Rom Febuary 27. 2002 Italy
Several people got injured by an explosion close to the Minitry of Interior
Affairs in Rome.
The Bombing was carried out by a motor cycle parked in a buisy shopping street
next to a back entrance of the building.
A group calling itself the Informal Anarchist Front ("F.A.I.") has
claimed responsibility in a letter printed by an Italian newspaper. Although
no known Italian anarchist groups have ever heard of this association, the
acronym matches exactly that of another above-ground, revolutionary organization
in Bologna: the Italian Anarchist Federation (F.A.I.) The F.A.I. has denounced
these attacks, and consider the Informal Anarchist Front "imaginary,"
invented to justify the repression of anarchists in Bologna and throughout
Italy.
The possibility remains, however, that such bombings have been carried out
by self-proclaimed "anarchists" that are disconnected from groups
such as the FAI, who struggle to promote autonomy, social and economic justice
in Italy.
During the 1970's, when electoral support for communists was at an all time
high, Fascists engaged in a deadly bombing campagin they described as part
of a "strategy of tension." By blaming the bombings on the communists,
the Fascists hoped to incite a breakdown of public order to justify the imposition
of military rule. The most horrific bombing took place in Bologna in 1980,
in which a bomb was detonated at a rail station killing 85 people and injuring
over 200. Bologna was a communist stronghold at the time. The Italian Secret
Service was later implicated in the bombing and high ranking officials in
the organization were made to stand trial ten years later. Their convictions
were overturned.
