Ending Terrorism in Italy

Anna Cento Bull, Philip Cooke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781138676206
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135040796
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Ending Terrorism in Italy analyses processes of disengagement from terrorism, as well as the connected issues of reconciliation, truth and justice. It examines in a critical and original way how terrorism came to an end in Italy (Part I), and the legacy it has left behind (Part II). The book interrogates a wide array of published memoirs and a considerable number of new face-to-face interviews with both former terrorists and first and second generation victims

In the last two decades, and especially in recent years, former extreme-right terrorists in Italy have started to talk about their past involvement in terrorist violence, including, for the first time, acts of violence which have for decades been considered taboo, that is to say, bomb attacks against innocent civilians. These narratives add to the perspectives offered by members of left-wing terrorist groups, such as the Red Brigades and Prima Linea. Surprisingly, these narratives have not been systematically examined, yet they form a unique and extremely rich source of first-hand testimony, providing invaluable insights into processes of youth radicalization and de-radicalization, the social re-integration of ex-terrorists, as well as personal and collective healing.

Even less attention has been paid to the victims' narratives or stories. Indeed, the views and activities of the victims and their associations have been seriously neglected in the scholarly literature on terrorism, not just in Italy, but elsewhere in Europe. The book therefore examines the perspectives of the victims and relatives of victims of terrorism, who over the years have formed dedicated associations and campaigned relentlessly to obtain justice through the courts, with little or no support from the state and, especially in the case of the bombing massacres, with increasing awareness that the state played a role in thwarting the course of justice.

Ending Terrorism in Italy will be of interest to historians, social scientists and policy makers as well as students of political violence and post-conflict resolution.

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Part I

Ending the violence

1 Studying how terrorism ends

The Italian case

Introduction

Disengagement from terrorism has, until recently, been relatively under-researched, at least when compared to the vast literature on the origins and causes of political violence (Bjørgo and Horgan 2009a, p. 2; Horgan 2009a, p. 20). As Bjørgo and Horgan (2009a, p. 5) noted, ‘the analytical interest has tended to focus on the processes of recruitment and radicalization rather than on disengagement or deradicalization’. In particular, the authors distinguish between ‘individual and collective disengagement from terrorism’ (p. 4), pointing out that studies on disengagement that focus on the individual level, as opposed to the level of the group, are especially scarce: ‘the literature on individual disengagement remains highly underdeveloped’ (p. 6). Similarly, Horgan (2009a) claimed that the literature on ending terrorism ‘is focused at the level of organizations and networks. There is little within that research about how and why individual terrorists disengage and to what extent, if any, this can be considered a truly individual process’ (p. 27). According to Horgan, the dearth of studies on the individual level is puzzling, in view of ‘the obvious availability of, and accessibility to, disengaged individuals’ (p. 28). In addition, he cited the availability of ‘weblogs and other Internet sites’ by former terrorists who in many cases seemed ‘determined to speak out against their former comrades and leaders and, in some cases, to share their own opinions about what should be done to prevent future involvement by others’ (p. 28).

This is not to say, however, that specific case studies on both individual and collective instances of disengagement have been lacking. Indeed, the Italian case has been perhaps one of the most studied cases in the scholarly literature thanks both to the novelty of the Italian state’s legislative and penal response to the terrorist threat in the early 1980s and to the availability of individual testimonies by former terrorists. Many of the latter, in fact, became ‘dissociated’ from terrorism and started to grant interviews to scholars. Between 1981 and 1988, a pioneering programme of study on terrorism was carried out by the Bologna-based Istituto Cattaneo, involving the systematic gathering of primary documentation and roughly 60 interviews with former terrorists, whose transcripts are accessible in the Dote archive of the Institute and have partly been reproduced in a volume edited by Catanzaro and Manconi and published by il Mulino in 1995, entitled Storie di lotta armata (‘Stories of the armed struggle’). Most of these interviews were carried out in prison and are extremely valuable for understanding individualized processes of both engagement and disengagement. The Cattaneo research programme led to numerous publications by prominent Italian scholars (Catanzaro 1985, 1990a, 1990b, 1991; della Porta 1984, 1990; della Porta and Pasquino 1983; della Porta and Rossi 1984; Pasquino 1982, 1984), which addressed issues concerning the origins, development and decline of Italian (mainly left-wing) terrorism, often drawing on the above-mentioned interviews with former terrorists collected by the Institute. Other scholars researching terrorism also secured testimonies by some of the protagonists. Thus, a pioneering book by Alison Jamieson (1989), was based in part on a series of interviews by the author with former Red Brigades leader Adriana Faranda.

In the 1990s and 2000s many Italian former terrorists published their own memoirs, in which they offer their own reflections on both collective and individual engagement with terrorism and their subsequent disengagement from it. Apart from their intrinsic value, these memoirs also allow for an interesting comparison with the early interviews carried out under the aegis of the Cattaneo Institute in the 1980s or by scholars like Alison Jamieson. In the case of Adriana Faranda, for instance, there are transcripts of interviews she granted in 1987 and 2001, as well as in a book she published with Silvana Mazzocchi (Mazzocchi and Faranda 1994). This gives invaluable insight into processes of disengagement over the longer period and help us understand whether the former terrorists’ stories have evolved and changed over the years or indeed have remained substantially constant. Since disengagement often takes place in parallel with the search for a new identity to replace that of ‘terrorist’ or ‘ex-terrorist’, it is possible that the former terrorists’ own memoirs, written when they had completed their prison sentences and started a new existence, reconstruct their individual path to disengagement in ways that differ from the stories they told while in prison. Thus far, these recent memoirs have been incorporated in part into della Porta’s (2009) contribution to Bjørgo and Horgan’s book (2009b), in which she revisited the issue of disengagement in the Italian case, but have not been the object of systematic analysis.

Despite the relative scarcity of studies on disengagement, the scholarly literature has been able to identify the most important factors accounting for both collective and individual disengagement from terrorism. With particular reference to the Italian case there also exist some reasonably well developed interpretations of the end of the terrorist phenomenon, especially in relation to the behaviour of the state and the ‘dissociation’ of hundreds of former terrorists following their imprisonment. In the next sections we will first consider the more general theoretical and interpretative framework in relation to disengagement, and will then analyse the more specific interpretations of the Italian case.

Collective and individual disengagement from terrorism

According to Horgan, the most effective model for analysing processes of disengagement is a multi-level one; that is to say, one that ‘would integrate individual, group, network, organizational, social movement and cultural levels of analysis’ (2009a, p. 18). The group and individual levels, therefore, constitute two of the building blocks of a multi-layered model, where the analysis has the advantage of combining psychological insights with a sociological and contextual approach.

In terms of group behaviour, Cronin (2009, p. 8) identified six patterns in the decline of terrorist campaigns, each of which also takes into account contextual and external factors as well as internal group dynamics. The six patterns are: (1) the capture or killing of a group’s leader, or ‘decapitation’; (2) negotiations leading to a legitimate political process; (3) achieving the aims of the group; (4) failure, especially through the implosion or marginalization of the group; (5) successful repression of the group; (6) transition to other forms of violence. Of all these patterns, the one that depends primarily on an internal group dynamic is the fourth. As Cronin specifies, there are numerous ways in which terrorism defeats itself, ranging from the inability to attract a new generation of activists to loss of operational control, in-fighting, and finally, exit. Conversely, a terrorist group may simply become increasingly marginal and isolated from its sympathizers as well as unable to communicate with the wider public, which makes it even more prone to mistakes. Cronin makes it clear that all the factors leading to implosion or marginalization lie at the intersection between collective and individual behaviour. In-fighting, for instance, or indeed disagreements over strategic and tactical goals, can lead to disaffection on the part of individual members which in turn accelerates the process of implosion or disintegration.

Focusing on processes of individual disengagement, which he acknowledges can be as complex and prolonged as those leading to participation, Horgan argues that the main factors are either ‘psychological’ or ‘physical’ and that they often impact on each other. Among the former, he prioritizes feelings of personal disillusionment, due to unfulfilled expectations, or to disagreement over tactical or strategic issues, as well as feelings of being ‘burnt-out’. It is also important to consider the ‘changing personal priorities’ of individual terrorists, such as wanting to lead a different kind of life (2009a, p. 22). Among the latter he cites voluntary and involuntary exit from the movement or voluntary/involuntary movement into another role (e.g. a supporting role or a political role). As he argues, ‘arrest, imprisonment, and obviously death, represent the most dramatic kinds of physical disengagement’ (p. 25). Physical disengagement can lead to psychological disengagement and vice versa, thus imprisonment can foster disillusionment and a critical rethinking of one’s own violent past. However, Horgan warns against viewing imprisonment as a pathway towards disengagement. He cites the example of the IRA, for which ‘imprisonment carried with it opportunities for continued involvement and engagement,’ not least through ‘ongoing political radicalization and training within the prison system’ (p. 26).

In another study, Horgan also emphasizes the important role played by narratives in both engagement and disengagement processes. On the one hand, both active and former terrrorists rely on self-narratives in order to sustain their convictions, but their self-narratives will differ substantially (2009b, p. 158). According to Horgan, ‘if we are to effectively explore the feasibility of terrorist de-radicalization, we would do well to explore how explanatory styles develop and change’. One possible way of doing this would be

to compare explanatory styles in members of the same movement who are at different phases of their involvement (becoming radicalized, disengaged, etc.), as well as to correlate specific ideological narratives associated with terrorist groups with the explanatory styles of its members.

(2009b, p. 158)

In this book, as will be seen in Chapters 4 and 6, the self-narratives of former terrorists are paid particular attention and a systematic comparison is carried out between the explanatory styles of those who have fully dissociated from terrorism, and those who have not.

Horgan concludes by stressing that the individual level of analysis is relevant in terms of policy-making, since ‘identifying the reasons individuals come to disengage from terrorism, as well as how they do this, may have significant potential in the development of strategies aimed at identifying vulnerabilities in terrorist networks’ (2009a, p. 29). Specifically, such strategies could ‘promote and facilitate disengagement at particular junctures (both role-specific and phase-specific) at all levels of the terrorist movement’ (2009a, p. 29).

A policy report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, published in 2010 (ICSR 2010), also argues that government programmes and policies aimed at facilitating collective and/or individual disengagement can have a wider impact upon terrorist campaigns, helping to bring them to an end, but only ‘as long as the political momentum is no longer with the insurgents and other external conditions are conducive’ (p. 60). In short, ‘individual disengagement and deradicalization programmes … complement, rather than substitute other instruments in the fight against terrorism’ (p. 60). As far as the nature of these programmes is concerned, the report specifically identifies prisons as crucial sites for both radicalization and deradicalization. In terms of the latter, it argues that

prisons have on many occasions been incubators for peaceful change and transformation … [and] have made significant contributions towards reversing the process of radicalization and undermining terrorist campaigns on the outside. Prisons, in other words, have served as engines for positive change whose impact has been felt far beyond the prison walls.

(ICSR 2010, p. 8)

Due to prisons’ crucial role, the report emphasizes that the most effective state programmes are those that target the prison system.

It is worth analysing in more detail the pivotal role played by both imprisonment and prison systems and practices in fostering processes of radicalization and deradicalization, not least because, as will be seen in the course of this book, these are crucial factors in understanding how Italian terrorism ended. The ICSR policy report stresses that

prisons have played an enormous role in the narratives of every radical and militant movement in the modern period. [They] have all regarded their comrades’ imprisonment as traumatic turning points in the histories of their movements. The prisoners and the way they were treated came to be focal points for their groups’ campaigns, and they significantly influenced their supporters’ attitudes towards violence, and the state.

(ICSR 2010, p. 7)

In addition, prisons are sites in which it can be relatively easy for imprisoned terrorists to recruit new members and to continue to engage in the struggle. Indeed, it is often the case that terrorist groups treat their imprisoned comrades as an integral part of their operational structures and expect them to behave accordingly. As the ICSR report (p. 15) highlights, forms of behaviour involving imprisoned terrorists typically range from refusing to cooperate with the prison authorities to contributing to the development of their group’s ideology and strategy; from engaging in protests and media campaigns against real or presumed maltreatment or torture to participating in violent campaigns, notably to try and escape from prison. This type of behaviour tends to go hand-in-hand with a prison system which emphasizes security at the expense of rehabilitation programmes, relies on poorly trained or inadequate staff and operates in overcrowded and badly organized jails. In extreme cases, this can lead to a situation in which the imprisoned terrorists in effect achieve control of a particular prison, as happened in the notorious Maze prison in Northern Ireland.

Conversely, prisons can facilitate both collective and individual disengagement. The former takes place when imprisoned terrorists realize that their group is losing support, or the state is achieving military success in combating terrorism, so that they activate to bring all violent activities to an end, favouring negotiated settlements. Such instances tend to happen when ‘most of the group – including its leadership – is incarcerated and their command and control structures have remained largely intact’ (ICSR 2010, p. 41). However, another requisite is a government approach sensitive to changing attitudes among terrorists, ready to open channels of communication with their leaders, and capable of providing ‘the right mix of sanctions and inducements’ to bring the process to successful completion (p. 41).

Individual disengagement also requires a mixture of ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors; that is to say, there has to be both an initial change of attitudes on the part of a terrorist and a government-supported programme aimed at encouraging individuals to sever their links to a terrorist group and renounce violence. The ICSR report stresses that there is no single programme that can be applied to all situations; rather each programme has to fit the specific context to which it is applied. Having said this, important inducements include the possibility for prisoners to re-establish close relations with their families and to engage in a dialogue with civil society, for instance by opening up the prisons to outside interlocutors and organizations. The aim is both to expose the terrorists to social networks capable of counteracting the influence of their previous comrades and to facilitate their re-integration into society. ‘Material’ inducements, such as more lenient sentences, are also important but ‘do not seem to be decisive on their own’ (p. 57).

Ending terrorism in Italy: contextual factors

As mentioned above, the Italian case has been studied by a variety of scholars over the years and has given rise to a number of interpretations regarding the causes and modalities of the origins, development and decline of (mainly left-wing) terrorism. In this section the main accounts of why and how terrorism ended in Italy will be reviewed with reference to both collective and individual processes of disengagement.

As concerns contextual factors, in line with the previously examined literature, specific studies on Italy highlight the way in which successful state repression and the imprisonment of growing numbers of terrorists triggered a sense of disillusionment among many of them. In short, what Horgan defines as both ‘physical’ and ‘psychological’ disengagement came forcefully into play. Yet the latter might have remained latent or indeed led to despair and despondency, with high suicide/homicide rates in the prisons and desperate guerrilla actions by those still at large, rather than to the abandonment of violence. Both types of violent reactions were in fact witnessed in Italy in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much attention has therefore been paid to the response of the Italian state in the early 1980s, when it laid the ground for imprisoned terrorists to openly and officially renounce violence and declare an end to the ‘armed struggle’, in so doing taking advantage of an innovative programme for early release, and social re-integration.

There is a general consensus, therefore, that terrorism declined in the first half of the 1980s when the state managed to respond to it with both decisive surveil-lance and military actions and legislation offering material inducements in the form of early release from prison in exchange for collaboration on the part of individual terrorists. Two successive laws, passed in 1980 and 1982 (the latter known as ‘repentance law’), established that those terrorists who collaborated with the magistrates in their investigations and identified one or more accomplices would have their sentences substantially reduced. The 1982 law also envisaged reductions in sentences for those terrorists who confessed their own crimes but did not collaborate with investigations. In 1987 a new law (known as ‘dissociation law’) established that more lenient sentences would also be applied to those former terrorists who genuinely dissociated from political violence, even though they did not reveal anything about their own or their accomplices’ deeds.

The Italian legislation of the 1980s, which will be discussed in depth in the next chapter, is generally hailed as an example of good practice that other countries ought to take into account in their own anti-terrorist strategies (Crenshaw 1991; della Porta 1992, 2009; Jamieson 1989; Stortoni-Wortmann 2000; Weinberg and Eubank 1987). As Weinberg and Eubank (1987, p. 131) put it, ‘[The Italian] strategy is one that policy-makers in other nations confronted by terrorist threats might well study with benefit’. It is deemed to have been more effective than early 1970s legislation aimed at increasing security and introducing repressive measures, such as the widespread use of prevent...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Ending the violence
• Part II: After terrorism
• Bibliography
• Index