[asia-apec 1451] Italy, Genua: 10,000 close up biotech exhibition

[Roberto Verzola]

Here's an inspiring story from Italy.
-- Roberto Verzola


From: "Giuliano" <acunzoli at tin.it>
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 14:08:44 +0200
Subject: [caravan99] (en) Italy, Genua: 10,000 close up biotech exhibition

Hello

A determined, battling demonstration closed up yesterday for a few hours 
the 1st worldwide biotech exhibition in Genua. But victory is not limited 
to this, and the exhibition is doomed to a real FIASCO. Alas, we count 
several wounded among comrades and 2 arrestations of youngsters accused of 
having broken down the glasses of a bank. But let's proceed in good order.

Many thousands demonstrants gathered since 9 AM in front of the station 
Genua Brignole for the so called (by the media) Italian Seattle. There was 
people from all over Italy, and loosely, comrades from Switzerland, France 
and Germany. More than 400 grassroot groups endorsed this demonstration:
there were the Anarchists from Milan, Genua and Rome; the Social Centers 
from all over Italy, a lot of groups from the "Green galaxy", Greenpeace, 
WWF, and a lot of other people. Also two political parties, the Greens and 
the Refounded Communist Party, decided to drop any exhitation and join a 
demonstration which openly called for Civil Disobedience to close up this 
new offspring of global speculation.

At 10.30 AM the demo started. Despite the working day, we were 10,000 and 
more. The head of the demo was taken by the promoters, the coordination 
"MobilTebio"; immediately after, at least 1,000 White Coveralls ready for 
civil disobedience with gas masks, shields and paddings all over the body 
-- but no offence arms, no sticks, stones or bottles. Just all what you 
need to face peacefully a police attack. Behind, there were the Anarchists 
and after the rest of the people. Greens and Refounded Commies closed the 
demo. And that was a mistake, because they could not avoid the infiltration 
of the group of youngsters which later on -- for the extreme joy of media, 
cops and politicians of all sorts -- would have attacked and broken the 
windows of a bank, causing a police attack when we were still far away from 
the exhibition, our real target (wake up, babies: banks are insured, uhu!).
Without losing time, we marched directly from the station to the 
exhibition, guarded by 3,000 antiriot policemen. Once arrived, the 
confrontation was almost immediate. We wanted to enter, they wanted to keep 
us out and away, while some dozen CEOs and "scientists" were inside 
deciding our future protected by an entrance fee of 350 dollars (and think 
that the exhibition's official slogan was: "Biotechnology: to inform 
yourself is natural" -- quite an expensive bit of information!).
A first police attack started when the White Coveralls advanced almost till 
the entrance gate -- it was wild, and coordination was made extremely 
difficult by an helicopter flying all the time some 10 meters above our 
heads! However, the White Coverall's protections were good enough to resist 
the attack and push back the cops against the gate.
There followed an half an hour full of tension, then came the second police 
attack. This was extremely difficult to contain, because they attacked on 
two sides (front and right side) and the right side was not protected by 
the padded-up White Coveralls, so people had to resist with bare hands. And 
there we had the wounded comrades, at least 4 -- one reached in a leg by 
something unknown, maybe a rubber bullet, was taken to the hospital.

However, also the second attack was pushed back, and the exhibition was 
besieged. Under a very hot sun, more than 5,000 people kept on yelling 
slogans blocking the entrance gate. Nobody could enter or exit anymore, not 
even the cops which retreated themselves behind the closed gates. The large 
square in front of the exhibition was completely ours!

Finally, they gave up, and the exhibition was suspended for the whole 
afternoon. This announcement raised a lot of enthusiasm among the 
demonstrants, which slowly started to move toward the "MobilTebio Village", 
where a camping was set up a week ago and large tends host the coordination 
point, an exhibition of biological products and (one) the people arriving 
in Genua without tend. Today, Friday, there will be a conference with the 
partecipation of mr. Nanjundaswami, from KRRS, South Indian farmers union.

So, we showed again that people determination and clever civil disobedience
can have a strong impact on the apparently unmodifiable global mechanisms.
In front of our protest, the only choice for them was to close down the 
exhibition. But this, as said, is not the only victory.
The Italian government withdrawn its endorsement to the exhibition. Half of 
the biotech companies invited did not show up, fearing protests. Exhibitors 
of other industrial products (the Genua exhibition is quite large, and the 
biotech exhibition was not the only one going on these days) denounced a 
sudden drop of visitors, asking the biotech organizers to pay damages; and 
many Italian cities declared themselves "biotech free territory", i.e. no 
biotech activity will be allowed on their territory.
In short: it was a good kick in their fat asses. And when the demo was 
over, I could see from the deserted parking in front of the exhibition few 
large Mercedes exhiting the exhibion gates and running away as fast as 
possible in the Genua traffic -- a symbol of the isolation into which we 
are throwing the whole biotech business. Let's go ahead, and sink them 
definitively!

Giuliano

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