Further rioting in Southern Italy

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32406, 19 September 1970, Page 17

Further rioting in Southern Italy

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) REGGIO (Italy), September 18. Bands of demonstrators, armed with guns and iron bars, turned Reggio into a city of terror in a fourth successive night of rioting.

One band, barricaded in the city cathedral, kept police at bay through the night; another crowd of 500 besieged the provincial police commander and other officials in his headquarters, and others roamed the streets, ransacking shops and attacking police patrols.

“We have lost control of the situation,” a spokesman at police headquarters said in the early hours, as police gradually retreated from several areas and left the rioting crowds in possession. It was the worst night of violence the Southern Italian city has seen, since a campaign began in July for Reggio to be named capital of the newly-formed Calabria region.

The first shots last night came during fierce fighting at the police station, where Angelo Campanella, aged 43, a father of seven, was killed and a policeman, Giuseppe Morabito, aged 21, was critically wounded. Police said that they thought the fatal burst of automatic fire came from a passing car. News of the shooting spread like wildfire, and tension was heightened by the arrest of the chairman of the action committee, which hasi masterminded a strike and the demonstration campaign. l ; Two police armouries were ! broken open and emptied,' and a huge crowd attacked! the police headquarters, trying to free their leader. Three policemen were wounded. An armed band took refuge in the city cathedral and opened fire on police and Carabinieri across the square, with pistols, rifles and sub-machine-guns. Those who had no guns armed themselves with clubs and iron bars and started looting shops throughout the city. / While his cathedral was being turned into a fortress, Archbishop Giovanni Ferro took his priests on to the streets to try to calm the crowds. But with the death of Campanella and the arrest of the action-committee leader, Mr Francesco Franco,

all appeals for reason went unheeded. The police commander could only say: “Let’s hope that as the hours go by good sense and calm will return.” There were fears as dawn

: approached that the new day —the fifth day of a generalstrike, called on Monday to protest against tire naming of Catanzaro as provincial ’ capital—would bring even i more violence.