by John Dickie
G. Di Fiore, Io, Pasquale Galasso, da studente in medicina a capocamorra, Naples, 1994. ‘But what a race there was to suck up to Cosa Nostra’, p. 141.
P. Ginsborg, Silvio Berlusconi: television, power and patrimony, London, 2005. The first was ‘semi-clean’, quoted from F. Tamburini, Misteri d’Italia, Milan, 1996.
M. Massari, La Sacra Corona Unita: potere e segreto, Rome, 1998. ‘Never to allow any family from other regions to lord it over our territory’, p. 15; ‘At the time, Cutolo’s men felt like they were Lord God Almighty’, p. 17; ‘He wanted me to draw a triangle, the sign of the Holy Trinity’, pp. 18–19; ‘eight unknown, invisible and well-armed men’, p. 32.
‘Rapporto del Questore di Bari al Procuratore del Re rivelante l’esistenza in Bari della Mala Vita’, 22/8/1890. Reproduced in C. D’Addosio, Il duello dei camorristi, Napoli, 1893, pp. 141ff. The Mala Vita was also widely covered in the press, even in the UK. Its emergence bears many similarities to that of the ’ndrangheta at the same time. The Mala Vita, however, does not seem to have put down roots.
R. Sciarrone, Mafie nuove, mafie vecchie. Radicamento ed espansione, Rome, 1998. ‘In 1982 I took part in a meeting of all the Locals in Piedmont. About 700 people were there’, p. 235.
Tribunale Penale di Roma, Ufficio Istruzione, Ordinanza-Sentenza contro Abbatino Maurizio + 237 (Banda della Magliana). ‘We decided to try and carry out the same operation in Rome that Raffaele Cutolo was carrying out in Naples’, p. 65.
‘Così fu ucciso il duca Grazioli’, Corriere della Sera, 5/10/1993. ‘Go home and wait. Your father will be freed in a few hours.’
PART XI: MARTYRS AND PENITENTS
59. Mafia terror
A. Dino (ed.), Pentiti. I collaboratori di giustizia, le istituzioni, l’opinione pubblica, Rome, 2006.
Gruppo Abele (ed.), Dalla mafia allo Stato. I pentiti: analisi e storie, Turin, 2005.
H. Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi. Origin, Power and Myth, London, 1998. ‘Sensation-hungry journalists, confused northern Italian jurists, and foreign authors’, p. 3.
F. La Licata, Storia di Giovanni Falcone, Milan, 2002. A fine biography that I have used repeatedly in the following chapters. ‘Ruining the Palermo economy’, p. 61; ‘Well I never. I was absolutely sure it was your turn’, p. 54.
U. Lucentini, Paolo Borsellino, Cinisello Balsamo, 2003. Another fine biography that I have used repeatedly in the following chapters. ‘I had married a man carved out of rock’, p. 59.
S. Palazzolo, I pezzi mancanti. Viaggio nei misteri della mafia, Rome–Bari, 2010. ‘Palermo’s mafia organizations have now become pivotal in heroin trafficking, the clearing house for the United States’, p. 39.
‘Giornalista assassinato a Palermo’, L’Unità, 27/1/1979.
‘Noi politici siamo indifendibili’, L’Ora, 10/3/1979. ‘No longer live for the construction industry and off the construction industry’.
‘S’intese col PCI e gli sparì l’auto’, Giornale di Sicilia, 11/3/1979.
60. The fatal combination
G. Anremi, La strategia vincente del Generale Dalla Chiesa contro le Brigate Rosse . . . e la mafia, Rome, 2004.
P. Arlacchi et al., Morte di un generale. L’assassinio di Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, la mafia, la droga, il potere politico, Milan, 1982.
G. Bascietto and C. Camarca, Pio La Torre. Una storia italiana, Rome, 2008. ‘In a couple of years, La Torre and I should be able to get the most important things done’, pp. 26–7.
G. Bocca, ‘Quell’uomo solo contro la mafia’, Repubblica, 10/8/1982.
G. Burgio, Pio La Torre. Palermo, la Sicilia, il PCI, la mafia, Palermo, 2010. ‘You’re an intelligent lad. You’ll go far’, p. 47; ‘We just can’t stomach this party. Over there in Russia maybe . . . ’, p. 47.
C.A. Dalla Chiesa, Michele Navarra e la mafia del corleonese, ed. F. Petruzzella, Palermo, 1990.
C.A. Dalla Chiesa, In nome del popolo italiano, ed. N. Dalla Chiesa, Milan, 1997.
N. Dalla Chiesa, Delitto imperfetto. Il generale, la mafia, la società italiana, Milan, 1984. ‘Get lost, mafioso!’, p. 45; ‘I’ve been to see Andreotti; and when I told him everything I know about his people in Sicily, he blanched’, p. 34; ‘What we were afraid of has happened’, p. 122.
N. Dalla Chiesa, Album di famiglia, Turin, 2009.
C. De Simone, Pio La Torre. Un comunista romantico, Rome, 2002.
G. Frasca Polara, ‘Una vita contro la mafia’, L’Unità, 1/5/1982.
P. La Torre, Comunisti e movimento contadino in Sicilia, Rome, 1980.
P. La Torre, Le ragioni di una vita, Palermo, 1982.
M. Nese and E. Serio, Il Generale Dalla Chiesa, Rome, 1982. The anecdote about Dalla Chiesa’s father’s return to Italy, p. 9.
S. Palazzolo, I pezzi mancanti. Viaggio nei misteri della mafia, Rome–Bari, 2010.
D. Paternostro, A pugni nudi: Placido Rizzotto e le lotte contadine a Corleone nel secondo dopoguerra, Palermo, 2000.
P. Peci, Io, l’infame, Milan, 1983. ‘His manner was severe but gentle, authoritative but kind’, p. 189.
Pio La Torre. 30 aprile 1982. Ricordi di una vita pubblica e privata, Palermo, 2007.
D. Rizzo, Pio La Torre. Una vita per la politica attraverso i documenti, Soveria Mannelli, 2003.
Repubblica, 29/3/1982. ‘There should be no political difficulties’.
61. Doilies and drugs
G. Ascheri, Tortora. Storia di un’accusa, Milan, 1984. ‘Aggressive personality strongly influenced by delusions of grandeur’, p. 46; ‘My current status as a detainee who is still bound to the healthy principles of Honour’, p. 39.
F. Coppola, ‘Ecco perché Tortora è innocente’, Repubblica, 18/12/1986.
M.V. Foschini and S. Montone, ‘Il processo Tortora’, in L. Violante (ed.), Storia d’Italia. Annali 12. La criminalità, Turin, 1997.
L. Galluzzo, F. La Licata, S. Lodato (eds), Rapporto sulla mafia degli anni ‘80, Palermo, 1986. On Buscetta’s treatment in Brazil, see the interview with Falcone, p. 35.
M. Jacquemet, Credibility in Court. Communicative practices in the Camorra trials, Cambridge, 1996.
R. Lumley, ‘The Tortora Case: The Scandal of the Television Presenter as Media Event’, The Italianist, 6, 1986.
R. Lumley, ‘The Tortora Case: Restoring the Image and Putting the System of Justice on Trial’, The Italianist, 7, 1987.
Maxiprocesso: Tribunale Penale di Palermo, Ufficio Istruzione Processi Penali, Processo verbale di interrogatorio dell’imputato Tommaso Buscetta, 16/7/1984.
‘C’era una volta Portobello’, episode of TV series La storia siamo noi: available at www.lastoriasiamonoi.rai.it.
‘Tra Tortora e il boss Cutolo stretta di mano all’Asinara’, Repubblica, 3/12/1985. ‘No, look, you’re the boss’.
62.Walking cadavers
D. Dolci, Banditi a Partinico, Bari, 1955. On the cassetta, p. 282.
G. Falcone and M. Padovani, Cose di Cosa Nostra, Milan, 1991. ‘Was like a language professor who allows you to go to Turkey without having to communicate with your hands’.
L. Forte, ‘20 anni fa’, Repubblica, 28/7/2005. ‘In Palermo there are about ten of us who are a real danger for the mafia’.
S. Lodato, Trent’anni di mafia, Milan, 2008. ‘Everything conspires to individualise the struggle against the mafia’, p. 120; ‘Sooner or later all the investigators who really take their job seriously end up getting killed’, pp. 166–7; ‘We keep a very close eye on the worrying events surrounding both the build-up to the Palermo maxi-trial, and the maxi-trial against the camorra’, pp. 166–7.
U. Lucentini, Paolo Borsellino, Cinisello Balsamo, 2003. ‘We’d better resign ourselves to being walking cadavers’, p 122.
S. Lupo, ‘Alle origini del pentitismo’, in A. Dino (ed.), Pentiti. I collaboratori di giustizia, le istituzioni, l’opinione pubblica, Rome, 2006.
V. Vasile, ‘La normalità a Palermo’, L’Unità, 8/8/1985. ‘You knew Cassarà. And you understood.’
Antonino Caponnetto interview
with Gianni Minà from 1992 available in various versions on YouTube. (Buscetta changed everything ‘by opening the door for us from the inside’.)
‘Gian Giacomo Ciaccio Montalto’, episode of TV series Blu notte. Episode first transmitted in 2008. The street where he lay bleeding to death was a narrow one.
Interview with Procuratore della Repubblica Bernardo Petralia.
63. The capital of the anti-mafia
N. Alongi, Palermo. Gli anni dell’utopia, Soveria Mannelli, 1997. ‘Why are we [i.e., Communists] the only ones who talk about the mafia?’, p. 95; ‘Street crime, operating in the open, is almost inextricably tied in a complex web with occult manipulators’, p. 16; ‘For almost an hour the Cardinal waited in vain for the prisoners to leave their cells’, p. 29.
P. Catalanotto, ‘Dal carcere della Vicaria all’Ucciardone. Una riforma europea nella Palermo borbonica’, Nuovi Quaderni del Meridione, 79, 1982.
L. Galluzzo, F. La Licata, S. Lodato (eds), Rapporto sulla mafia degli anni ‘80, Palermo, 1986. ‘They have shown that, in the struggle against the mafia, party political labels are irrelevant’, and the rest of the interview with Falcone, pp. 39–40.
A. Jamieson, The Antimafia: Italy’s Fight against Organized Crime, London, 2000.
S. Lodato, Trent’anni di mafia, Milan, 2008. ‘Palermo has always been the mafia’s capital city. But I want to express my pride in its ability to be the capital of the anti-mafia too’, p. 212; ‘the Church is worried that holding such a big trial might attract too much concentrated attention on Sicily’, p. 179; ‘Today the mafia is fundamentally unconnected to power’, p. 182.
Maxiprocesso: Tribunale Penale di Palermo, Ufficio Istruzione Processi Penali, Processo verbale di interrogatorio dell’imputato Tommaso Buscetta, 16/7/1984–. ‘The presence of so many Men of Honour in the Ucciardone at the same time further reinforces the links between them’, p. 376.
U. Santino, Storia del movimento antimafia, Rome, 2009 (updated edn).
J.C. Schneider and P.T. Schneider, Reversible Destiny: mafia, antimafia, and the struggle for Palermo, Berkeley, CA, 2003.
F.M. Stabile, I consoli di Dio, Caltanissetta, 1999.
64. The rule of non-law
F. Barbagallo, Napoli fine Novecento: politici, camorristi, imprenditori, Turin, 1997.
F. Barbagallo, Il potere della camorra (1973–1998), Turin, 1999.
F. Barbagallo, Storia della camorra, Rome-Bari, 2010. ‘In the 1980s we realised that we had to “industrialise mafia activities”’, p. 154.
Commissione parlamentare antimafia, Camorra e politica: relazione approvata dalla Commissione il 21 dicembre 1993, Rome, 1994. Estimate of number of camorra clans, p. 10; ‘The camorra’s activities create a generalised “rule of non-law”’, p. 55; construction of Pianura without a single building licence, p. 61; ‘a conurbation that can only be compared to some of the metropolises that have grown up rapidly and chaotically in South America or South-East Asia’, p. 62; arrest of a former mayor, a chief of a local health authority and three bank managers, p. 47.
Corte di Assise di Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Sentenza contro Abbate Antonio, + 129, ‘Sentenza Spartacus’, 15/9/2005.
S. De Gregorio, I nemici di Cutolo, Naples, 1983.
D. Della Porta, Lo scambio occulto: casi di corruzione politica in Italia, Bologna, 1992.
G. Di Fiore, Io, Pasquale Galasso, da studente in medicina a capocamorra, Naples, 1994. ‘Everyone remained autonomous. We weren’t like the Sicilian mafia’, p. 148.
L. Gay, ‘L’atteggiarsi delle associazioni mafiose sulla base delle esperienze processuali acquisite: la camorra’, Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 99, 1996. ‘We felt like the Israelis facing up to the Arabs’, said by Pasquale Galasso; Sicilian construction companies operating in Campania immediately abandoned the region.
Processo Olimpia. ‘He lived to do justice because he was the armed emissary of the Madonna of Polsi’, p. 517; ‘Great fluctuations in power. Marriages to seal pacts. Secret alliances’, p. 558; ‘the war’s protagonists, who had by now been decimated, were irrationally hitting victims chosen at random’, p. 653.
I. Sales, La camorra le camorre, Rome, 1993. Figures on numbers of camorra clans, p. 7.
‘Assalto alla villa del boss camorrista: tre morti e 2 feriti’, L’Unità, 11/6/1984.
65. ’U maxi
G. Ayala, Chi ha paura muore ogni giorno. I miei anni con Falcone e Borsellino, Milan, 2008.
Istruttoria Stajano. ‘For many a long year the state was practically absent from the struggle against the mafia’, p. 328.
F. La Licata, ‘La “finta giustizia” di Cosa Nostra’, La Stampa, 4/10/1994.
G. Lo Forte, ‘L’atteggiarsi delle associazioni mafiose sulla base delle esperienze processuali acquisite: la mafia siciliana’, Quaderni del Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, 99, 1996.
Maxiprocesso: Tribunale Penale di Palermo, Ufficio Istruzione Processi Penali, Processo verbale di interrogatorio dell’imputato Tommaso Buscetta, 16/7/1984–. ‘The Salvos’ role in Cosa Nostra is modest. Yet their political importance is huge’, p. 465.
F. Viviano, Michele Greco il memoriale, Roma, 2008.
‘Anti-mafia trial to open in Sicily’, New York Times, 9/2/1986. ‘The prosecution will try to prove how individual acts were part of a vast criminal conspiracy born centuries ago’.
‘Cast assembles for Mafia show trial’, Observer 9/2/1986.
‘Trial a challenge to might of mafia’, Guardian, 10/2/1986. ‘Overtones of a Barnum and Bailey production’.
‘The Mafia is not dead’, Economist, 15/2/1986. The Commission as ‘semi-mythical’, p. 55.
‘Anche Salvo non sa nulla’, La Stampa, 21/6/1986. ‘The Salvos paid all the political parties. Money to all of them: no exceptions’; ‘You seem bored’.
‘Sgomento a Palermo’, La Stampa, 10/10/1986. ‘And they call themselves Men of Honour!’ ‘We join the Domino family in their grief.’
‘Maxiprocesso alla mafia’, RAI documentary available on YouTube. Includes Michele Greco’s infamous ‘peace’ wishes.
66. One step forward, three steps back
C. Duggan, Fascism and the Mafia, New Haven, London, 1989.
G. Falcone and M. Padovani, Cose di Cosa Nostra, Milan, 1991. ‘I warn you, judge. After this interrogation, you will become a celebrity’, p. 44.
L. Galluzzo, F. Nicastro, V. Vasile, Obiettivo Falcone. Magistrati e mafia nel Palazzo dei veleni, Naples, 1989. ‘ . . . distorted protagonism’ and ‘personality culture’, p. 205; ‘No one is irreplaceable . . . there is no such thing as a demi-god’, p. 267; ‘Has he resigned? Things in Palermo are still trouble’, p. 280.
F. La Licata, Storia di Giovanni Falcone, Milan, 2002. ‘I am a walking corpse’, p. 113; ‘One step forward, three steps back: that’s how the fight against the mafia goes’, p. 120.
L. Sciascia, A Futura memoria (se la memoria ha un futuro), Milan, 1989.
67. Falcone goes to Rome
Corte d’Assise di Caltanissetta, Sentenza nel procedimento penale contro Aglieri Pietro +40 (the trial for the murder of Falcone, his wife and bodyguards). ‘Wage war on the state first, so as to mould the peace afterwards’, p. 1242; ‘destroy Giulio Andreotti’s political faction led by Salvo Lima’, p. 825.
P. Ginsborg, Italy and its Discontents. Family, Civil Society and the State 1980–2001, London, 2001.
A. Jamieson, The Antimafia: Italy’s Fight against Organized Crime, London, 2000.
F. La Licata, Storia di Giovanni Falcone, Milan, 2002. ‘Yes, I am Sicilian. And for me, life is worth less than this button’, p. 14; ‘My country has not yet grasped what has happened. This is something historic: this result has shattered the myth that the mafia cannot be punished’, p. 163; ‘Don’t you understand? You must realise that an equilibrium has been broken, and the entire building could collapse’, p. 166.
PART XII: THE FALL OF THE FIRST REPUBLIC
68. Sacrifice
Corte d’Assise di Cal
tanissetta, Sentenza nel procedimento penale contro Aglieri Pietro +40 (for the details of the Capaci bomb). ‘Giovanni, Giovanni’, p. 146.
S. Lodato, Venti anni di mafia, Milan, 1999. ‘The state seemed like a punch-drunk boxer’, p. 305.
U. Lucentini, Paolo Borsellino, Cinisello Balsamo, 2003. ‘While he carried out his work, Giovanni Falcone was perfectly well aware that one day the power of evil, the mafia, would kill him’, pp. 260–62; ‘It will be him first, then they will kill me’, p. 243.
69. The collapse of the old order
R. Alajmo, Un lenzuolo contro la mafia, Palermo, 1993.
F. Barbagallo, Storia della camorra, Rome-Bari, 2010.
B. De Stefano, I boss della camorra, Rome, 2007.
G. Di Fiore, Io, Pasquale Galasso, da studente in medicina a capocamorra, Naples, 1994.
N. Gratteri and A. Nicaso, La malapianta, Milan, 2010. On invitation from Riina for ’ndrangheta to join massacre campaign, p. 63.
Gruppo Abele, Dalla mafia allo Stato, Turin, 2005. ‘Everyone saw me, and I immediately thought: now they’re going to arrest me’, p. 461; ‘Today I feel as if I am completely one of them, because when it comes down to it we’re all running the same risks and fighting for the same cause’, p. 469.
D. Parrini, ‘Collaboratori e testimoni di giustizia. Aspetti giuridici e sociologici’, in L’altro diritto. Centro di documentazione su carcere, devianza e marginalità, available at: www.altrodiritto.unifi.it/ricerche/law-ways/parrini/cap1.htm#60.
Some of the sheets of protest hung up in Palermo in the summer of 1992 can be viewed here: http://www.rainews24.rai.it/it/foto-gallery.php?galleryid=165442&photoid=392267.
‘La mafia dichiara guerra allo Stato. Dopo Falcone, uccisi Borsellino e cinque agenti’, La Stampa, 20/7/1992.
70.Negotiating by bomb: Birth of the Second Republic
S. Ardita, Ricatto allo Stato, Milan, 2011. ‘After the second bomb we were genuinely all ready to be killed’, p. 7.