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Red Brigades

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The Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse) are a militant group located in Italy. Formed in 1970, the Marxist BR seeked to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle and to separate Italy from the Western Alliance. In 1978, they kidnapped and killed Prime Minister Aldo Moro under obscure circumstances. With the discovery of Operation Gladio, following Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti's acknowledgment of its existence in 1990, the hypothesis of the strategia della tensione was reinforced. After 1984's scission, BR difficulty managed to survive the official end of Cold War in 1989, even though is is now a fragile group with no original members.

History

1970 foundation

Reputed founder of the Red Brigade were Renato Curcio, student at the University of Trento and his girlfriend Margherita "Mara" Cagol, and Alberto Franceschini. The later describes in his 2005 book how he met with Renato Curcio and Corrado Simioni, nicknamed "The English" because of his excentricity and "international connections". If a date of foundation can be assigned to the BR, it would be in August 1970 in Sheepfold, after December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing which marked the beginning of the strategia della tensione followed by Gladio's "stay-behind" secret armies. 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 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 September 1974, Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini were arrested by General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, whose later murder by the mafia is allegedly part of the strategy of tension. By infiltrating the BR, Fratre Mitra, an Italian secret agent, permitted this arrestation: this event proved that since the beginnings, the BR were under state surveillance. Franceschini was 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 BR would become harder. Franceschini would talk about a bombing against the US Embassy made in Greece against the military dictature, which Corrado Simioni confessed having organized. Simioni, to whom the BR turned after Feltrinelli's death, set up a secret group inside the BR, a sort of "superclan", which included Mara. Corrado Simioni's trail points toward international connections: thirty years later, Franceschini is aware of having been part of a much greater plan, with international ramifications, of which he was not aware. In his 2005 book, he suspected Simioni of working for NATO (in false flag operation), citing Simioni's insistent proposal to assassinate Junio Valerio Borghese in November 1970 or another unattended request to murder to NATO agents, demonstrating an important awareness of international political events[1]. 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.

File:Moro br 1.jpg
Moro, photographed during his detention by the BR

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.

Aldo Moro's murder, 1978

In 1978, the Brigade kidnapped and murdered former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who was trying to conclude a Historic Compromise ("compromesso storico") 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. The Moro kidnaping is dramatized in the 2003 Italian movie Buongiorno, Notte (dir. Marco Bellochio), released 2005 in USA as Good Morning, Night.

Kidnapping of James Dozier

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.

BR splits into BR-PCC and BR-UCC

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 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 (who was a member of P2) 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.

Amnesty in order to understand

In 1985 some Italian terrorists who had lived in France, returned to Italy. The same year, French president François Mitterrand would guarantee amnesty 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 extradited 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 had 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 1997, Antonio Negri, member of Potere Operaio, accused of conspiration to overthrow the state, voluntarily returned to Italy to serve the remainder of his sentence (which had since been reduced on appeal to 17 years), in the hope that this act would raise awareness of the situation of hundreds of exiles and prisoners (including Adriano Sofri from Lotta continua) involved in radical left political activities in Italy during the 1960s and 1970s, the so-called "anni di piombo" (the lead years). In the 2000s, Cesare Battisti's case has highlighted the fault-lines which continue to divide Italian and European society twenty years later: as Alberto Franceschini wrote it, as long as parts of the story of those anni di piombo and of this strategy of tension remains secret, it can't be understood nor put aside.

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.

References

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