Italian communists rally against U.S. bases
     AVIANO, Italy (March 1, 1998 9:06 p.m. EST) -- Demanding the
 closure of U.S. military bases, a communist leader led a protest
 Sunday outside the home base of a Marine jet that caused a deadly
 ski gondola accident last month.
     Fausto Bertinotti, head of the Communist Refoundation party,
 denounced the American bases as a risk for Italy "because they
 expose it to possible involvement in the military adventures of
 another country."
     Bertinotti's small party is an ally of Prime Minister Romano
 Prodi's center-left government.
     The protesters -- about 2,000 according to police -- marched
 for about 3 miles past the base to the town square in Aviano, in
 northeast Italy. Many in the crowd were members of leftist youth
 groups. There were no arrests.
     Bertinotti alluded to the Feb. 3 crash in which an American jet
 on a training mission flew low over an Italian Alpine resort and
 severed a cable car line, sending a gondola smashing into the slopes
 and killing 20 people.
     American military authorities and Italian civilian and military
 officials are investigating the accident.
     Earlier Sunday, at the U.S. air base at Sigonella, Sicily, about
 200 people organized by the Communist Refoundation protested to
 demand the closure of the base, the Italian news agency ANSA
 reported.
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      They did not protest when we gave them food for their hungry,
 jobs for their poor and DDT for their lice in 1944.  Jim
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