On July 20, 2005, Vittorio Agnoletto, an MEP and well-known figure in the Italian far left, made the following statement:
"Those who led the repression, those who attacked the Diaz School, those who fabricated evidence have been promoted, thanks to the 'good job' they did. At this point, I'm expecting a decree to appoint the Black Bloc official advisors to the Interior Ministry or Special Units".
In recent months, Vittorio Agnoletto contacted us, asking us to adopt a conciliatory approach towards him and all those involved in issues surrounding the Genoa 2001 proceedings.
While it might seem strange that he was the one asking us this, we could obviously do nothing but agree, given that this was already our approach. We asked him to do the same in regards to us, and the following was the result.
Despite our gaping political differences in various areas, we continue to focus on our sole objective: to support all those demonstrators standing trial and all those who were tortured at the time. It's an important, complex commitment, which requires us to maintain a cool head: providing guarantees for everyone often means supporting everyone too. The positive developments in
our objectives have led us to "forget" the statements made by many four years ago.
We've also "forgotten" the video in which Agnoletto asked the police superintendent to make a clean sweep after "his" march had passed.
We've tried to cure the worst disease of the Italian left within our own ranks: sectarianism and the compulsive instinct for infighting. Because we believed that a political opponent on the same side of the fence was surely vastly different than one on the other side.
Meanwhile, Agnoletto appears to have forgotten that he has grown wealthy on the back of his salary as an MEP - a post he got through the blood of those who were beaten and killed.
He's apparently forgotten that those lawyers who defended him in court were the same ones who defended the demonstrators charged with destruction and looting.
He's forgotten that many of us were in Bolzaneto while he wasn't. We haven't forgotten. We're working for everyone.
Unfortunately, today we have to say that we're working for him as well.
Because we're still deeply convinced that divisions cannot help our cause.
As of now, we consider him persona non grata and we want him far from our activities - even if our efforts to help our accused and plaintiffs in separate proceedings remains unchanged. If anything, it's increasing.
We will honour the commitment we've undertaken independently of him and those like him who, four years on, are still trying to separate the good from the bad. He seems to believe that the former should be beatified as victims, while the latter deserve to be beaten and arrested.
Agnoletto should feel ashamed for what he's failing to give while still continuing to receive, despite his intellectual and actual dishonesty. He should at least make the effort to recall a key date in Genoa's history: June 30, 1960. This was when leading voices from the Italian left - the largest trade union movement CGIL, the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and key figures within the Association of Italian Partisans (ANPI) - accused anti-fascists clashing with law enforcement protecting the neo-fascist MSI party conference of being agents provocateurs or undercover police. Those youths proudly signed their writings as "we, the 'provocateurs'". And over the years, history and popular attitudes have sided with them, rather than the political opportunists.
Agnoletto should at least stop and think about how social movements are formed and that the person writing this is not exactly close to the Black Bloc. "Undercover agents, infiltrators, colluders, suspicious and strange individuals: each one has an episode that he witnessed, photographed or filmed, or one that was told him by someone trustworthy, proving the accuracy of the definition. But each one of those details - be they real or likely - cannot explain the complexity of what happened. Raiders cannot lay waste to a city unless they are able to draw on a compulsion to destroy that already exists within them."
Agnoletto is merely talking because he can.
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