A Brief Introduction To The Communist Prisoners Collective "Wotta
Sitta"

     The Collectivo Communisti Prigionieri Wotta Sitta (Wotta Sitta
Imprisoned Communists Collective) consists of comrades imprisoned
in various special prisons coming from the different Italian
guerrilla experiences (Red Brigades, NAP - Armed Proletarian Units,
Red Brigades-Guerrilla Party, COLP - Communists Organized for
Proletarian Liberation, Resistance). 
     As prisoners (we are all in jail for about 10 years, and some
of us for 15) we have a wide knowledge of struggle inside the
maximum security prisons, in unity with the struggles of the social
prisoners.
     It is important - instead of speaking about our specific
experiences - to talk about our common heritage, that is, the
similar characteristics typical of the whole revolutionary movement
in Western Europe at the end of the 60's, which are the background
for the birth of the guerrilla in Europe as well as in Italy.
     In the early 70's the guerrilla developed in order to re-build
a revolutionary perspective - a class perspective - of the
proletariat, in order to re-open a power confrontation in the heart
of the imperialist system. Particularly in Italy, the guerrilla has
built a fighting experience deeply rooted in the class and social
structure and in the struggles of all the proletarian sectors; a
fighting praxis which has developed in direct opposition and attack
against the state.
     At the beginning of the 80's everybody (therefore us as well)
understood the coming into being of a change affecting the entire
international reality and the rise of a new movement re-designing
the revolutionary perspective. In Europe this meant the beginning
of the building up of a revolutionary anti-imperialist Front,
through the initiative of the RAF and AD, and BR-PCC, and involving
most of the European resistance.
     So during the summer of 1985, when we worked out our first
collective paper as prisoners - entitled "Wotta Sitta" - that is in
African "the time is right" - we started from the deep conscience
that it was time to start building a wider communication process
among the revolutionary experiences and the anti-imperialist
movements existing all over the world, in particular in Western
Europe. It was time to really overcome the ideological attitudes
towards internationalism in order to focus on the common class
interests that bind together the proletarians of the world in the
common struggle against the "new imperialist order".
     But our objective, since the beginning, has also been to give
a political answer to the counter-revolutionary strategy which
gained ground after the defeats and arrests suffered by the
guerrilla organizations in 1982, particulary in Italy.
     The capitalist governments tried to put an end to the struggle
and resistance of the revolutionary prisoners in Europe in order to
transform their struggle into a weapon to point at the communist
perspective and the anti-imperialist fight, and to play against the
fighting organizations.
     Our intention is to confront the integrated counter-revolution
with the political and fighting unity of the revolutionary
prisoners inside the wider unity of the revolutionary movement.
     The counter-revolutionary strategy against the prisoners is a
common reality of all the European states, therefore also the
struggle of the revolutionary prisoners and the solidarity
movements must move forward and develop a common and unified
reality. They are not a different thing apart from the
internationalist solidarity.
     In this sense, the experience of struggle carried out by the
imprisoned comrades of the RAF and resistance in the FRG has been
very important, as well as the struggle of the imprisoned comrades
of PCE(r) and GRAPO in Spain.
     We would like to say also that inside the Italian prisons
there are some Arab and Palestinian prisoners and in the last few
years we have made many solidarity initiatives with them against
their segregation.
     Regarding our jail's conditions we have to say that, together
with all the other Italian political prisoners (about 150), we are
spread out in different special jails: Novara, Cuneo, Marino del
Tronto, Carinola, Rome-Rebibbia for men and Opera-Milano for women.
     They are all maximum security prisons with control units for
political prisoners, established with decree by the Italian
government in 1977 in the framework of the "struggle against
terrorism" for a number of prisoners reaching 800 persons in the
early 80's. Some comrades (a few in fact) as well as some
Arab/Palestinian prisoners are in general population jails.
     The State's policy is based on continuous pressure through the
adaptable use of segregation and dispersion, through the strict
control of visits and mail directly by the intelligence forces by
means of the prison department, through the investigations into the
political debate inside prisons, the periodic criminalization
campaign against the revolutionary prisoners, and the prosecutions
against the solidarity movement and people supporting the prisoners
and sometimes also against the relatives (with charges similar to
129a in the FRG).
     In Italy every activity of the revolutionary prisoners not
controlled by the state's pacification policy is considered "a
threat against state security", because for quite a while the
bourgeoisie has tried to enforce a political solution to armed
struggle with the active collaboration of many ex-revolutionary
people, once militants in the various fighting organizations, in
order to recompose the break between the state and the class
movement of the last ten years and to depoliticize the whole
experience of armed struggle.
     In this state counter-revolutionary strategy, the reformist
and revisionist parties are very active, above all the PCI, which
with its recent transformation into the PDS (Democratic Party of
the Left) has fulfilled it move towards the bourgeois area which it
began in the post World War Two era, and has reinforced its role as
enemy of any revolutionary initiative in this country.
     In conclusion the State policy on the revolutionary prisoners
- in Italy as well as in any west European country - aims at
redefining the contradiction represented by the existence of
guerrilla prisoners in view of the European process of economic-
political-military integration, of which the "1992 united market"
is a very significant step. We see in every European country many
direct attacks against the prisoners and the attempt to use them
against the guerrilla, as is now happening with the arrests of the
ex-RAF militants in the DDR.
     As imprisoned revolutionaries we have to confront the same
counter-revolutionary strategy of imperialism in every European
country and aware of being an integral part of the revolutionary
process here, we see in the unity of the prisoners in western
Europe a possible and necessary step in our fighting experience.

Collectivo Communisit Prigionieri Wotta Sitta

(Written in 1992.)