by Behan, Tom
For Felicia, her husband’s shift made her blood run cold: ‘at night in bed I’d grind everything over in my mind’. She obviously wasn’t upset about her husband talking to her, searching to find a way for his son to reduce his ‘exposure’. But what her husband had told her confirmed something that had been preying on her mind: ‘That’s how I knew they were talking about it’ – ‘it’ being murdering Peppino.
Radio Aut
Unlike many other countries, setting up a radio station in Italy is fairly easy – access is not denied on the spurious grounds of a lack of waveband space, or the payment of expensive licence fees to the authorities. And back in the 1970s, in the last few years before television became the dominant media, young activists made ample use of ‘free’ radio stations. The first ever ‘free’ radio was set up by the civil rights campaigner Danilo Dolci in Partinico in March 1970, a man whose activities had impressed Peppino and others a few years earlier. This Radio of the New Resistance only lasted a couple of days before it was closed down by police, but the issues it brought out, the authorities’ lack of support for people who had suffered in an earthquake in 1968, created a national debate.
Five years later another attempt was made, using Danilo Dolci’s transmitter, but on this occasion Radio Free Wave lasted for several years. The driving force behind it was Gino Scasso, who had been at the centre of the 1968 student movement at Milan’s Cattolica University, before moving back to his hometown of Partinico and being elected as a far left councillor in 1970. Perhaps one of the reasons it lasted so long, as he explains, was because: ‘it wasn’t just a militant radio station because we didn’t have a group of activists prepared to dedicate themselves to that alone. So there were a lot of request shows and some serious music programmes that played jazz.’ Scasso also remembers: ‘Peppino used to come to the studio sometimes’; they had been at high school together in Partinico a few years earlier. Always open to new ideas, Peppino got involved: ‘I can remember one particular story I followed with Peppino, a young woman from a very poor family, mentally disabled, who had been abducted from Cinisi station and raped.’ The mushrooming of these revolutionary radio stations was so widespread that the transmitter that activists from Cinisi were to use came from a failed experiment that had only lasted a few months in the nearby town of Castellammare del Golfo.
above
2 ‘Don Tano’ – Gaetano Badalamenti facing page, from top
3 Hotel Delle Palme
4 Felicia Impastato
above
6 Threatening letter sent to local activists (see page 93) facing page
5 Peppino Impastato
7 A meeting of the Music and Culture group
8 Front blinds of the Impastato house
above
9 Giovanni
Impastato right
10 A funeral in
Cinisi. From
left to right:
Felicetta Vitale,
Felicia Impastato,
Giovanni
Impastato and
aunt Fara
11 A house confiscated from the Badalamenti family, with Mount Pecoraro in the background
12 A funeral procession on Cinisi’s main street
This was the background to Radio Aut being set up in a private house in the back streets of Terrasini. Broadcasting for several hours a day, the political input was strong but not overwhelming. Not only were there daily news bulletins with information from all over the world, but in September 1977 Peppino travelled as far as Bologna with bulky radio equipment to record debates and interviews at a three-day conference against state repression.
Peppino’s main contribution was a show named Crazy Wave, which went out on Friday evenings, and was repeated on Sunday mornings. It was partly improvised, although a safety net of sound effects was always used. People would bring a bottle of wine, bread and olives, a record or two, and the microphones would be switched on. In many ways it was his crowning achievement – he was able to let rip with all his political passion and satirical imagination. Although he was a very private person, everybody recognised that when it came to talking about politics in public Peppino was a ‘great communicator’. The recordings that have survived show that, considering they were complete amateurs operating with rudimentary equipment, the quality was very high.
The broadcasters self-mockingly defined it as a ‘satiricalschizophrenic’ show, and it is fair to say it was surreally political. By now Peppino was knocking at an open door: his political reputation as a straight shooter had already earned him large audiences when he gave speeches, and when Crazy Wave went out radio was still probably as popular as television in the homes of southern Italians. Many people would carry their transistor radios into bars, and groups would gather to enjoy the show. The powerful, meanwhile, would stay home to hide their embarrassment.
In order to avoid both legal problems and to amuse his audience, Peppino re-created Cinisi, its corrupt politicians and Mafiosi through the use of nicknames. The whole town was renamed ‘Mafiopoli’, and instead of using the real name of the town’s main street, Corso Umberto, he changed it to ‘Corso Luciano Leggio’ – after one of the three top Mafia leaders of the time. Important local people were given nicknames, often relating to the American Wild West. ‘Geronimo’ was in fact the Christian Democrat mayor Gero di Stefano, ‘Joe the Hod Carrier’ was the Mafia building contractor Giuseppe Finazzo, Badalamenti’s deputy Vito Palazzolo became Cinisi council’s ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs’ due to his frequent trips to the US – a description many people would have presumed referred to his involvement in international drug trafficking. Peppino’s favourite target was Don Tano Badalamenti, whom he sometimes called a ‘pale-face’, and here some explanation of Italian is necessary to understand the Wild West allusion. The leader of the Oglala Sioux, Sitting Bull is translated into Italian as ‘Toro seduto’ – so Tano Badalamenti became Tano Seduto.
The force of these programmes went far beyond clever puns and nicknames; they were a political podium from which Peppino and others used one of the most formidable weapons that can weaken the powerful – satire.
The following monologue not only attacks another sacred cow – the Church – it also attacks the Christian Democrats, while all the time making sarcastic remarks about Badalamenti. The timing of this broadcast, just two weeks before a council election, also increased its effect:
. . . yes, yes, they’re all going to pray, they’re praying the elections go well and that all the faithful convert to the Christian Democrats. They’re always praying: in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost, in Earth as it be in Heaven – but look how many nuns there are!!! – a hell of a lot of nuns, who are all with us. And then, and then, and then there are some friends, who are praying for them as well: our Father, here as thou art in Heaven, and they’re all praying for a CD victory, Don Tano, Don Tano, who is a man of great faith, of immense faith, a man who deeply believes in God and in eternal peace, Don Tano, a man who has given two million lire to celebrate our patron saint, two million, he paid for the whole celebration. Don Tano, who has never been a bad Christian but always a devout Christian, Don Tano, Don Tano is praying . . . (soundtrack from a Western film, gunshots).
Don Tano is praying for a Christian Democrat victory, so that the CD gets in the best position, so that everybody bends over and offers their arses . . . ‘dear brethren, give us some help’. . . Don Tano Seduto is overcome, at the moment he is paying penance for all the sins he has committed so that the brethren of Mafiopoli and the holy CD forgive him . . . ‘My dear brethren, I have cleansed myself, now I am pure, my act of penance is a sign that I have returned to the flock, that I am praying for you, that my sacrifices have been for you. I beseech you in the name of my earlier teachings’ (gunshots) – vote Christian Democrat.
An Expert in Heroin Trafficking and Shotguns
These radio shows were very popular in town, and they must have been very enjoyable to make. But Pe
ppino and others didn’t forget that they were still engaged in a deadly serious campaign to change Cinisi from head to foot.
The central political problem they had campaigned against for a decade was still there: a system of power formally dominated by the Christian Democrats, but in which the Mafia had a strong influence. Jets now screamed overhead in the lower areas of Cinisi and heavy traffic was still clogging up some streets as construction work for the new motorway had not yet finished. Following the worldwide success of The Godfather there was even an obscene element of ‘Mafia tourism’, mainly involving British visitors. Once a week a coach would leave a resort along the coast and climb up into the mountains behind Cinisi on a day trip. It cost 2,500 lire to visit ‘The Godfather’ and receive a kiss on the cheek and a glass of wine. However, there wasn’t much play-acting going on: Pietro ‘The Damned’ Palazzolo – the human ‘tourist attraction’ in question – had recently been serving a life sentence for no less than 13 murders. He was a typical specimen also in his apparent deep sense of respect towards others. Margherita Galati met him several times because at the time she was a friend of his granddaughter: ‘he was a real gentleman, with a real sense of reverence towards the family and towards women’. While all of this was simply in bad taste, what was truly scandalous was that Cinisi council had spent a huge amount building a road that led to virtually Palazzolo’s house alone.
What perhaps made Peppino and others angrier more than anything else was that the Communist Party was slowly but surely sliding into this swamp. This was the background to a meeting held one day in April 1977, when the group argued strongly over the text of a leaflet. Many said it was over the top, but in the end it was printed and they allowed Peppino to distribute it. It contains all the anger, frustration and sense of betrayal they felt towards the Communist Party, but Peppino distributed it virtually on his own. As regards both the Christian Democrats and the Mafia, they had never gone this far before:
Following the passing of the council budget, due to the votes of the Communists, Socialists, Liberals and fascists, which will allow Christian Democrat DICKHEADS to manage the town’s affairs for a long period, the planning committee has practically approved an application to build a five-storey building. It was presented by the notorious Giuseppe Finazzo, ‘hod carrier’ of Gaetano Badalamenti, a pale-face expert in heroin trafficking and shotguns . . .
First of all we accuse the Christian Democrats of being enslaved to the Mafia, given that they have allowed our whole area to be devastated in recent years, something which has been led by the Badalamenti gang, who have made sizeable profits which they have then recycled into other ‘business’.
We demand that the Communist and Socialist parties publicly account for their political behaviour over the last few years . . .
ONCE AGAIN, WE DEMAND THESE SO-CALLED LEFTWING PARTIES ACT RESPONSIBILY, BOTH POLITICALLY AND SOCIALLY: you’re either with the Mafia and the Christian Democrats or you’re against them.
In any event, we’ve got sufficient evidence to unmask you once and for all. A few days later there was a knock on the door of the Impastatos’ house on the Corso. It was a well-known Badalamenti henchman, who had something to say to Luigi Impastato.
This had never happened before: Luigi had always made arrangements and gone to meetings of his own accord, his family never knew precisely when he was seeing his Mafia friends. The Mafia is always very careful and precise about how it communicates, and it often does so by sending unspoken messages. Don Tano’s open message, to all those who heard it – or who would hear about it – was that he wanted to meet Peppino’s father right away.
Accidental Death of a Mafioso?
Felicia recounts what happened a few days after that knock on the door: I had invited my daughter-in-law to lunch. When we had stopped eating he took down his suitcases and said to me: ‘Get my things ready because I’m going away.’ ‘And why are you leaving?’ I asked him. ‘I’m going away until things quieten down’ he replied. But what did that mean?
‘I can’t stay inside this house any longer, I’m ashamed!’ ‘What is there to be ashamed about? It’s not as if your boys have stolen or killed, or run around with bad women. What are you ashamed of?’ He answered: ‘I can’t stay here any more, I’ve got to leave . . . I’ll come back when things have been sorted out, otherwise I’ll never come back.’
This is the typical brusque manner of a traditional patriarch – no explanation, no discussion, just action. Amazed by his behaviour, his daughter-in-law Felicetta Vitale attacked him too: ‘But what do you mean? You’re acting like a baby.’
Luigi Impastato’s weakness was clear for all to see. His leaving must have had something to do with his meeting with Badalamenti; whatever he was doing now was happening because he had been told to do it. He didn’t want to discuss things with his family and explain why he was taking such drastic action. So he just doggedly stuck to his guns: ‘I’m going, and if anybody asks for me, say that I’m going for work.’
Felicia was exasperated: ‘I responded by saying I didn’t want to know a thing, and that all he should do was leave.’ And with that he was gone. On the short drive to the airport, Luigi told a relative: ‘I’ll come back when things are sorted out. Look out for Giovanni though – because my other son is a lost cause.’
That was it. Nobody even knew where he had gone, and as to why he had gone – all they knew was that ‘things had to be sorted out’.
A whole series of questions arose in the minds of those he had left behind: what was it that needed sorting out? Was it Peppino? Why did Luigi have to leave so that things could get sorted out? Should Peppino change his behaviour? Should the family send some kind of message to Badalamenti? Should they just carry on as before and wait for Luigi to come back? None of these questions had simple or easy answers.
As Felicia recounts, her eldest son did not seem prepared to change tack in the face of his father’s sudden disappearance: ‘When my husband went to America, the person who was struck the most was Peppino. He said, “He’s gone to America to let me be killed, who cares?”’ His mother, though, was very worried, so she asked Peppino: ‘Why don’t you carry a gun?’ This wasn’t such an unusual question to ask, hunting has always been popular in Italy and these small Sicilian towns had always been awash with guns.
Maybe five years earlier Peppino might have responded differently, but the political climate had changed dramatically over the last couple of years. On the mainland a left-wing terrorist group called the Red Brigades had launched a spectacular series of kneecappings, bank robberies, and lately political assassinations. Although they called themselves communists, they were a very elitist group: all their supporters had to do was to just sit at home and watch – the communism they apparently wanted to create would be the work of a few hundred terrorists. Not only was their strategy doomed to failure; when the Red Brigades attacked the establishment it gave the Christian Democrats and the police a stick they could beat radicals such as Peppino with. If democratic revolutionaries such as Peppino – whose concept of communism came through mass action – could somehow be associated with the Red Brigades, he and others like him could be criminalised and therefore removed as a serious force of opposition. This was the thinking behind Peppino’s answer to his mother: ‘If I were to carry a gun, given that the police are in agreement with the Mafia, they’d take me in as an armed terrorist.’
Meanwhile, Luigi Impastato had caught a flight to America.
First he went to New Orleans and stayed with the children of his brother, ‘Leadspitter’ Impastato. Then he went to stay with other relatives near Los Angeles, but the fact that he arrived without warning them was proof of his confused state of mind. Yet the change did him good. He was far away from Cinisi, totally separated from his hometown. Trips across the Atlantic were very expensive, as were transatlantic phone calls, so he had no contact with Cinisi. Not only was he more relaxed, but in the US he had no ‘face’ to lose, he could say what he thoug
ht and talk far more freely than he could with his wife and sons.
So he started to open up a bit, and told his relatives that Peppino: ‘talked an awful lot’. But he also uttered a key phrase: ‘I’ve told them – they’ll have to kill me first before they kill Peppino’. He admitted to his relatives across the Atlantic what he had never told his family in Cinisi: that his Mafia friends had discussed killing Peppino. Once again, given that he no longer felt he had to act like an alpha male, he started to talk about his feelings. Despite all his blunt arguments, insults and brutality, he wanted to defend his son and protect him – something he would never admit to back home.
Many things still weren’t clear, though: what did the Cinisi Mafia think of his attitude? Perhaps they respected traditional family loyalty and would let things lie. But what if Peppino carried on – could there be a breaking point? And how serious was Luigi’s threat to defend his son at all costs?
None of these conversations filtered back to his family. After about a week they did find out where he was, yet they still didn’t know why he was there. There were a couple of theories being tossed around by the family: firstly that it was just a vindictive act, aimed at punishing them by making them worry and suffer; the second idea was that he had left Cinisi to give the Mafia an opportunity to kill Peppino. It obviously wasn’t the latter, because when Luigi came back after a month all of his family were still doing very much the same things. Once again, he told them nothing. Did the fact he was now back meant that whatever had driven him away had been ‘sorted out’? Nevertheless his wife remembers: ‘When he got back from America he seemed better’.
Maybe what had been sorted out was in Luigi’s mind; perhaps he had decided to come off the fence and defend his son. Soon after his return, his brother ‘Leadspitter’ Impastato told another relative: ‘A few days ago my brother Luigi almost had a go at me. He’s gone mad, he doesn’t think straight. He agrees with everything his wife says.’ Not only was this a terrible situation for a male chauvinist to witness, but once again it suggests that Luigi Impastato was not prepared to stand by and let his son be murdered.