Red Brigades
The Red Brigade (Brigate Rosse) is a militant group located in Italy. Formed in 1969, the Marxist BR seeks to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle and to separate Italy from the Western Alliance.
History
Reputed founder of the Red Brigade was Renato Curcio, student at the University of Trento, and Alberto Franceschini. In the beginning the Red Brigade were active mainly in Reggio Emilia, then in Milan and Turin where they claimed to support labor unions against the far right. Members—mainly workers and students—sabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972 they carried out their first kidnapping, a factory foreman who was held for some time but later released.
Approximately at this point in time, the Red Brigades started differing from other extreme left political groups, such as Lotta Continua or Potere Operaio for having a much more determined political agenda, freer access to weapons and funding and a propensity for carrying out violent demonstrative acts.
In 1974 Alberto Franceschini was arrested and condemned to 18 years of prison. He would then beneficiate of the 1987 law on "dissociation", finally to write a book with Giovanni Fasanella. According to him, the "accidental" death of editor Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, on March 15th, 1972, would leave them like "orphans". After this period, the Red Brigades would become harder, maybe taken under control by a secret group inside the Red Brigades. Franceschini would talk about bombings made in Greece against the military dictature, operated by this secret group, and therefore pointing to international connexions: thirty years later, Franceschini is aware of having been part of a much greater plan, with international ramifications, of which he was not aware. Franceschini talks about the 2nd Red Brigades from this time on, led by Mario Moretti. Almost all the members of the original group born in Reggio Emilia are jailed by this time.
After 1974, the Red Brigade expanded into Rome, Genoa, and Venice, and began to kidnap prominent figures. Its manifesto in 1975 claimed that its goal was a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State, because the state is an imperialist collection of multinational corporations". It switched its attacks to police and security forces and especially the Italian ruling party, Democrazia Cristiana. In June 1974, the Red Brigade made their first lethal attack, against two members of an Italian neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano. It practically abandoned its political activities among the workers.
In 1976 Italian police arrested a number of its members and killed one. The following year in April, the Red Brigade announced that they had set up a Communist Combatant Party to "guide the working class." Terrorist activities, especially against carabinieri and magistrates, increased considerably to pressure juries to dismiss cases against the imprisoned leaders of the organization. Membership switched from workers to the dominance of students.
In 1978, the Brigade kidnapped and murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, because he had created a compromise between Italian Communist Party and Democrazia Cristiana. The circumstances of Aldo Moro's death are not clear, except that he knew too much. In Alberto Franceschini's book - who didn't understand at the time why Aldo Moro had been chosen -, he is called the foundator of Gladio. Whoever really did it, or was behind the Brigade at this time - some see the hand of P2 or CIA -, it is clear that the objectives of the strategy of tension were achieved: the PCI was stopped from governing, alone or with Democrazia Cristiana.
The murder of Moro began an all-out assault against the Brigade by the Italian law enforcement and security forces. The murder of a popular political figure also drew condemnation from the Italian left-wing radicals and even the imprisoned ex-leaders of the Brigade. The Brigade lost most of their social support and the public opinion turned strongly against them. Italian police made a large amount of arrests in 1980.
In 1981, the Red Brigade kidnapped US Army Brigadier General James Dozier, who was later rescued in a police operation. Italian police arrested a number of members, many of who gave information about other members, which subsequently led to further arrests.
In 1984, the Red Brigade had split into two factions: the majority faction of the Communist Combatant Party (BR-PCC) and the minority of the Union of Combatant Communists (BR-UCC). At the same year, four imprisoned leaders, Curcio, Moretti, Ianelli and Bertolucci, rejected the armed struggle as pointless.
Also in 1984, the Red Brigade claimed responsibility for the murder of Leamon Hunt, US chief of the Sinai Multinational Force and Observer Group.
In 1985 some Italian terrorists who had lived in France, returned to Italy. The same year, french president François Mitterrand would garanty amnisty to RB's members in exile who had cut with their past and start a new life, and refuse to extradite them to Italy. In 2002, Paris extradites Paolo Persichetti, an ex-member of the BR who had turned to teaching sociology at university, breaking for the first time with Mitterrand's word. However, in 1998, Bordeaux's appeal court judged that Sergio Tornaghi could not be extradited to Italy, on the grounds that italian procedure would not let Sergio Tornaghi be judged again, after a controversed trial during his absence (European Court of Human Rights uphold such a right to a new judgment).
In the mid-eighties, arrests increased in Italy. In February 1986, the BR-PCC killed the ex-mayor of Florence, and tried to kill Prime Minister's advisor Bettino Craxi. In March 1987, BR-UCC killed General Licio Giorgieri in Rome. On April 16 1988 BR-PCC killed Italian senator Roberto Ruffilli. After that the group activities all but ended after massive arrests of its leadership.
The latest known actions of the BR-PCC (as of February 2004) are the 1999 murder of Massimo D'Antona, an advisor to the cabinet of near-left Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema. In March 20, 2002 the same gun that was used to kill D'Antona was used to kill professor Marco Biagi, an economic advisor to right-wing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a key figure of Italian labour policies. The BR-PCC again claimed responsibility. On 3 March 2003 two followers, Mario Galesi and Nadia Desdemona Lioce, started a firefight with a patrol of police on a train at Terontola Station. Galesi and Emanuele Petri (one of the policemen) were killed, Lioce was arrested. In October 23 2003, Italian police arrested six members of the Red Brigade in early-dawn raids in Florence, Sardinia, Rome and Pisa in connection with the murder of Massimo D'Antona. On June 1st, 2005, five members of the BR-PCC were condemned to life-sentence in Bologna for the murder of Marco Biagi: Nadia Desdemona Lioce, Roberto Morandi, Marco Mezzasalma and Diana Blefari Mellazi.
Activities
The original group concentrated on assassination and kidnapping of Italian government and business leaders. Their usual modus operandi was to shoot their victims when they were leaving home for the office. The group has been largely inactive since Italian and French authorities arrested many of its members in 1989. With limited resources and followers to carry out major terrorist acts, the group is mostly out of business.
Strength
Probably fewer than 50, plus an unknown number of supporters. In addition to two main factions, other offshoots are believed to include the N.A.P. ("Nuclei Armati Proletari", Armed Proletarian Cells) and "Prima Linea" (First Line).
Location/area of operation
Based and operates in Italy. Some members probably live clandestinely in other European countries.
External aid
Currently unknown; original group apparently was self-sustaining but probably received weapons from other Western European militant groups and from the PLO.
Added to the Original source: Terrorist Group Profiles, Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School.
External links
- Strike One to Educate One Hundred: the rise of the Red Brigade in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s - this page includes links to several scanned-in chapters of the book "Strike One to Educate One Hundred", a sympathetic appraisal of the Red Brigade. Lots of political context about both Italy and the Italian revolutionary left.
- Red Brigade and Palestinians