Italy: letter from anarchist prisoner Massimo Leonardi

Thu, 18 Dec 2003


I was arrested at dawn on the 18th of October, 2003. First searched, then arrested. I was brought to the Regina Coeli prison in Rome where I was kept in isolation for a week. The charge against me is of violence against a carabiniere (special police officer) who had infiltrated the march-mobilization on 4th October in Rome on the occasion of the preparatory inter-governmental meeting for the signing of the European constitution. The evidence of my participation in the beating is supposed to be two photos taken by some infamous jackal, a professional peeping-tom. During the search, they confiscated some clothes which were held to be interesting, with the aim of comparing them to the clothes worn by the people photographed in the act of the attack.


The operation is under the control of the state investigator Vitello together with the Digos (special police unit) and Ros (special carabinieri unit) from Rome, working with the Viterbo Ros who for years have been "producing" accusations against me. The results of the search: trousers, shoes, bandana, martial arts equipment, fragments of a clothes peg, low-voltage lightbulbs, used batteries, work diary.


Up to now, this has been enough to validate my arrest. On 5th November the Tribunal of Liberty (a contradiction in terms) rejected a request for release from prison.


PROTECT DIGNITY IDENTITY, I HAVE NOTHING TO SELL


I am an anarchist, a revolutionary, and anti-authoritarian, in ideas and in practice. Like many others I work in various environments: solidarity with prisoners, anti-prison work, work in the social struggles, and I am active in my area with other comrades.


I live, love, hate, like all human beings.


In the custody order, I am described as "an individual with a violent personality in any situation, inclined to manifestations of violence and intolerance towards the institutions of state (...) who has recourse to urban guerrilla warfare". Where is the connection between the beating up of an infiltrator and the insinuation that I am responsible or at least linked to the recent parcel bombs? Because this is what the TV and newspapers have concentrated on!


Maybe a clothes peg, a common video case (lifted from a pile of other cases, some full, some empty) and some lightbulbs can be classified as objects of interest in connection with an investigation on parcel bombs? Who does not have these in their homes? Or is it maybe that in years of intimidatory searches, the plain-clothes pigs have never found anything valid? And as a result of their torment about this, they waited for the influential head of the Digos and an idiot public prosecutor in order to cage me ... shame on you, cretins!



Or maybe it was the Ros who put their (pigs') feet in it??


Maybe someone has forgotten that General Ganzer, at present under investigation together with other officers for the falsification and "production" of evidence and for "association with the aim of commiting acts of delinquency", still continues to pull the strings of anti-terrorism?



...Shame on you, bastards!



A LID FOR MANY POTS



It is, therefore, an arrest designed to give an example. A name and a face to show everyone. Tomorrow it will be someone else's turn.



NEITHER GUILTY NOR INNOCENT



Innocence and guilt: two concepts which are dear to the administrators of justice of the State. Empty words, fathered by the dominant class.



I am an anarchist, hostile to authority, to poverty, to exploitation, to privilege, to capitalist wars which bring hunger and death, to the subjugation of peoples who seek self-determination.



I ONLY KNOW THAT I AM RIGHT, AS THERE IS NO GOOD OR JUSTICE OTHER THAN ME


Should those who are enamoured of bourgeois right be able to demonstrate that it was me who gave a badly-disguised imbecile a lesson, well, I'll just have to accept my responsibilities. At the same time, though, the bourgeois reactionary will have to assume his responsibilities as the servant of Capital, for those comrades who are arrested and beaten and for the misery and repression of the proletarian class.



NOT A POLITICAL PRISONER



Hunger, exploitation and repression are the causes of politics. Pension reform - a slap in the face for all those who have slaved for a lifetime. And what about the insult to those who work with asbestos? Either we fire you or you work for a kick in the arse and not a penny in your pocket.



And what about the bombardment-murder of thousands of Iraqis following the occupation of their land? And the mass-murder of the Palestinians? And the deaths of Russian miners? And the mass arrests of football fans at the stadiums? And the migrants who die at sea? And the "legitimately" beaten comrades? Legal crap. The policies of Capital.



With all this going on, I say that every prisoner is a political prisoner. Every prisoner is the victim of the class which deprives him or her or his or her liberty and dignity. People of the same cut who are locked up in order to protect the bourgeoisie from wherever.


EXISTING PRISON



The reality is that repression manifests itself in a more or less aggressive way, depending on the attack which is being directed and the social situation.


The workers pay with temporarization and programmed deaths in the workplace. The rebels pay with prison and/or death on the battlefield. Migrants pay with concentration camps. All of society is repression. Prison on the outside, more total prison on the inside. And those who pay the price are the migrant proletarians, the workers who are fighting against the choices of the neo-corporative restructuration of the bourgeois unions, the sectors who work in defence of the exploited class.


ISOLATION, PART I



Revolutionaries are having to serve out isolation as a result of defamatory media-terrorist campaigns and a low level of involvement in the struggles of the exploited. Absent, excluded from the formalized processes of proletarian organizations and from the conflicts themselves. Ideological self-importance? Perhaps.



Difficulty in intervening because of the miserable demands which come from the world of production? Probably. The work is hard: not one step backwards.


The proletariat is either revolutionary or it is nothing!


DON'T FOLLOW THE BANDWAGON


We have to climb steep roads, we have to make more of an impact through effective intervention, avoid the "working to demo deadlines" (street demos are not the be all and end all of everything), and work methodically and from the heart and come out of the invisible ghetto.


In this way we will no longer be just a "militant body" or "political class" ... but a social body within the exploited masses - like fish in water!



THE REVOLUTION IS NOT A GALA LUNCH



Being revolutionary means believing that this society is old and putrefying and that only a social revolution of an anti-authoritarian nature can lift the capitalist yoke from humanity's shoulders. We are not saving anything of this world...


"The most beautiful words can only be written on a blank page..."



OUR ENEMY IS THE ENEMY OF THE EXPLOITED CLASSES



Our enemy is Capital: the cause of imperialist wars for geopolitical control and responsible for the counter-revolutionary project of neo-corporative economic and social re-modelling to reform the State.


Our road is the class struggle, not in the politicking and specializationism, but side by side with individuals and collectives in struggle, side by side with the Arab masses who, together, constitute the natural ally of the West's exploited. Capital has neither a heart or a soul. It must be fought day by day, fighting against sexism, racism and all authority, through the practice of direct action, of wildcat strikes, of interference with production and "services".



ISOLATION, PART II


This, then, is the infamous State vendetta: locked up, from 6 to 8 I undergo body searches every day and 2 to 3 cell searches a week, they give me "special" treatment which in substance is in effect a form of torture designed to weaken me emotively and psychologically.



This treatment has got to stop now!



HAVING SAID THAT:



Onwards, proud and brave comrades ... sunny days are close at hand!



* Onwards always for the freedom of each and every one
* Death to those who stand in the way of the exploited and the path to freedom (N. Makhno)
* Honour and dignity for all comrades who fight against Capital
* For self-defence, resistance and direct action




Massimo Leonardi,
Sardinian anarchist prisoner,
Rebibbia Prison, December 2003.


SUPPORT YOUR COMRADES IN PRISON!


-Massimo Leonardi, Carcere di Rebibbia, via Majetti 70, 00156 Roma.


On 3rd December, another comrade, Marco, was arrested with the charge of having assisted Massimo in the beating up of the cop who infiltrated the march in 4th October in Rome.


-Marco Ferruzzi, Carcere di Regina Coeli, via della Lungara 29, 00165 Roma.


[translation by nmcn/ainfos]