[asia-apec 1451] Italy, Genua: 10,000 close up biotech exhibition
Roberto Verzola
rverzola at phil.gn.apc.org
Sat May 27 06:08:04 JST 2000
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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