Italy: Northern League take Varese
01 January 1991
Italy: Northern League take Varese
artdoc April=1993
Following December's election successes for the Northern League,
Raimonda Fassa has become the mayor of Varese, Lombardy, with the
help of an alliance with the Republican Party - a businessman's
club - and, most controversially, the formerly Communist PDS.
Meanwhile, Manifesto (22.1.93) has focused on the possibility
of new alliances being forged between industrialists,who are
turning away from the old conservative parties, tainted as they
are by corruption scandals, to the Northern League. However, the
feeling amongst many business people in Lombardy is that the
League has still to prove itself as a credible political force
- with Varese being seen as the test case.
Neo-nazi activity from Varese to Legnano
In Samarate, a small village near Varese, two youths have been
arrested following a vicious attack by four Italian youths on two
Moroccans, Abdul Hady and Farouque Jolame. Following the attack,
the mayor of Samarate visited them in hospital to apologise on
behalf of the village.
When police raided the homes of one of the two arrested
youths, they found T-shirts displaying swastikas, and photos of
Hitler and Mussolini. Apparently,two months ago,violence erupted
in the village when molotov cocktails were thrown at the local
PDS HQ and at a council office. In Gavariate, another village
just two kilometres away, the Frente Nazionale (which already has
one office in nearby Lonate Pozzolo), has set up office, leading
one sociologist to comment: `The whole area between Varese and
Legnano is a hot-bed of radical-right activity' (Il Manifesto
16.2.93).
Police raid `nazi-skins'
Police have raided `nazi-skin' premises in Bologna, Florence and
Modena. In Bologna, 45 youths (of whom 14 were minors and seven
girls) were arrested. They were believed to have been responsible
for two recent attacks on black people and also to have
infiltrated basketball and football supporters' groups. During
a police raid, weapons including baseball bats and pistols were
confiscated. The raid in Modena came after an attack on a jewish
cemetery. Eighteen people were arrested during a raid by the
police, during which arms and illegal literature was also found.
Meanwhile, in Florence, 12 youths arrested during a police
raid are said to have contacts with similar neo-nazi skinhead
groups in Germany, France, and Scandinavia (II resto del Carlino
7.2.93, 9.2.93, La Republica 8.2.93, Il resto del Carlino 9.2.93,
La Gazetta di Modena 10.2.93, 11.2.93, La Republica 8.2.93).
Police response to racist attack criticised
The police response to the shooting of two Moroccans on 8
February has been criticised, as has the attitude of the daily
paper, II Giomale, who, presumably on the basis of police
briefings, labelled the shooting an underground score-settling',
without providing any evidence to back this assertion.
The two Moroccans were waiting at traffic lights for a chance
to wash car windows when two men drew up on a large motor bike
and one opened fire with a machine gun. 29-year-old Elrain
Ermahumuni was shot in the foot; the other man was shot in the
arm and the abdomen. His identity has not been made public and
doctors are refusing to say how long it will take him to recover.
According to Il Manifesto, there have been three similar
episodes in the same area. In at least two of these cases, the
attackers were young locals, who regard `foreigners' as invading
their `territory'. Although the police were aware of the identity
of the youths, their only action has been to advise `foreigners'
living in the same area to avoid certain streets.
In the case of the Moroccan youth, the police have, it seems,
closed the case with undue haste, failing to identify the
attackers. Their suggestion that the Moroccan men were drug
pushers, and that this was little more than an underworld
shooting, has been reproduced in local papers,