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zondag 31 maart 2024
WORLD WORLDWIDE BELGIUM BRUSSELS - vrt nws middag zo 31 maa - Online news journal UPDATE - Goedemiddag, dit is het nieuws van vandaag.
WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SICILIA - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: 1968 redemption of blood, anger and struggle (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
1968 opens and ends in Sicily: the Belice earthquake and the Avola
massacre are its beginning and epilogue. ---- The island had begun to
taste the fruits of modernization (refrigerators, televisions, cars,
meat consumption), but in twenty years its population had shrunk by
11.1%, and the gap with Northern regions had grown. ---- In Belice a
laboratory of initiatives, struggles, socio-cultural and educational
experiences had been active since 1952, driven by the stimuli of Danilo
Dolci and the volunteers involved in this path of rebirth and its
methods of struggle (fasting, nonviolent marches) linked to the
traditional reverse strikes; the battles for the Bruca and Jato dams,
for housing, against emigration (with reforestation and cooperatives)
had awakened the communities. A movement of popular committees and study
centers had placed the Jato, Belice and Carboj valleys at the center of
national attention for its tough battles, arrests and trials. A small
corner of Sicily was planning its own redemption and setting itself as
an example for the whole island and beyond.
But on 14 and 15 January a series of violent tremors completely
destroyed the inhabited centers of Gibellina, Montevago, Salaparuta,
Poggioreale, and damaged dozens more, causing 296 deaths, a thousand
injuries and 100,000 homeless people; in the following period hundreds
of survivors will fall ill due to the lack of assistance, medicines,
nearby hospitals, doctors, so much so that the real figure of victims
will reach a thousand; we will talk about a "state earthquake", due to
the vulnerability of homes and the conditions of the survivors of the
catastrophe, the causes of which are called underdevelopment,
abandonment, exclusion, political-economic-mafia power. Against all
this, protests and spontaneous forms of organization began immediately,
canceled out by the regime's information. First Aldo Moro descends from
Rome, with his baggage of promises in a land in which his party had
always disgoverned, and then the President of the Republic Giuseppe
Saragat, welcomed with a slap as soon as he gets off the helicopter by
the commoner of Montevago Tina Longhand.
The earthquake victims, mostly farmers, know that they have to fight to
get help. They try to go to Rome on March 1st, but in Palermo the train
is canceled because "on the Strait priority must be given to freight
trains loaded with oranges". The network of committees is rebuilt,
manages aid, sets up mobilisations, and the valleys once again become
sites of grassroots organization without parties and against the absent
State. Piero Riggio writes in "L'Agitazione del Sud" (1) after praising
the committees of Dolci, Barbera and the population: "The earthquake put
so much fear in us, but it made us touch the coldness of this monster
with our hands which is the State, has confirmed us in our ideas and we
hope that the earthquakes will contribute to intimately shaking our
farmers, our populations and awakening them from the deep lethargy into
which they have fallen".
From Belice 10,000 people will emigrate to the North; 16,000 will
remain in tent cities. A singular episode occurs on January 29th: the
emigrant trains are blocked at the Swiss border which doesn't want them
at that moment.
The students of Partanna are fighting for the reconstruction of the
schools destroyed by the earthquake, while in Sicilian schools and
universities they organize themselves as throughout Italy and Europe; on
8 March in Catania violent clashes between the student movement and the
police forces; in Palermo the protest spreads like wildfire and sexual
repression and social violence are discussed in schools; the protest
spreads to the workplace: thousands of workers at El.Si (Elettronica
Siciliana), a US-owned factory, occupy the plant for a month against the
attempted closure and layoffs. It is a struggle surrounded by the
solidarity of workers and students, which will force the mayor to
requisition the factory and keep it in business. In the Syracuse area,
the workers of the industrial area have been fighting for the contract
since March: it will last 4 months and will end with the signature by
the owners of Rasiom-Esso, Italcementi, Sincat-Edison; in Messina three
high schools are occupied (La Farina for 10 days) and then the
University; here right-wing students mix with the occupations and the
beating of left-wing militants is the order of the day, covered by
openly fascist members of the Police Headquarters and by the newspaper
"Gazzetta del Sud".
In May the flowers of '68 bloom everywhere; in Partanna 5000
proletarians from Belice demonstrate as part of the "day of local
pressure" against the governments of Rome and Palermo. On the 12th the
first official outing of the Catania anarchists with a conference by
Placido La Torre on power and the national and international situation;
their monthly magazine "L'Agitazione del Sud" gives ample space to the
Parisian revolt and the Sicilian situation. On 3 June in Palermo,
violent police aggression against workers demonstrating for wages and
the defense of local industries: 15,000 are on strike, of which 3,500 at
the Cantiere Navale, 1,800 at Espi industries, 1,040 at El.Si, 2,000
garbage collectors and 7,000 municipal. On 14 July an agreement was
imposed on Piaggio which broke the salary cages.
Demonstrations by farmers affected by the earthquake take place in
Salemi and Mazara del Vallo to protest against the precariousness of the
agricultural sector. The anarchist from Salemi Melchiorre Palermo
comments on the stalemate of the situation in the earthquake-stricken
areas on "L'Agitazione del Sud" (2): "What was the purpose of the 'human
blockades' in the streets, the 'general strikes', mostly exploited by
the false shepherds of our local trade unionism, the exhausting trips of
the mayors to Rome and Palermo, sometimes greeted by truncheons and tear
gas bombs? We can't continue like this. It is good to convince ourselves
that something can only be achieved with direct action, violent if
necessary, without allowing ourselves to be put to sleep by the
procrastination of parties and unions. This is why while we remember the
dead, we spur the living to act."
In the summer months, an alternative reconstruction model for the
earthquake-stricken areas, the "Democratic Development Plan", was
developed by Danilo Dolci's group; 10,000 march in Palermo on 10 July in
the "march of the forgotten": women, old people and children are
violently attacked for over half an hour with truncheons and tear gas,
the marchers react by throwing bottles, stones and unexploded tear gas
canisters at the police. The next day, the reporter from "L'Unità"
wrote: "A woman whose husband is in Germany, with a two-month-old baby
in her arms, falls. A policeman squeezes her neck until he suffocates
her; I'm a few steps away and I grab the screaming little girl while her
companion Ludovico Corrao barely frees the woman from her senseless
fury. A Carabinieri non-commissioned officer aims at a boy with stones
as big as a glass... The victims are chased and beaten bloody all the
way down to the Quattro Canti, half a kilometer towards the sea... A
policeman repeatedly and violently bangs his head against a boy from
Gibellina the ramparts".
The "50 days of pressure" begins on September 15th in the Belice, Carboj
and Jato valleys for the implementation of "urgent" relief efforts and
for the control of expenses incurred. Until November 4th there will be a
succession of meetings, demonstrations, press conferences, 3 fasts, a
delegation in Rome and 3 in Palermo, discussions on the development
plan, a procession for the new dam. To those who for years have
supported the toxic narrative of passive Sicilian earthquake victims,
waiting for state handouts, in the face of the more alert populations of
other earthquakes (Friuli 1976, Emilia Romagna 2012), these chronicles
and the following ones demonstrate a reactivity, a planning and
commendable levels of organisation.
In the autumn the first extra-parliamentary groups entered the scene
(Falcemartello in Catania, Siracusa and Lentini) and the anarchists
(with the Center for Studies on Nonviolence in Catania). The fight at
the "Parlatore" technical institute explodes in Palermo; the police raid
the school; the same happened in Messina in the occupied university
faculties, with dozens of arrests: in protest the rector and the deans
of all the faculties (except the Magisterium) resigned.
In Roccamena, in Belice, the "popular trial" of the government and
parliament is being held by the local Study Center; for three days the
peasant population expresses itself in a mature manner against the
enemies of the people; the situation is ready for a qualitative leap in
the clash, but this causes a rift between Dolci and Barbera, with the
former against raising it and the latter determined to do so; a unique
opportunity to put the State under pressure is lost. (3)
The student autumn is hot: in Palermo on November 1st in Engineering a
general strike is proclaimed against repression, for the unity of the
movement, for the requisition of premises, school buildings, the right
to assembly; on the 5th 10,000 march, the next day 15,000. In the same
days the movement of the Syracusan laborers against the arrogance of the
landowners gained strength; calls for wage increases, the elimination of
the differences between the area of citrus groves and that of
traditional crops, the equalization of working hours, the application of
the agreements of 1966, when the workers of Lentini were savagely beaten
by the police, as already in '63 it happened to those of Avola. Since
November 24, 32,000 workers have been crossing their arms in the
provincial general strike; the agrarians, with their reactionary
Farmers' Union, refuse to negotiate; on the 28th the state road 115 is
partially blocked, an action that becomes more frequent given the wall
of landowners; on December 1st the protest spreads and on the 2nd in
Avola there is a city strike in which the entire population
participates: the laborers occupy the state road, joined by students and
at lunchtime, by their families. The police force arriving from Catania
receives the order to load: 25 minutes of carousels with the trucks,
shots fired at eye level leave Angelo Sigona and Giuseppe Scibilia on
the ground, 48 are injured; 2 kg of shell casings will be collected. At
midnight the Minister of the Interior orders the resumption of
negotiations and on the 3rd the landowners reluctantly sign the contract.
The events in Avola were followed by an immediate reaction throughout
the country, and a general strike on the island; very violent clashes
with the police take place in the mining area of Villarosa; there is a
procession in Avola; thousands of students protest in Rome, in Trento
the university is occupied, in Genoa a bomb explodes near the municipal
offices, and on the 4th the demonstrators attempt to occupy the
Prefecture; demonstrations take place everywhere, and even RAI workers
contest the biased way in which the news presented the facts. On 8
December in front of the Scala in Milan a thick throw of eggs and
persimmons hits the bourgeois in furs, a sign reads "The laborers of
Avola wish you good fun"; on the 11th more clashes in Lecce, La Spezia
and Syracuse; on December 31st there is a protest in front of the
Viareggio Bussola called by anarchists and Potere Operaio; amidst
spitting and insults to the bourgeois, we shout: "The laborers of Avola
wish you a happy new year". Soriano Ceccanti, hit by police fire, will
remain paralyzed for life. (4)
68 speaks tragically Sicilian in a climate of revolt and desire for
redemption; but the third way is also looming, emigration: in the year
242,881 Sicilians leave the island, 143,000 move to Northern Italy and
99,000 abroad. (5).
Pippo Gurrieri
Piero Riggio, Bitterness and disappointments - Sicily after the
earthquake, "The Agitation of the South", Palermo, February 1968.
Melchiorre Palermo, Time stopped in Salemi, "The Agitation of the
South", Palermo, July-August 1968.
Fiorella Cagnoni, Valle del Belice, state earthquake, Moizzi, Milan
1976, p. 184-185.
Giuseppe Oddo, The mirage of the earth in Sicily. From the Allied
landing to the disappearance of the fireflies (1943-1969), Istituto
Poligrafico Europeo, Palermo 2021, p. 567-570.
For the drafting of this article I used largely my Il 68 in Sicilia
published in the special "The window" of Sicilia libertaria n. 58,
September 1988.
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
massacre are its beginning and epilogue. ---- The island had begun to
taste the fruits of modernization (refrigerators, televisions, cars,
meat consumption), but in twenty years its population had shrunk by
11.1%, and the gap with Northern regions had grown. ---- In Belice a
laboratory of initiatives, struggles, socio-cultural and educational
experiences had been active since 1952, driven by the stimuli of Danilo
Dolci and the volunteers involved in this path of rebirth and its
methods of struggle (fasting, nonviolent marches) linked to the
traditional reverse strikes; the battles for the Bruca and Jato dams,
for housing, against emigration (with reforestation and cooperatives)
had awakened the communities. A movement of popular committees and study
centers had placed the Jato, Belice and Carboj valleys at the center of
national attention for its tough battles, arrests and trials. A small
corner of Sicily was planning its own redemption and setting itself as
an example for the whole island and beyond.
But on 14 and 15 January a series of violent tremors completely
destroyed the inhabited centers of Gibellina, Montevago, Salaparuta,
Poggioreale, and damaged dozens more, causing 296 deaths, a thousand
injuries and 100,000 homeless people; in the following period hundreds
of survivors will fall ill due to the lack of assistance, medicines,
nearby hospitals, doctors, so much so that the real figure of victims
will reach a thousand; we will talk about a "state earthquake", due to
the vulnerability of homes and the conditions of the survivors of the
catastrophe, the causes of which are called underdevelopment,
abandonment, exclusion, political-economic-mafia power. Against all
this, protests and spontaneous forms of organization began immediately,
canceled out by the regime's information. First Aldo Moro descends from
Rome, with his baggage of promises in a land in which his party had
always disgoverned, and then the President of the Republic Giuseppe
Saragat, welcomed with a slap as soon as he gets off the helicopter by
the commoner of Montevago Tina Longhand.
The earthquake victims, mostly farmers, know that they have to fight to
get help. They try to go to Rome on March 1st, but in Palermo the train
is canceled because "on the Strait priority must be given to freight
trains loaded with oranges". The network of committees is rebuilt,
manages aid, sets up mobilisations, and the valleys once again become
sites of grassroots organization without parties and against the absent
State. Piero Riggio writes in "L'Agitazione del Sud" (1) after praising
the committees of Dolci, Barbera and the population: "The earthquake put
so much fear in us, but it made us touch the coldness of this monster
with our hands which is the State, has confirmed us in our ideas and we
hope that the earthquakes will contribute to intimately shaking our
farmers, our populations and awakening them from the deep lethargy into
which they have fallen".
From Belice 10,000 people will emigrate to the North; 16,000 will
remain in tent cities. A singular episode occurs on January 29th: the
emigrant trains are blocked at the Swiss border which doesn't want them
at that moment.
The students of Partanna are fighting for the reconstruction of the
schools destroyed by the earthquake, while in Sicilian schools and
universities they organize themselves as throughout Italy and Europe; on
8 March in Catania violent clashes between the student movement and the
police forces; in Palermo the protest spreads like wildfire and sexual
repression and social violence are discussed in schools; the protest
spreads to the workplace: thousands of workers at El.Si (Elettronica
Siciliana), a US-owned factory, occupy the plant for a month against the
attempted closure and layoffs. It is a struggle surrounded by the
solidarity of workers and students, which will force the mayor to
requisition the factory and keep it in business. In the Syracuse area,
the workers of the industrial area have been fighting for the contract
since March: it will last 4 months and will end with the signature by
the owners of Rasiom-Esso, Italcementi, Sincat-Edison; in Messina three
high schools are occupied (La Farina for 10 days) and then the
University; here right-wing students mix with the occupations and the
beating of left-wing militants is the order of the day, covered by
openly fascist members of the Police Headquarters and by the newspaper
"Gazzetta del Sud".
In May the flowers of '68 bloom everywhere; in Partanna 5000
proletarians from Belice demonstrate as part of the "day of local
pressure" against the governments of Rome and Palermo. On the 12th the
first official outing of the Catania anarchists with a conference by
Placido La Torre on power and the national and international situation;
their monthly magazine "L'Agitazione del Sud" gives ample space to the
Parisian revolt and the Sicilian situation. On 3 June in Palermo,
violent police aggression against workers demonstrating for wages and
the defense of local industries: 15,000 are on strike, of which 3,500 at
the Cantiere Navale, 1,800 at Espi industries, 1,040 at El.Si, 2,000
garbage collectors and 7,000 municipal. On 14 July an agreement was
imposed on Piaggio which broke the salary cages.
Demonstrations by farmers affected by the earthquake take place in
Salemi and Mazara del Vallo to protest against the precariousness of the
agricultural sector. The anarchist from Salemi Melchiorre Palermo
comments on the stalemate of the situation in the earthquake-stricken
areas on "L'Agitazione del Sud" (2): "What was the purpose of the 'human
blockades' in the streets, the 'general strikes', mostly exploited by
the false shepherds of our local trade unionism, the exhausting trips of
the mayors to Rome and Palermo, sometimes greeted by truncheons and tear
gas bombs? We can't continue like this. It is good to convince ourselves
that something can only be achieved with direct action, violent if
necessary, without allowing ourselves to be put to sleep by the
procrastination of parties and unions. This is why while we remember the
dead, we spur the living to act."
In the summer months, an alternative reconstruction model for the
earthquake-stricken areas, the "Democratic Development Plan", was
developed by Danilo Dolci's group; 10,000 march in Palermo on 10 July in
the "march of the forgotten": women, old people and children are
violently attacked for over half an hour with truncheons and tear gas,
the marchers react by throwing bottles, stones and unexploded tear gas
canisters at the police. The next day, the reporter from "L'Unità"
wrote: "A woman whose husband is in Germany, with a two-month-old baby
in her arms, falls. A policeman squeezes her neck until he suffocates
her; I'm a few steps away and I grab the screaming little girl while her
companion Ludovico Corrao barely frees the woman from her senseless
fury. A Carabinieri non-commissioned officer aims at a boy with stones
as big as a glass... The victims are chased and beaten bloody all the
way down to the Quattro Canti, half a kilometer towards the sea... A
policeman repeatedly and violently bangs his head against a boy from
Gibellina the ramparts".
The "50 days of pressure" begins on September 15th in the Belice, Carboj
and Jato valleys for the implementation of "urgent" relief efforts and
for the control of expenses incurred. Until November 4th there will be a
succession of meetings, demonstrations, press conferences, 3 fasts, a
delegation in Rome and 3 in Palermo, discussions on the development
plan, a procession for the new dam. To those who for years have
supported the toxic narrative of passive Sicilian earthquake victims,
waiting for state handouts, in the face of the more alert populations of
other earthquakes (Friuli 1976, Emilia Romagna 2012), these chronicles
and the following ones demonstrate a reactivity, a planning and
commendable levels of organisation.
In the autumn the first extra-parliamentary groups entered the scene
(Falcemartello in Catania, Siracusa and Lentini) and the anarchists
(with the Center for Studies on Nonviolence in Catania). The fight at
the "Parlatore" technical institute explodes in Palermo; the police raid
the school; the same happened in Messina in the occupied university
faculties, with dozens of arrests: in protest the rector and the deans
of all the faculties (except the Magisterium) resigned.
In Roccamena, in Belice, the "popular trial" of the government and
parliament is being held by the local Study Center; for three days the
peasant population expresses itself in a mature manner against the
enemies of the people; the situation is ready for a qualitative leap in
the clash, but this causes a rift between Dolci and Barbera, with the
former against raising it and the latter determined to do so; a unique
opportunity to put the State under pressure is lost. (3)
The student autumn is hot: in Palermo on November 1st in Engineering a
general strike is proclaimed against repression, for the unity of the
movement, for the requisition of premises, school buildings, the right
to assembly; on the 5th 10,000 march, the next day 15,000. In the same
days the movement of the Syracusan laborers against the arrogance of the
landowners gained strength; calls for wage increases, the elimination of
the differences between the area of citrus groves and that of
traditional crops, the equalization of working hours, the application of
the agreements of 1966, when the workers of Lentini were savagely beaten
by the police, as already in '63 it happened to those of Avola. Since
November 24, 32,000 workers have been crossing their arms in the
provincial general strike; the agrarians, with their reactionary
Farmers' Union, refuse to negotiate; on the 28th the state road 115 is
partially blocked, an action that becomes more frequent given the wall
of landowners; on December 1st the protest spreads and on the 2nd in
Avola there is a city strike in which the entire population
participates: the laborers occupy the state road, joined by students and
at lunchtime, by their families. The police force arriving from Catania
receives the order to load: 25 minutes of carousels with the trucks,
shots fired at eye level leave Angelo Sigona and Giuseppe Scibilia on
the ground, 48 are injured; 2 kg of shell casings will be collected. At
midnight the Minister of the Interior orders the resumption of
negotiations and on the 3rd the landowners reluctantly sign the contract.
The events in Avola were followed by an immediate reaction throughout
the country, and a general strike on the island; very violent clashes
with the police take place in the mining area of Villarosa; there is a
procession in Avola; thousands of students protest in Rome, in Trento
the university is occupied, in Genoa a bomb explodes near the municipal
offices, and on the 4th the demonstrators attempt to occupy the
Prefecture; demonstrations take place everywhere, and even RAI workers
contest the biased way in which the news presented the facts. On 8
December in front of the Scala in Milan a thick throw of eggs and
persimmons hits the bourgeois in furs, a sign reads "The laborers of
Avola wish you good fun"; on the 11th more clashes in Lecce, La Spezia
and Syracuse; on December 31st there is a protest in front of the
Viareggio Bussola called by anarchists and Potere Operaio; amidst
spitting and insults to the bourgeois, we shout: "The laborers of Avola
wish you a happy new year". Soriano Ceccanti, hit by police fire, will
remain paralyzed for life. (4)
68 speaks tragically Sicilian in a climate of revolt and desire for
redemption; but the third way is also looming, emigration: in the year
242,881 Sicilians leave the island, 143,000 move to Northern Italy and
99,000 abroad. (5).
Pippo Gurrieri
Piero Riggio, Bitterness and disappointments - Sicily after the
earthquake, "The Agitation of the South", Palermo, February 1968.
Melchiorre Palermo, Time stopped in Salemi, "The Agitation of the
South", Palermo, July-August 1968.
Fiorella Cagnoni, Valle del Belice, state earthquake, Moizzi, Milan
1976, p. 184-185.
Giuseppe Oddo, The mirage of the earth in Sicily. From the Allied
landing to the disappearance of the fireflies (1943-1969), Istituto
Poligrafico Europeo, Palermo 2021, p. 567-570.
For the drafting of this article I used largely my Il 68 in Sicilia
published in the special "The window" of Sicilia libertaria n. 58,
September 1988.
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, CNT-AIT: Anarchosyndicalisme #185 - About peasant unionism and the next elections to the Chambers of Agriculture in January 2025 (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Currently, there are 3 main farmers' unions in France: ---- the FNSEA
(National Federation of Agricultural Operators' Unions) and its youth
branch "the Young Farmers"), and which has co-managed with successive
governments the agriculture of which it was the sole union until the
90s; ---- the Confédération Paysanne (CP), resulting from the "peasant
workers" movement of the 1970s, rather classified on the left and green;
---- the Rural Coordination (CR), which appeared in the South-West in
the 1990s, and whose leadership is rather on the extreme right (even if
in Haute-Garonne CR and CP had presented a common list in the chamber
elections of agriculture of 2019...);
The MODEF (Movement for the Defense of Family Farms) which is the
communist union also survives marginally.
For the record, the last elections to the chambers of agriculture took
place in 2019 with the following results: first of all an overall
abstention of.... 71%!!! (including 53.5% abstention among agricultural
operators and 90% abstention among agricultural workers), which does not
prevent unions from being considered "representative"...
On the side of farmers, the FNSEA-Young Farmers union duo reached 55% of
the votes cast (i.e. 25% of those registered), the Rural Coordination
21% (barely 10% of those registered) and the Confédération Paysanne
20.04% (9 .3% of those registered). Modef, for its part, obtains 1.89%.
The next elections will take place in January 2025, and this helps to
partly explain what happened during the farmers' movement of January
2024. If the movement started spontaneously from an exhausted base of
small breeders from Haute -Garonne, the movement quickly became the
closed field of confrontation between the two main unions, each seeking
to use the movement to position itself.
Many people in activist circles mythologize the Peasant Confederation...
This union brings together people of very varied profiles, and in
particular quite a few people who were there mainly because they were
against the FNSEA, but without any other ideological motivation. With
the current movement, we observe that some are leaving the peasant
confederation to join the Rural Coordination, believing that at least
they are moving and taking action! (which explains that after a period
of tetany in the face of a movement that did not start on their
political bases, the Confédération Paysanne also felt obliged to join
the movement and that currently, it says it maintains actions locally to
try to counterbalance Rural Coordination and not see its members flee).
The Confédération Paysanne suffers, like the FNSEA, from being an aging
organization, where positions are always occupied by the same people,
and which does not necessarily respond to the aspirations of the young
generation of farmers, those most angry against the system which is
crushing them. .. (not to mention the young generation of breeders who
find it difficult to accept that the Confédération Paysanne is showing
itself as vegan and anti-breeding...).
What is at stake between the agricultural unions are in fact the
elections of the chambers of agriculture in January 2025 (and the
subsidies and advantages to the unions that go with it...):
The FNSEA is widely criticized by the base for its connections with
those in power, particularly on the side of the breeders who do not
accept that the FNSEA and its European branch, COPA COGECA, through the
voice of Christine Lambert, ex-number 1 of the FNSEA, have supported the
inclusion of cattle breeding in structures subject to emission quotas
for industrial installations, IED directive. No one is fooled either by
the "deal" signed in 2023 between the FNSEA and Lemaire and Macron on
the end of non-taxation of agricultural diesel, which aimed above all to
push farmers to replace it with biofuels, including the Avril
cooperative. (the president is none other than... Aurélien Rousseau) is
one of the main producers...
The Rural Coordination (extreme right) is trying to position itself to
carve out croupiers for it, carried by the ideological wave of the
extreme right which favors withdrawal into oneself at all levels
(corporatism at the professional level, anti-Europe and protectionism at
the geopolitics, xenophobia at the social level).
The Peasant Confederation is left behind and out of step; it is aging,
like the FNSEA... Its rather pro-European discourse is poorly received,
and it does not have a monopoly on commercial anti-liberalism (all the
unions, including FNSEA and CR are against the Mercosur agreement ).
Furthermore, we must not forget that the dismantling of the Mac Do in
Millau by Bové (prepared with the agreement of the gendarmerie...see
http://sipncntait.free.fr/article_1259.html) was to protest against the
taxes put by the Americans on Roquefort imports, so it was in a certain
way to ask for greater liberalization of international trade...
At the moment, we are seeing more posturing in anticipation of these
elections. The FNSEA is playing constructively with the government,
hoping that it will obtain some results which will allow it to present
itself in the January elections by playing the responsibility card, the
Rural Coordination on the contrary wants to play the protest card of
agitation, as for at the Confédération paysanne, it is between the two,
trying to play on both counts and above all in a less media-driven way
than the CR but more "proximity".
As we can see, it's the usual union game, nothing really new or
subversive in all this. Afterwards, what is new is that the people who
initiated the movement in Haute-Garonne are not unionized and neither
are a certain number of those who joined the blockades - particularly
the youngest. But now things are running dry at the level of the unions
established to go fishing...
https://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1379
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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(National Federation of Agricultural Operators' Unions) and its youth
branch "the Young Farmers"), and which has co-managed with successive
governments the agriculture of which it was the sole union until the
90s; ---- the Confédération Paysanne (CP), resulting from the "peasant
workers" movement of the 1970s, rather classified on the left and green;
---- the Rural Coordination (CR), which appeared in the South-West in
the 1990s, and whose leadership is rather on the extreme right (even if
in Haute-Garonne CR and CP had presented a common list in the chamber
elections of agriculture of 2019...);
The MODEF (Movement for the Defense of Family Farms) which is the
communist union also survives marginally.
For the record, the last elections to the chambers of agriculture took
place in 2019 with the following results: first of all an overall
abstention of.... 71%!!! (including 53.5% abstention among agricultural
operators and 90% abstention among agricultural workers), which does not
prevent unions from being considered "representative"...
On the side of farmers, the FNSEA-Young Farmers union duo reached 55% of
the votes cast (i.e. 25% of those registered), the Rural Coordination
21% (barely 10% of those registered) and the Confédération Paysanne
20.04% (9 .3% of those registered). Modef, for its part, obtains 1.89%.
The next elections will take place in January 2025, and this helps to
partly explain what happened during the farmers' movement of January
2024. If the movement started spontaneously from an exhausted base of
small breeders from Haute -Garonne, the movement quickly became the
closed field of confrontation between the two main unions, each seeking
to use the movement to position itself.
Many people in activist circles mythologize the Peasant Confederation...
This union brings together people of very varied profiles, and in
particular quite a few people who were there mainly because they were
against the FNSEA, but without any other ideological motivation. With
the current movement, we observe that some are leaving the peasant
confederation to join the Rural Coordination, believing that at least
they are moving and taking action! (which explains that after a period
of tetany in the face of a movement that did not start on their
political bases, the Confédération Paysanne also felt obliged to join
the movement and that currently, it says it maintains actions locally to
try to counterbalance Rural Coordination and not see its members flee).
The Confédération Paysanne suffers, like the FNSEA, from being an aging
organization, where positions are always occupied by the same people,
and which does not necessarily respond to the aspirations of the young
generation of farmers, those most angry against the system which is
crushing them. .. (not to mention the young generation of breeders who
find it difficult to accept that the Confédération Paysanne is showing
itself as vegan and anti-breeding...).
What is at stake between the agricultural unions are in fact the
elections of the chambers of agriculture in January 2025 (and the
subsidies and advantages to the unions that go with it...):
The FNSEA is widely criticized by the base for its connections with
those in power, particularly on the side of the breeders who do not
accept that the FNSEA and its European branch, COPA COGECA, through the
voice of Christine Lambert, ex-number 1 of the FNSEA, have supported the
inclusion of cattle breeding in structures subject to emission quotas
for industrial installations, IED directive. No one is fooled either by
the "deal" signed in 2023 between the FNSEA and Lemaire and Macron on
the end of non-taxation of agricultural diesel, which aimed above all to
push farmers to replace it with biofuels, including the Avril
cooperative. (the president is none other than... Aurélien Rousseau) is
one of the main producers...
The Rural Coordination (extreme right) is trying to position itself to
carve out croupiers for it, carried by the ideological wave of the
extreme right which favors withdrawal into oneself at all levels
(corporatism at the professional level, anti-Europe and protectionism at
the geopolitics, xenophobia at the social level).
The Peasant Confederation is left behind and out of step; it is aging,
like the FNSEA... Its rather pro-European discourse is poorly received,
and it does not have a monopoly on commercial anti-liberalism (all the
unions, including FNSEA and CR are against the Mercosur agreement ).
Furthermore, we must not forget that the dismantling of the Mac Do in
Millau by Bové (prepared with the agreement of the gendarmerie...see
http://sipncntait.free.fr/article_1259.html) was to protest against the
taxes put by the Americans on Roquefort imports, so it was in a certain
way to ask for greater liberalization of international trade...
At the moment, we are seeing more posturing in anticipation of these
elections. The FNSEA is playing constructively with the government,
hoping that it will obtain some results which will allow it to present
itself in the January elections by playing the responsibility card, the
Rural Coordination on the contrary wants to play the protest card of
agitation, as for at the Confédération paysanne, it is between the two,
trying to play on both counts and above all in a less media-driven way
than the CR but more "proximity".
As we can see, it's the usual union game, nothing really new or
subversive in all this. Afterwards, what is new is that the people who
initiated the movement in Haute-Garonne are not unionized and neither
are a certain number of those who joined the blockades - particularly
the youngest. But now things are running dry at the level of the unions
established to go fishing...
https://cntaittoulouse.lautre.net/spip.php?article1379
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE KURDISTAN - Online news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #347 - 50,000 people for the release of Abdullah Öcalan - Politics (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Kidnapped 25 years ago, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been detained
by the Turkish state ever since. Several tens of thousands of peoplegathered in Cologne on February 17 to demand his release and provide
their internationalist support for the Kurdish movement. ---- On
February 15, 1999, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan and three of his
comrades were captured by the Turkish secret services in Kenya and
placed in total isolation in the prison on the island of Imrali, in the
northeast of the Turkey[1]. His last contact with the outside world was
a brief five-minute phone call with his brother in March 2021. The
Turkish government with this kidnapping wishes to silence the
anti-imperialist fight of the Kurdish people, but for eight years the
European Kurdish community has been organizing every year the Long March
for the release of Öcalan as part of the international campaign "Freedom
for Abdullah Öcalan". This year, the march arrived in Strasbourg on
February 15, 25 years after the capture of Abdullah Öcalan.
More than 500 activists and supporters from all over France, Germany,
Switzerland, Italy, Spain and even Bolivia converged this Thursday,
February 15. During this march, we could hear slogans such as "Political
solution to the Kurdish question", "Siamo tutti PKK" (we are all the
PKK[2]) or "Brick by brick, wall by wall, make Imrali prison fall"
(brick by brick, wall by wall, we will bring down the walls of Imrali
Prison) showing international support for the Kurdish cause.
The demonstration ended at the Council of Europe, a European
organization supposed to defend Human Rights, where many CRS trucks were
present. Several speakers then took the floor to demand the release of
Öcalan and a political solution to the Kurdish question.
Severe repression by Germany
On Friday night, after a day of conferences in Strasbourg on the
detention of Abdullah Öcalan, buses went to Cologne for the last day of
the Long March. More than 50,000 demonstrators were present, despite
Germany's severe repression against the Kurdish movement. During the
demonstration, groups continued to arrive, because the police sometimes
blocked their buses for hours. Certain slogans like "Bijî Serok Apo"
(long live leader Öcalan) were banned during this demonstration and the
German police, present in large numbers number, intervened several times
in the demonstration which was nevertheless peaceful. This
criminalization of the Kurdish movement in Germany aims to preserve
economically and historically strong German-Turkish relations.
In recent weeks, the Turkish army has been carrying out high-intensity
attacks against Kurdistan targeting civilian infrastructure (energy,
food, health) and using NATO weapons. In this context, we must more than
ever express our international solidarity and demand a political
solution to the Kurdish question from our governments, complicit in the
capture of Abdullah Öcalan and the situation of the Kurdish people.
Antoine (UCL Alsace)
To validate
[1]"Imrali's position: a democratic political solution is essential",
Serhildan.org.
[2]artiya Karkerên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers' Party.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Politique-10287
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY LIVORNO - Online news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Livorno, FAI: A punctual drone, Italy's new military missions approved - Umanità Nova on 17/3/24 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Last February 26, the Council of Ministers resolved on military missions
abroad. In record time, not even 10 days, Parliament discussed and
approved the resolution. ---- 12,000 soldiers will be engaged abroad in
new and extended missions, for 1.5 billion in spending. In previous
years, several weeks, even months, elapsed between government resolution
and parliamentary approval. Times that the government has tried to
further accelerate, trying - without succeeding - to pass the approval
in an emergency procedure, to avoid discussion in the competent
commissions. Certainly, the barrage of six shots fired from the 72/67
Oto Melara cannon of the Caio Duilio destroyer which shot down a Yemeni
drone 6 km away also put pressure on parliament. Close to the
parliamentary discussion, the risk of a military escalation and the
relentless campaign on the threat of the Houthis for the Italian ships
present in the Red Sea, made it necessary to have an authorization
framework for the naval mission that Italy had already been conducting
for December. All this certainly gave the possibility of forcing an
approval in record time.
The three approved missions are the Aspides mission, a naval mission in
the Red Sea, the Levante mission, which is part of the war in Gaza in
Palestine, and the EUAM Ukraine mission. Considering that this last
mission has actually been active since December 2014 and the current
approval only concerns the sending of a magistrate as part of a European
mission to support the security system, we will focus mainly on the
first two.
The Aspides mission is a European Union mission, launched in February,
whose command is entrusted to Greece and is based in Larissa, Italy
managed to secure only the tactical command of the operational forces,
of which it was Rear Admiral Stefano Costantino was in charge and has
its own center on board the Caio Duilio.
The new mission is presented as a new operational commitment within a
more general extension of a "multi-domain device". The fact sheet on the
operation in fact brings together four distinct missions, the
aforementioned Aspides, the EU-led Atalanta mission off the coast of
Somalia, the multinational EMASOH in the Strait of Hormuz and the US-led
CMF. The precise authorization of men and vehicles for the Aspides
mission is therefore not specified in the government resolution, but the
overall commitment for the four missions is indicated: 3 naval vehicles,
5 air vehicles, 642 personnel units. Of course, seeing 3 ships engaged
in 4 different missions makes you think of Mussolini's famous tanks, but
attributing everything to quackery and propaganda - which is certainly
not lacking - would be misleading. In this shell game there is a clear
attempt to make the decision-making process more opaque and the
responsibility for each individual mission less defined. An
authorization like this leaves the government a free hand to divide the
missions into different interventions depending on needs. Just think of
the area of intervention authorized for these missions, which is
incredibly vast: "Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and coastal countries, Gulf
of Aden, Arabian Sea, Somali basin, Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean,
Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf , Gulf of Oman, Bahrain, Djibouti, United
Arab Emirates and other coastal countries". These are four naval
missions of a different nature and with different rules, which would
also interact with land missions.
Similarly, with the Levante mission, a very general military commitment
was authorized, and we still need to understand how it will be
structured. The official press focused on the first two points of the
mission's objectives, aid to the civilian population and the provision
of a "field hospital and a naval unit with healthcare capacity". But the
second two are not usually mentioned: "precautionary measures for the
possible evacuation of compatriots or the extraction of Italian forces
from the region; strengthen the presence in the Eastern Mediterranean".
More than a humanitarian aid mission, it appears to be a mission with
the aim of consolidating the military presence in the area and
coordinating any emergency situations linked to the substantial presence
of Italian contingents, which to varying degrees are engaged in Lebanon,
the West Bank and Egypt. For this mission, the deployment of a naval
vehicle, an air vehicle, 10 ground vehicles and 192 military personnel
is authorized.
The area of intervention is also very vast in this case, and includes
"Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus,
UAE, Qatar and the Eastern Mediterranean region".
I don't think we can think that these generic terms are imposed by rapid
approval times, which on the contrary would require the authorization of
a more precise and defined commitment. The way in which the forms for
these two missions were prepared actually seems to have been well
prepared to anticipate the new authorization procedures for military
missions that the government would like to introduce. The amendment to
law 145 of 2016 which regulates the matter was proposed by the
government with DDL S. 1020, a reform bill approved by the Council of
Ministers on 25 January. Among the main points of this proposal, now
being examined by the Chambers, we first highlight what was written in
the technical report upon presentation of the proposal to the Senate.
The reform would introduce "Greater flexibility in the use of structures
and personnel units within missions belonging to the same geographical
area. By foreseeing in advance the possible "interoperability" between
missions in the same area and subjecting them to the preventive scrutiny
of the Chambers, the modification allows us to respond more promptly in
the event of crisis or emergency situations, which are increasingly
frequent in the current international scenario". Furthermore, it would
make it possible to "pre-identify, through Government
resolutions[...]forces with high and very high operational readiness, to
be used abroad in the event of a crisis or emergency situation[...]in
the event that it becomes necessary to emergency use of high and very
high operational readiness forces, the Government's resolution is in any
case transmitted to the Chambers, which, within five days, with specific
guidance documents, according to the respective regulations, authorize
their use or deny them authorization".
The first point, by providing for greater flexibility, would undoubtedly
make the policy of military missions abroad more opaque, making it more
difficult to understand the scope, responsibilities and actual limits of
the authorizations. In this way it is easier for the government to
shuffle the cards, to articulate military operations in a different way
by exploiting the coverage of already authorized missions with vague
purposes and for very large areas. The second point would give the
government a free hand to take the initiative for a military expedition.
This has already been happening for years, with missions authorized by
Parliament months after the actual start. This measure, with the excuse
of bringing procedures back to normal, gives the government greater power.
That the government wants to extend the powers of the government,
bringing the current excesses into legality, and that it presents as
effectively interoperable missions that until now were presented as
specific interventions conducted autonomously, clearly represents where
the war policy that the government is leading carrying forward with the
transversal support of the main oppositions. If the missions are no
longer individual interventions but a strategic campaign, if the
government does not act in derogation, but assumes greater powers,
further steps are taken towards open war. What will stop this spiral of
war will not be laws and elections, but social struggles and
anti-militarism.
Dario Antonelli
https://collettivoanarchico.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/16/un-drone-puntuale-approvate-le-nuove-missioni-militari-dellitalia/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
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A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
abroad. In record time, not even 10 days, Parliament discussed and
approved the resolution. ---- 12,000 soldiers will be engaged abroad in
new and extended missions, for 1.5 billion in spending. In previous
years, several weeks, even months, elapsed between government resolution
and parliamentary approval. Times that the government has tried to
further accelerate, trying - without succeeding - to pass the approval
in an emergency procedure, to avoid discussion in the competent
commissions. Certainly, the barrage of six shots fired from the 72/67
Oto Melara cannon of the Caio Duilio destroyer which shot down a Yemeni
drone 6 km away also put pressure on parliament. Close to the
parliamentary discussion, the risk of a military escalation and the
relentless campaign on the threat of the Houthis for the Italian ships
present in the Red Sea, made it necessary to have an authorization
framework for the naval mission that Italy had already been conducting
for December. All this certainly gave the possibility of forcing an
approval in record time.
The three approved missions are the Aspides mission, a naval mission in
the Red Sea, the Levante mission, which is part of the war in Gaza in
Palestine, and the EUAM Ukraine mission. Considering that this last
mission has actually been active since December 2014 and the current
approval only concerns the sending of a magistrate as part of a European
mission to support the security system, we will focus mainly on the
first two.
The Aspides mission is a European Union mission, launched in February,
whose command is entrusted to Greece and is based in Larissa, Italy
managed to secure only the tactical command of the operational forces,
of which it was Rear Admiral Stefano Costantino was in charge and has
its own center on board the Caio Duilio.
The new mission is presented as a new operational commitment within a
more general extension of a "multi-domain device". The fact sheet on the
operation in fact brings together four distinct missions, the
aforementioned Aspides, the EU-led Atalanta mission off the coast of
Somalia, the multinational EMASOH in the Strait of Hormuz and the US-led
CMF. The precise authorization of men and vehicles for the Aspides
mission is therefore not specified in the government resolution, but the
overall commitment for the four missions is indicated: 3 naval vehicles,
5 air vehicles, 642 personnel units. Of course, seeing 3 ships engaged
in 4 different missions makes you think of Mussolini's famous tanks, but
attributing everything to quackery and propaganda - which is certainly
not lacking - would be misleading. In this shell game there is a clear
attempt to make the decision-making process more opaque and the
responsibility for each individual mission less defined. An
authorization like this leaves the government a free hand to divide the
missions into different interventions depending on needs. Just think of
the area of intervention authorized for these missions, which is
incredibly vast: "Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and coastal countries, Gulf
of Aden, Arabian Sea, Somali basin, Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean,
Strait of Hormuz, Persian Gulf , Gulf of Oman, Bahrain, Djibouti, United
Arab Emirates and other coastal countries". These are four naval
missions of a different nature and with different rules, which would
also interact with land missions.
Similarly, with the Levante mission, a very general military commitment
was authorized, and we still need to understand how it will be
structured. The official press focused on the first two points of the
mission's objectives, aid to the civilian population and the provision
of a "field hospital and a naval unit with healthcare capacity". But the
second two are not usually mentioned: "precautionary measures for the
possible evacuation of compatriots or the extraction of Italian forces
from the region; strengthen the presence in the Eastern Mediterranean".
More than a humanitarian aid mission, it appears to be a mission with
the aim of consolidating the military presence in the area and
coordinating any emergency situations linked to the substantial presence
of Italian contingents, which to varying degrees are engaged in Lebanon,
the West Bank and Egypt. For this mission, the deployment of a naval
vehicle, an air vehicle, 10 ground vehicles and 192 military personnel
is authorized.
The area of intervention is also very vast in this case, and includes
"Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus,
UAE, Qatar and the Eastern Mediterranean region".
I don't think we can think that these generic terms are imposed by rapid
approval times, which on the contrary would require the authorization of
a more precise and defined commitment. The way in which the forms for
these two missions were prepared actually seems to have been well
prepared to anticipate the new authorization procedures for military
missions that the government would like to introduce. The amendment to
law 145 of 2016 which regulates the matter was proposed by the
government with DDL S. 1020, a reform bill approved by the Council of
Ministers on 25 January. Among the main points of this proposal, now
being examined by the Chambers, we first highlight what was written in
the technical report upon presentation of the proposal to the Senate.
The reform would introduce "Greater flexibility in the use of structures
and personnel units within missions belonging to the same geographical
area. By foreseeing in advance the possible "interoperability" between
missions in the same area and subjecting them to the preventive scrutiny
of the Chambers, the modification allows us to respond more promptly in
the event of crisis or emergency situations, which are increasingly
frequent in the current international scenario". Furthermore, it would
make it possible to "pre-identify, through Government
resolutions[...]forces with high and very high operational readiness, to
be used abroad in the event of a crisis or emergency situation[...]in
the event that it becomes necessary to emergency use of high and very
high operational readiness forces, the Government's resolution is in any
case transmitted to the Chambers, which, within five days, with specific
guidance documents, according to the respective regulations, authorize
their use or deny them authorization".
The first point, by providing for greater flexibility, would undoubtedly
make the policy of military missions abroad more opaque, making it more
difficult to understand the scope, responsibilities and actual limits of
the authorizations. In this way it is easier for the government to
shuffle the cards, to articulate military operations in a different way
by exploiting the coverage of already authorized missions with vague
purposes and for very large areas. The second point would give the
government a free hand to take the initiative for a military expedition.
This has already been happening for years, with missions authorized by
Parliament months after the actual start. This measure, with the excuse
of bringing procedures back to normal, gives the government greater power.
That the government wants to extend the powers of the government,
bringing the current excesses into legality, and that it presents as
effectively interoperable missions that until now were presented as
specific interventions conducted autonomously, clearly represents where
the war policy that the government is leading carrying forward with the
transversal support of the main oppositions. If the missions are no
longer individual interventions but a strategic campaign, if the
government does not act in derogation, but assumes greater powers,
further steps are taken towards open war. What will stop this spiral of
war will not be laws and elections, but social struggles and
anti-militarism.
Dario Antonelli
https://collettivoanarchico.noblogs.org/post/2024/03/16/un-drone-puntuale-approvate-le-nuove-missioni-militari-dellitalia/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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