Reuters/AFP/Rome
Allies of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi were swift to blame left-wing sympathisers for riots in Rome in which police fired teargas at masked protesters, in an apparent attempt to exploit the lawlessness to bolster their fragile coalition.Tens of thousands of peaceful protesters were joining a global “day of rage” against the elites blamed for economic downturn on Saturday when the rampaging violence, some of the worst seen in the Italian capital for years, erupted.Ignazio La Russa, defence minister in Berlusconi’s centre-right government, suggested the violence was at least in part attributable to a polemical political tone he said was employed by the left and whereby “everything is justifiable as long as we get rid of Berlusconi, the ‘evil of Italy’”.La Russa, an unflagging supporter of Berlusconi, said those who use violence “take advantage of these kinds of positions”.Another senior member of Berlusconi’s coalition, Senator Maurizio Gasparri, spoke of “dangerous proximity of some sectors of the left with the protagonists of the violence in Rome”.“The violent left wants to destroy and kill,” read a headline in the Padania newspaper of the Northern League party, a ruling coalition member.Centre-left politicians have dismissed this and they too condemned the violence.Berlusconi survived a vote of confidence he was forced to call on Friday after his divided and undisciplined coalition failed to pass a routine budget provision but he was left weakened.Discontent is smouldering in Italy over high unemployment, political paralysis and 60bn euros ($83bn) of austerity measures that have raised taxes and the cost of healthcare.Berlusconi said those responsible must be identified and punished, and, in an apparent reference to the left, said: “They must be condemned by everyone without reservation.”Meanwhile, as the clean up began yesterday, Romans asked why their city was the only one among the many global demonstrations that turned violent.“Yesterday we once again showed the world the anomaly of Italy and today, again, we have to feel shame,” La Stampa newspaper said in a front-page editorial. “Why did it happen only here?”Apart from the material damage, estimated by merchants’ groups at more than 1mn euros, Mayor Gianni Alemanno said that the capital would long suffer from the “moral damage” and shock caused by the rampage and the bad publicity around the world.Many asked why police did not intervene earlier to stop the hard core protesters, who call themselves “Black Bloc”, from arriving in Rome, moving around freely and infiltrating the demonstration in the first place.The “Black Bloc” members approached the demonstration already wearing masks, hoods or motorcycle helmets and brandishing sticks, pipes and other objects.Massimo Donadi, a legislator of the opposition Italy of Values party, called on the interior minister to address parliament and explain why the situation got out of hand and why more preventive action had not been taken.“These professionals of violence ... did not arrive from Mars,” Donadi said. “We want the interior minister to tell us how it happened.”“The government has to explain in detail how it’s possible that such a high number of vandals went unnoticed by the interior ministry,” said Italo Bocchino from the right-wing opposition Future and Freedom for Italy party. “Silence implies complicity and raises suspicion.”