“We don’t want soldiers in the valleys” is the wording of posters written by the inhabitants of the militarised Val di Susa (the Susa valley) after the inhabitants protested in the tiny mountain villages against the High Speed Train project.

The thinking of these people counts for less than zero, in fact no-one asked them if they were in agreement before giving the go-ahead to the project.

It’s they that live there and their voice is important.
Responding by sending in the army is an error.
These citizens cannot just suffer the decisions of the State, because the idea is that they are the State, even though our employees in Parliament have not realised that.

Has anyone explained in a public debate BEFOREHAND the environmental impacts , the benefits and the costs of this project? And has anyone gathered and given value to their opinions?

We can’t continue to impose decisions as though they are dictated by higher interests.
People count.

And then are we really sure that the employees Pisanu and Lunardi are right and the people of the Valley wrong?

The secretaries and the provincial administration of the Fire Fighters in Turin said the following in an official document:

“the work, as it is planned and being put into practice, represents a serious danger for the population and for the environment.”

Is that a good enough reason to protest?

The Voice of the Susa Valley/1

Up until 17 December, the date when there will be a demonstration in Turin against the TAV (high speed train) that I’m participating in, I’ve decided that as well as the regular daily post, I’ll publish a post a day dedicated to the Susa Valley.

Today I’m publishing the document written by a cancer specialist at the Hospital San Luigi di Orbassano about the risks of asbestos in the Susa Valley.

“To create the 23 Kilometre tunnels that are planned, the volume of material containing asbestos that first needs to be excavated, then moved and finally stored has been estimated to be more than one million cubic metres (1,151,000), although this value may have a significant increase. The possibility of resulting conditions that are a risk to health is absolutely relevant as regards the activities of excavation and movement of this earth….”

The Voice of the Susa Valley /2

Last night my friend Dario Fo told me that he was going to participate in Gad Lerner’s programme “L’infedele” dedicated to the Val di Susa (Susa Valley).
I followed the programme and I think that if anyone still had doubts about the uselessness of the TAV (fast Train) in Val di Susa, after that debate, they won’t have any more.
Apart from the mayors and the inhabitants of the Susa Valley there were also economists, politicians and ecologists.

No-one could doubt that there is asbestos in the mountains.
No-one managed to give figures indicating the economic benefits.

Someone from Rome said that the police did not carry out charges and then that person, offended by the contestations, removed themselves from the meeting.
Someone, an economist, said that the work will cost three or four times the cost of the bridge over the Straits of Messina.
Someone, an economist, said that this work (more than 50 Kilometres of tunnel) will pay for itself only for 10%, the rest will be charged to the tax-payer.

Everyone said that this work is only for merchandise.

Everyone said that the work will be finished in 15 to 20 years and that it’s not possible to forecast the flows and the type of merchandise that will be transported. At the end,

Lerner commented: “It seems as though you are talking for the first time.”

To me, it feels like living on the moon. Today, the ones who will surely gain from this work are those companies participating in the project and I’ve got doubts that they cut across all parties.

PS I ask all those from the Susa Valley and all the other in possession of relevant material, to email me at the Blog, documents, photos, film strips, that document the reasons for No TAV (no high speed train).

The Voice of the Susa Valley/3

photo by Stefano Careglio

I’m publishing the letter of a Franciscan of the Susa Valley (Val di Susa), Beppe Giunti. It is long, but it’s worth taking the time to read it all.

“Many friends from our Community are asking me, and they are right to do so, why at the moment I am in the middle of this TAV (fast train) issue. They are asking why I marched from Bussoleno to Susa and why I positioned myself yesterday morning between a section of police returning from a night-time blitz and the crowd of ordinary people who were keen to give back truncheon attacks and insults.

The main reason is because the Christian faith is not an abstraction, a philosophy, but the consequence of a God who becomes man, in a precise context in time and culture. The incarnation is one of the principal mysteries of the faith and the central criteria of following Christ.

It follows from this that the believer cannot “call himself out” from any type of situation where values are at issue. Thus, faith cannot have a privatised dimension. In recent months, both the teachings of Pope Benedict as well as some interventions by the Italian Bishops Conference have reminded us about those who want the Christian Community to stay silent about important issues (marriage, usury, common law couples). There is no doubt for believers: every reality that involves human choices at various levels, there they must be present.

The second reason, the massive and important question of the train with high capacity to transport goods (in fact it is not mainly a high speed passenger train, TAV is only a slogan for both sides, (pro and contra). The game to play for is whether to keep the route for the exchange of goods to the South of the Alps through Genoa, Marseilles and Barcelona or leave those to the north through Rotterdam). Is this the situation?

I believe it is. The method (participatory democracy which involves the intermediate subjects according to the subsidiarity principle) has been turned upside down (decision by top-level economics and finance people then a signature by International politicians). At the centre, is the market, not people. The idea of “progress” that is developed in the “pro” documents does not talk about the quality of life but of the growth of wealth. There has been no preliminary study carried out by an independent research organisation to assess the environmental and economic consequences (of the type carried out for the tunnel under the English Channel – of the negative aspects of the project – and for how many years they may last). The financial dimension of the project does not require an investigation into whether equivalent results could be brought about by other means.

Results of technical analysis carried out at the request of the Mountain Communities in the valley have been available for ten years. Now the citizens have the feeling that they themselves count for nothing.

What’s more, I believed that my presence, like that of many other priests, mayors, High School teachers of the Valley, representatives of associations could have lessened clashes and kept the demonstration at a level of respect, listening and democracy. I participated in the march of the 50,000 because I belong to no Party, but I wanted to be together with the mayors, who I believe to be the closest ring of the nation. A priest cannot be a member of a political movement nor can he become a member of a political party. But here it’s simply a matter of being a citizen.

Unfortunately, last night’s events in Venaus, and before that the many declarations by people who are responsible for the public good (I believe this is the noble way of recognising politicians, such as, for example, Minister Lunardi), the 10-year silence on the part of most of the national information media and now their folkloric interest (the marching banners, the clubs, the bonfires, weariness of the police, the polenta at the garrisons of Venaus), the choice of the person responsible for the public good in relation to public order (Minister Pisanu) to militarise the Valley and to order the blitz (carried out using old-fashioned methods of the 1950’s, Scelba docet? – at night in silence – giving orders to the photographers to go away, with the implication and the justified pretence regarding the presence of anarchists infiltrated among the people or at least violent people, never seen in the Valley on this occasion but who turned up in Turin after the blitz), the emotional reaction of the whole population (yesterday morning in the car belonging to the local authority of Bussoleno, with a microphone we had great trouble - a mayor, a well-known partisan of the area and myself – we struggled to put an end to the physical violence) which stops us from reasoning about the facts about the data and not on the slogans; all this makes it difficult to stay with this campaign.

I believe that I have done and that I must continue to do this little thing because I am a monk, a Christian and a citizen.

A final reflection, this was not picked up by many people: the intensity of the coming together, the circulation of documents, the confrontation in tiny groups and in big assemblies, the mixing of cultural, political, and religious identities that took place on this occasion demonstrates something, whether or not this monstrous engineering feat goes ahead – that directs us to think again about the development model we want for future generations. In this, the Christian tradition has plenty to say (refer to the teaching in our continent of Pope John Paul II)
so that especially in Europe it’s not about markets but about people,
so that the waste of energy changes to the reasoned use of resources,
so that consumption does not become the new idol to which we burn incense.

While I’m writing, now that I have been out in the streets again to meet up with scores of ordinary people who are not terrorists, I can summarise the feeling of the people with the word “offended”, because we have not been listened to because we have been treated like violent delinquents, because we have not been understood.

I have been offended – at a fork in the road from Bussoleno to Mattie – by men in uniform – of my own Nation – and after I identified myself (I quote: “You are an animal, take this beast away, I am of the State…”) while I was attempting a limited mediation that actually protected a small group of police. But I’m reminded of the teaching of Saint Francis: an insult hurts the one who hurls it, not the one who is hit by it.
Many thanks if you make this known. Many thanks if you respond. Many thanks if you help us to think more on this topic even by providing documents that are pro and con relevant to all that is discussed here.

Brother Beppe Giunti, Guardian of the convent of San Francesco di Susa

The Voice of the Susa Valley /4

photo: demonstration 8 December 2005 Venaus

I’m listing a series of common sayings about the Susa Valley with comments from the No TAV campaign and 2 photos of the encounters on 8 December in which you can see the famous 1000 Black block and the anarchists mentioned by our employee Pisanu. The same man that said there was no (baton) charge at this location in Venaus.

If there exists a Pro-TAV campaign that wants to provide contrary information to these points, send me an email and I will publish it. If it is not possible to prove that these points are not correct, then we need a European Committee of Inquiry.

“The nine common sayings

1 WITHOUT THE TURIN-LYON, PIEDMONT WOULD BE ISOLATED FROM THE REST OF EUROPE
In reality, Piedmont is already abundantly connected to Europe and above all through the Susa Valley. In this valley there are already 2 main roads a motorway and a dual track train line for passengers and freight. There is even the so-called motorway-train (transport of HGV by special shuttle trains). They are all connecting lines with France going through two natural passes (Monginevro and Moncenisio) and two artificial tunnels (Frejus for trains and for motorway). All this fits into a valley floor that is on average 1.5km wide! Even the river, the Dora Riparia has trouble squeezing in, and every so often it floods.

2. THE EXISTING TRAIN LINES ARE SATURATED
In fact the existing Turin-Modane train line is only used at 38% of its capacity. The HGV shuttle leaves every day desolately empty. (But they were rediscovered and pounced upon in the period when the Frejus tunnel was closed after the fire.) The direct train connection Turin-Lyon was suppressed because there weren’t enough passengers. And the flow of goods – forecast by those who want it the work in exponential growth – is in fact down by 9% in the last year!

3. THE TURIN-LYON IS INDISPENSABLE TO THE ECONOMIC REVIVAL OF PIEDMONT
In fact the opposite is true. By removing resources (it’s all public money) from research, innovation, the recovery of industry in deep crisis (Fiat and others) , the TAV will be the final blow to Piedmont’s economy.

4 THE TAV WILL REMOVE THE HGV FROM THE VALLEY
In fact just to kick off, the 10-15 years of work needed to construct the Turin-Lyon will bring to the roads of the Valley and to the area around Turin something like 500 lorries a day (and night) to transport the material from the excavation from the tunnel to stockpile sites, with a great increase in pollution and dust. Once the apocalyptic phase of building sites is over and the Great Work is realised, who says that the merchandise will pass from the motorway to the new railway? The opposite will happen. The promoters of this work and recent transport engineering studies tell us that only 1% of the current road traffic will transfer to rail.
Massive advantage.

5 THE PEOPLE OF THE SUSA VALLEY ARE EGOTISTS AND DON’T CONSIDER THE INTERESTS OF ITALY.
In fact, at the moment 35% of the goods crossing the Alps go through the Susa Valley! Along the Frejus Motorway 4,500 HGV pass every day. This can be compared to the 1,500 passing Mont Blanc in the Aosta Valley where the number of HGV is limited by law.

6. THE TURIN-LYON BRINGS WORK TO THE PEOPLE OF PIEDMONT.
In fact, as is already happening for all the structural work currently going on, this is short-term work carried out to a great extent by manual workers from outside the European Union. Also, the contracting firms bring in their own technical people and workers from their own Regions (there’s a saying that you get your wife and your cows from your own village – but here they’ll get their firms and their cows from their own village). For the towns and villages of the Susa Valley and the area round Turin, a great problem would arrive: the mafia. Turbulent tendering processes have already been identified in the phase of geological surveys on behalf of politicians from Piedmont and others. Who knows what we’d see for the actual construction work!

7. THE TRACK IS ALMOST ALL INSIDE THE TUNNEL. WHAT HARM WILL IT DO?
In fact it will do a great deal of harm. The route involves a 23 kilometre tunnel inside the Musinè, a mountain where there is much asbestos. The machine that perforates the rock will send into the air quite a lot of asbestos fibre. Invisible and lethal. The wind will carry it everywhere. The wind called the “foehn” will take it as far as the centre of Turin. Breathing in asbestos fibre causes a tumour of the lungs (mesotelioma pleurico), which doesn’t give you a chance. Asbestos is a material that has been outlawed since 1977. To excavate tunnels in a place like this is illegal and criminal. And what’s more: The 53Kilometre Italy -France tunnel excavated inside the Massiccio dell’Ambin (Ambin mountain) will encounter (apart from water sources and springs that will be destroyed) rock containing uranium. And what’s more: A railway in a tunnel needs loads of tiny tunnels, at right angles to the main tunnel. They are called service tunnels – or “windows”. There will be 12 of tem. These will need their own construction sites, all in areas where there are villages and houses. It will be a type of hell with noise and dust and lorries going back and forth on narrow village roads, day and night for at least 15 years.
And what’s more: the tunnelling of such long sections in the mountain near to densely populated towns and villages may dry out the water tables and the aqueducts, as has happened for the TAV tunnels of Mugello, for which trials are going on now concerning environmental disaster.
And what’s more: The road system will be turned upside-down. Over-passes will be constructed at each site of works. Perhaps these new roads will be calculated as compensation in regard to the environmental impact of the work? (To have a vague idea, go and tour round the Turin-Milan motorway and see the upset cause by the Turin-Novara TAV).

8 THIS WORK IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY BECAUSE IT RELEASES PRIVATE CAPITAL INTO THE MARKET.
In fact the estimated cost of 20 thousand million Euro is all charged to the public purse. All public money, but entrusted to private firms according to the diabolical invention of the general contractor. It is guaranteed by the Italian State. Nobody private will put in a Euro, especially after the experience of the tunnel under the English Channel. That sent into bankruptcy those that bought bonds. The incredible amounts of money that are needed by this work will be taken from the existing railway lines (already in a disastrous state), from hospitals, schools, and all public services, and from the development of renewable sources of energy to replace petrol.
And what’s more: It has already been forecast that the new Turin-Lyon railway line will have very high management costs and will be making a loss for scores of years.
And what’s more: Notwithstanding the fact that most of the route is in French territory, the Italian Government has accepted to cover the cost of two thirds of the International route (Borgone – St.-Jean-de-Maurienne). Anyway it’s us that pay.

9 WHOEVER IS AGAINST THE TURIN-LYON IS AGAINST PROGRESS.
In fact, the opposite is true. Progress must not be confused with infinite growth. The territory of Italy is small and is over-populated. Natural resources (water, agricultural land, forests, minerals) are limited. Pollution and refuse increase without limits. Petrol supplies are coming to an end. Progress means understanding that physical limits exist to our mania to construct and transform the face of the planet. Progress means optimising, making more efficient and durable that which already exists, cutting out what is superfluous and investing in intellectual and cultural growth more than material, using the mind more than muscles. The TAV represents the exact opposite of this idea; it is an old project that is now an anachronism. It foresees infinite growth in the volume of goods to be transported (that will then be the refuse of tomorrow). It privileges as values only speed and quantity. It ignores quality and whether and why we need to transport something.”

THE NO-TAV CAMPAIGN

The Voice of the Susa Valley / 5

photo: MediaMind_photoagency

They continue to chatter on about fantastic goods traffic through the Susa Valley when, in 15 to 20 years the tunnel will be finished.

Everyone can forecast what will happen in 20 years time, even Elio Catania, president of the FS (State Railway system) and ex vice warehouse person of IBM (the chief warehouse person was Stanca).
And in a special way with our money, since this project will cost us between three or four times the cost of the Messina Bridge.

But why don’t we talk instead of what is happening right now.

The number of heavy vehicles coming through the Frejus tunnel has been going down for many years:
-15.47% (including buses) in 2003, -7.61% in 2004, -12.85% in 2005 (projection based on the opening period, since the tunnel was closed for a few months). And if it’s going down, why should it increase in the future to such an extent to justify a high capacity line?

For the data, have a look at the website of SITAF – the company that manages the tunnel.

The Voice of the Susa Valley / 6

I'm still waiting for the detailed reasons in favour of the construction of the tunnel in the Susa Valley. At the same time, the Internet is full of the other reasons - for no TAV.

I advise you to read the interview with Professor Angelo Tartaglia of the Politecnico di Torino {Turin Polytechnic}.

This sentence of Professor Tartaglia is illuminating: “the technical people understand that the sums don’t add up. They talk about this to the politicians who say they don’t understand technical data and in the mean time, the work is to be done.”

Some data from the interview:

The central problem is that the goods trains In Italy travel at an average speed of 19 Kilometres per hour since they are often stationary waiting for passenger trains which get precedence. This is the bit of data to be improved.. It’s not useful that goods arrive from France at 150 kilometres per hour if they then pass most of their time in the station when they arrive in Italy.”

It makes sense to talk of High speed when the journeys are longer than 250-300Km. In Italy, if we look closely at the figures, we can see that 80% of the demand for passenger transport is for short journeys, less than 100Km. It’s true that our trains are super-full on certain routes but only very few people go from one end of the country to the other. The routes that are most frequented are those where there is the greatest exchange of passengers.

“A study commissioned by the Mountain Community of the Lower Susa Valley carried out by the Società di ingegneria dei Trasporti Polinomia, {Transport Engineering Company}, shows that the line would be justified if in the next few years there was 40 million tons of goods traffic per year making a total of 350 trains a day, every 4 minutes at the speed of 150 km/h, alternating with passenger trains at 300 km/h.

The fact that the Government has put a stop to the work is an extraordinary result, and is already a precedent.

From now on, before starting any work, the real employers should be consulted: the citizens.

The Voice of the Susa Valley/ 7

photo: MediaMind_photoagency

In an interview with l'Espresso, Marco Ponti, a professor at the Milan Polytechnic , one of the most important experts in the economy of transport in Europe and consultant to the World Bank, has made these interesting statements:

"... The Italian system is largely under-utilised. On a normal line with double track, 240 trains a day can travel on it. And on a High-speed track (AV) up to 350 can. It doesn't make sense to add this enormous capacity on some of the segments, as there is not the demand for rail transport of this magnitude. Note that the AV lines are very costly.”

“ … the railways in Italy all  have to run along viaducts and go through tunnels. And the costs increase to stratospheric levels. At the same time, while the French AV is a “Light” AV, only for passengers, the model that we have chosen is mixed, passengers and freight, and is quite a lot more expensive.”.

“This model does not have any rational reason: the capacity of the existing network is far in excess of the demand and the goods that travel by train do not need to travel at 300 Kilometres per hour, 180 is more than enough. The cost of tunnels is proportional to the square of their radius: make them a bit wider and the cost doubles. If we need the trains to run fast, the tunnels need to be generous, otherwise an “ariete” effect is produced and it slows down the train. Conclusion: either we do like we did for the piece of AV track between Bologna and Florence, that was not finished because the costs rose to mad heights to create wide tunnels, or we do normal tunnels, as for the Frejus project, and have the trains running no faster than 120-150 kilometres per hour. So much for AV!”

An AV that costs nothing to the State already exists: the low cost flights. You can’t beat them above 500km. To go from Turin to Paris, is unlikely that you’ll take the Turin-Lyon. But it makes it even more improbable to square the accounts: AV needs enormous traffic flows to justify it. We are way off that. There are 30 long distance trains a day travelling between Milan and Turin and they are half empty: the number in the official estimates on the Frejus is about 12.”

“At the beginning it was promised that the AV project would pay for 60% of its costs. Then this came down to 40% and finally it was established that 40% of the costs excluding the costs for the “nodes” near the cities, (really expensive). According to my simulations it would be around 20%; others estimate 23%. The system is destined for the default: the State pays. Many of these projects will get off the ground and then there won’t be the money to continue them and they will be restarted every time there is an election. The Turin-Lyon is a monument to dissipation: it will cost at least 13 thousand million, like 3 or 4 bridges over the Straits of Messina. Werner Rothengatter, world president of transport experts, in his “Megaprojects” has calculated that by the end, the cost of these massive schemes increases on average by 30-40 per cent.”

“To develop innovation, we need to focus on technology rather than on cement. As far as employment is concerned, nowadays, the massive projects have a modest multiplier effect: manual labourers are not used as they were in the 1800’s. And then it is evident that our country has a great tourist value in the future. Thus there are more fruitful ways of spending money. Unless of course someone is promising themselves great business on the great works.”

Source: Espresso.

Is there any expert in Italy who wants to answer with some numbers to this?

The Voice of the Susa Valley / 8

I'm publishing a letter from Barbara Debernardi, Mayor of Condove in Val di Susa, to the President of the Regione Piemonte, Mercedes Bresso.

Coming at an important moment, this letter is written to one of our employees, paid by us, with our money, so that she remembers to act in the interests of her employers: the citizens.

"Dear President Mercedes Bresso,

Please excuse the "tu" form of address (the familiar 'you' form used between friends), perhaps it is too intimate, due to the fact that, even though on a vastly different scale, we both find ourselves to be colleagues in the delicate task of administering public affairs.

This is the first time that I'm writing to you, even though it's not the first time that I feel deeply offended by your discourse in relation to the High Speed project.

Nevertheless, since I normally avoid expressing an opinion about things of which I don't have direct knowledge, up until today I have kept to myself my disappointment and my unease.

However on Tuesday, at the transmission “10 minuti” on RAI 2 unfortunately I was there. I was sitting there, together with other mayors who are my colleagues and I heard you in direct when you told the Italians that there is not a majority of people from the Susa Valley against the TAV. I heard you clearly when you told them that the opposition to the activity came from a lack of knowledge about the projects. And I jumped in my seat when you closed by chatting about the fast trains that will take skiers to our mountains. Trains that certainly could not be those destined to run on the new Turin-Lyon route, which as you know is at the moment planned for freight traffic only. But this is a detail that you knowingly kept quiet about.

I would like to tell you about the frustration of those ten minutes of broadcasting, when we were not given the right of reply and the chance to tell the rest of Italy that the majority of the Valley is opposed to the work and that we know projects very well, even down to the most sordid detail. Here on my desk, I have the latest piece of ingenuity from Ingerop. It came to us a month ago. Anyway, have you seen this project, with a transporter belt of 30km to take people out and about along the Valley, called the “smarino”? If you haven’t seen it, it’s a good idea to glance at it, before expressing hurried opinions on it. If however, you know as much about it as we do, then on Tuesday evening, knowing that you were lying, you lied to us and to the Italian people. And that offends your and our intelligence, your and our dignity.

To talk about frustrations for an evening of TV that turned sour doesn’t get us anywhere. OK I’ll make you a promise and a proposal.

The promise is that I won’t allow myself to be dragged into little theatres like that set up the other evening on RAI2, in which one tries to attribute to the pre-constituted  “truths” the appearance of a dignified confrontation between peers.

The proposal is to be able to finally meet up, you and me, round a table, without the handy TV filters. And on the table, the papers, the reports of studies that have accumulated over the years. You, with all your mature political experience, I with all my recent experience of someone who is still convinced that politics can be a high and clean thing.

I want to be able to discuss these projects with you and I want to be able to see you straight in your eyes, while you tell me that those high speed projects are for the good of Italy and also of my Valley, just as you said the other evening.

And do you know why I dream of this encounter? Because I still hope to see in the depth of your eyes, the saving shadow of uncertainty and the courage of doubt.

The courage to say that perhaps 80,000 people that walked with me yesterday between Bussoleno and Susa could be right.

The courage to say that perhaps you made a mistake about the high-speed projects in the Susa Valley.

I hope to meet you soon.”

Barbara Debernardi mayor of Condove

The Voice of the Susa Valley / 9

The Susa Valley is not alone, and the Valsusini (the people of the Susa Valley) know that. The Susa Valley is a starting point for a country that wants to take back control of public affairs through the direct participation of the citizens.

"1, 100, 1000 Val di Susa".

Today I’m publishing a letter of solidarity to the Valsusini from the Vajont Valley.

“The inhabitants of the Vajont Valley join themselves in solidarity with the inhabitants of the Susa Valley and with the NOTAV campaign.

The reason is easy to say: living in the Vajont Valley, it’s impossible to forget the deep hurt that was felt following the realisation of the “Grande Vajont” project. This affair reminds us of one of the first “great works” carried out in Italy. Starting from the end of the 1950’s in fact, they constructed the highest dam in the world in our Valley, with the idea of making use of the rich water resources for hydroelectric power. Even on that occasion, the directors of the contracting company (SADE) and the State felt that this project was like a trampoline to launch development.

Similarly on that occasion, in the planning and realisation stages, they determined that: a definite push towards economic interests; an underestimate of the hydrological and environmental problems;
a strategic attempt to silence and placate any desire to protest and / or make use of correct information.

All this was in a valley affected by big issues relating to the instability of the hillsides.
One night in 1963 the people and this place were shaken by the sliding of 270 million cubic metres of rock falling off Monte Toc and crashing down without stopping into the artificial basin above the Vajont dam.

A wave of immense proportions devastated centres of habitation and the whole of the territory. This caused the death of about 2,000 people and the injured remained as an indelible witness among the people who survived.
Today all the scientific community maintain that it was a predictable disaster and above all, now, it is known that if it hadn’t been for the lake, the landslide would not have come away from the mountainside with that speed and with that mass. A preventative intervention could have avoided this tragedy and put in place an effective interaction between human beings and the environment instead of the interference that actually happened.

With this action of solidarity, we have the benefit of being able to remember the 40 years of history that have followed this disaster. In fact, this story has been permeated with injustice and bad business even in the reconstruction phases.

For these reasons, we cannot fail to stand alongside the civil non-violent protest of the inhabitants of the Susa Valley against the start of opening up building sites and creating the planned tunnel, whose route relates to rocks made up of the dangerous minerals asbestos and uranium which can open up serious scenarios of public health.

As well as that we protest about the militarisation of the territory in defence of the interests of the State now in Val di Susa.

The victims are always people but the problem remains: too often the faces and the stories are forgotten and the harmony of the locations freely offering themselves to the idols of economic interest and to the thirst for prestige. We rediscover together the possibility to act without party divisions and the generative willingness to express our own opinion and to require the just approach and the correct information to environmental themes.”

The following have made a personal contribution to this letter:

Dario Bossi (Combonian Missionary)
Guglielmo Cornaviera (President of the “Campaign for the defence of the rights of the survivors of Vajont”)
Italo Filippin (Vice-president of the “Association of Vajont Survivors”)
Giovaniemissione
Luciano Pezzin (Mayor of Erto and Casso)
Peacelink
Alex Zanotelli (Combonian Missionary)
and some citizens of Erto and Casso

The Voice of the Susa Valley/ 10

The employee Pisanu started well in Parliament yesterday:
”I have no difficulty in apologising to the peaceful citizens of the Susa Valley who have suffered physical damage as a result of the clearing of the building site at Venaus”
After these Christmas words we feel more serene. If in the heart of the night we are bludgeoned by the forces of order we know that later the employee Pisanu will apologise.
And I must say, this is to his merit.

But unfortunately our employee has exposed his game and has made the following declarations, one after the other:

“The mixing of peaceful demonstrators and destructive groups took the protest beyond the predictable level of vehemence.”

“The Val di Susa has not been militarised.”

“Today ideas of revenge are spreading especially in relation to those who have been willing to engage in dialogue and to carry on a loyal collaboration with the institutions.”

“The Violence in the Val di Susa needed to be confronted.”

In Venaus, during the night, without warning, women and elderly people were beaten up, there are filmstrips viewable on the internet, hundreds of people can bear witness.

And yet, the Valsusini (People of the Susa Valley) have not reacted with violence.

Tomorrow in Turin (I’m coming) there will be demonstrations.

Present there will be many young people who are state police, local police, and carabinieri.
They are young people who are paid too little; they often have to obey senseless orders.

Let’s treat them well. Every young female, give them a smile.

Let’s reserve the kicks in the behind for other employees.