Italian Women Lead Grassroots Campaign Against US Military Base

The local community says that plans for the base were made in secret by the previous Berlusconi government and the local government back in 2003, and the people only found out about it in May 2006. Since then, they have been educating and organizing the residents, and fighting the local city council that approved the base in October 2006 by a vote of 21 to 17. They bang their pots and pans at city council meetings for hours on end.

They organize signature drives, block traffic, hold candlelight vigils, stage sit-ins at local offices, and on December 2nd, they held a mass march of 30,000 people. Knowing from polls that they represent the view of the majority of Vicenza residents, they asked the city council for a referendum on the base, but the council refused. Prime Minister Romano Prodi, elected narrowly with a center-left coalition last April that ousted the conservative government of Silvio Berlusconi, had a chance to reverse government’s decision, but didn’t.

On January 16, 2007, Prodi announced that he would abide by the previous agreement. Outraged, the Vicenza citizens decided to step up their opposition by setting up a permanent encampment on donated land adjacent to the proposed base. “The encampment is the best thing that has happened to our movement, because it allows us to have a presence 24-hours a day,” said Attilio Pavin. “It’s like a melting pot that brings the diverse parts together—the youth, the parents, and the different committees. The young people—our children—really run the camp and take turns sleeping there. At our planning meetings, about 200 people show up. We eat together, we sing, we have fun together. It’s really magical.”  

As part of the revving up of their opposition, the community decided to organize a massive demonstration on February 17 and ask people from all over Italy to join them. The pro-base forces, with the help of the conservative press and the US Embassy, tried to keep people away by orchestrating a fear campaign alleging that the march would attract extreme leftists prone to violence. They said there would be a repeat of the clashes between police and demonstrators that occurred at the anti-globalization protests in Genoa in 2001. The U.S. Embassy warned Americans to steer clear of Vicenza. On the day of the march, the airspace over the city was closed, and most stores in its historic center were shut down. Officials even shut schools normally open on Saturday. Some 1,500 police were mobilized for the day and helicopters hovered overhead.

While the fear campaign certainly kept some people away, particularly parents who kept their children from attending, for the most part it had the opposite effect.