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Naples, Italy (AFP) Oct 19, 2010 Dozens of protesters clashed with riot police, throwing rocks and bottles and setting two garbage trucks alight in a town near Naples on Tuesday as anger flared over the region's waste crisis. Police said homemade explosives had been found during an overnight search and officers were seen dragging away local women brandishing Catholic rosary beads, who had been blocking trucks from unloading at the local tip. "The situation is deteriorating. We're heading for violence," Naples police chief Santi Giuffre said on SkyTG24 television. "We have deployed 500 men in the last 24 hours," he said, adding that the explosives found were "powerful homemade bombs." Three policemen were injured and five people were arrested in the violence at Terzigno, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) southeast of Naples. Tensions have been rising in the Naples region on this flashpoint issue, which helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to his election victory in 2008 after he promised to stamp out the waste disposal problem in the area. "We're making major efforts but if there's going to be a response like this every time then I don't want to deal with this problem any more," said Andrea De Martino, the Italian government's representative in Naples. Protesters later on Tuesday parked trucks to block a road junction and local officials presented a list of requests including the immediate closure of the Sari tip that has been the focus of public anger, ANSA news agency reported. Residents say the tip is already full and have said they will put a stop to plans to set up a second tip in the area. At sit-in protests in recent days in Terzigno protesters prevented trucks from unloading. The inhabitants of Terzigno and several other municipalities in the area are planning to bring their case to Rome on Friday, where they are to hold a rally. "We were hoping Berlusconi would come and see us as he promised. He didn't do so so we'll go to him," Gennaro Langella, mayor of Boscoreale, said earlier. "Local residents... don't want to be condemned to death," he said. "There are people who no longer sleep at night, people who wake up with their throats burning, people who say they can't breathe any more," he said. He also condemned the "total silence from the authorities" on the issue. The issue of waste disposal led to massive protests in 2007 and the business is interlinked with the local organised crime syndicate, the Camorra. The European Court of Justice earlier this year criticised Italy, saying it did not have an adequate system for waste disposal in the Naples region and warning that the problem was a risk to human health and the environment.
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