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Writings of Horst
Asinara: who rejects the red power
of Horst Fantazzini (Asinara - Stoves)

Isola dell'Asinara, Fornelli department, December. A dozen prisoners are gathered

in a room: they have ripped the right to meet each other for two hours, in
addition to the "normal" air. They are all political prisoners, almost all adherent or
close to the Red Brigades. One of the R.B. leaders takes the floor and proposes
the immediate removal of the anarchist Horst Fantazzini. No one opposes it.
Fantazzini is forced to return to his cell, while the others begin the collective
discussion.
The reason for this marginalization of Fantazzini by the leaders of the Asinara
Struggle Committee (hegemonized by the R.B.) is well understood by reading the
open letter to the comrades hostages in the state camps and to the comrades of
the external revolutionary movement that Fantazzini himself wrote before the
episode just reported. We publish it integrally in these pages, naturally referring
the comrades to the reading of the pamphlet "Speciale Asinara" (Edizioni
Anarchismo, Catania 1978) that is at the center of the controversy and that
however represents an interesting document on the struggles of the prisoners at
the Asinara last summer.
The diffusion of Fantazzini's open letter has provoked the opening of an internal
debate within the prisoners' struggle movement, both for the specific fact that it
originated and especially for the general issues it raises. We are aware, among
other things, of a long document prepared and circulated by the Termini Imerese
Fighting Committee, in whose super-prison Renato Curcio and other brigatists
transferred to Termini Imerese from Asinara, where they had actively participated
in last summer's fights. While expressing sympathy and solidarity to the Asinara
Struggle Committee and heavy criticism of Fantazzini, Curcio and comrades try
not to exacerbate the matter and to reduce the whole story. In their opinion,
those of Asinara should pay more attention to their internal shortcomings that the
"Fantazzini case" would have highlighted: first of all the insufficiency shown in the
work of publicizing the struggles (there is, in the document of Termini Imerese,
the implicit recognition of what Fantazzini pointed out in his letter in this regard).
With continuous reminders of the need to extend the struggles to impose the "red
power" within the state camps, Curcio and his comrades forget the need for the
Asinara Struggle Committee - and generally for all the bodies hegemonized by
the R.B. - to follow a more ductile and articulate line towards the revolutionary
militants who do not accept the directives of the R.B. but who may find
themselves at their side during the struggles. Not immediate ostracism, no
definitive rupture: rather a continuous work of pressure and persuasion to bring
them back into the R.B. directives. The objective, however, is common to those of
Termini Imerese, to those of Asinara and to all the Red Brigades in general: to
have control and maintain the command of the struggles, to beat the "radical and
anarchist" positions, to develop maximum homogeneity inside and efficiency
outside. Any recognition of a possible coexistence of ideological and
organizational differentiations among political prisoners has no place in the
political approach of the R.B.: what counts is hegemony, presented as the most
obvious and natural thing since to themselves, and to no one else, the B.R.. R.
recognize (goodness them) the right to represent all political prisoners. It is the
principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat applied to the imprisoned
proletariat: it is Stalinism (moreover never hidden by the R.B. themselves) that,
with the iron fist of the Asinara Wrestling Committee or with the velvet glove of
Termini Imerese, reappears punctually with its burden of sectarianism, of
instrumentalization, of will to impose its diktat. Not everyone, however, is willing
to make the mats for the triumphant advent of "red power".

Open letter to the comrades hostages in the state camps and to the
comrades of the external revolutionary movement.

Comrades,

After the publication by the comrades of "Anarchism" of the booklet "Speciale

Asinara", controversy arose against me. The published material was smuggled
out of this lager by me and my initiative was qualified as "banditesca",
"mystificatoria", "False political" and other such pleasures.

It also seems that I have been subjected to an "internal process" and, through a
third party, invited to assume the authorship of the 2nd document published in
the booklet indicted and to make public self-criticism towards:

the "Committee of struggle of the Asinara"

the "Prisoner Proletarian Movement

the "External Revolutionary Movement".

In short, the accusation that moves me is to have "from the top of my pedestal"
drawn up an analysis of the struggles that took place in Asinara in the period 21-
23 September and then published it together with the analysis of the "Red Week
of August", "passing it off" as a collective work of the movement of the
Proletarian Prisoners of Asinara. The accusation would be, therefore, of personal
misconduct and political mystification.

Towards the middle of the month, returning to Asinara after a brief absence for a
trial, I became aware of these accusations and I immediately sent my version of
the facts to my fellow "inquisitors". It was not possible for me to receive their
answer in time as I was transferred to the Trabuccato branch and, three days
later, to Fornelli where I am still standing.

The comrades "inquisitors", although unaware of the circumstances that led to

the drafting and then publication of that material, thought it appropriate to inform
the comrades of the other Kampi that the second part of the booklet is to be
considered apocryphal. It seems that a correction was also asked to the comrades
of the editorial staff of "Anarchism". It is however certain that the "controversy"
is bouncing outside and several comrades ask for my version of the facts.

It was my intention to wait for the answer of the comrades "inquisitors", sure that
they would have provided themselves, after having read my clarification, to the
disclosure among the Kampi and outside of an explanation more adherent to
reality, to the rectification of the accusations made to me, bringing back to
normality a story that is likely to swell in an absurd controversy. Instead I am
forced to take a public position by writing this open letter to all the comrades, a
letter that is absolutely not a self-criticism but just a clarification for the use of all
those comrades who do not have a clear and complete vision of the whole story.

As is now known, our struggles culminated on September 23rd, when we broke

through the partition walls of our cells "building" a single very long room instead
of 19 small cells. In the late afternoon of that day, after some comrades thought
to accept the proposals of the Fiore surveillance judge, we evacuated the 2nd
section of the Fornelli divided into three groups, each of which was moved to a
different branch: Campu Apertu, Trabuccato, Centrale ("bunker" and "chicken
coop").

I, with 15 other companions, ended up in Trabuccato. The next morning, Sunday

24 September, 8 comrades of our group left with the official motivation of a
transfer to other prisons. There was an air of "demobilization" and it was thought
that we would all be transferred, which then occurred in the measure of 70% of
us (about 90 of us participated in the struggles; currently there are about twenty
"veterans" still on the island: 8 at the "bunker", 5 at the Fornelli, the others -
about ten - scattered in the other branches).

The same Sunday 24th, I was sure that within a couple of days I would be able to
smuggle out some documents (through a complacent guard? Through a seagull
traveler trained and convinced to the revolutionary cause? It is not necessary to
go into detail here...).

I had with me a copy of the "diary-analysis of the Red Week of August". Before
the last struggles I had exposed to the comrades the possibility to make it out
clandestinely and to have it published by the comrades of "Anarchism", finding
the agreement of the questioned comrades. I also had a copy of the documents
produced and distributed by the "Collective of Struggle" during the 21-23
September struggles. These last struggles had been the subject of an almost total
blackout by the regime's media, the few leaked news had been misrepresented,
diminishing the scope of our struggles.

I consulted with the other comrades present at Trabuccato and together we

agreed that we had to take the opportunity to promptly divulge our last struggles
outside, to the comrades of the other prisons and to the comrades of the
"movement" (in the widest extension of this term often used inappropriately). We
knew that in all probability the comrades "displaced" in the other branches would
have made a correct and detailed analysis of the struggles, but we also knew that
it would take time to write and disseminate such an analysis. I believed and still
believe that when power breaks a movement of collective struggle by diluting it
into various scattered groups, when these groups are unable to consult each
other and therefore to agree on a unitary behavior, each group must be able to
take charge of the management and dissemination of the struggles in which it
participated.

For us comrades of Trabuccato it was not a matter of making a political analysis

(we would not have had the time and maybe not even the capacity) but only a
report of what had happened, "tying" the documents produced and disclosed
during those three days of struggle by our "Fight Committee" to a correct report
on the struggles, an explanation of the real facts, leaving the political analysis to
others.

The same day I prepared the report, integrating the "official" documents with an
explanation of what happened during those three days. I had it all read to the
comrades present at Trabuccato and, with their approval, I made sure to send it
to the comrades of "Anarchism" together with the "diary-analysis of the Red
Week of August".

About ten days after the fight, the booklet "Asinara Special" was already in
distribution! Organizational Exploit of us disorganized anarchists ....
It is useful to specify how the 2 documents I sent to the comrades of "Anarchism"
were composed and signed: the "diary-analysis" of the August struggles was
numbered from page 1 to page 21 and was signed, at the end "The Proletarian
Prisoners of the Asinara concentration camp. September '78".

The report we made in Trabuccato was numbered from page 1 to page 10 and
was signed only: "Trabuccato, 24 September '78".

The authorship of this second document was therefore implicit in the text and in
the signature: it was clearly the work of those comrades who were in Trabuccato
on September 24th, who came from Fornelli after the struggles that ended there
on the afternoon of September 23rd.

The booklet, instead, bears the words "I P. P. of the Asinara concentration camp"
at the beginning, not at the end of the first document. This may lead some
readers to believe that these are not two separate documents.

Probably the comrades of "Anarchism" did not give importance to this detail,
believing that also we of Trabuccato were "Proletarians prisoners of Asinara". It is
good to point out that the comrades of "Anarchism" politically dissociated
themselves from the content of the two documents with a brief editorial
intervention at the beginning of the booklet. For them it was neither a
"commercial" nor a political operation, but simply a work of counter-information,
a service rendered to the movement and the imprisoned comrades through the
publicity of struggles that were and still are to be considered ongoing. To this end
they have made their editorial structures available to us.

However, if the comrades of "Anarchism" will consider useful to release a second

edition of that booklet, they will surely modify the signature of the 2nd document
in "a group of P. P. 'decentralized' to Trabuccato", and here I apologize to the
comrades of "Anarchism" for not having foreseen that this particular "technical"
could have been the origin of such polemics.

Now, from what little I could understand, it does not seem to me that the
controversy is motivated by the content of the 2nd document, but that it is
justified only by this particular "technical".

If this is so, I want to hope that the comrades who prepared the analysis of the
struggles 21-23 September, will have the shrewdness to sign it: "a group of P. P.
of the Central", not making the mistake of signing on behalf of all the P. P.
(something that we of Trabuccato did not do) coming then to visit in the guise of
"inquisitors" inquired.

This is also because, well over two months after those struggles, their analysis is
still unknown to almost all the proletarians who participated in those struggles,
including myself.

Sorry to get down to this controversy, but I was pulled by the hair. The
proletarians of Asinara who participated in those struggles and who therefore
know me, will laugh at these polemics. But the comrades of the other Kampi and
those of the outside movement could also take them seriously.

To speak of "mystifications", "falsifications", "political marginalization", is

extremely serious language and therefore I cannot help but invite the comrades
"inquisitors" to publicly and concretely motivate their accusations. With regard to
the "trial" underway against me and that, while awaiting the "sentence", has led
to a preventive "political marginalization of the anarchist Fantazzini", I can only
feel sadness for these comrades who sublimate their frustrations trying to re-
propose a sad past historically condemned.

These comrades have known me for years and know perfectly well that I have
never deviated from what I think is right. The controversy that we have been
warming up for years has never prevented us from always being side by side in
our struggles against a common enemy, despite our fundamental political
differences.

There can be no real "political marginalization". My relationship with power is one

of absolute denial and total opposition and will continue to be so. With or without
the "inquisitorial" comrades, but certainly inserted within the struggles that sees
the prisoner proletariat as the protagonist.

For the revolution!

from "Rivista anarchica" n° 71 - February 1979