We can no longer speak of individual episodes or simple protests by environmentalists. The TAP, the gas pipeline that will connect Italy to Azerbaijan, is being transformed into a new TAV and the contestation of the progress of the works has taken the form of a veritable guerrilla war where local committees are flanked by infiltrated activists from the world of leftist and anarchist antagonists. The same No Tav from Val di Susa have now descended into Puglia. The construction site is armored and the workers, technicians and engineers are escorted at night to reach their workplace. A crescendo of tension, from November onwards, whose objective is as clear as it is illegal: to prevent or delay beyond measure the construction of 8 kilometers of track - all underground, therefore invisible and therefore in line with the protection of the landscape - in Puglia in Melendugno , not far from Lecce.
A PIPELINE CONTAINING THREE
To understand the absurdity of the situation that has arisen, we must first of all try to clarify things. We are in fact talking about a gas pipeline which is 4000 kilometers long, starts from Azerbaijan, crosses Georgia and the shores of the Caspian Sea (South Caucasus Pipeline), arrives in Turkey (Trans Anatolian Pipeline) and from there passes to Greece (550 km ) and Albania (215 km), crosses the sea (105 km) to Italy (8,2 km) to join the Snam network which is also a 20% shareholder. This last Italian-Greek-Albanian section is called Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). At the end of 2017, 65% of the works were completed: Albania had carried out 78% of the works on the access roads, Alexis Tsipras's Greece is progressing with the laying of pipes despite Macedonian protests, Italy instead is struggling . The project involves 7 countries, has a value of 45 billion dollars and will serve to bring 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year from a new supplier, Azerbaijan, thus reducing Italy's (but also Europe's) exposure from Russia which currently ensures almost half of the 70 billion cubic meters that we consume every year.
As it was said, the 8 km of the Italian track will be invisible as entirely buried at least 1 and a half meters below the ground. But above all, an underground tunnel, at a depth of over 10 meters, will start 600 meters inland and will pass under the beach of San Foca, continue for 800 meters from the coast after which the pipes will rest on the seabed up to the Albanian coast. Tap will contribute 3 million a year to environmental interventions and will pay Imu, Tares and Tasi around 500 thousand euros a year for 50 years, thus positioning itself as the first partner of the Municipality of Melendugno.
THE GUERRILLA AND THE SITE OF FEAR
After the battle against the uprooting of 231 olive trees which blocked the construction site between April and August, when the The Council of State has definitively rejected the appeal of the Puglia Region and the construction site was able to restart, protests and vandalism resumed with an escalation that has not escaped the observation of national intelligence services. The report of the Dis (Department of Information for Security) presented to Parliament at the end of 2017 says verbatim: "The opposition front, also made up of formations of local left-wing antagonism, has recorded an intensification of mobilizations" (...) . “In the final part of the year, with the resumption of work, there was a further sharpening of the protest, also due to the support of No Tav activists and exponents of the anarchist area rushed to the site to contest the militarization of the area surrounding the construction site". Other than environmentalists, then. Here we are talking about No Tav activists, anarchist fringes, leftist antagonists who infiltrated the place.
Since the beginning of November 2017, coinciding with the resumption of the pruning of the olive trees - safely kept and covered - along the 8 km of track involved in the connection works between the micro-tunnel area and the one that will host the reception terminal (Prt), the opposition actions to the Tap have been restarted. The month was punctuated by actions ranging from the launch of rockets against the cars of the security company at the construction site, to the assault by No Tap on the company's offices in Melendugno: screams, video cameras disabled, writings, egg throwing. And then spontaneous demonstrations in the streets of Lecce with sit-ins in front of the prefecture and an attempt to block traffic; attacks on Pd headquarters with sprays and paints; No Tap raid in the rectorate of the University of Salento during a conference (later suspended) with silenced speakers. The escalation continued with acts of intimidation against teachers ("Prof Boero accomplice Tap": the professor is a biologist-ecologist and has simply conducted some research on Tap), demonstrations in the center of Lecce, egg throwing in the offices of the gas pipeline company, assemblies and marches towards the "Red Zone" which houses the construction site, smoke bombs and stone throwing at the fence, attempts to block traffic, a demonstration by the Terra Mia association against the Region and local politicians accused of "ambiguity" towards the Opera.
In short, a crescendo of tension continued in December and January which also led to the detention for 52 No Tap activists engaged in "walks" towards the construction site area. It's still: blocked concrete mixers, attempts to break down gates, throwing stones inside fences. New attacks on 25, 29 and 30 January. And in February, activists block men and vehicles using nails and stones along the road leading to the construction site.
The pipeline company has filed several complaints against the escalation of shares. But what is worrying, alongside the protests carried out by local committees, is the advance of anarchist fringes which also express themselves through dedicated sites where you can read phrases like this: "Opposing the Tap is not just defending a piece of the territory from the aggression of a work that only serves those who plan and build it but can become opposition to the global system of exploitation”. With the stated intention of using the pipeline "to detonate the protest, because direct actions are needed to block the Tap, not appeals to the TAR or petitions".
Faced with all this and despite the fact that the Tap has passed all the authorization procedures both locally and nationally, after the presentation of a mountain of documents filed and exams - above all the environmental ones - passed; and after a number of appeals and counter-appeals to the Tar – not least those concerning the uprooting of a hundred olive trees – lost last summer by those who wanted to oppose the infrastructure, the Puglia Region, led by Michele Emiliano, has seen fit to ride the protest rather than play its institutional role to inform and make the inhabitants aware of the infrastructure, its pros and cons, defusing mistrust and fears. Serious behavior also because it is moved by personal ambitions in an anti-Renzian key and all within the dispute within the Democratic Party between the majority and the opposition.
The result is that in Melendugno people go to work at dawn, in columns and under armed escort, as documented the report by Jacopo Giliberto published on February 22 by Il Sole 24 Ore. An illuminated construction site, for safety reasons, "like a stadium at night".
