ABSTRACT: On 12 May 1977 in Rome, the police charge thousands of demonstrators who are participating in a nonviolent demonstration organized by the Radical Party for the collection of signatures on the "8 referendums against the regime" (abrogation of the Concordat, of military courts, of the crimes of opinion contained in the penal Code, of parts of the law on mental institutions, of the law that grants special powers to the police as regards arrests, searches, wiretapping, of the law that allots consistent public funds to the parties, of the "committee of inquiry" - a special "court" formed by parliamentarians for the preventive judgment on crimes committed by ministers). A young woman, Giorgiana Masi, is shot to death, and many other demonstrators are injured. The Minister of the Interior denies the police made use of firearms, but the Radical Party, thanks to a tape which shows a police agent repeatedly shooting on the crowd and hundreds of photographs showing armed agents "disguised" as extreme Left ext

remists, that the fact represented a deliberate attempt to carry out a massacre.

In this article, which was refused by "Il Corriere della Sera" (1) and was then published by Lotta Continua (2), Marco Pannella denounces the violent and authoritarian plan behind this type of provocations.

(Article refused by Il Corriere della Sera and published by Lotta Continua - May 1977 from "Marco Pannella - Works and Speeches - 1959-1980", Gammalibri, January 1982).

"Passive resistance", states an article on Saturday's issue of Il Corriere della Sera, "is commendable when it comes to defending major principles, far less if the stake is a popular festival in Piazza Navona, and the radicals underestimated the occasion they were offering the violent ones".

The deformed interpretation of facts, in good or bad faith, their inaccurate or fraudulent transcription, have always represented - and still represent - the principal weapons used by the murderers - instigators and authors - of the strategy of terrorist attacks and of destabilization. Today the facts say that on 12 May in Rome, with the assassination of Giorgiana Masi and the injuruing of many other people, a massacre was attempted in cold blood; from a purely juridical viewpoint, the massacre was achieved. Therefore we will file a charge of massacre against the responsibles in the coming days and until justice is made. This time we shall not wait.

Already, as for the massacres of Brescia, Peteano and Trento, attempts are being made to subordinate witnesses in prisons and police headquarters. Evidence is being tampered with, public and official steps are being taken by the Minister of the Interior to state falsehoods, to intimidate photographers and journalists, to injure them with far mor serious and conclusive blows than they received in the streets of Rome, whike they were doing their job, on 12 May. For two months, the Minister of the Interior has been personally covering, versus Parliament and its duties, the existence and the illegitimate use of armed troublemakers, charged with the task of shooting in every direction, amid the police and passersby; a consistent foreshadowing of the semi-official "bands" which operate in Brazil, Argentina and in other countries for the State. The Minister of the Interior, therefore, affirms, privileges and upholds violence and its deadly logic. He mobilizes to suspend the civil rights of an entire city, he orders

brutal aggressions on defenceless passersby and thousands of peaceful and nonviolent men and women who go to listen music and sign the referendums, responding not only to our appeal, but also to that of dozens of politicians, socialist parliamentarians, democrats and prestigious men of culture.

He occupies militarily half of the historical centre, he orders to beat up parliamentarians, he calls young carabinieri from the country who have been brainwashed ad hoc, as he doesn't trust agents suspected of belonging to unions, he orders to shoot thousands of tear gas and toxic bombs and dozens of firearms, he prevents the deflux of citizens who have been casually aggregated by road blocks which the public force has started to prepare as soon as 2:00 p.m. of that day; everywhere he tries to make a conflict break out, until obviously there is a victim; by miracle, there is a single victim, Giorgiana Masi. She had come to sign, and they murdered her.

All this against the Radical Party, the promoter of the peaceful meeting, in the name of a possible violent speculation on the part of other groups, that is, against a party which, aggressed for twenty years with arrests and violences of all kinds, has always been capable fo refusing to respond with violence and prevent them from turning into disorder and immediate reaction of personal defence.

But on the following day, on 13 May, the same minister in Rome authorizes processions and public assemblies everywhere, which are certainly not organized (and understandably so) in a spirit of nonviolence, and encourages today's demonstrations. He simply "controls" them from a distance, hoping perhaps in the use of the "P38" guns, no longer fearing the use of pencils and music notes, which he considers terrible weapons of us radicals. The result has been obtained.

The provocation of suspending the constitutional rights of demonstration in Rome, for a long period, maintained in contrast with the unanimous negative opinion of all democratic parties and labour unions, used to trigger violence against the defenceless and peaceful people and to criminalize, morally at least, the only party of nonviolence in Italy, has reached its aim; the tension and the violence which might have been restrained now re-explode all over Italy. And the minister of the interior will once again flood the country, the RAI and the newspapers with appeals and warnings, as some sort of sheriff, and the DC will be able to ask for more fascist laws. This is but a part of the mosaic of the criminal behaviour of the authority which we have been trying to unveil and made know to the public opinion by means of hunger strikes and signatures against all forms of violence suffered. Practically alone, supported only by the companions whom the country owes that ounce of truth it knows on the terrorist attack

s which were allegedly organized by the various Pinelli, Valpreda (3), anarchists, Lotta Continua, radicals: the truth is they were organized by others.

But I must conclude. The space is short as the occasion rare. The facts of 12 May have proved we were right. With the direct violence of the authority there impends that violent and authoritarian plan which has already lead to the imprisonment and indictment of the general commanders of the security services, that is, of the Armed Forces of the Republic, the colonelss of the "Rosa dei venti", the highest "authorities" of Trento and other exponents of the regime. Day after day, the perimeter of civil liberties shrinks with the alibi of the terrorist attacks which are deliberately caused, and with the alibi provided by the despair and fanaticism which ensue from them, which are often equally murderous.

The Radicals where right, on 12 May, also for another reason, and it is the one we fear most today. We say that for six hours, the orders given to the police forces have caused aggressions only on the part of the police, and that only very rarely have there been episodes of nonviolent defence, and always clearly defensive. Clearly, there were "violent" persons among the thousands and thousands of peaceful citizens, but their strategy that afternoon was irreproachable and honest.

They wanted our demonstration to carry on without accidents of any kind, in order to increase the possibilities of a success, if not an authorization, for the demonstrations of 19 May. I saw the extreme left extremists, they were calming things down, trying to avoid the conflict.

At this point we have unattackable evidence of the fact that the thugs who were shooting also with non-regulation weapons, mixing with the demonstrators, instigating them, were at the orders of the police of Rome and its officers.

We were right. On 12 May, Rome was preparing to give a magnificent demonstration of serenity, responsibility, lay and alternative force, and thus contribute to a new, calmer atmosphere. We could have peacefully collected thousands and thousands of signatures against the regime for the referendums. They knew we had seen right. They behaved as a consequence, laying Rome waste.

Giorgiana is dead: she didn't sign. Now let us all sign, for her too, and against her murderers.

Translator's note

(1) Il Corriere della Sera: Italian daily newspaper established in Milan in 1876.

(2) Lotta Continua: movement of the Italian extraparliamentary Left, established in Turin in 1969. In 1971 it created a homonymous newspaper.

(3) Pinelli and Valpreda: both were accused of being involved in the first serious terrorist attack of 12 December 1969 in Milan in a bank. Pinelli died in mysterious circumstances, Valpreda was arrested and kept in prison for several years without being tried. He was later released after the terms of preventive custody expired and acquitted.