ALMOST EXACTLY five years ago, the people of Milan experienced the ame shock, horror and panic as the people of Birmingham.
A bomb had exploded, blowing 16 people to pieces and crippling dozens more. It was just us indiscriminate as the Birmingham pub bomb, for those who died were everyday customers at the Bank of Agriculture in the city centre.
But the similarity does not end there. Without a shred of evidence, vernment officials, magistrates, police commissioners and the press mouncod lelt-wing extremists and anarchists" as responsible, Without further ado, police arrested five members of the anarchist "May 22 Movement", and charged one of its Madets, Pietro Valpreda, with the bombing In the streets, fascists (posing as 'outraged members of the public") beat up left-wingers and held a huge rally in Milan to call on the armed forces to take over and restore order'.
GODSEND The bomb was better than a doz en papal blessings for the Italian ruling class, Italy had just passed through what became known as the "hot autumn', Strikes in all the major factories, huge rent struggles, the creation of workers councils in some areas, and even an outright Imurrection against redundancies in the town of Battipaglia, had thrown the bosses on to the defenaive, They were about to concede the fruits of the struggle to the workers when the bomb went off.
With suspicion of the left gripping the population, the bosses had an easier time in the contract negotiatlond with the union bureaucrats. Parliamentary Bills on housing. schools and social security resulting from the strikers' demands failed to get through Parliament that winter. After further bombs went off in the autumn of 1970, the trade union bureaucrats even went round calling a halt to strikes, saying they would lead to 'anarchy".
The bombines also gave the police the excuse they needed to launch a crack down. After a series of police maids, further bombings, and yet more raids and arrests, the far-left organisations calculated that by 1972 70 per cent of their members were either in prison, under preventIve detention, or being prosecuted.
They were charged not with planting bomhs, but with inciting to overthrow the state', distributing subversive and anti-national propaganda" and other "crimes" under the never-repenled laws of Mussolini, whose usc against the lett the bombings now made easier....
FASCISTS ON TRIAL It is not surprising therefore that In fact the left had nothing to do with the bomaingr. Virtually everyone in Italy now admite this.
Three fiscists, one a leading member of the MSI (Italian Social Move. ment -the largest fascist organisation, with 56 deputies in Parliament) now face trial for the Milan oucrage while Valpreda has finally been released after years in jail. Meanwhile, fascist action squads like Ordine Nero and the Mussolini Action Squad are now claiming responsinility for scores of bombings that have taken place since 1969 It is even less surprising that it took fire years for the truth to be generally acknowledeed. Evidence Red Weekly 5 December 1974 pointing to the fascists had been systematically concealed by state officials active in framing Valpreda. These included such notables as the one-time Interior Minister, Franco Restivo (equivalent of Roy Jenkins).
Evidence was destroyed by the heads of the political branch of the Rome and Milan police forces, and the Director of the bureau of secret affairs in the Ministry of the Interior (Home Office). A member of the security services (SID of Special Branch and Mi6), Guido Giannettini, has recently confessed to having had working links with the three fascists now on trial at the time of the Milan operation, Lawyers trying to draw attention to the truth at various times since 1969 have been murdered or have "disappeared".
The majonty of Italian businessmen profited from the effecte of the bombs, but thir group want a more drastic solution. A few weeks ago General Vito Miceli, the head of SID, was finally arrested for con spiring with Vaterio Borghese (the fascist "Black Prince") to bring about a coup d'etal in the December of 1970 The immediate aim of the Milan bombing-known to, if not actually Planned by, the SID was in fact to provoke a military coup in Italy. exactly as the fascist criminals had demanded while the bodies were still warm.
REAL AUTHORS The bombings and military plots express the despair of a section of Italian capital. Yet the real authors are to be tound in NATO and the CIA, whose pet Grock colonels trained and supplied the squads of the MSI. For those who plant the bombs and do the cover-ups are the willing instruments in what has been called a 'strategy of tension".
This strategy is simple. By spreading uncertainty and suspicion, the aim is to frighten the trade union bureaucracy, justify witch-hunts and frameups against the left, allow the Govermment to step up repression against the whole of the working class movement, and prevent (in Italy) a goverament of socialists and communists coming to power. Simultaneously the tascist butchers, the spies and the Army porillas who carry it out ade all the time straining to bring the tension to in end by putting them selves forward for power.
Next time innocent people are Hown to hits, stop and ask yourself: who really profits from this? When the IMG or the IRA point the finger Page B in no doubt at all that the Birming Provisional IRA. equivalent ity there is on one point -the Birmingham bombs were Provo bombs.
tions of Fleet Street are required here. In the past, the press have failed to explain why after a bomb ing campaign of more than three years the Provos should suddenly start planting no-warning bombs in Britain. Even under conditions of occupation by 15,000 troops and the best bomb squads in the world in Northern Ireland, the warning has been a regular hallmark of their campaign.
The Birmingham target, too, is equally strange, Certainly it does not fit into the categories outlined by David O'Connell on television recently.
The gentlemen of Scotland Yard assure us that at long last the fiendish IRA have perfected their *British units', which will continue to operate from inside the country Strange, then, that the well-bruised Hirmingham 'suspects' should have been found on the train to Belfast. But then the IRA are "desperate from the fact that the pillar-box bomb in Caledonian Road last week went off immediately outside che offices of the British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign! WHO'S BEHIND THEM? A bemb planted at this Milan bank in 1969 blew 16 peaple to pieces. Scores of left-wingers were rounded up, while the fascists used the occasion to demand military intervention "to restore order". Now it in known that the fascists themselves were responsible. at the state or the extreme-right, do not dismiss such accusations out of hand as paranoin or a cover-up.
Old Bailey will be hearing the same sott of stories about recent happenings in Brifain as are being told in the Italian courts loday. That's right -the ruling class do not play "clean". The bulk of the capitalist press were ham bombings were the work of the Like most other papens, the Sun found no room in its "Smash the IRA' edition to print the Provo disclaimer.
Confusion there may be on the length of the warning, doubt as to whether the Provo code was ined, but unanimBut rather more than the asserintelligence.
-confused as well, to judge kins second!
with bombs. "RED FLAG 74' Of course there is absolutely no before.
Perhaps in five years time, the P. Goodhart (Tory MP lor Beckenhen; - Does the Home Secretary rdoognise that the Special Branch and intelligence servies are the front fine of our defence against terrorism? Will he resist any attempt to cut these services or to impose any fresh restrictices on their set ivities at bome and abroad?
Hoy Jenkins 1 am well aware of the Importance of these services, particularly if the present time There is no proposal to cut chem. As I have made clear in the pust they will receive iny full support in the discharge of all their proper functions. (House of Commons debate, 28 November!
doubt that the Provisionals have been behind some of the bombs in Britain -the tributes paid to Patrick MeDade as an IRA Lieutenant were only the latest confirmation of this. But who was behind those for which the Provos have specifically denied responsibility, like the Tower of London and Birmingham It isn't an idle question. Twa years ago the Southern Irish Gorernment was able to push through drastic new anti-iRA lepislation after a couple of car bombs went off in the centre of Dublin. Since then further evidence has come to light, partly as a result of the Littlejohn affair, which has led even Fianna Fail leader Jack Lynch (who was prime minister at the time) to speculate on the possible involvement of British Dublin yesterday, Birmingham today" Jack Lynch first, Roy JenOne thing is certain. Some very definitely non-Irish hands have been very busy recently in connection On 15 October, a nan with a car pose and concaica accome telephoned Yorkshire TV tosay that the Guildford bombings were the work of the International MarxIsts and the IRA'. The International Marxista" it was claimed in a subseqsent call, were dissidents from the IMG who lad formed their own group - Red Flag 74' This was news to the IMG, whose strenous denials however were treated with little interest by editors Beefully reporting every ciaim made by the "well spoken' caller from "Red Flag 74', despite the fact that "Red Flag 74' always rang up after a bomb had exploded and never This organisation' had some remarkable features. Its crowth-rate was stunning: it grew trom "40 in London mainly (The Guardion, 25 October) to '500 in Manchester alone' (The Guardian 22 November), Its imorance of trish politics must bave embatrassed its members, for at one stage it claimed it would be holding a demonstration in which both UDA and TRA would take part!
As carly es February, an organisation" called the 'Reu Brigade was alleged to have carried out the M62 bombing. With the appearance of 'Red Flag 74', press speculation concerns te weave involvement al the far left in the "Provisional's humbing campaign' reac ed aw heights. In solemn seriousness The Tunes of 25 October was explaining to us that the left was providing safe houses and strategical advice, including the detailed geographical planning needed for making attacks - in the heart of London'. (Paddies are too ignorant to read maos.)
While we were toltowing the adventures of Red, Flag 74, 14 pacifists were arrested for handing out leaflets to British soldiers, and the police were doing everything their power to obstruct the planning of the 27 October Troops Chit demonstration, which they also physic ally attacked Is there a connection between all these events? The telephone calls, the arrests and the harassment are all very convenient for the ruting class, and especially the Govern ment. The Labour Cabinet has no policy for Ireland other than handing out one concession after another to the Loyalists, giving rise to a growing working class uncase over what Britain is actually up to in Ireland. By painting the left —the most active in favour of pulling out British troops -as dangerous bombers. this unease might be provouted from developing into a mass movement for troop withdrawal PRESS HYSTERIA The Birmingham bomb has the same "timeliness" about it as the campaien against the left, For weeks betore, the national press had treated us to lund accounts of 'IRA fanatic' Judith Ward, now serving a life sentence in jail for the M62 bombing in February. From the jumble of weird and wonderful confessions", none of which showed more chan a semblance to reality, the Crown presented a hodge-podge of extracts, and called it a case, Interwoven with these reports were the prosecutions of Rep ublicans for "wearing uniforms and widespread dawn raids in many of which documents were taken away"
The press reached fever pitch when David O'Connell made his speech on TV and Patrick Mc Dade wus given a ceremony which was "an insult to the British people" A few bours later....
Jenkins has his excuse for "drac anian lepislation", under which the police anti-RA squnds can rove into top gear with widespread approsal. For the moment the growing incase about Britain's Irish policy seems to have been crowned by calls for sterner measures against the "terrorists". Perhaps things aren't so bad for the ruling class after all?
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