February 28th has been an extraordinary day of tenacity and determination of the NO TAV movement, and inevitably some were bothered.
At around 23.15 (GMT+1) or shortly after, people at the gathering started running towards the houses opposite the road junction in Chianocco, because someone said that a car parked across the street, which runs alongside the railway, had caught fire. Everyone was alarmed, and the relative call was made to the emergency number 115 of firefighters.
A tanker truck arrived, followed later by a second one. A car of a NO TAV activist was burning, the fire spread, another vehicle nearby started burning too and, while the firefighters intervened, a third one caught fire from the heat.
Soon it was said this was an accident; then it was understood that it couldn’t have been one; in fact, not far from the spot, also a wood pellet depot at the Sibille hardware in Chianocco caught fire, where another 115 unit intervened.
A third alarm came in the sequence of events. An activist on his return from Turin noticed flames between trucks parked along the national road 25. At first he just thought that some truck drivers were warming up next to their vehicle, but the guardrail was too close, so he realized there was no space for that. He stopped and then saw that the flames were coming from a vehicle’s tarpaulin from the side of the field. He awakened the driver who slept unsuspected on board, and together they tried to extinguish the flames. Fortunately they succeeded, and a supervening tanker truck of the fire brigade secured the place. In the meantime, two Carabinieri’s patrol cars arrived on location of the arson fire, for the reports and findings of the case.
Some thugs like little games, and so attempted to raise the tones, confident that they would get away and wear down or scare the movement.
Certainly the 2011 arsons on the gatherings and the caravan camper in Maddalena crossed our mind.
Tonight the coincidences were far too many.