."..chronic unemployment, disillusionment with mainstream politics and a backlash against globalisation are providing fodder for new terrorist groups, such as the "Black Bloc" anarchists who hijacked protests at the G8 meeting in Genoa last year..." From http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,4003655%255E2703,00.html Murdoch craporado media. Red Brigades return to Italy By Natasha Bita March 23, 2002 A STAR scratched into the peeling paintwork of a Bologna door signalled the resurgence of political terrorism in Italy this week. The crude calling-card of the Red Brigades, the extreme-left terrorists who assassinated hundreds of politicians, judges, journalists and police officers in the 1970s and '80s, marks the spot where an Italian government adviser was gunned down outside his apartment on Tuesday. A group calling itself the Red Brigades for the Construction of the Fighting Communists emailed a 26-page diatribe to police yesterday claiming responsibility for the execution of Marco Biagi, an economist who drew up divisive labour-market reforms being pushed by the conservative Berlusconi Government. Ballistics experts concluded that Biagi a close friend of European Commission president and former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi was shot with the same pistol used to assassinate Massimo D'Antona, an adviser to Italy's former left-wing government, three years ago. Newspapers harked back to the giorni di piombo, or "days of lead" when left and right-wing extremists waged war with kidnappings, assassinations and bombings. The Corriere della Sera newspaper announced "the return of terrorism" and published a photo gallery of the victims of "30 years of bloodshed", noting that 420 people had died and 1200 had been injured in terror attacks since 1969. Of the 360 fatal attacks, 280 were attributed to the extreme left, 27 to neo-fascists and 26 to international terrorists. The Red Brigades took responsibility for the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former prime minister Aldo Moro. In 1980 a bomb killed 85 at the Bologna train station, although the culprits were never found. The Red Brigades, a Marxist-Leninist group that grew from the student protests of the 1960s, went underground after most of its leaders were arrested in France and Italy in the 1980s. The group splintered into the Communist Combatant Party and the Union of Combatant Communists in 1984. But 18 years later, chronic unemployment, disillusionment with mainstream politics and a backlash against globalisation are providing fodder for new terrorist groups, such as the "Black Bloc" anarchists who hijacked protests at the G8 meeting in Genoa last year. Italy's secret service, in its six-monthly report to parliament last week, warned of terrorist attacks in response to government policies such as the proposal to make it easier for companies to sack workers. The report warned potential targets were politicians, unionists or business figures "who are most committed to economic, social and labour reforms, especially those who play a crucial role as experts or consultants". Biagi, who was shot dead as he arrived home on his bicycle, had complained to police about death threats and requested an armed escort. Ironically, his bodyguards were removed after the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre because the Government wanted to put more secret service agents on the streets. Italian politicians are the most heavily guarded in Europe, with 6000 bodyguards at a cost of $1 billion a year. Biagi's widow, angry that the Government had refused her family's request for protection, spurned the offer of a state funeral in favour of a private family service in Bologna today. Up to 80,000 people marched in Bologna on Wednesday to mourn Biagi's death and protest against terrorism. Unions planning a rally of 1 million workers in Rome this weekend to oppose the Government's labour reforms said they would dedicate the march to anti-terrorism and democracy instead. The Pope yesterday appealed for "a climate of understanding between the social factions in this dear Italian nation", but the assassination only fuelled the bickering among politicians, union and business leaders. The leader of the right-wing Northern League, Umberto Bossi, declared that "the Left has lost its mind". The peak industry lobby group Confindustria echoed his sentiments. "Every time this country has to make an important reform, the men who push ahead with the reforms are struck by terrorism and this is a price that we cannot continue to pay," said its president, Antonio D'Amato. The Minister for Productive Works, Antonio Marzano, warned that "revenge for the murder of Marco Biagi by the Red Brigades is something which may happen". He described the terrorists as "like bombs which are set off when you try to make reform, because they fear the new and want Italy to remain silenced". Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted his Government would not back down on labour reforms because "we cannot let terrorism force our hand". But the unions refused to budge on the same grounds, insisting they would go ahead with a general strike next month. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi urged Italians to have faith in their democracy. "The horror and anguish over the barbaric assassination of Marco Biagi cannot and must not weaken confidence in the force of democracy," he said. "Italians are united against terrorism."
