Dossier Comiso

 

Contents:

*Introduction

*Statement by Ragusa anarchist group and Rivolta e Liberta’ anarchist group

*Organizational document of the self-managed leagues

*Flier by Statement by Ragusa anarchist group and ‘Rivolta e Liberta’ anarchist group

*Flier to Students

*Flier to Service Workers

*steps and countersteps of a project of death (chronology of events)

*American military bases in Sicily

 

Comiso, a small town of 28,000 inhabitants in the south east of Sicily, has been chosen to house the largest arsenal of Cruise atomic missiles in Europe. If the local population does not mo­bilize soon to prevent this criminal maneuver decisively along the lines which have been successful in places such as Larzac in the south of France (where shepherds and peasants managed, after years of occupation and struggle, to regain their land from the French State's nuclear project), not only Comiso, but the whole of Sicily will shortly be transformed into a militarized desert.

The foundations for this US strategy have already been laid (see American bases in Sicily). The Cruise missile base, with its accompanying contingent of 15,000 US technicians and soldiers, is planned to become the nerve center to link up the already existing structures, in turn preparing to house this, mobile arsenal of death during their intended excursions through- out Sicilian territory, for that is the intention: to move the missiles throughout Sicily in lorries to program their genocidal trajectories to Russia, Libya, or wherever else US interests feel themselves to be threatened.

Certainly, for the Sicilians the perspective of a foreign domination is nothing new: from the Romans, Arabs, Byzatin Normans, French, Spanish and Piedmontese, the exploited of the island have known domination and submission, the bour­geoisie dealings and enrichment. No doubt this fact also influ­enced the American assassins' choice, complementary to the island's strategic position in the Mediterranean. The long suffer­ing proletariat of the island (once a fertile garden, the granary of the Roman Empire) deliberately kept below poverty level by capital concentration in the north, are so accustomed to foreign invasion that it has become almost a way of life. An army of social scientists have been studying the coup, and the first of the invaders have arrived, especially chosen Italo-American families, nice people with nice children and lots of nice dollars to spend on rents, cars, furnishings, etc, in such a way that the most avid of the shopkeeping and commercial class and the most alienated part of the bored youth far from the explosions of rage in the northern metropoli are beginning to hope that the American dream has finally reached their doorsteps. Not so for the thousands of unemployed farmhands who fill the piazzas at dusk in the hope of finding work for the next day (with the chance of about one day out of every fifteen), the thousands of proletarian housewives incarcerated in the drought-stricken quarters of the town (running water two hours a day, yet Comiso is built upon a natural spring and underground wells containing millions of liters of water), the hundreds of building labourers deliberately made unemployed through the political strategy of antiseismic laws (where the threat of earthquake prevents them from building two-storey houses and at the same time permits the installation of an atomic bomb plant) in order to render them, out of desperation in a land where the misery of social security sounds like an Arcadian dream, favorable to the base as bringer of jobs to the area. All these strata and many more are profoundly against the arrival of the Americans and their deadly wares. Why have they not done anything about it then?

As well as a certain defeatist and long suffering attitude, as well as the mafiosi politicians of the Christian Democracy and the Socialist Party (Socialist "defense" minister Lagorio at national level, and mayor Catalano of Comiso) who signed the agreement to house the missiles, great responsibility lies with the local political forces who claim to be against the base, in particular the Communist Party which still holds considerable credibility in the area. This party, the largest communist party in Europe, can at the drop of a hat mobilize a demonstration of 100,000 people by laying on buses and bringing them from all over Sicily and the rest of Italy, and this has been their strategy: to call for a massive peace march, a day of letting off steam, shouting of slogans, dancing in the fields then, home to wait for the next directive. A few of their leaders have participated in symbolic limited hunger strikes; a petition has been signed including 12,500 signatures from Comiso alone. Good demo­cratic, totally ineffective dissense. The CUDIP(1)-CP initiative­ permanently in existence in Comiso, is another democratic vent, as is substantially the international peace camp which includes the MIR(2), various colors of pacifists, buddhist monks, etc. Their good intentions are exceeded only by the ineffectiveness of their gestures which have until now included the cons­truction of a wall of cardboard boxes in front of the airport, the drawing of corpses on the streets of Comiso, debates on theories of pacifism, encounters with archbishops, and are always available for discussion with other expressions of the power structure such as police, politicians, the Pope, etc. Even the FLM(3) from Milan, reputed to be one of the most combat­ive unions in Italy, in their only public appearance during the week their delegates spent in Comiso, simply covered the piazza Fonte Diana in multi-coloured paper doves and gave a talk with no precise indications. In the zoological park that Comiso had become, concrete proposals of struggle were essential.

Anarchist groups Rivolta e Liberta’ of Catania, and Ragusa anarchist group have been working to this end since May this year. May, June and July were spent doing a series of outdoor meetings in Comiso and the twelve or so surrounding towns and villages, with bookstalls, mass distribution of leaflets contain­ing counter-information concerning the base and urging workers in the area to organize against it.

An international anarchist conference was held in the muni­cipal sports ground in Comiso July 31 and August 1 to discuss the position of the anarchist movement on the struggle in course and to measure the participation of the movement at the level of regular space in anarchist publications, printing of posters, radio programmes, subscriptions, etc. In spite of the terrific heat the conference (attended by about two hundred comrades) was fairly positive, and culminated in a public meet­ing in the piazza Fonte Diana where comrade Alfredo Bonanno talked to the comrades and the people of Comiso (male workers and unemployed, the women of Comiso do not circulate freely and the female comrades went to talk to them in their places of repression, i.e. the home), denouncing the criminal US pro­ject and urging those present to organize to fight it.

The meeting was also the scene of an antimilitarist action: anarchist comrade Pippo Scarso who lives in the Ragusa area and is extremely active in the work against the base, made a declaration as to why he had refused to turn up for military service when called up the previous month, (see statement further on in document) and tore up his call up card. None of the hundreds of carabinieri surround­ing the piazza budged to arrest him-they realized the local sympathy was strong and that an arrest would be counter-pro­ductive. Pippo is still working at Comiso, he has been informed that he is to be tried for "instigation to commit a crime" as well as do twelve months sentence for objection against the armed forces. After the meeting comrades marched in the dark to the Magliocco airport, proposed site of the missile base. The police presence was massive but the demonstration did not allow it­self to be provoked and the point was made, at this point symbolically only: that if we want to prevent the base we must go towards it, not from it as all the previous grandiose marches had done.

As the weeks went on, however, the comrades realized that there was a positive response to their efforts but that it was necessary to go beyond counter-information and suggestions. A concrete organizational proposal was necessary as the logical consequence of their discourse. It was necessary to find an organizational form which would automatically, through its methodology and general principles, make the class selection necessary for a direct attack on the base. The form chosen was the self-managed League, an autonomous, anti-bureaucratic, anti-hierarchical, mass organism (see Document) which can be formed even by two or three people, but always in the optic of a quantitive growth and with the sole and unique aim of occupying and destroying the base. The League as instrument of struggle is not foreign to the local peasants and farmhands who used this method in the years following the war to occupy the land and successfully expropriated it from the landowners. Many of the townspeople of Comiso have also known the experience of mass rebellion. Comiso was one of the major towns in Sicily to rise up against the Italian State's call back to arms at the beginning of 1945. Exhausted and disheartened workers returned from the front to find their families in abject poverty and they refused to return to fight. A great antimili­tarist insurrection took place in Comiso, Ragusa and many of the nearby villages, and the State's tanks and machine guns did not intimidate the Comisani then. It is towards this situation of mass rebellion that the work carried out by the anarchist comrades in the area is directed.

The month of August was spent preparing for this next phase in the struggle, and in September small premises were opened near the center of Comiso, a co-ordinating office as point of reference, communication and support for the Leagues which were beginning to form in the area. The whole of the ground covered in the early months was returned to: Over twenty outdoor meetings, thousands of leaflets distributed, Document relative to the Leagues printed. radio and television programs, etc. The results to date have been encouraging. There are now almost ten self-managed Leagues in the area, and the terminology and project which they are proposing has become popular knowledge. In Vittoria, a town of 40,000 inhabitants 6 km from Comiso, 400 school pupils came out on strike spontaneously on reading the leaflet from the Coordina­mento (see leaflet). They have since formed a League of students whose first initiative was that of leafletting all the other five major secondary schools in Vittoria, calling them to an immediate strike and outdoor assembly. Within an hour the piazza Gramsci was filled with over a thousand 15-18 year olds, enthusiastically discussing the problem of the base and the mystifications that surround it. The almost immediate arrival of police and carabinieri did not deter them, some of whose names were taken in the controls that followed when the major part of the meeting had dissembled. Debates are now being organized within the schools, and in Comiso a students' League has been formed. There also exists an intersectoral League in Comiso, as well as in Pedalino, Chiaramonte, Belpasso, Catania. In the county of Mistretta, a mountainous area in the north of Sicily between Messina and Palermo, a self-managed League against the missile base at Comiso has also been formed. This area has recently been chosen by the government to become a firing range for the Italian army. The large mountainous area is at present an important sheep-rearing area, and the local shep­herds, determined to fight the decision, have forced the 13 local mayors, many of them Christian Democrats, to go against their party's criminal plans.

Another very important area which has been reached by the comrades through the Coordinamento is that of the 3,000 workers of the ANIC petrol refinery in Gela, in south western Sicily. The Americans now have over fifty per cent shares in the company which is at present under restructuring, i.e. sacking of 500 workers, another 700 due to be laid off. Clearly once the Americans have not only financial but also military control of the area, they will not hesitate to close this now out of date plant which no longer interests them. Their health (another worker was killed there two weeks ago) and environm­ent ruined by poisonous fumes, the only perspective that faces the workers there is to join the already hundreds of unemploy­ed in the town square every morning in the vain hope of find­ing a day's labouring. The solution of the past-to pack the card­board suitcase and join the assembly lines of Switzerland and Germany-is no longer even open to them. Clearly they have every interest in organizing in first person to fight the arrival of the Americans and to create a force capable of im­posing their demands on the structures of economic power. Their interest in the contents of the leaflets are the Leagues and eventual occupation and destruction of the base was great, to such an extent that the morning shift did not go in when the bell rang, and the servants of the management rang for the police. The comrades present were driven to the police head­quarters and threatened with expulsion from the area with sinister menaces of what would become of them should they re­turn as they said they would. The ANIC workers meanwhile had obliged a trade union and CP representative to go to the police to get the comrades out. Since then two more leaflets have been distributed at the ANIC, and a meeting held in the main square of Gela with several hundred workers and un­employed present. On the workers' request attempts are being made to hold a general assembly with them inside the factory, project which has obviously met with the obstructionsim of the unions. However, this area remains one of potential explosion.

The forces of repression in all their forms, police, politi­cians, mass media, etc, are doing what they can to obstruct the work of the Coordinamento. Open attempts to intimidate, spreading of rumours, printing false information are but a few of the well worn techniques that have been put into effect until now. The work is continuing, and comrades are deter­mined to intensify it over the next weeks so that the occupa­tion of the base should be possible in the spring. If things con­tinue as they are going there is every chance that this will be possible.

It is necessary for anarchist comrades everywhere to be aware of what is going on in Comiso and realize that this is not a local problem, but one which concerns the whole of Europe and the world. All comrades can participate in the struggle, either by coming to Comiso themselves, or keeping informed and distributing counter-information in their own areas of struggle. Financial support is essential to meet the expenses which go far beyond the possibilities of the local comrades.

THERE IS STILL TIME TO PREVENT THE CONSTRUC­TION OF THE CRUISE MISSILE BASE AT COMISO!

NOTES TO COMISO DOSSIER

Introduction

1 CUDIP: United Committee for Peace and Disarmament in Comiso

2 MIR: International Reconciliation Movement

3 FLM: Pederazione Lavoratori Metalmeccanici (Metallurgists' and Mechanics' Union)

The cruise missle base at Comiso can be Prevented!

Single issue printed by Ragusa anarchist group and Rivolta e Liberta’ anarchist group, Catania – July, 1982

Why Comiso and Sicily

US imperialism's decision to place Cruise missiles in Comiso, in the centre of Sicily and the Mediterranean, is of an easily comprehensible military and strategic significance. Beyond the pro-American propaganda on a purely military and techni­cal level which explains away this criminal decision as neces­sary to maintain an equilibrium with the Soviet missiles located on the Eastern frontiers of Eu­rope, there is the fact that the very decision to build the mis­sile base places itself in the op­tic of "preparing for war to maintain peace", forever the battle-cry of States who see in war a solution for the diffi­culties of domination and the continuation of exploitation.

Why Comiso? The answer is simple. As well as the strictly military ones there are economic and political reasons. Sicily, like Friuli, Campania and Sardinia-­other areas chosen for the in­stallation of atomic arms-are underdeveloped situations where three perspectives which are extremely favourable to ca­pitalist dominion are foresee­able: a) intensive militarization of the territory to the point of reaching the closure of vast areas and even their "desert­ization"; b) organization of the struggle entrusted to the parties of the so-called left, with whom it is always possible to enter into dialogue and reach com­promises; c) the great need for work, especially to avoid the prospect of emigration, which constitutes the most powerful blackmail for gaining mass con­sensus for the construction of the base.

These are the reasons for the choice of Comiso, and therefore also constitute an outline of the difficulties which any revolu­tionary struggle intending to subvert and defeat imperialism's project of building the base in Comiso will encounter.

 

The Sicilian reality

One of the levers of consensus which American imperialism can count on in Sicily is a cer­tain mentality of delegation and fatalism which has inserted it­self within the popular strata, especially the land labourers, and which finds a response in the mafia mentality which di­rects a power alternative to that of the State and which is often more efficient than the latter.

Local capitalism in Sicily contains a strong mafia content and has relations of patronage both with the intermediate stra­ta and with the poorest of the population. These relationships substantially substitute State power, often seen as something far off and attainable only through the mafia intermediary.

The Municipality, the Pro­vince, the Region and the va­rious organisms of assistance are used in an exclusively pa­tronal context, serving to sup­port a capillary and efficient structure of consensus. The bu­reaucracy has not yet reached the technological levels which characterize it elsewhere but still has the great Bourbon tradi­tion transplanted from Pied­mont which renders indispen­sable the element of mafia power manoeuvres and the connection between the political and economic mafias.

The industrial centers are anomalous, the greater part of the island working class not having an industrial specifica­tion but, having foreseen with the shrewdness characteristic of the poor that these installations were essentially capitalist traps, has not lost contact with their original peasant reality and at present find themselves in a sit­uation which is neither working class nor belonging to the strata of peasant or farmhand. The weakness of the struggle from this area is striking.

The land labourers are basic­ally the most combatant pro­letarian reality because they are linked to very difficult and of­ten minimal situations of survi­val. The Communist Party, the Socialist Party and even the Christian Democrats are trying to involve the latent dissent of this strata in productive organi­zations such as cooperatives giv­ing a prospect of continued work and guaranteeing consen­sus to make it safe for them to approach moments of greater social tension where they will not be able to keep the promises they have made. In the Ragusa area the present situation pre­sents more complex character­istics due to the greenhouse productive sector where along­side the proprietor of a particu­larly profitable piece of land one finds the figure of the half day labourer, at the same time wage earner and small proprietor, nominally available for the struggle but substantially tied to the profit perspective, that of small property and therefore of compromises with power capable of guaranteeing or des­troying the conditions which make the small peasant green­house cultivation productive.

The lumpenprolatariat strata fluctuates a great deal. It grows during the phases of increased unemployment in the building industry and when the possibili­ty of work in the industrial sec­tor diminishes. Farmhands and day labourers who are, within certain limits, available for the struggle, also enter this un­doubtedly interesting strata. The source of income for the lumpenproletariat of the Ragusa area is extremely varied: from social assistance to sweat labour, from lay off money to work on the land, from micro­scopic commercial activities (street selling, small transport­ers, middlemen in improbable real estate affairs, etc), to sim­ply survival. This strata is accus­tomed to poverty and suffer­ing. In the Ragusa area the ten­dency towards the organized crime typical of the Palermo and Catania areas is more res­tricted and this could become a considerable area of absorption when, in the perspective of the realization of the base, the large mafia organizations intervene massively in the area.

The illusion of well-being

The argument of the well-being the Americans would bring to the Comiso area has been put forward parallel to that of the slight or inexistent dangers the installation of the base would represent.

This is an argument which always attracts the attention of the exploited. They can under­stand it because for them the concept of sacrifice-of any kind-is inherent to the concept of work. The State is far away, hence if one wants to obtain anything it is always necessary to refer to local patronage, but when the State approaches to propose a grandiose project, then the old illusions are re­kindled.

The poor foster a hope of solving their problem, and the rich know with certainty that, even for only a period, their wealth will increase. The army of those who are neither rich nor poor tries to obtain the maximum utility from the occa­sion.

In this perspective the affair is proposed by international ca­pitalism, local forces are mobil­ised by national capitalism who, in agreement with the mafia structures guarantee the func­tioning of patronage and lay the foundations for its concrete re­alization. The exploited try to extract all the benefit possible. The blackmail of precarious wages, commercial affairs, in­crease in sales for shopkeepers, reach insupportable levels.

The consequences of this are very serious: the breaking up of the cultural homogenity which alone could have guaranteed the progressive development of the struggle and therefore also col­lective well-being; upheaval of the local market (rise in prices of goods of prime necessity, rents, abnormal development in circulation of money and goods); militarisation of the ter­ritory which could even go as far as the closure of wide areas and periodical or continued blanket control, to the presence of large contingents of the army and various police forces; im­possibility of exploiting even the minimal advantages guaran­teed by the same irrational ma­nagerial and commercial activi­ty; rationalism of the mafioso patrons on the Palermo model; presence of serious mafia con­flicts resulting in hundreds of murders; rise in criminal activ­ity (robberies, extortions, theft, violence of every kind); rational­isation and increase in heavy drug market (in the first place heroin and cocain); diffusion and mafia control of prostitu­tion.

Social peace

The "peace" of the bosses is built on arms, declared and po­tential conflicts, missile installa­tions, armies, police, military and mafia-type cultures. It is the peace of the graveyard. Along the road of capital's trans­formation from formal domin­ion to that of real dominion the contradictions typical of competitive capital are dimin­ishing, leaving the perspective of profit at any cost in favor of increased State intervention in the economic field. This in­tervention transforms the con­ditions of economic competi­tion, puts the profit objective into second place, rationalizes exploitation and centralizes domination which is camou­flaged by the democratic and representative charade.

The production of value is subordinated to the production of social peace. Consensus be­comes the principal industry around which the whole State machinery turns, exclusively di­rected towards guaranteeing in­ternational capitalism exploita­tion on a planetary level. The local problem passes into se­cond place in the perspective of the equilibrium and projects of the multinationals. Assistance is gradually taking over from the logic of production.

But the solving of capital­ism's contradictions, especially at a regional and local level, cannot be attained unless it goes beyond the conditions of present-day capitalism which are often backward. Social con­flicts are still acute and can even worsen as a consequence of the need to progressively ex­tend the project of real domin­ion to all parts of the world. The difficulties in the produc­tion of social peace are there­fore still great. And it is in this direction that the efforts of those struggling against domin­ation must address their efforts, against the State and against Ca­pital. Our class enemy has a vested interest in preparing for the final extinction of any op­position and revolutionary dis­sent but to do that it must im­prove the conditions of exploit­ation which at present cause, among other things, one death every hour and one wounded every five minutes in Italy alone. This improvement will rational­ize exploitation and therefore the class struggle will become more complex, but time is needed to put it into effect. In the meantime it will always be necessary for the bosses to oppose each other in the inter­national clash both on the eco­nomic and the narrow mili­tary level. This tragically leads to nuclear decisions, atomic war decisions, and decisions such as genocide (Lebanon, Afghanis­tan, San Salvador, etc) which lead back to the problem of the level of the class struggle.

In this way capitalism works towards war while speaking of peace. It builds, sells and uses traditional and atomic arms, but affirms that it does so be­cause there is no other way to safeguard social peace. The ex­ploited have no interest in this "peace" of the bosses.

Those responsible

Limiting ourselves to the construction of the missile base at Comiso it is possible to iden­tify a few basic responsibilities.

International capitalism and its national and local equi­valent have an interest in the armed defense of their projects of domination. The NATO, in as far as it is a specific organism created for this defense, is the armed gendarme who intervenes to put a brake on situations which are dangerous for capital and to prevent situations of so­cial conflict being created in perspective. To do this both military (coordination between different armies, new arma­ments, common exercises, de­ployment of military contin­gents), and political means are used.

In the political perspective the Christian Democrats are the party which has revealed itself to be incapable of undertaking the task of protecting the in­terests of international capital. For this reason, in the orbit of government, the Italian Social­ist Party has been inserted, and has increasingly become the party of the Americans and the most suitable political force at a technocratic and managerial level for doing what the Chris­tian Democrats -too tied to mafia patronage with a back­ward mentality-failed to do.

But the essential cover is sup­plied by the Communist Party. It is this party which takes charge of putting a brake on the rebellious impulse of the ex­ploited, organizing the recuper­ation of every form of dissent, breaking up the combativity of the land labourers through the formation of cooperatives and other swindles such as participation in factory profits, channeling the quite legitimate hopes of those who have never had anything to cause them to lose their conflictual content. We have seen clearly how, in the case of Comiso, the gigantic party machinery has been put into action to develop a formal and platonic dissent through marches, petitions, and hunger strikes, all to prevent a real and effective dissent taking place based on occupation, sabotage, attacks on the bosses' interests, the preparation of the means to prevent the construction of the base.

Another strata which bears a strong responsibility in the pro­ject of robbery and death which is being planned for Comiso is that of the shopkeepers. Their miserable interest in increasing sales, of seeing dollars circulat­ing instead of the usual few lire, has been exalted as a bene­fit which would be enjoyed by the collectivity of the whole area, while it is dramatically obvious that their personal and circumscribed interests would be heavily paid for by the poor if not other than by an immedi­ate and considerable rise in prices from rents to goods of primal necessity. There can be no doubt that one of the ob­stacles to be contended with in the struggle will be precisely the organization of the shopkeepers in the area.

Another category who bears responsibility is that of the small proprietor who conform­ed immediately to the indica­tions of struggle supplied by the CP, precisely because they are convinced that this strategy does not intend to do anything of any immediate real content. In fact the small proprietors, even those directly damaged by the construction of the base, want to prevent its construction, but this is subordinated to an eventual proposal of an indem­nity allowance by the organs responsible. In other words their struggle is linked to an un­certain condition: first they want to see how the State and the Region behave, only then will they really be available to struggle and could go back on this if a proposal by the respon­sible bodies, should become con­venient again.

But there is one last cate­gory which will bear a great res­ponsibility should it not res­pond coherently to the propos­als of the bearers of death: the category of workers, especially the labourers in the building sector, and even more the great number of unemployed who have deliberately been thrown into the gutter during the past few months in order to create a favorable disposition towards the base (bringing work and well-being!). The swindle is not difficult to understand. The consistency and duration of the work itself is practically mini­mal, the benefits to be drawn from it will have the same limited duration and soon be re­absorbed by the increase in prices, hence the solution would still be that of remaining unemployed or of leaving to swell emigration. One might just as well -impose one's own conditions right away, establish­ing the terms of the struggle immediately, making it im­possible for the bearers of death to continue their blackmail. It is necessary to be very clear on this subject. Struggling immedi­ately and efficiently, two re­sults could be obtained: the construction of the base would be blocked and the bosses and politicians be obliged to find a solution to the problem of un­employment with other initia­tives which will be realized more quickly the more effective the struggle against the base.

An organizational proposal

Our intervention in the reality of Comiso and the whole of the Ragusa area-in the towns of Ragusa, Vittoria, Modica, Ispica, Giarratana, Monterosso and the principal villages of the coastal region-which is still in course, can be divided into three phases and culminates with a proposal of self-managed organization.

The first phase has developed and is continuing to develop a direct contact with the differ­ent situations through meetings in the town squares and leaf­letting. The arguments chosen for the meetings and the draw­ing up of leaflets have been de­liberately simplified, avoiding very detailed and complicated analyses in order to center the argument on one point: the construction of the base can be prevented, on the condition that the means suitable for doing so are used; the means suggest­ed and put into practice by the Communist Party are not suit­able for preventing the con­struction of the base. This aim will not be reached through co­lossal but ineffective marches, courageous but isolated hunger strikes or the signing of peti­tions which will be rendered useless by the swindles of power. Such means are fictitious means which do not really in­tend to prevent the construction of the base. It is necessary to employ harder and more effec­tive ones. The bosses and their servants understand one lan­guage: that of fear. It is neces­sary therefore to frighten them, as has been done in the past. It is enough to think of the occu­pation of the land which has put an end to the injustices of the large landowners. It is there­fore necessary to have recourse to the means of occupation, sa­botage, hard frontal attack.

The second phase in our in­tervention is centered on the organization of the international anarchist conference which will take place in Comiso in the municipal sports ground on July 31 and August 1. It will be a fundamental occasion for the anarchist movement, along with the most sensitive area of the proletariat and lumpenproleta­riat, to go into the problem of the struggle against the base. From this conference should emerge indications of method, analytical indications and more general indications of struggles as the problem of Comiso runs the very great risk of isolation, i.e. of becoming closed as a specific struggle within a precise area of Sicily and within that kind of struggle which has as its point of reference anti­militarism, the struggle against war and against nuclear power. The passage to the generaliza­tion of interventions to other sectors, and therefore the discussion and examination of me­thods to be used in struggle against the base in Comiso can only be realized through an analytical and creative contribution of the movement as a whole.

The third phase is predomi­nantly organizational and does not necessarily follow the first two but can develop parallel to them. Our aim is to suggest the creation (and therefore to con­tribute to creating) self­-managed leagues against the Comiso base in the various local­ities, leagues which will be able to continue the struggle in first person, determining the characteristics of the conflict, decid­ed by the various localities, leagues which will be able to continue the struggle in first person. In our opinion, and bas­ing this on the results of the first phase of intervention, we are reasonably certain that a strong dissent exists in the various provinces of Ragusa and particularly in Comiso itself among the base of the CP concerning the methods of struggle suggested by this party. Moreover there also exists con­siderable dissent within the base of the Socialist Party who do not share the positions of Craxi and Lagorio, and this component is very strong espe­cially among the old farm hands. Moreover one can count on a non-political dissent which could, if opportunely sensitized

through a capillary intervention in the peripheries of the various towns, draw in the proleta­rian women in particular. In a struggle such as Comiso the function which this strata could develop should in no way be underestimated.

In conclusion, it appears that our efforts should be directed towards the birth and growth of this organizational structure with self-managed characterist­ics. The development of the struggle, which we foresee must necessarily address itself towards harder and more acute levels, would then have a solid base which would necessarily and autonomously be capable of operating the class selection which will make the positive result of the revolutionary en­gagement possible.

 

Steps and countersteps of a project of death

1 PSI Partito Socialista Italiana (Italian Socialist Party)

2 PCI Partito Comunista Italiana (Italian Communist Party) 3 PR Partito Radicale (Radical Party)

4 PDUP Partito di Unity Proletaria (Proletarian Unity Party)

5 CUDIP United Committee for Peace and Disarmament in Comiso

 

Organizational document of the self-managed leagues

 

Coordinamento delle Leghe autogestite contro la base missilisti­ca di Comiso-via Conte di Torinol-Comiso tel. 0932/966289

The decision to build a base for 112 American Cruise missiles at Comiso is part of the project of political and military equilibrium between the two great superpowers. The justification given to this deadly enter­prise is that it is necessary to counter pose the Russian atomic bases which are lined up against Europe with all possible means.

In fact it is not possible to put a brake on the criminal initiatives of the Soviet Union which as a superpower has betrayed the antimilitarist ideals of the international proletariat through just as criminal initiatives as those of the United States and their European servants. The increase in atomic bases does not defend from attacks from anywhere but constitutes a grave threat for the survival of the whole planet. The struggle must be directed towards preventing new bases (such as the one at Comiso) but also to destroying those already in existence, including the Russian ones and those of all the other States.

Comiso is destined to becoming the largest atomic missile base in Europe and the forerunner of other bases to be built in Spain, Germany, Great Britain and elsewhere. If we do not manage to prevent this criminal project we Sicilians shall be the first to have the responsibility of seeing in our land the largest atomic bomb plant in existence in Europe today.

This sad record will be accompanied by a series of other negative consequences which the arrival of an American army of occupation (15,000 US soldiers are expected) will cause immediately. Rise in prices, circulation of heavy drugs, increase in prostitution, militarisation of the territory, presence in our area of mafioso organizations to sell drugs to the Americans, control prostitution, and speculation on the contracts for work on the base. All this will mean an increase in violence (robberies, kidnappings, thefts) and restriction of individual freedom (controls, road blocks, militarized zones, etc).

The Socialist Party has shown itself to be a true servant of American interests, accepting the imposition of the USA and approving the order to build the base in Sicily through their defense minister LagoFio. The Christian Democrats have set to work right away to control building contracts for the hotels, apartments and restaurants which the Americans will need, and all the contracts for the construction of the base itself, through the mafia.

The Communist Party has given inefficient and discontinuous in­dications of struggle, showing themselves to be undecided, weak and in­efficient. Marches (even composed of 100,000 people), petitions, hunger strikes, impress no one.

The struggle against the construction of the Comiso missile base requires other means and methods.

 

THE SELF-MANAGED LEAGUE

 

A) CHARACTERISTICS

 

- Is an autonomous organization of struggle which gathers all those who really and sincerely intend to prevent the construction of the base.

- Is not a bureaucratic organization. It has no statutes, associative rules, constitutive documents, etc. It can also have no permanent meeting place.

- The individual Leagues spread over the territory are born spon­taneously and have as sole point of reference the general principles speci­fied here.

- The League is therefore an organism of struggle which refuses to give permanent delegation to its representatives and so denies a specific professionality of this representation.

- The League is constantly engaged in the, struggle against the con­struction of the base.

      - Each component of the League considers him/herself to be in struggle against the base and against the interests which want to realize it, recog­nizing that these interests are those of the exploiters and their servants.

- The League is not an organization of defense of the interests of this or that category of worker. It is therefore not a trade union or parasyn­dical structure.

- The propaganda activity of struggle of each individual League will preferably be co-ordinated with that of the other Leagues, while it re­mains that it is possible also for independent initiatives with local charac­teristics, but always with the objective of preventing the construction of the base and respecting the common principles.

- Adhesion to the League is the logical conclusion of whoever shares

neither the ineffective initiatives of those who are looking for a fictitious counterposition.

 

B) GENERAL PRINCIPLES

 

Permanent conflictuality

 

- The struggle against the construction of the base will have positive results only on condition that it be constant, uninterrupted and effective. A desultory, sporadic struggle with occasional interventions will end up a losing battle.

Self-management

 

The Leagues are self-managed, i.e. they do not depend on any organ­ization, party, trade union, patronage, etc. They receive no money apart from what comes from spontaneous subscriptions from the adherents to the Leagues themselves. From this autonomy derives their strength.

 

Attack

 

- The leagues refuse the road of mediation, pacification, sacrifice, accommodation, compromise. They support the need for attack against the boss interests which are realizing this criminal project.

 

C) METHODS

 

The involvement of the bosses and the American criminals is cons­tant. They take no time off. They mean to realize their project of death within a brief period. Their action spreads against us in a thousand ways: unemployment, increase in prices, intimidation and repression. To­morrow-should the base be built-this repression will reach the maxi­mum of insupportability and we shall be deprived of even the freedom to think. To constant repression the Leagues reply with permanent con­flictuality.

- All the work categories have an interest in preventing the base. The least wealthy categories but also those who are a little better off: even the shopkeepers who might imagine that they will cash in something ex­tra on the arrival of the Americans must also take into account the mafia extortion rackets which will be organized to their cost in the area. The same goes for the peasants who are threatened by expropriation and have the right to put their land to really productive use. The other methods which the Leagues employ is therefore the widening of the struggle front.

- Counterinformation on the real situation in Comiso is a further method of struggle. Posters, leaflets, newspapers, radio, television, etc, all these instruments must be addressed not only to the inhabitants of the area but also to the whole of Sicily; Italy and the world. Today Comiso and the problem of the base are at the center of world attention. Through this attention it is possible to defeat the criminals and their ser­vants with our struggle. But the management of information must be autonomous, i.e. must be against the information racket such as the local daily "La Sicilia" and the penny liners in its service.

- To reach the strata which are excluded from having knowledge of the problem: proletarian women, housewives, children, old people. All of them have the right to know the grave danger that is facing them and it is right that they be able to bring their own contribution to the social struggle which is developing against the construction of the base.

- To accept the equivocations of the chatter, putting off time, the promises made by power, means to give the criminals more time to realize their project. We must choose the immediate method of inter­vention and not put off to infinity what should be done right away.

- We should not forget that to be built the Comiso base requires our acceptance, the acceptance of all those who are working on it, those who allow the passage of materials with which it will be built. It is therefore necessary to widen the field of struggle, also to having the workers of these firms participate, because with their strikes and obstacles they will be able first to delay and secondly eventually prevent the construction of the base.

- The method which the Leagues consider final and adequate to really preventing the construction of the base is its occupation. But this occupation must be a conscious decision made by the Leagues and real­ized with all the means necessary at the opportune moment. We must reply to the foolhardiness and criminality of the American imperialists and their local servants with great responsibility and just as great decision.

- Each individual League meets as it thinks fit and the way it desires, with the frequency that it considers necessary and in the place it considers best fitted to its structure. Their initiatives are made known to the other Leagues-if this is considered necessary-through the coordinating body which, with this aim, draws up a periodical bulletin, where the decisions of the individual Leagues are published.

- Representatives of all the Leagues meet periodically at Comiso for a debate and exchange of views.

- The first duty of every League is intervention directed outwards to quantitively increase its growth.

- The League is a mass organization, therefore as such can assume the form of sectorial League, (farm labourers' League, peasants' League, shopkeepers' League, students' League, lorrydrivers' League, teachers'

League, etc), or the intersectorial form of league (city League, village League, zone League, interzonal League, etc).

The choice of the struggle to be conducted is periodically decided by the individual Leagues from general meetings. The most important de­cisions are made at the meetings of the representatives of the leagues.

 

D) PERSPECTIVES

 

- The Leagues are not corporative organisms. They do not have the perspective of defending the interests of a category, village or social group.

- They are mass structures aimed at preventing the base.

- Any attempt from within or without to channel the Leagues towards electoral objectives, power, patronage, trade unions, simple resis­tance, etc, must be prevented.

- Developing the various initiatives the Leagues can make their weight felt at the level of mass organisms, imposing the decision not to build the base on the structures of power.

 

E) THE CO-ORDINATING BODY

 

- The coordinating body of the self-managed Leagues has premises in Comiso, a technical office which serves as a point of reference for all the Leagues which have been constituted and for those in formation.

- The Coordinating body is able to give indications on the complexive situation of struggle, the interests which are developing around it, the bosses' objectives, the firms which have been given contracts, the arri­val of the American contingents of occupation, the firms which are work­ing to produce materials for the base, and the presence of the Americans in the area.

- It can also supply the instruments for widening the knowledge in Sicily, Italy and abroad on the situation in Comiso.

- It sees to bringing out a periodical bulletin with the various deci­sions and the various proposals of the individual Leagues, and on their formation and development.

- Organizes periodical meetings of the representatives of the various Leagues, meetings to be held at Comiso.

- It is worked on a rotation basis by the components of the various Leagues therefore is an organism formed and constituted by the League itself which needs to take charge of the costs relative to its functioning (rent, telephone, propaganda material, cost of survival of those in charge).

 

CONCLUSION

The self-managed League is an organism of struggle to prevent the construction of the missile base at Comiso. It is based on the principle of autonomy of the struggle and permanent conflictuality. The method it chooses is that of attack against the construction of the base and against the interests of those who are realizing it.

The decision to give precise indications of struggle to the Leagues is up to the general meeting of the Leagues' representatives, as well as the establishing of methods and whatever is necessary to prevent the con­struction of the missile base at Comiso.

 

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CRUISE MISSILE BASE AT COMISO CAN BE PREVENTED!

 

THE STRUGGLE MUST BEGIN FROM A SELF-MANAGED ORGA­NIZATION CREATED BY THE FARMHANDS, PEASANTS, WOR­KERS, HOUSEWIVES, AND STUDENTS THEMSELVES, OUTSIDE THE STRUCTURES OF THE PARTIES AND TRADE UNIONS

 

The construction of the missile base at Comiso, desired by American interests and supported by local capitalists, can still be blocked by the will and strength of all the workers and exploited.

The bosses' project of death can be stopped if we organize autono­mously and struggle also against the blackmail of wages that have been promised to the unemployed if they work for the construction of the base. By attacking the bosses to demand a different kind of work and re­fusing to work for their project of atomic destruction, various results could be obtained: the secret agreements of the parties and trade unions who with their excuse of providing jobs also support construction of the base, could be denounced; the employers would be obliged to give work in other sectors; and the terrible rise in prices which will follow the arrival of the Americans would be avoided.

The methods of struggle indicated by the Communist Party have shown themselves to be insufficient. The bosses are not intimidated by great marches for peace, the collection of signatures or symbolic hunger strikes. These means do not force them to block the construction of the base. For this reason many of those who participated in these struggles are aware that it is necessary to have recourse to other means-such as, for example, the occupation of the base and sabotage of the interests of the bosses involved in this project of death-means which can be decided and employed only from the direct and immediate will of all the workers and exploited.

An ideal point of reference for deciding what to do today can be found in the Sicilian revolutionary tradition. The great wave of Sicilian socialist leagues at the beginning of the century, the occupation of the land after the second World War, the events of Avola where peasants and farmhands were killed by police bullets: all these struggles, organized autonomously by the base of the workers, impel us to unite in SELF­MANAGED LEAGUES AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MISSILE BASE AT COMISO.

Ragusa anarchist group

"Rivolta e Liberta" anarchist group, Catania

July 23 1982

 

TO THE STUDENTS

 

While a new school year is beginning and from all sides you are being invited to study and engage yourselves to attain the instruction which should open up a road for you in life and give you work, the forces of death led by American imperialism and the local bosses and mafia are doing everything to transform your future into a perspective of desola­tion.

A depot of atomic bombs (Cruise missiles) is about to be installed in the Magliocco airport in Comiso. It is to be the largest missile base in Europe. If it is realized the Americans will have free way-with the ex­cuse of balancing the just as criminal Russian imperialism-to build bases everywhere. And young Sicilians will to their eternal shame have the sad record of having been the first to have accepted this project of death su­pinely, of not having been capable of doing anything to prevent it.

With the arrival of the army of occupation (15,000 American sol­diers are expected) speculations of the mafia will begin on housing, heavy drug pushing and prostitution. Bitter gifts from an invader who well knows the instruments of dominion and exploitation.

AND WHILE THE SCHOOL CLAIMS TO GIVE YOU A FUTURE MAKING YOU STUDY SUBJECTS WHICH OFTEN HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY, A BAND OF ASSASSINS AND PROFITEERS ARE MAKING THEMSELVES AT HOME. TOMORROW UNEMPLOY­MENT AND POVERTY, EMIGRATION AND EXPLOITATION AWAIT YOU, PLUS THE SHAME OF A FOREIGN INVADER IN OUR LAND.

LET US REBEL RIGHT AWAY AGAINST THIS PROJECT OF DEATH!

Let us organize in self-managed leagues of students against the con­struction of the base. The indications of the Communist Party and the various pacifists are not enough to defeat the Americans' and bosses' pro­jects. Only a self-managed mobilization far from the swindles of the par­ties and politicians will succeed.

To build a self-managed league of students- to which other workers, unemployed, teachers, peasants, farm workers, etc. can belong-does not require any bureaucratic procedure. The will and common agreement of all those who participate is enough.

THE OBJECTIVES ARE: TO CARRY OUT AN UNINTERRUPT­ED STRUGGLE AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BASE AND IMPOSE A HARD, CONCRETE STRUGGLE NOT BASED ON MARCHES, PETITIONS OR GRAND DECLARATIONS WITH NO BITE. THE BOSSES ARE NOT AFRAID OF WORDS, ONLY DEEDS STOP THEM AND CONVINCE THEM TO RECEDE.

Already there exists in Comiso a co-ordinating body of the self­-managed leagues against the construction of the base, in via Conte di Torino, 1, tel 966289. This is a technical point of reference where all the initiatives relative to the formation of leagues can turn.

The time has come to fight the monstrous project of death which the Americans and local bosses (their servants) are carrying out in Comiso. Let us unite now in self-managed leagues or it will be too late to stop the homicidal hand of whoever wants to constrain us to live with the prospect of atomic death.

LET US FORM SELF-MANAGED STUDENTS' LEAGUES

 

Saturday October 16 at 5.30pm in Piazza Umberto,

the Coordinamento will hold a public meeting on the theme: "The League as instrument of struggle against the missile base at Comiso".

Coordinamento leghe autogestite contro la base missilistica di Comiso-via Conte di Torino, 1, Comiso

TO THE SERVICES WORKERS!

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MISSILE BASE AT COMISO CAN BE PREVENTED!

While our wages are continually being attacked, prices continue to rise

While the government continues with its politic of patronage

While the parties of the left keep quiet or openly support the interests of pro­duction and the trade unions have now turned to being the mouthpieces of the exploiters.

 

AT COMISO, A BAND OF ASSASSINS AND MAFIOSI

are building the largest atomic missile base in Europe. The US Cruise missiles are being placed by American imperialist logic and are being situated in Italy by the traitors of the Socialist Party and the mafiosi of the Christian Democracy.

Instead of creating clean, productive work, instead of resolving the very ser­ious problem of unemployment and the rise in prices, we are constrained to emi­grate, reduced to silence with the alms of lay off money. In the meantime the bosses are building atomic missile bases to allow criminal American imperialism to make war with the just as criminal Russian imperialism, and so doing are putting our lives in danger.

With the arrival of 15-20,000 Americans the installation of the base will mean total military and police control of the area, whereby any form of dissent or pro­test (even wage demands) will be strangled at birth. Rents will increase (at the Villagio dei Gesuiti and Caucana they have already doubled) as well as all essential goods. The mafia are operating to organize the heavy drug traffic, heroin and cocaine (two out of every ten American soldiers use such drugs), prostitution, speculation in the building industry, etc.

These will be the most serious and immediate consequences-as well as the possibility of atomic death-which the Americans will bring as soon as these new conquerors disembark in our land.

The services workers can contribute to stopping this criminal project. To com­plete the base local bosses and the American army of occupation will require elec­tricity, telephones, water, street cleaning services, etc. It is up to us to decide whether to give them our collaboration or not, whether to render ourselves accom­plices to a murderous project, or to obstruct their work by uniting and attacking.

Workers have always been against militarist projects, war, the enrichment of the bosses. They have always had recourse to instruments of resistance and attack in order to obtain decent wages and a happier life.

In the face of the prospect of poverty, unemployment, emigration and death, let us rebel now, right away.

The villages in the Ragusa area are responding to the construction of the base of death by organizing in self-managed Leagues, autonomous organisms thus called according to the traditions of struggle of the Sicilian proletariat.

LET US ORGANIZE RIGHT AWAY IN SELF-MANAGED LEAGUES AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE BASE OF DEATH!

To form a League of workers-to which. also other workers, unemployed, students, farm labourers, etc, can belong-does not require any bureaucratic pro­cedure, the will and agreement of all the participants is enough. The principal aims the Leagues give themselves are: uninterrupted and hard struggle, destruction of the base and sabotage of work on the same. Marches, petitions and hunger strikes are not enough. The bosses do not fear such vague and general declarations at all. Only deeds stop them and make them retreat.

Let us unite in Leagues to attack and defeat the monstruous death project which the American assassins and local mafiosi bosses are trying to bring about.

LET US FORM SELF-MANAGED WORKERS' LEAGUES AGAINST THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MISSILE BASE OF DEATH.

Coordinamento Leghe Autogestite

contro la base missilistica di Comiso

October 8 1982

steps and countersteps of a project of death

1979

DECEMBER 6. In accord with the US the Cossiga government officially decides to house Euromissiles in Italy and has full support of the majority parties. A determining role is played by the PSI(1), totally subservient to American interests, authorizing the government to sign production agreements. The only parties to pronounce themselves against the missiles were the PCI2, who asked for a six months' suspension, the PR3, PDUP(4) and the independent left.

Of course the whole thing was hushed up and no one continued to show their dissent until­-

1981

SPRING. News begins to leak regarding the placing of the missiles. The site chosen is the Magliocco airport situated three kilometres from Comiso, a town of 28,000 in­habitants in south-east Sicily in the center of a vast plain cultivated with olive groves and vines and greenhouse produced crops. The area immediately surrounding the air­port (which has been abandoned since 1972) is also cultivated. The government justifies the choice of site by declaring the area almost deserted. The base is pro­grammed to house 112 atomic Cruise missiles of American fabrication (General Dy­namics).

Discussion and unrest in the Ragusa area in all the towns and villages which by their position would be immediately affected by the base.

In Ragusa anarchist comrades distribute leaflets, intervene in conferences and dedi­cate a great deal of space to the problem in their paper Sicilia Libertaria, denouncing the criminal decision of the Italian and American militarists, placing it in the context of the underdevelopment and colonialism of which Sicily is a victim.

AUGUST 8. Government officially declares that missiles are to be installed at Comiso. The construction of the base is to take six years and 200 billion lire to be spent by the NATO for the infrastructure.

Once again the politicians emerge on the subject­-

Regional president, Christian Democrat Mario d'Aquisto states that the region cannot cope with the aversion to the base already manifested by the local autonomies and social forces.

The mayor of Comiso, Salvatore Catalano (Socialist Party), declares, "My council and I will do everything we can to prevent Comiso becoming a nuclear firing range. We will leave no stone unturned to prevent the actuation of this decision." All declarations in the heat of the moment, they soon returned to positions con­forming to those of "democratic" parties.

The DC publishes a document accusing the PCI of pro-sovietism, saying that the NATO operation is one of defense.

Catalano the Socialist mayor says it is not possible to ignore Lagorio's (Socialist Party defense minister) guarantee of compensation for the base, although laments the lack of consultation at local level.

The PCI also redimension their declarations, asking for the base to be "frozen" while awaiting the outcome of the Geneva peace negotiations. SEPTEMBER

The only forces who remain in the field of struggle are the revolutionary comrades, among whom the Ragusa anarchists and the comrades of Lotta continua per il comunismo who form a Gruppo Promotore against the installation of the base. With leaflets and outdoor meetings they denounce the government's decision and the bro­ken promises of the parties who declared themselves to be against the base.

In Comiso the CUDIP(5) is formed, intending to express its dissent from the govern­ment's decision. The CUDIP has in Cagnes, ex PCI deputy, ex-mayor of Comiso, its major promoter and president.

On power's side the project is developed

The number of soldiers stationed at the airport is increased.

Lagorio pays an unexpected furtive visit to inspect his future creature of death.

The Americans, for their part, decide to increase their influence and presence in Sicilian soil at economic level in particular in the chemical industry. By forming the ENOX society, a fusion of the Italian State ENI with the American multinational Occidental, they gain control of the ANIC in Gela, Montedison at Syracuse and the Petrolchimica in Augusta, the three major petrol refineries in southern Italy. The Gruppo Promotore against the installation of the base publish a single issue Contro la Guerra (against war) and call for a national conference with the same theme.

OCTOBER 11. Gruppo Promotore hold national conference in Comiso with 2,000 comrades present from all over Italy. Intense debate starting from three themes intro­duced by promoting group: imperialism and war; militarization of territory; waste of environment due to construction of base.

OCTOBER 11. On the same day as the conference the CUDIP organize peace demonstration, changing date from October 4 to create confusion and boycotting of con­ference. Later Sicilia Libertaria reports in an article entitled ‘Between bocotting and militance’: "... the Conference differed from the other folkloristic demonstration of the afternoon organized and orchestrated in puppet-like fashion (majorettes, bands, town hall banners), march which took place backwards, i.e. left the airport (the objec­tive of struggle) to reach the town."

Following the march of October 11 Peace Committees spring up in Sicily and all over Italy on the model of the CUDIP with the aim of spreading the struggle against the base all over Italy. These committees, however, being the expression of the various parties and similar structures (PCI, PDUP, DP, PR, etc.) do not manage to go beyond analytical wrangling, peace marches and conferences.

OCTOBER, NOVEMBER. Many marches, imposing and significant for their number of participants (17 October-50,000 in Turin, 24 October-300,000 in Rome, 25 October-100,000 in Milan, 28 October-50,000 in Venice, 29 October-70,000 in Vicenza, 28 October-170,000 in Florence, 29 November-50,000 in Palermo), but not so for their content, a general request for "peace", and the suspension of the con­struction of the base at Comiso, and even less so for the indication and objectives of concrete action to stop the construction of this temple of death.

The logic of the PCI and its satellite parties is not that of giving precise objectives of struggle to prevent the construction of the base, their interests lies rather in mobilis­ing as many people as possible so as to have as much weight as possible at parliamen­tary level.

The need to develop and concentrate the struggle in Comiso and other places where imperialism is trying to put its plans into effect and to give oneself precise objectives becomes the subject of wide debate in the revolutionary movement and within the Gruppo Promotore.

The comrades of Lotta continua per il comunismo maintain that it is necessary to break the social pact in the places of arms production, energy and informatics, mak­ing the objective that of working to create a mass movement of antagonism in Italy.

The Ragusa anarchist comrades, not agreeing with this analysis, saw instead in Comiso the focal point of the struggle as point of departure for successive stages and more advanced perspectives.

For the anarchists in Catania on the contrary the struggle at Comiso cannot be con­sidered a "political battle". The conflict assumes, from the beginning, a social and re­volutionary nature and must address itself immediately towards solutions-in the short and medium term-of an insurrectional nature. They criticize the Gruppo Pro­motore for having lost themselves in great specialized analyses on imperialism and of not having made a class analysis regarding the problem of the missile base. The methodology of struggle is therefore that of attack, and the objectives to strike are those responsible for the decisions concerning the installation of the base and the structures of Ameri­can interests in Sicily, national and international capital. DECEMBER

The contradictions within the revolutionary movement are great and there is a split in the Gruppo Promotore

1982

FEBRUARY 13. NATO meeting in Brussels where news leaks out that the order to fire the missiles could only be given by the American president, and that Italy would only have the right to a "political veto". Moreover it was learned that the missiles are to be transferred every three months to other areas of Sicily, and in the case of conflict the lorries on which the launching ramps are placed will be dispersed within a range of 350 km. Expected cost of the base doubles from the 200 billion lire stated in August to 400 billion.

MARCH 5. News comes out that the plane which exploded in flight on June 27 1980 where 81 people were killed had been struck by a missile fired by American naval forces during an exercise in the Ustica area.

MARCH 26. Work begins on construction of the base. Contracts given to Ragusa firm, ICI. Preparations are made to demolish the old structures of the Magliocco airport, and for this receives 825 million lire,

APRIL 4. Sicilian peace committees, after long period of inactivity, organize another peace march in Comiso. It is obvious that the parties within the committee have no intention of directing the spontaneous will to struggle and continue to operate as a safety valve, again organizing the march to start off from the airport and walk away from it. 80,000 people participate in the demonstration. While the opposition to the base does does-not find the means to concretize its will to struggle, squeezed between the instrumentalisation of the PCI and hangers on and the inadequacies of the revolutionary movement which does not know how to come out of its shell into the social field of struggle with actions and indications, power continues its work.

APRIL 4. Another criminal episode due to militarization takes place. The internal flight Milan-Palermo is almost hit by a missile which explodes 2 miles from it. There were 115 passengers aboard, and the event took place in the same airspace, between Ustica and Ponza, as the previous "accident". This time there is a NATO exercise in course, Distant Drum 81.

JUNE 4. In same airspace a plane carrying 100 passengers is obliged to turn back be­cause of unknown fighters crossing its flight. Again there is a NATO sixth fleet operation in course. Following numerous complaints American high officials explain the operation is due to end 26.6.82 and that perhaps it would be better to suspend all flights in the zone of exercise until then. At the same time the Americans intensify their military occupation of Sicilian soil. The population of Pantelleria denounce the presence of about 300 American soldiers in the area and news leaks out that a project exists to build a NATO base similar to the one intended for Comiso also in that area. The old barracks of the Magliocco airport are to be rebuilt to house the first thou­sand American soldiers.

JUNE 4. Defence minister Lagorio, supreme Architect of the atomic armament pro­ject, sends invitations to participate in the contest for contracts for the base to 13 Sicilian firms, prevalently Catanese; Ceap-Immobiliare Sicilians, Ciem, Craci, Con­dotte-Buscemi, Costanzo, Compagno, Mario-Rendo-Guardiani, Ugo Rendi, Pizzarotti Soltedile; Mec-lpresit; Saisep; Ici-Provera e Carassi; Ivrato-Lodigiani. Most of these firms have strong links with the Catania and Palermo mafia and some of these con­tractors have since been charged with fraud and have arrest warrants pending. On the front of the struggle against the base, following the split within the Gruppo Promotore, the comrades of Ragusa anarchist group and the anarchist group Rivolta e Liberta of Catania engage themselves in working to coagulate the mass antagonism towards the base, giving the clear indication that the only way to stop it being built is for the whole population to occupy the site, and that now is the time to organize with that aim in view.

JUNE/JULY

A series of outdoor meetings are held in Comiso and the fifteen or so surrounding towns and villages. Counterinformation regarding the effects of the base was distributed in the form of leaflets, photographic exhibitions, bookstalls accompanying the meetings. The response was positive, and the comrades realized that their analyses encountered the true feelings of a very large part of the population, the part who have nothing to gain and everything to lose by the presence of the base and its side collateral effects. Acting on the indications which emerged from the population, the comrades took it upon themselves to suggest self managed Leagues as the optimal organizational form to prepare for the occupation and destruction of the base, based on a project of per­manent conflictuality and hard direct struggle.

JULY 26. Pacifist camp opens in Vittoria, 6 kilometres from Comiso.

JULY 27. Pacifists stage sit in, in front of the airport.

JULY 31/AUGUST 1. International anarchist conference in municipal sports ground of Comiso. About 200 comrades were present and various groups undertook to carry the Comiso struggle to their own reality, to publish bulletins regarding the struggle against the base, and to support the struggle by subscriptions. Sunday August 1, meeting in evening in Piazza Fonte Diana, Comiso, attended by about 150 comrades and twice as many local workers and unemployed. The effects which the installation of the missile base would have on the local population were underlined by comrade Alfredo Bonanno who underlined that the only way to prevent this was by organizing to take direct action against it. Anarchist comrade Pippo Scarso tore up his call up card and made a speech as to why he was refusing to do military service. The meeting concluded with a demonstration from the town center to the airport, the first to get the direc­tion right, even if only symbolically at this point.

AUGUST 7: On the anniversary of the massacre of Hiroshima, the activities of the international peace camp (debates, round tables, sit-in, etc) culminate in the building of a wall of cardboard boxes in front of the entrance to the Magliocco airport. SEPTEMBER 1. Demonstration of 200 pacifists and peace happening in front of the airport with prayers and religious rites songs and music.

SEPTEMBER 8. Archbishop Rizzo of Ragusa goes to talk to pacifists at peace camp. SEPTEMBER 11: In Comiso, in via Conte di Torino, 1, the Coordinamento delle Leghe Autogestite contro la base missilistica di Comiso is opened, a technical office and point of reference for the Leagues which are beginning to form in the area. SEPTEMBER 13: The mafia give signs of having reached the area when a bomb ex­plodes in a sawmill in Vittoria with extortion threats.

SEPTEMBER 14/15: The two remaining tents at the peace camp are slashed as act of provocation by local interests in favor of the base.. The camp is abandoned two days later due to bad weather conditions. Pacifist conscientious objector Turi Vaccari reaches 23rd day of hunger strike against the base. The mayor of Comiso, Catalano, forbids the placing of posters in the piazza Fonte Diana where Turi is fasting.

SEPTEMBER 22. The militarization of Sicilian territory continues with the eviction of 91 peasants and their families from Gangi, a small town in the Palermo region. The reason given for the evictions was that the area is to become a permanent firing range. SEPTEMBER 27. Turi Vaccaro reaches 35th day of hunger strike with the aim of making the Pope come to Comiso to pronounce himself against the missiles. Pacifists hold regional meeting to discuss future activities. Antimilitarist demonstration announced for Christmas.

The Coordinamento continue their work at capillary level in the area with about 20 open air meetings, talking to the proletarian women in their homes, the students in the schools, the unemployed at the labour exchanges.

SEPTEMBER 28. On reading the leaflet handed out by comrades of the Coordina­mento one of the schools in Vittoria refused to enter when the bell rang and instead held a spontaneous assembly in one of the town squares to discuss the problem of the missile base. Some of the students formed a League, and two weeks later called all the six secondary schools of Vittoria out on strike and held a huge meeting (over 1,000 present).