by Behan, Tom
Nevertheless, the court held that Andreotti had lied 23 times and found him guilty of: ‘cultivating personal and friendly relations with Cosa Nostra leaders’, and meeting with Stefano Bontate, a top Mafioso and ally of Badalamenti, murdered in the Second Mafia War. Overall, the verdict referred to: ‘Andreotti’s generic proximity to the Cosa Nostra faction led by Bontate and Badalamenti’ in the very period that Peppino Impastato was murdered.
The establishment’s response to this trial was to turn reality on its head: they congratulated Andreotti as if he had been comprehensively acquitted. Berlusconi said he was ‘very happy for Andreotti’, while the man who was to become prime minister three years later, Romano Prodi, called it ‘wonderful news’. The Vatican too expressed ‘great satisfaction’ as Andreotti was congratulated on a live interview shown simultaneously on several channels.
Despite Andreotti’s conviction, Marcello Dell’Utri (despite his conviction) proposed Andreotti as the Italian head of state, the president of the Republic, when the post fell vacant in May 2006, a proposal that was supported by Silvio Berlusconi and many other politicians. Although Andreotti’s bid was unsuccessful, to this day he still passes legislation through the Senate and on television chat shows is treated as one of Italy’s most prestigious politicians of all time. His reputation is so good that he recently fronted a major publicity campaign for a mobile phone company.
The only journalists who try to talk to him about his conviction are not highly paid, and do not have an easy time for actually daring to show a critical attitude towards him. For example on 20 June 2006 an amateur journalist named Piero Ricca decided to tackle Andreotti about his criminal record at the end of a public meeting at Milan University. Although Andreotti briefly engaged with the journalist, after a few minutes bodyguards pulled Ricca away. He was then followed outside by police officers, cautioned, taken to a police station, and questioned for two hours.
The Road Ahead
In Cinisi the old Mafia boss Procopio Di Maggio is still alive – he even survived a leap from the third floor of a US hospital when he heard some unwelcome visitors were coming to see him. Nowadays he moves about with two walking-sticks, and most days you can find him hanging around outside the bar at the top of the Corso, watching who goes in or out of the council building.
But the world in which Di Maggio grew up in, the one recounted in The Godfather films, is long gone. On Cinisi’s Corso you no longer see poor peasants on donkeys. As in nearly all corners of the world, globalisation has arrived here – one of the most visible features are North African and Sri Lankan migrants selling carpets or other trinkets. You won’t find straw on the pavement either, but Alitalia in-flight tissues discarded by the many people who work at Palermo’s international airport, the area’s largest employer.
And given that the world has changed, so too has the Mafia.
Just as the Mafia shifted from dominating a world of agriculture and illiteracy to one of industry and public sector development, it is now adjusting to the recent growth in service industries, privatisation and globalisation. There isn’t respectable society and the Mafia, there is a growing ‘middle class Mafia’, prepared to invest and make money working alongside people who have had professional criminal careers.
So, while drug trafficking, murder and extortion are still part of the Mafia’s staple diet, the big growth area is whitecollar crime. And apart from the embezzlement of EU and other public sector funds, insurance fraud and identity theft, a major new field of money making is privatised health care.
When Totò Riina was arrested in January 1993 the police found a note in his jacket pocket that mentioned a Sicilian builder named Michele Aiello. Over the next few years Aiello started investing his profits from building by buying up laboratories that process test results. As the Italian public health system started collapsing, he bought a hotel and turned it into a private cancer clinic – which politicians subsidised by arranging a continuous stream of public sector patients. Aiello’s clinic (until his arrest for Mafia association in November 2003) quickly invested in extremely expensive equipment, making it one of the top five centres for cancer treatment in Europe, offering treatment which is virtually unavailable in the public health system. Looked at cynically, even a patient who needs kidney dialysis for thirty years is a significant and long-term source of profit.
In other words, dirty money can be recycled by investing in a privatised health system, and a guaranteed stream of business is supplied by corrupt politicians. While Lombardy in the north of Italy, with double the population of Sicily, has just 60 private health centres accredited by the public sector, there are now over 1,800 in Sicily.
Given this kind of bonanza, and the sheer economic weight of a privatised health system, it is inevitable that a high number of Sicilian politicians are also doctors and surgeons; indeed, in one recent case a senior surgeon was arrested and accused (due to his past convictions) of being the Mafia boss for an entire area of Palermo. This is why a recent report by Palermo’s special police investigative unit can state: ‘It is very worrying to discover that for so many professionals – above all doctors – being in contact with Cosa Nostra is such a natural thing.’
As Umberto Santino, president of the Peppino Impastato Research Centre, points out, just as today’s professionals try to infiltrate the Mafia, how to mobilise ordinary people against the Mafia needs some new thinking: ‘If we want to resurrect the great traditions of anti-Mafia struggles then I think we have to concentrate on people’s needs, by placing the problem of unemployment, casual labour and so-called development at the centre of our activities.’
Peppino Impastato fought a very unequal battle; with a small group of local followers he led a campaign against the leader of the Mafia. But a lot of what he did still remains valid – most of all his rejection of the notion that the police, government and institutions are fully committed to eradicating the Mafia. His other major contribution, which is still relevant today, was his constant attempt to create mass disputes around people’s immediate needs. Umberto Santino again starts from the past and tries to look forward:
While it’s true that nineteenth-century trade unionism is finished – or is becoming increasingly conservative – I’ve often argued that we need to create a new kind of trade unionism, and develop new kinds of disputes. At the end of the day this battle must be fought on concrete issues and clear objectives. But it’s not easy: people’s lives today are so fragmented.
Nowadays politicians frequently try to create consensus by promising their electorate ‘empowerment’ in their daily lives. Many people at work have to grapple with and try to implement meaningless mumbo-jumbo such as ‘synergy’, ‘mission statements’, ‘benchmark values’ and ‘best practice’. Yet in the real world, large numbers of young people are alienated by high unemployment and the authorities enacting repressive legislation against what is often not much more than high spirits; while people in work suffer long hours and job insecurity.
As Santino concludes, stopping the Mafia means concentrating on generalised and radical change rather than new buzzwords, laws and prisons: ‘If you don’t link the fight against the Mafia to a serious battle for development and real democratic change, then the fight against the Mafia will only consist of people making worthy statements.’
Afterword
Last Night in Mafiopoli
The last interview I did for this book was on the outskirts of Cinisi, towards the mountains rather than the sea. It was nearly dark as the car drove down a trazzera, a Sicilian country lane, although I could see the lower slopes of Mount Pecoraro looming up out of the gathering darkness.
The two people I was going to meet had detached themselves from active campaigning quite a while back, although they proudly defended the stand they had taken alongside Peppino all those years ago. As ever, it was a very pleasant chat, so much so that one of them – who had never met me before – was breastfeeding much of the time.
Given they w
ere the last of the many people I had interviewed, it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t tell me very much that was new. But as I was packing away my digital voice recorder and getting ready to say goodbye, one of them said: ‘it’s still carrying on today, just look at that house down the road.’
‘What house?’ I asked, expecting to hear a perfectly ordinary tale of somebody building a house illegally and getting retrospective planning permission from the council. ‘The one on the corner. It was owned by a nephew of Gaetano Badalamenti until the council confiscated it.’
‘And when was that?’ After a quick discussion the general consensus was ‘ages’, and the only one prepared to put a number to the period said ‘about 15 years ago’. I asked more questions, often getting conflicting replies from my interviewees. What was clear was that the council had confiscated it from the Badalamentis years before, and that work to repair it had just started again recently.
One of them told me a story about the morning a few years ago when she had gone to the local fountain to get fresh water, because the mains supply is too chlorinated. As a few women were lining up they looked across at the house – which workers had been cleaning out the previous day – and noticed a large object on the front lawn, wrapped inside a big roll of heavy cellophane. It was a large dog, whose throat had been cut. This is a classic Mafia warning to stay away, or risk suffering the same fate.
I tried to find out more: ‘What was the council going to use it for?’ They didn’t know. ‘Why had it been confiscated?’ They weren’t sure, and although this couldn’t be the reason for confiscation, one of them seemed to think when it was first built about thirty years ago the whole thing was done illegally.
I was stunned. After the lengthy campaign for justice, the huge popularity of The Hundred Steps, two successful trials, the Anti-Mafia Commission report, the arguments over Felicia’s death – why had nobody told me about this before? As I said goodbye there were two questions buzzing around my head: Why does nobody know anything definite about this? and Why has nobody campaigned over the long delay in making use of the building?
As I got a lift back to the centre of town we stopped briefly outside the house. There wasn’t much point getting out as it was dark, but I could still make out that it was a sizeable villa – with up to ten rooms.
The following day I talked to a few people about the Badalamenti house. Salvo Ruvolo, secretary of the far left Communist Refoundation Party, had the vague idea that maybe the council would name it after Felicia Impastato, whereas Pino Vitale knew next to nothing. This was all starting to look very odd: after all these two individuals were among the strongest supporters of the Impastatos and the most vocal opponents of the Mafia in Cinisi.
When my friend Giuseppe Nobile arrived in town we decided to go and have a look at the house in daylight. I couldn’t exactly remember where it was, but we bumped into Felicetta’s brother who took us there. It looked just as big in the sunshine, and in front of it there was a large drinking fountain for cattle.
The structure looked solid but in need of repair; there was a sign nailed up on the first floor detailing which company was going to do the building work, and a pile of sand out the front. You could walk right into the front garden, which is what I did, and then down towards the basement, which I’d noticed was open as well. Giuseppe stood outside on the pavement, at first I thought because he wanted to act as a kind of lookout, but knowing him it was probably because he didn’t want to get his shoes dirty.
The basement was a total mess, all kinds of junk and lumps of concrete were strewn everywhere. A toilet and bathroom had been plumbed in, as had a washing machine and dryer. It wasn’t clear whether any of the Badalamentis had ever actually lived in the place, but my interviewee of the day before thought they had. One thing intrigued me: two square holes had been cut into the concrete floor, about one foot deep and four feet square. There seemed no purpose for a hole of that size, so what could they mean? My mind started racing: somewhere to hide drugs, or the beginnings of a bunker to hide away when you’re on the run from the police? I didn’t have time to go upstairs as Giovanni and Felicetta were waiting to say goodbye.
I told them what I’d learnt about the house. Giovanni said he had heard something unofficially from the council – that it would be named after his mother. He was as tense as ever, and almost apologetic that he didn’t know more. But there was a tension in the air. Felicetta remained silent and impassive. They both looked tired. It’s not surprising: for nearly thirty years not only have they led a battle against the Mafia and the institutions that protected it, they have also raised a family and run a business. Neither of them needs to apologise to anyone, and I certainly wasn’t going to start criticising them after all they’ve been through. We said goodbye, but when I looked at things in a wider context I still couldn’t answer these two questions: Why does nobody know anything definite about this? and Why has nobody campaigned over the long delay in making use of the building?
As dusk fell Giuseppe Nobile and I drove out of Cinisi up to Partinico, where we met with Gino Scasso. Given that Giuseppi and Gino are both from this town and not from Cinisi they knew absolutely nothing about the house, so they couldn’t answer these two questions either.
I was so distracted I forgot to buy my ticket before boarding the train for Palermo, and the conductor wanted to fine me. I talked him out of it, and perhaps made a very convincing case for being ‘distracted’. As we walked down the platform at Palermo I started talking to him: ‘I’m writing a book about Peppino Impastato and the Badalamentis, have you heard about them?’ He nodded almost imperceptibly, which only encouraged me to carry on: ‘Peppino had a terrible life, what with the Mafia, all the tensions within his family – and maybe he never even went to bed with anyone in his life. But now I’ve just discovered that the council confiscated a house from the Badalamentis fifteen years ago and has virtually left it untouched.’ I put my two questions to him too, but he just held out his hand, impassively: ‘Best of luck with your book.’
Now I was back in the city, Cinisi seemed like another world. Nobody can answer my questions; it all seems so strange, above all in a town that is probably the best known in the whole country for both Mafia domination and anti-Mafia campaigning. As I walked out of the station at midnight I remembered the final episode of the 1960s cult television series The Prisoner. After living in an oppressive and surreal community as prisoners for an unknown period, three of them make their way back to London. One of the final scenes is a long shot of one former prisoner outside the Houses of Parliament, gesticulating wildly to a policeman, trying to convince him of where he’s been and what he’s seen.
The following day was my last in Italy in terms of preparing this book, and I decided to make more phone calls. Other people in Cinisi confirmed the basics of what I had discovered. Despite it being 11am on a Saturday I decided to phone the mayor’s house, but was told he was out and would be back for lunch; I phoned at 2pm and he still wasn’t back; I left a message but he didn’t ring back. This is very unusual: in years of experience nobody has ever refused to speak to me when I decide to introduce myself as a professore from the University of Canterbury.
I started to think the mayor was avoiding me and my questions. For a while I got worried, and phoned a journalist to tell him the basic outline of what I knew.
Next morning I noticed something interesting in the local papers: the arrest of the mayor of a town near Corleone accused of Mafia membership. Two local builders were arrested too, as well as the town’s ‘patriarch’, who had already been tried for membership of the Mafia and murdering a policeman. Apparently there was a system of recycling dirty money and manipulation of tenders for council contracts.
What was politically interesting about the mayor wasn’t so much the stolen pistol that was found in his desk, but that he was a member of the party that has inherited the traditions of the Christian Democrats – the Union of Christian Democracy. The Sicilian leadership was ho
lding a meeting at the time and the regional secretary commented: ‘You shouldn’t confuse events which involve individuals with the soul of the party, which is against the Mafia’.’
This meeting was being held to confirm the candidacy of Salvatore Cuffaro as president of Sicilian regional government, a position he had won with a massive vote in June 2001. Such huge support made a few cynics wonder whether he had got a little extra help, but they were dismissed until exactly two years later, when it was announced that he was facing charges of associating with the Mafia – the first time that Sicily’s most important politician has ever faced such serious accusations.
The basic fact to understand about modern political life in Sicily and Italy is that Cuffaro didn’t resign and wait until his name was cleared. Neither did he resign in February 2004, when further charges of aiding and abetting criminal activities within his administration were laid against him. It is this very track record that encouraged his fellow party members to call for his re-election at that meeting in early 2006. Not only that, but in the meantime Cuffaro stood as a senator in the April general election and was easily elected. Number two on the Union of Christian Democracy list was Calogero Mannino, a former Christian Democrat minister who had been convicted two years before of involvement with the Mafia and given a five-and-a-half-year sentence; again his reputation secured his election to the Senate. Despite – or because of – the fact that Cuffaro’s election leaflets were found in the hideout of Mafia leader Bernardo Provenzano, captured during the campaign, Salvatore Cuffaro was comfortably re-elected as president of the Sicilian region in 2006. This is why Giovanni Impastato defiantly argued in a front-page newspaper article: ‘We Sicilians have to realise that we live in a region where the majority of politicians are in cahoots with the Mafia, starting with President Cuffaro . . . We have to solve these problems and break the links between the institutions and the Mafia.’