From the International Action Center
An assessment of recent events in Genoa
The following is taken from a statement on Genoa by the
International Action Center.
The complete text can be found online at
www.iacenter.org.
The International Action Center joins its voice with
millions around the world who have expressed outrage at the
Italian state. We also express our deep sympathy for the
family of 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani, who was shot dead by an
as-yet-unknown cop on July 20 while fighting heroically to
defend himself and other activists from a heavily armed
police vehicle.
The cold-blooded assassination of young Carlo was not the
isolated act of a "bad cop." Neither was it the act of a
"scared," "desperate" or "inexperienced" cop defending
himself against a "bad protester." Rather it was yet another
outrageous and utterly indefensible episode in a long history
of murderous repression against progressive activists.
Recently, dozens of workers and youths have been killed by
state forces in Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Bolivia, India,
Nigeria, Mexico and Brazil as part of a campaign to silence
the growing outrage of the people at an unjust World Order.
Thousands of workers in South Korea have been given long
prison sentences for participating in strikes to defend their
jobs.
As the air clears of tear gas and the blood and debris are
swept from the Genoa streets, more and more firsthand
accounts from the frontlines of the battle are becoming
available.
The real story the big-business media refuse to print is
that hundreds of thousands of people representing literally
thousands of grassroots groups and labor organizations came
out into the Genoa streets in direct defiance of the state's
well-publicized plans to try to stop anti-G8 demonstrators.
All progressive people should view this as an enormous
victory.
Given the many facts and details that are coming to light,
the IAC asserts that more than 99 percent--virtually all--of
the Genoa violence was perpetrated and planned by police and
other state forces, including the G-8 leaders themselves.
For what else is the G-8 Summit than a war council where
the imperialist rulers meet to plot the undramatic war, an
economic war that consists of diverting resources desperately
needed by the many in the service of projects that benefit
only a few. The meetings of the G-8 are where the richest
nations coordinate their assault against the poorest ones,
consigning millions to racist economic strangulation, war,
famine, disease and death.
A crisis is currently plaguing the market economy. The G-8
strategy is to ward off total collapse through mass layoffs,
structural adjustment and austerity programs, gutted
environmental protections and other schemes to shoulder this
burden on the workers and poor.
Protesters who took to the streets in Genoa--along with
those who come out everywhere these war councils of the G-8,
WTO, IMF and World Bank hold meetings--are absolutely right
to protest and fight this band of warring rogues in any way
they can.
The IAC, an organization involved in planning fall
protests against the International Monetary Fund, World Bank
and Bush administration in Washington, D.C., feels that all
of the organizations and individuals who wish to voice their
protest against the injustice of these institutions have the
right to do so without the threat of being murdered, beaten
or having our groups infiltrated by agents provocateurs. And
we are prepared to fight for that right.
There is ample and mounting proof that the state forces of
the seven imperialist countries--United States, Britain,
Germany, France, Canada, Japan and Italy--which make up the
Group of Eight along with capitalists in Russia conspired to
murder, disrupt and crush demonstrators against the G-8
summit in Genoa, Italy, July 19-22.
[The statement then lists the many times that capitalist
governments have used force and provocateurs to try and
derail this movement.]
Every movement that seeks profound social change and
social justice has been confronted with the forces of
organized violence.
"Bull" Connor and the segregationists in the U.S. Deep
South employed murder against the civil-rights movement. They
always portrayed the victims as "criminal elements" and
"outside agitators."
The FBI launched the Counter-Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO) to infiltrate, frameup and hunt down
revolutionary leaders of the Black Panther Party, American
Indian Movement and other militants.
But the violence of the powers that be would not stop the
movements whose time had come and whose struggles were
fiercely determined.
This is how every gain, no matter how small, has been won.
This is how affirmative action was won, how workers won union
rights, how young people and others ended the war in Vietnam,
how women won the right to choose, how lesbian, gay, bi and
trans people began a militant fight against discrimination
and brutality--by standing up and refusing to be intimidated,
by refusing to surrender basic rights in the face of
organized violence by the capitalist state.
A better world is possible!
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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