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Giacomo Marchetti – Rete dei Comunisti
Today is a day of mobilisation against the war. Demonstrations will be held in various cities.
In Rome, at 11 o’clock in the morning, at Largo Argentina, a presidium for ‘an anti-militarist and anti-war June 2nd’, with clear words: ‘Stop sending arms, Italy out of NATO, No to the war economy, Yes to the welfare state’.
An appointment, the Capitoline one, promoted by the Roman Assembly Against the War.
The sense of the initiative is well explained by the announcement: ‘In this context that sees Italy fully involved in the escalation of war, we cannot accept a parade of support for the conflict and the transformation of the country into a Republic founded on war. The rejection of this passes through the construction of international relations based on cooperation and solidarity, the rejection of any Nazi-fascist regurgitation and putting work back at the centre of the country’s interests’.
An initiative that is explicitly ‘in connection with the other anti-war events in the rest of the country’.
In Genoa, the Assembly Against All Wars, which took its first steps about a month ago, has promoted a demonstration that will start at 2 p.m. from the Maritime Station and head towards the west, passing through the popular district of San Pier D’Arena.
A procession that will see the participation of realities from all over Liguria, in addition to those from the Superba, and that will head towards a neighbourhood adjacent to the port that is increasingly characterised by environmental and military servitudes.
The current administration has decided to expand the chemical warehouses, which will cover an area of 77 thousand square metres, transporting 400 thousand tonnes of chemicals a year; this will translate into 30 more trucks a day in an area already characterised by traffic congestion and pollution from ships, also due to the lack of electrification of the docks.
And the docks are now an established transit for weapons devices, including large quantities of explosives, making the port a ‘time bomb’ that the city establishment pretends to ignore.
Again, the rally’s watchwords are clear: ‘no war between peoples, no peace for those who sell death’. And they point the finger at the military-industrial complex in the city – in particular the Finmeccanica Group’s Leonardo (controlled by the state) – and the arms traffic in Genoa’s port of call, which for years has been at the centre of a courageous struggle by a fierce group of dockworkers and activists against the Saudi Bahri line that once a month calls at Genoa, transporting arms for the Yemeni conflict.
The appeal makes it clear how rearmament and conflict are a godsend for the industry of death.
“Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Leonardo S.p.a. (Europe’s third-largest defence company by turnover) has risen on the stock exchange by around 45 per cent, from €6.4 per share (23 February) to €9.3 (4 April).”
The most important mobilisation of the day to say ‘No to the military base, neither in Coltano nor elsewhere’ will be held in Pisa from 2.30 p.m., with a national demonstration that has been mounting for weeks.
At the centre of the mobilisation is this project, which is highlighted by the appeal’s incipit: ‘190 million of public money for a new military base, 73 hectares of land, inside a natural park, taken away from the community. 440,000 cubic metres of concrete to build runways, terraced houses for the soldiers of the Tuscania regiment, swimming pools, gyms, and other benefits. A new base in an already militarised territory that is becoming a strategic hub of war, decided secretly in institutional rooms that are increasingly distant from our needs’.
It will be a long procession, with meticulous preparation, which has received many adhesions and will see coaches leaving from different cities (Florence, Massa, Prato, Turin, Rome, Bologna and Milan). organised by the No Base Movement – Neither in Coltano nor elsewhere that has been created to oppose this umpteenth military servitude of the territory, which held its press conference precisely at the Pisa military airport.
Rome, Genoa and above all Pisa will be three important appointments, built to have the widest possible participation, on clear watchwords that will give expression to that majority part of the population that is against war and suffers its consequences every day.
From the annual report of the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignazio Visco, and from Draghi’s words, it is clear what the future, already present, awaits us.
It was Il Sole 24 Ore that highlighted in its headline on the first page what Visco’s recipe is: ‘No to the price-salary run-up and new debt’, while Draghi boasts of a new ‘Social Pact’, like that of the Ciampi government in 1993, which would blunt social surrender despite soaring prices and the need to invest in a broken welfare state.
Draghi calls for ‘unions, companies and government to work together’ in a new season of concerted austerity war.
The Unione Sindacale di Base, which has been the protagonist of two important episodes of anti-militarist struggle in Pisa and Genoa in recent months and which promoted the 22 April strike in the private sector with the watchwords ‘Down with weapons, up with wages’, wrote a very tough communiqué on 1 June entitled ‘Overturn the table. Drive out the Draghi government’ in which it put these aspects and the complicity of the confederal trade unionism of the CGIL, CISL and UIL leadership
“It is time to overturn the table,” writes USB, “to oust Draghi and his government, it is time for a strong season, broad and united, of struggles and strikes and mobilisations, capable of bringing our strength and anger before the government palaces.
That strength and that anger that we have already seen in nuce on 22 April in Rome, where together with the workers the most conscious part of those young generations without a future that OSA and Cambiare Rotta are organising went on strike and demonstrated, and which will be present in Rome, Genoa and Pisa with the watchwords: ‘From the neighbourhoods, the schools and the universities. LET’S BLOCK THE CHAIN OF WAR’.
