ROME. The lesson of a tragic page in national history. “The deadly bomb that 52 years ago was detonated in the headquarters of the National Bank of Agriculture, in Piazza Fontana in Milan, destroyed innocent lives, shocked the country, started a trail of blood and terror that our community managed to stop only after years of commitment and suffering – says the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella -. The memory of that ferocious attack remains indelible in the history of the Republic. It was conceived and executed with the aim of striking the democracy born of the liberation struggle, of interrupting the process of growth in participation and rights, of turning the institutions desired by the Constitutional Charter into an authoritarian sense ». The Head of State continues in his message for the 52nd anniversary of the massacre: «The long procedural events have left gaps and truths not fully disclosed. These are open wounds, not only for the families of the victims, but for the entire Republic. However, despite manipulations and misdirections, the subversive neo-fascist matrix and the deliberate attack on the democratic life of the country clearly emerge from the investigative work and from the final sentences ”.
Dramatic proof
“All this was soon clear to the city of Milan and to the national community. The united, supportive response of the people against terrorism, and against all the terrorisms that bloodied Italy after Piazza Fontana, was decisive in isolating, eradicating and thus defeating subversion. The test to which Italy was subjected was dramatic. But democracy won, and with it the values of which the Constitution is an expression prevailed – adds the President of the Republic -. Also for this reason it is necessary to remember. Democracy is a precious asset that must be continually defended and revived ». And, concludes Sergio Mattarella, “the unity that our people have been able to manifest, when the aggression concerned the fundamental rights of the person and the very bases of coexistence, constitutes a still precious heritage. Passing the baton to the younger generations means transmitting that civilization which is the fruit of history, culture, sacrifice and collective intelligence ». On December 12, 1969, the long season of the “Strategy of Tension” begins and Sixty-eight and Hot Autumn go to the attic. A bomb placed inside the Milan branch of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana causes 17 deaths and about ninety injured. The massacre starts a long series of attacks (Bologna station, piazza della Loggia, Italicus train) that will bloodied Italy during the seventies.
Barbaric crime
«The indignation of the whole of Italy for the Piazza Fontana massacre has never died out. On December 12, 1969 there was dismay, pain, indignation. It was the beginning of a long season of blood. But 52 years later, the thought for the 17 victims and the memory of that barbaric crime must be a warning so that the subversive plots and the suffering that ensued, individual and collective, will never be repeated in the future “, observes the president of the Senate, Elisabetta Casellati.