For Valerio

anti-fascist march in Rome, 22 February 2008

On 22nd February 1980, comrade Valerio Verbano was killed in Rome by the fascists of the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (NAR - Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari)

Valerio's death was another in the endless list of examples of connivance between the State and fascism, of how the State has always protected the most important fascist organizations and leaders and of how it has always used them in order to hide this connivance.

If we think about those times, it is in order to remember that Valerio's "crime" was, as an anti-fascist militant, having carried out an investigation into fascist activism, and in particular into the NAR and "Terza Posizione" (Third Position).

In the late 1970s, Valerio, a meticulous militant, compiled a dossier with information on Rome fascists, particularly those in the Valmelaina neighbourhood and on the links between them, organized crime in Rome and the State.

On 20 April 1979, Valerio was arrested on the charge of making incendiary material: the searches that followed in the house where he lived with his parents led to this dossier on fascists being impounded by the investigating magistrates.

It was then that the State's solidarity with its black servants went into action.

No-one knows how, but these documents disappeared somewhere in the gloomy corridors of the palaces of power. And less than one year later Valerio was murdered.

He had dared to challenge the State in the darkest meanderings of its power; and he had to pay the price: his death was to be an example so that nobody would again dare to investigate the natural connivance that exists between the State and fascism.

But the struggle against fascism cannot be stopped. Even today with its "cleaned-up" image as it hypocritically presents itself as a guarantor of "security", the fascist right stays true to its role of the violent gendarme of the authoritarian State power.

It is not only to remember Valerio and his anti-fascist militancy that brings Rome's anti-fascists to Via Monte Bianco on Friday 22 February. We will be there also to show that the solidarity and unity of anti-fascist forces is more essential than ever if we are to succeed in fighting back this new and aggressive neo-fascist presence on the streets, which has become so evident as to pose a real emergency. That is the true security issue in our cities these days.

Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
"Carlo Cafiero" Branch, Rome