Eröffnung des "Carlo Giuliani Platz"
Haidi Guiliani (Mutter von Carlo) und Mitglieder der Internationalen Untersuchungskommission zu Genua berichteten über die Hintergründe und Konsequenzen von Carlos Ermordung

Donnerstag den 3. Oktober kam die Mutter von Carlo Giuliani, der bei den Demonstrationen gegen den G8 Gipfel am 20.7. von der italienischen Polizei erschossen worden war, mit italienischen Anwälten, die an der Aufklärung des Falls Giuliani beteiligt sind, nach Bern. Unter ihnen auch der Anwalt der Volkstheaterkarawane (VTK) Andrea Sandra. Sie kamen einen Tag früher als ursprünglich im Programm angekündigt, da am Freitag in Genua eine offizielle Untersuchungskommission tagt.
Um 17h wurde im Rahmen einer Pressekonferenz auf einem (namenlosen) Platz in der Nähe der Reithalle der Carlo Giuliani-Platz offiziell "getauft", und 2 Strassenschilder angebracht. Rund 100 Menschen wohnten der Platzeinweihung bei. Heidi Giuliani, die Mutter war sichtlich gerührt, bedankte sich für den symbolischen Akt, und meinte dass das Carlo sicher gefallen hätte.

Da die Aktion nicht angemeldet war, kam kurz die Polizei vorbei, war aber bald wieder weg. Es wird sich zeigen wielange die Schilder dort hängen werden. Bereits am folgenden Tag bekundete die Stadtverwaltung via Medien, dass diese Platzbenennung nicht den normalen Amtsweg genommen hätte.

Um 18h30 wurde die Dokumentation "Carlo Giuliani, ragazzo" gezeigt, in der Haidi Giuliani über die Aufarbeitung der Geschehnisse berichtet. (Film von Cristina Comencini, Italien 2002)

Danach fand um 20h eine Diskussionsrunde mit ihr und den Anwälten Sandra, Gilberto Pagani statt.


Ein Bericht der indymedia Philadelphia-Journalistin Su und ihre weiteren Gedanken:

Heidi Giuliani´s talk, October 3, 2002

Heidi Giuliani talked about the circumstances of Carlo's death: the official version is that the police van was fleeing the violent protesters, that the protesters had them trapped, that Carlo attacked the van with a fire extinguisher, that the Carabiniere fired in the air, but that a flying stone knocked the bullet out of the air and it landed on Carlo's head. Twice. And that then they had to run over his body with a jeep because they had to escape the violent protesters.
Soon, in fact, the judge will decide whether to bring Carlo's killer to trial or whether to simply archive the case, without trial.In fact, the ballistic and forensic and video evidence from the scene tells a completely different story.
The story about the stone is totally ridiculous, of course, but even more telling is that the police attacked the protesters first, with tear gas, etc., The police van in question then left the area, and later came back to the scene. The police would not have done this if they had been fleeing the protesters. At least one photo shows the fire extinguisher being thrown out of the police van, by the police themselves, before Carlo picked it up. There were other protesters who were closer to the van than Carlo, but he was targeted for the shooting. When Carlo was shot, other protesters had already started to flee, having seen the gun; Carlo obviously had not seen the gun. When you see the distance that Carlo stood from the van, it is clear that he posed no immediate threat to the police officer. In fact, after Carlo's death, a large troop of police officers (one of whom the photo shows wearing a ski mask under his helmet) arrives; since they were so close by, why didn't they intervene to save the police van that was supposedly in such great danger? Afterwards, activist and medics who tried to retrieve Carlo's body remained under continued attack by the police.Heidi said that many "well-meaning" people within the Left tend to criminalize her son, to say that her son was a hooligan who is not worth the solidarity of the nonviolent majority. Heidi says that when she talks with them and shows them the evidence, they change their minds. She said that there was a large difference between smashing a window and smashing a head. When asked what she thought about "hooliganism" within the movement, Heidi said, "I don't want to be one of the people criminalizing people like my son."
I am reminded of what Vittorio Agnoletto said about the Diaz School raid, when police said that they had been raiding for hooligans. "At a football game, if there are hooligans, police do not lock everybody inside the stadium, smash everything inside, and beat everybody there nearly to death." Perhaps he meant to imply that, if the police had only attacked the "hooligans," he would not have objected?
All this talk about Carlo makes me wonder about the other Genoa deaths:
Susanna Bendotti, a 43-year old French woman, a school teacher I believe, who was killed by a car as she was attempting to cross the Ventimiglia border to get to the demo. The border had been closed, as had all the nearby businesses and cafes, and the police had cleared out the local hospital to make room for those they planned to injure during the expected conflict with protesters trying to cross the border.
Susanne Bendotti was probably killed in a random traffic accident, but if the police had not closed the border, she would not be dead. Then I think of Maria Jose Olivastri, a syndicalist, the mother of a daughter, whose was raped, tortured, and strangled, and then left naked in a ditch. Her murderer was so strong that all the bones in her neck were broken. Investigation into her death died with little inquiry; the official analysis was that "this was not a political killing". But what does it matter whether she was murdered because of her political beliefs or because of her sex? If she had been killed because of her ethnicity, would that be a political killing? I also wonder about the three body bags we saw carried out of the Diaz school during the raid. I wonder about the reports of other two deaths, which appeared on mainstream news as well as Indymedia: a German woman said to have been shot as well, an Italian man who died of a heart attack during a police assault, and a British homeless man found dead under a Genoa bridge, afterward. Are these rumors also true?
And certainly, after the migrants' demo, there was a brutal backlash of raids against "clandestini," not only undocumented migrants, but legal immigrants and their families as well. These people are also G8 victims. The people of Afghanistan, more than 4,000 murdered by American and European bombs as of December 2001 -- they are also victims of the Group of Eight. The people of Chechnya, and the people of Iraq -- they are also victims of the Group of Eight's wars against the world. And what about the thousands who have died trying to cross borders to enter Europe and the USA? Are they not victims of the Group of Eight's adhesion to the politics of "migration control"? And what about those in the first world as well as the second, third, and fourth, who die of malnutrition, cold, disease, and misery, because of the military-economic policies of the Group of Eight? The logical extreme of this reasoning is, "tutti siamo Carlo Giuliani" -- an injury to one is an injury to all. But that's abstract, theoretical, It doesn't mean anything. in the same way as we are all victims of systemic violence, also each responsible. In reality, we cannot hold these eight men accountable for all the world's misery in the same way that we can hold a young caribiniere responsible for a smoking gun and a bloodied head.
The ballistics evidence may well prove that the carabiniere did not kill Carlo in legitimate self-defense, but to my American reasoning, that does not matter. Everything that a police officer does is legitimate self-defense, by legal definition. Just as there is no such thing as legitimate self-defense against a police officer: anything other than meek submission is considered assault. The police officers represent the law; they are the law. Even the black panthers gunned down in their beds by police, even the MOVE babies murdered when Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on their house in 1985 -- this was legitimate self-defense. There may be regret, expressed privately, but there is no apology, no retribution, no reconciliation; the abuses of the police are quietly swept under a rug and forgotton, perhaps mourned, but never punished.
Meanwhile, poor folks, marginalized people, and dissidents keep filling the prisons and coffins. Carlo Giuliani's death did not surprise me; every year, hundreds if not thousands of unarmed, nonaggressive Americans are gunned down by police, and their murders do not even make it into the news. In the last twenty-five years, more than 750 people -- innocent as well as guilty -- have been murdered in my country´s execution chambers, by cyanide gas, lethal injection, electrocution, hanging, and firing squad. And what about my country´s two million in prisons, our four million more in jails, and our nine million "illegalized" immigrants? This means that more than one American in twenty is "illegal" in some way. Of course, Europe is not the USA: perhaps a human life is worth more to the Italian state than to the United States. Perhaps justice will be done -- but what is "Justice" when the courts are there to imprison you and the police are there to kill you?
Someone from the audience asked, "In Europe, people are tortured and murdered by the authorities in police stations and jails, and during depotations, all the time; how is this different?" Gilberto Pagani, from the Global Rights forum, answered: The difference is that this time they did it systemically, en masse, to everyone without discrimination, in the full light of the public eye, and that not only did they fail to cover it up, they publicly justified the action and said, 'We did the right thing.' They said, 'Human rights are suspended during these days. Because you have been to Genoa, you have renounced your human rights.' And if we do not condemn the repression of these days, it will become normal reality around the world.
But it is already normal. After September 11th and the "War on Terrorism," to invade people's privacy and homes without cause or proof, to disappear thousands of people without charges, to hold them indefinitely, incommunicado, in unknown places, to torture them, even to death -- this is public policy. There is no attempt to deny it or cover it up. It is vital to national security.