
>militarisation of the city. And again it is from the locals watching from
>their flats, where a lot of the reports of "black bloc" demonstrators
>getting out of police vans or consulting with the police have come.
>
>Another point: Carlo Giuliani was not a block bloc demonstrator and not a
>policeman and those that have suggested so ought to be ashamed. The "black
>bloc" were in a completely different part of the city at the time of the
>shooting, and from what I can work out Giulinai was with the group of
>protesters that had earlier tried to push into the red zone. Though I cant
>verify this for definite.
>
>Anyway: the police were present in a number of disguises - very often
>dresssed in plain clothes in packs of 10 to 20 with just helmets and batons
>for equipment (hidden when necessary in bags). Because of the scale of the
>demo and the different types involved it was incredibly easy for them to
>mingle with the demonstrators and go unchallenged. They also used official
>press stickers to disguise as journalists. Careful examination of a lot of
>the clashes between police and protesters showed a lot of violence from
>crowd to police were initated by police within the crowd- this happened for
>definite in Barcelona too.
>
>Erik

Thank you very much for a detailed report based upon careful 
observation, which is among the most credible ones on the topic that 
I've read.

I'd like to add, as a matter of general principles, that while it is 
important for us not to be naive about police agents infiltrating & 
acting as provocateurs, it is also as important -- perhaps even more 
important -- for us *not* to panic & become paranoid, indulging in 
too many baseless speculations.  The police don't act as agent 
provocateurs simply to cause death & destruction & make leftists 
appear responsible for them.  More importantly, they do so in order 
to divide us, make us turn on one another upon the slightest cause of 
suspicion, breaking trust & solidarity, destroying the movement from 
inside.

Yoshie