Valle di Susa, midnight at the end of 29 February 2012

Interview with Laura Castelli, MoVimento 5 Stelle Torino {5 Star MoVement Turin}
”My name is Laura, and I work alongside Davide Bono (regional councillor with M5S). In the last few days we have been here in the valley all the time and today we arrived at 11 in the morning. Right now there’s a meeting going on at the end of the whole day and we are trying to decide with the whole campaign group what to do. People are tired and some are a bit stressed. Things started happening more or less at 4 pm, when little trucks starting arriving on the motorway. They blocked the demonstrators to surround them at the exit and the entrance to the motorway going towards Susa. 30 people were surrounded and detained and had their ID examined and even physically attacked. After the mediation of the institutions, and various lawyers, we managed to get them freed. At a certain moment, the police took a step back and we were there immobile for a couple of hours. At 7 pm other little trucks arrived from Oulx. They surrounded us and they decided to charge us to clear up the area. At 7:30 pm we realised that it was their intention to make us go away, but away, really go away. They started throwing tear gas and using water cannon as though they were mad, and the Police started to chase us down to the state highway. After that the demonstrators split into two groups: one group went towards the Valley and one went down towards the city. Those of us that went towards the state highway, were subjected to being chased by the Police, but a chase without conclusion. I have never seen a chase like that. They came after us with tear gas and the water cannon that they were shooting into the air. This happened for more than a kilometre, a kilometre of hungry people running - people that were afraid of getting hurt. There were a couple of people with injuries. After that the police paused and called an ambulance and only after it arrived did they stop and let the rescuers through and finally there was a moment of rest. Afterwards they started to move forward again for a few hundred metres and they came to a definitive stop thanks to the institutions, unfortunately here it’s like that with the Police. A civilian cannot talk to them. We came to the conclusion that it was too much and thus we managed to talk to various warrant officers until we decided on both sides that it had all been exaggerated.
Thus reaching an agreement with the Police that they would retreat. At this time the Police were at a level with the roundabout that goes across the state highway and the exit to the motorway. They were standing there. There were a few people injured but we don’t know how many. Many people were suffering the affects of the CS and thus everyone was invited to go to hospital to do tests because as we know, the CS gases are toxic. There are those who want to do something straight away, some significant action right now and others are saying “Let’s go home because we are tired.”
They damaged some cars on the state highway slashing tyres and smashing mirrors. The worst thing is that they went inside a pizzeria, not going through the door, but smashing through a window. They stopped some people and asked them for their documents. After that they chased some people who climbed up the front of some homes. A few of them managed to get into some apartments, and thus they were safe because these folk wanted to beat them up. The owner of the restaurant said: “They did their duty.” This is what I consider to be dramatic. There was a lot of damage, unprecedented violence. I have never seen such violence. The only thing I can say, and this is a personal reflection, is that I’m glad they didn’t follow people down the little lanes, because that was the only thing missing , then ... Anyway there was violence. True violence. In reality they should have cleared the motorway and stop at the crossing and really deliver punishment. This is also following on from the fact that the administrators of the Valley had meetings with the Prefecture. According to them, to try to come to an agreement. I don’t think it was possible to come to an agreement. But the president of the mountain community came back to the Valley at one o’clock saying that the outcome of the meeting was an invitation to leave the motorway and he had responded “We’ll have to see what to do.” He certainly couldn’t promise a backward step on behalf of everyone. We are so distraught that it’ll be a couple of days before we’ll be making observations because when you see people that have to squeeze together to escape you cannot manage it. It’s not possible to think straight."