Val Susa: A summary of the struggle and an update on the imprisoned comrades (Italy)

A summary of the events in Val Susa
Various Italian governments have been trying to carry out the TAV (high speed railway) project for more than twenty years. In particular, what politicians and economic lobbies want to achieve is the construction of a high speed railway track linking Turin to Lyon, which will imply the ruin of one of the most beautiful mountain areas of the country, the Susa valley (Piedmont, northern Italy).
Since the early nineties, the people of the Val Susa valley have been opposing this project with all possible means. In fact, not only will the TAV destroy the natural beauty of the valley, its water sources and fauna but it will also imply the transformation of the area into an open construction yard for years on end, with further devastating consequences for the environment. While the propaganda of the regime has always stressed that the TAV is of paramount importance for economic development and therefore for the quality of people’s lives, the inhabitants of the Susa valley know very well that the new high speed trains are totally useless to their lives or to the ‘development’ of the valley. Among other things, to travel on such trains will be so expensive that only the very rich will be able to afford the cost. It is therefore pretty obvious that the TAV project will only benefit the interests of capital, increasing the speed of deadly businesses and enhancing only the development of a ‘civilization’ based on profits and exploitation.
The people of the valley and a great number of comrades all over the country have always showed their firm determination to stop this nth capitalist plan of devastation.
Countless of actions of sabotage against the machinery of the TAV have been carried out throughout all these years, small and big effective actions which have caused real disruption on the capitalist way of functioning and which needed no grandiose words of claim. Not to mention the numerous demos, blockages, occupation of yards that have characterized this relentless and tenacious struggle.
However, the economic and political interests at stake in the TAV are far too important for power. It’s not just the construction of a railway line that will speed up businesses. It’s also yet another way to impose conditions of exploitation and slavery, i.e. the very basis on which capital is founded and reproduces itself to the detriment of freedom, the environment and all that we care most.
This is why in 1998 a judiciary frame-up was orchestrated against anarchist comrades Edoardo Baleno, Soledad Rosas and Silvano Pellissero, all accused of belonging to a non existent subversive organization, which according to the judiciary was responsible for a great number of attacks on the TAV. Power needed a scapegoat to justify the existence of so many acts of sabotage whose authors couldn’t be identified.
Edoardo and Sole died while in detention. The official version of the events says that they committed suicide but we know even too well that these two comrades were murdered by the judges who accused them, the jailers who kept them locked up and the infamous and disgusting press campaign unleashed against them since the first day of their arrest.
It would be impossible to list here all the episodes of the struggle against the TAV.
For the moment we just mention the latest events such as the days of resistance against the occupation troops of the government in Val Susa (June and July 2011), the mass arrest of those who took part to those days of resistance (January 2012) and the attempt by the forces of order to murder Luca, a comrade who had climbed a pylon in Baita Clarea trying to block the ongoing military operation that also resulted in the expropriation of the comrade’s land (February 2012). Luca is still recovering in hospital.
As happened with Sole, Baleno and Silvano, solidarity with Luca and all those hit by repression while struggling against the TAV has expressed itself with force all over Italy and beyond. In this case too, it would be impossible to mention all the actions, demos, disruptions, etc that are still taking place in solidarity with Luca, the arrested comrades and the Val Susa struggle.
So we conclude this brief summary with the last update on the arrests of 26th January 2012.
Of the six comrades still detained in jail, Luca and Giorgio were released (May 2012) and are now under house arrest.
The comrades who are still being held in prison are:
Juan Antonio Sorroche Fernandez – Via Beccaria 13 – Spini di Gardolo – 38014 Trento – Italy.
Alessio Del Sordo – Lorusso Cotugno – Via Pianezza 300 – 10151 – Torino – Italy.
Maurizio Ferrari – Marcelo Damian Jara Marin – San Vittore – Piazza Filangeri 2 – 20123 – Milano – Italy.
THE VAL SUSA STRUGGLE CONTINUES
FREEDOM FOR ALL


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