A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #32-25 - Fronts of struggle to be reunited. Taranto - from the factory to the territory (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Addressing the reality of Taranto is not easy. It means analyzing what 
can be considered a laboratory of capitalist and military oppression, 
where the seeds of a conflict are still struggling to explode. To 
decipher the low level of conflict that has characterized Taranto for 
years, it is necessary to dismantle the myth of its "industrial 
vocation" and try to understand the stratification that has developed 
over time and how the chains of imposed development have been constructed.

Let's start with military and industrial control. Since the early 
twentieth century, with the Arsenale, then with the coup of the 1960s 
(Italsider, Eni, Cementir), strongly supported by unions and government 
and opposition parties, the state has forged a district functional to 
its military and production strategy. This axis has been consolidated 
with the presence of the Navy and a crucial NATO base, which, together 
with Brindisi, forms a cornerstone of Atlantic projection into the 
Mediterranean. The NATO base and military companies (e.g., Leonardo) 
currently make Taranto a strategic hub for wars in the Mediterranean.

The construction of this military and industrial identity was 
accompanied by systematic sabotage of education. The failure to 
establish a university in the 1970s and 1980s was not a coincidence, but 
a deliberate political choice. The aim was to avoid the dangerous mix of 
student and worker struggles, keeping conflict low and facilitating 
social control.

Over time, the city has also been a neoliberal laboratory: Taranto was a 
testing ground for populist (under the fascist mayor Cito) and 
neoliberal policies. Under the Di Bello administration, the Buoni 
Ordinari Comunali (BOC) were tested, speculative financial instruments 
that led the city to bankruptcy, with the costs shifted to services and 
the proletariat. At the same time, a parasitic class has emerged, a 
local petty bourgeoisie, parasitic on the glories of a now extinct 
working-class aristocracy, incapable of imagining a different future. 
The result is a region with skyrocketing unemployment, forced migration, 
and a massively precarious proletariat. In this context, the emerging 
struggles are fragments of a single resistance against an ecocidal 
system in which the former Ilva plays a central role.

The numbers of the depredation speak for themselves. The former Ilva 
produces less than 10% of Italy's steel, is constantly losing money, and 
requires constant state bailouts. Furthermore, it withdraws 12.5 million 
cubic meters per year from the Tara River, a resource sufficient to 
supply the entire Taranto region with drinking water, and an immense 
quantity of water from the Mar Piccolo.

The former Ilva dispute: between the territory considered a sacrifice 
zone and the farce of green steel.

The decades-long agony of the former Ilva is the clearest illustration 
of the inaction and bad faith of those in power. The changes in 
ownership (from Italsider to Riva, then to ArcelorMittal) have only 
prolonged the suffering of an obsolete and uncompetitive plant. Added to 
this is the nonsense of the transition: Minister Urso talks about "green 
steel," electric furnaces (DRI), and decarbonization. In reality, the 
latest Program Agreement postponed the coal phaseout by 12 years, 
requiring an Integrated Environmental Authorization (AIA) to produce 6 
million tons with the same polluting technologies as always, confirming 
Taranto as a sacrifice zone, as also stated by UN rapporteur Marcos 
Orellana. The confederal and grassroots unions do not go beyond the 
sterile slogan of "nationalization." There is no credible plan, nor any 
real labor conflict capable of self-determination outside of this logic.

The stubbornness to keep this "walking corpse" alive can only be 
explained by the lack of a strategic vision for reconversion (as 
occurred in Bilbao) and by the need, in a war economy, to maintain 
national steel production quotas, at any cost, human and environmental. 
Nor should other aspects be overlooked, such as the fact that the 
various local industries, primarily the former Ilva, have, among other 
things, a significant impact on the fragile and vital ecosystem of the 
Mar Piccolo; this is also affected by illegal fishing, including for 
illegal trade. This is a sign of a perverse connection between 
impoverishment, crime, and the plundering of living things.

Faced with all this, a coalition of citizens and associations is, at 
their own expense, filing an appeal against the new AIA, after the 
Municipality refused to do so. This is a sign of resistance, but the 
road to a radical and determined conflict is still long.

The Desalination Plant Dispute: Water as a Commodity of Capital

The mobilization against the Tara River desalination plant did not 
originate with the "No Dissalatore" coordination group, but is rooted in 
a much broader and long-standing commitment to the local community. For 
nearly three years, committees, associations, and active citizens have 
been building an informed and well-founded opposition, questioning the 
merits of the project and its supposed necessity. The battle against the 
Tara River desalination plant exposes the hypocrisy of the so-called 
"ecological transition." Passed off as a public aqueduct project, it is 
actually infrastructure serving the industrial complex, primarily the 
former Ilva steelworks.

The No Dissalatore coordination group disputes the following points: 1) 
controlled inefficiency: in Puglia, over 50% of the water released into 
the network is lost. The problem is not a shortage, but rather 
plundering and mismanagement; 2) Polluting and expensive solution: this 
EUR130 million project will produce water at three times the cost of 
reusing wastewater, resulting in a huge CO2 footprint; 3) Environmental 
damage: the project will alter the ecosystem of one of the area's 
natural rivers; 4) Faulty model: a linear model (withdrawal, 
transformation, discharge) is preferred to a relational and regenerative 
model based on waste reduction, reuse, and community management of the 
resource.

We are faced with a project costing EUR130 million (EUR27 million from 
the PNRR), using reverse osmosis technology, when the 2011 AIA already 
required the former Ilva steelworks to use the city's treated wastewater 
(from the Gennarini and Bellavista plants). This project was never 
realized because it is more convenient to make the community pay for new 
projects.

The New Paolo VI Landfill: Daily Ecocide

The Taranto area is already a European hotspot for landfills 
(Grottaglie, Lizzano, Statte). Now, using a bureaucratic loophole, they 
intend to impose a new inert waste facility (a landfill) 800 meters from 
the homes in the Paolo VI neighborhood, already among the most affected 
by pollution from the former Ilva steelworks.

Despite repeated negative opinions from ARPA and regulatory bodies, the 
Province is relying on the silent consent of an inert Municipality whose 
councilors, three years after the proposal, admit they "still haven't 
read the documents." The No Paolo VI Landfill Committee is waging a 
two-pronged fight: directly opposing the project and raising awareness 
for rational and community-based waste management, against the interests 
of unscrupulous entrepreneurs and eco-mafias.

Taranto for Palestine: The Common Thread of Complicity

Internationalist solidarity in Taranto is not an abstract theme, but 
rather the awareness of a tangible connection between territorial 
exploitation and global wars. The Taranto for Palestine coordination 
group, born from libertarian, antagonistic, and self-organized 
movements, grassroots and student unions, has organized protests, 
demonstrations, and cultural initiatives. Some Palestinian activists 
have successfully weaved a common thread between apartheid in Gaza and 
the "low-intensity genocide" in Taranto, Italy's cancer capital, and 
have renamed their militant artistic piece "Tell Me About Gaza and Taranto."

The connections are obvious. Taranto is a strategic hub for war. 
Leonardo in Grottaglie produces drones, and Eni supplies crude oil to 
the Israeli Air Force. This same Eni has significant interests in the 
extraction and exploitation of gas off the coast of Gaza.

On September 24, the Taranto Coordination for Palestine and grassroots 
unions (Cobas, USB) attempted to block the refueling of the Seasalvia 
tanker, loaded with 30,000 tons of crude oil for Israel. Eni and the 
Port Authority initially declared that the ship would not refuel, a move 
that was later confirmed. On September 27, immediately following the 
Puglia regional demonstration against the Leonardo di Grottaglie 
shipyard, approximately 200 activists attempted to block the Seasalvia's 
refueling at Eni's crossing. Without the support of the port workers, 
the action remained symbolic, but it raised the level of conflict.

Law 185 of 1990 prohibits the export of weapons to countries at war or 
committing human rights violations. The government and port authorities 
systematically violate it, thus becoming complicit in the genocide. 
Faced with a wall of silence from the Municipality and Prefecture, which 
deny their own responsibility and violate Law 185, the coordination team 
has intensified counter-information and protests, preparing a regional 
demonstration against Eni, the date of which is yet to be determined. 
Meanwhile, initiatives have continued, including: the reception and 
support of the Freedom Flotilla vessel "Gasshan Kanafani" at the 
Sant'Eligio pier in Taranto; monitoring of the Seasalvia ship ready to 
load another 30,000 tons of crude oil destined for Israel; public 
meetings of the No Discarica Paolo VI committee and the No Desalination 
Coordination; and initiatives in solidarity with Palestine and against 
the complicity of local companies. Of particular importance is the 
"L'ora di Taranto" demonstration, scheduled for November 23rd, with all 
associations and protest movements participating, to say no to the 
bailout of the former Ilva steelworks and demand the economic 
reconversion of the area.

Toward a systemic struggle

The Taranto disputes are not separate islands. They are pieces of a 
single capitalist attack rooted in: ecocidal exploitation for profit 
(former Ilva steelworks, desalination plant, landfills); military 
control of the territory (NATO bases, Leonardo); Complicity in the 
imperialist war (Eni, supplies to Israel); Sabotage of the capacity for 
rebellion (lack of universities, precarious employment, complicit unions 
and institutional political forces).

The challenge for the opposing movements is precisely this: to connect 
the threads and demonstrate the connections between the various issues. 
Only a conflict that unites environmental demands with social and 
internationalist ones, practicing self-organization and direct action, 
can break the siege and open a space for liberation, which could in the 
near future materialize in a social strike and blockade of the city.

Walterego

Cosimo Cassetta

https://umanitanova.org/fronti-di-lotta-da-ricongiungere-taranto-dalla-fabbrica-al-territorio/
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