27/06/2011
At 5am this morning, 2,000 police stormed the protest camps in Val di Susa, northern Italy, to try to start work on the High Velocity Railway (TAV).
They went in using force and vast amounts of tear gas. Some of the ’No TAV’ protesters have been injured and their vehicles and camping gear smashed up.
The people in the area have surged onto the roads and the motorways are blocked with lorries. Workers have been coming out of their factories to join the protesters and defend them against the police attack. The metal-mechanics’ union, Fiom, has declared an immediate 8 hour strike in the area in protest and solidarity.
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Nearly 30 people were injured on Monday when police clashed with demonstrators protesting against a planned high-speed rail line running through a scenic valley in northern Italy, police said.
The clashes occurred as construction workers prepared to begin work on boring a tunnel for the line in the Susa Valley near Turin.
Police in Turin said 25 officers were injured including four who were hospitalised, while the four injured demonstrators were treated on site.
Around 2,000 demonstrators took part in the torchlit procession through the valley on Sunday night.
“A group of opponents began attacking the police in a pretty violent way around 7:00 am, and the police responded by charging them,” said Mario Virano, the government official in charge of construction of the Lyon-Turin train line.
He described the situation on the ground as “difficult”.
Opponents of the line had already placed obstacles on the roads leading to the site and set up several camps with the aim of blocking work on the project, said Virano.
Police fired teargas to disperse the demonstrators and demolished the barricades with heavy mechanised shovels, according to demonstrators and television footage.
Leader of the demonstrators Alberto Perino said government gained the upper hand following Monday’s scuffle.
“We have lost a battle but we haven’t lost the war,” he said.
Work has to start before the end of June if the project is to benefit from a tranche of European subventions for the rail link.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni pledged Sunday that work on the project would go ahead “before June 30”.
“The project will happen. If that wasn’t the case, we would be saying goodbye to hundreds of millions in European subventions, but particularly to connections with Europe, and also we would be saying goodbye to the future,” he warned.
France and Italy signed a deal in 2001 on building a high-speed line to slash travel time between Milan and Paris from seven hours to four, and form a strategic link in the European network.
The cost has been estimated at 15 billion euros (21 billion dollars). But residents of the Susa Valley have fiercely opposed the plan, saying the construction of tunnels would damage the environment.
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Background – http://www.ambientevalsusa.it/main_english.htm