Trouble in Tyrol

The first explosion came at dawn. The sleepy-eyed citizens of Bolzano, a quiet, German-speaking town in Italy's Alpine province of South Tyrol, trembled wonderingly out of bed and into the streets. At the second blast, an eerie bluish light flashed over the mountains as a high-tension tower toppled and its 220,000-volt cables short-circuited. For two hours the bombs continued to go off around Bolzano. The stunned Tyroleans slowly realized what had happened. Germanic extremists, who had long been agitating for more local autonomy, had declared private war on the Italian state.

Dissension has simmered in the Tyrol ever since the southern half was cut away from the Austrian empire at the peace tables of 1919 and given to Italy. The deal clearly violated Wilsonian principles of self-determination, since the overwhelming majority of Tyroleans did, and still do, speak German and consider themselves Austrian. Ever since Attila, invaders have swooped down into Italy through the Brenner Pass; but the annexation allowed the Italians to establish a defense line at the crest of the pass itself.

The current troubles began in 1946, when Austria and Italy renegotiated the original settlement, and Austria won promises that the Germanic peoples under Italian rule would be assured equality and a measure of legislative autonomy.

The ink was hardly dry before Tyrolean extremists found cause for grousing. The Italians merged South Tyrol with Italian-speaking Trento province, creating a new, bigger "autonomous" Alto Adige province in which the Italians outnumbered the German-speaking citizens 2 to 1. The Tyroleans claimed Italians were given all the important government administrative jobs; German was neglected in the public schools and no longer recognized as an official language. Last year Austria took the Tyroleans' claims to the U.N., which directed Austria and Italy to get together and settle the problem. Two tries earlier this year failed, but in preparation for a third try later this month, tacit agreement had been reached on giving the German minority a larger hand in internal affairs.

Apparently the terrorists were not willing to wait. All week long the Tyrol's quiet villages rang with explosions, aimed principally at the vulnerable high power system. Twenty percent of Bolzano's electricity was knocked out in the first two days. Whole factories shut down. Cars belonging to pro-Italian Tyroleans were bombed. Only one man was killed, a road worker who was blown apart trying to unstrap a bomb from a tree along the Brenner highway. But police averted a major disaster when they discovered and defused a bomb only an hour before it was set to go off under a dam at Selva dei Molini. The dam's collapse would have flooded the entire valley.

The Italian government declared a state of emergency in Alto Adige, ordered everyone to turn in all private arms, including even hunting rifles. Responsible Tyrolean leaders disavowed any part in the violence, condemned the terrorists, and few Tyroleans showed any great interest in the German-language pamphlets that invariably appeared in the wake of the bombing urging "support for the fight for liberation." Looking for a ray of hope, the daily Il Popolo sensibly noted: "The terrorists' acts may result in isolating the extremists themselves."

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