Authors: John Dickie
Some members of Berlusconi’s party have expressed hostility towards mafia
pentiti;
they accuse them of being tools in the hands of politicized magistrates or of acting out a secret plan to destabilize Italy’s political system. In the name of having a more humane prison system, other politicians from the parties within the governing coalition have floated the idea of offering mafiosi easier prison terms in return for ‘dissociating’ themselves from Cosa Nostra, but without turning state’s evidence. There are reasons to believe that Provenzano’s wing of Cosa Nostra would quite like to implement a deal along these lines. Pietro Aglieri, a boss who is studying theology in prison and who is known to be very close to Provenzano, wrote to antimafia prosecutors in March 2002 to ask for negotiations: his proposal was that men of honour would get less harsh penalties in return for recognizing both the existence of Cosa Nostra and the authority of the Italian state. Magistrates view such a scheme as a trap. They think Provenzano wants to resolve Cosa Nostra’s internal conflict of interests by making merely symbolic concessions to the authorities. Although symbols are important in the world of Cosa Nostra, the likely upshot of ‘dissociation’ would simply be that the mafia would continue with its ‘submerged’ operations, confident in the knowledge that the public had been convinced that it was a thing of the past.
Irrespective of the Berlusconi government’s intentions, Cosa Nostra undoubtedly likes many of the noises that have emanated from Rome since the last general election. But top bosses seem to have convinced the organization’s grass roots, and perhaps even themselves, that they have a right to expect more than noises from a Forza Italia government, that a government programme of legal changes will serve to heal the mafia’s internal divisions.
Accordingly, Berlusconi’s opponents are keeping a keen eye on his government to detect any hint of concessions to Cosa Nostra’s headline demands. It is reassuring to report that there have been none so far. In fact the bosses were always likely to be disappointed in their expectation that they could skew the policy-making process to suit their own ends. Mafiosi have a great interest in finding friendly Italian politicians, but that does not necessarily mean that they understand Italian politics. What some of them may not appreciate is that even a hypothetical Prime Minister whose absolute priority was to do the bidding of the Sicilian mafia—and no one for a second believes that this is the case with Silvio Berlusconi—would have to face almost insurmountable obstacles. The spirits of Falcone and Borsellino stand guard over laws like 41 bis, and would exact a fearsome political price before they surrendered them. Any governing party that tried overtly to dismantle the pillars of Italy’s antimafia legislation would be handing a colossal prize to its opponents and, just as importantly, to its coalition allies. (All government in Italy is coalition government, and the rivalry between coalition partners is nearly always just as fiery as the struggle between the ruling parties and the opposition.)
Whatever it was that encouraged some bosses to hope and expect so much when Forza Italia came to power more than two years ago, Cosa Nostra is now beginning to feel let down by a governing coalition it imagines, rightly or wrongly, to contain elements friendly towards it. For one thing, the ‘dissociation’ idea has not become policy. ‘Dissociation’ is thought to be Bernardo Provenzano’s idea of a compromise, both between Cosa Nostra and the state, and between the mafiosi in prison and those still at large. In July 2002, Leoluca Bagarella, the man who was boss of bosses between 1993 and 1995 and who is thought to be hostile to any such compromise deal, showed that his patience had worn very thin; he used a court appearance to send out a warning that mafia prisoners living under the tough prison regime 41 bis were ‘tired of being used, humiliated, oppressed and treated like merchandise by different political parties’. A man like Bagarella would never indulge in an aimless rant. Mafia-watchers interpreted his words as a threat, calibrated in its imprecision, and addressed perhaps to unknown members of the governing coalition, or perhaps to the government in general. In classic mafia fashion, anyone who was really meant to understand, would understand. In October 2002, the head of the Italian secret service said that there was a ‘concrete risk’ that Cosa Nostra, in its disappointment, would open up a new season of murders.
The end of 2002 saw a crucial decision go against the mafia when the Berlusconi government converted 41 bis from an annually renewed decree into a permanent law. A Forza Italia Senator, who has long argued in favour of inscribing 41 bis in the law books for good, commented that parliament had given the ‘only possible response to Bagarella’s worrying pronouncements’. In the eyes of men like Bagarella, however deluded they may be, Forza Italia has thereby scandalously failed to deliver on its most important commitment. No one had to wait very long for a sign of how Cosa Nostra felt about this setback. Soon after the parliamentary vote on 41 bis, magistrates were alarmed to see a banner appear during a football match at Palermo stadium; it read: ‘We are united against 41 bis. Berlusconi has forgotten Sicily.’ This was widely taken to be a warning directed at politicians in Sicily. The
pax mafiosa
may well be about to end. The paradox of these tense times in Sicily is that, if Cosa Nostra does start shooting again, then that will almost certainly be a sign that it is on the way to defeat. It is no wonder that the
pentito
Salvatore Cancemi has recently said, ‘I find this silence more frightening than the bombs.’
* * *
In April 2000, at the age of seventy-two, Tommaso Buscetta died of cancer in his adopted American home. In the forty years spent serving Cosa Nostra, and sixteen spent trying to destroy it, he had taken on an estimated 200 pseudonyms. A few months before the end, in his last in-depth interview, Buscetta reflected on a unique life. The hopes that he and Giovanni Falcone had nurtured back in 1984 were now only a bitter memory:
At the end of my first interview, Giovanni Falcone and I deluded ourselves that this time the mafia would be defeated. That there would be no more mafia in our land. Now … I have to admit that my prediction was wrong.
Cosa Nostra, Buscetta concluded, has won: ‘The mafia is inborn in all Sicilians.’ Thus, in his pessimism, the man who made a unique contribution to exposing the falsehood that the mafia and the Sicilian character were the same thing ended his life reiterating it.
These are certainly worrying days for the mafia’s enemies. But the time has not yet come to join in Tommaso Buscetta’s fatalism. Even in a country as amnesic as Italy, what he revealed is unlikely to share the fate of the Sangiorgi report. The ‘rustic chivalry’ myth is dead. The secret that the Sicilian mafia managed to keep for so long, the secret of its existence, is out, and out for good. But through all that time, forces much more formidable than myth have kept the mafia strong. The next few months and years promise to determine which way Cosa Nostra will turn. No one outside the organization knows how deep the split between the bosses in prison and those outside runs; nor does anyone know the relative strength of the two factions. They may unite in a new offensive against the magistrates and in taking revenge on the politicians they imagine have let them down. Or they may collapse into civil war, bringing the whole organization back to the brink of destruction. Or Bernardo Provenzano may succeed in appeasing or isolating the bosses in prison. If he does, Cosa Nostra will continue quietly to restructure and reforge its pact with elements within the state, ready to enter a new phase of its savage history—a history that could, and should, have been brought to an end long before now.
Anyone who knows their way around the academic research on the Sicilian mafia that has been done over the last fifteen years or so will recognize the great debt I owe in these pages to the leading Italian experts in the field. I hope they will understand that, if I have chosen not to mention them in the text, it is only to avoid burdening a non-Italian readership with more names than is strictly necessary to tell the story. What first stirred in me the ambition to write
Cosa Nostra
was a desire to reproduce the intellectual excitement I had myself felt on reading the work of Alessandra Dino, Giovanna Fiume, Diego Gambetta, Rosario Mangiameli, Francesco Renda, Paolo Pezzino, Umberto Santino, and particularly Salvatore Lupo whose
Storia della mafia
is in many ways the single most important inspiration for what I have written here. I also derived great benefits from being able to discuss this project in person on several occasions with Salvatore Lupo and Giovanna Fiume. My fond hope is that they think the results of my labours worth while.
Meeting antimafia magistrates Antonio Ingroia, Guido Lo Forte, Gaetano Paci and Roberto Scarpinato left an impression on me and on
Cosa Nostra
that is far, far greater than is apparent from what is made explicit in the text. Francesco Petruzzella and Margherita Pellerano in the Palermo Palazzo di Giustizia were unfailingly considerate when I called on them for help.
Nino Blando deserves my special gratitude: he provided me with excellent company, crucial insights and indispensable guidance on a field trip in January 2003. I must also thank Nino’s parents for a wonderful day in Gangi, Ina and Tullio for the welcome they gave me in Brancaccio, and Pippo Cipriani for sparing far more of his time than I had any right to expect in Corleone—where Rosanna Rizzo was also kind enough to share the fruits of her research and experience with me. It would simply not have been possible to write this book without the hospitality of a number of other friends in Italy: Marina and Lorenzo in Milan, Hugo, Stefania and Savina in Rome, Igor and Alessandro in Palermo. My thanks are also due to Nick Dines and Antonio Orlando for their last-minute help with some illustrations, and to Alessandro Fucarini from the Labruzzo agency whose superb photographs deserve a much wider exposure.
Many of my friends read parts of the book at different stages and in so doing helped me undertake the difficult journey away from the conventions of academic writing towards a more readable style. The following will never have to prove their patience in any other way: Prue, Lucy, Clara, Rob, Rebecca, Doug, Emma, Nick, Sham, Claire, Dad, Sarah M., Dave, Jackie, Tommo, Jay, Claire H., Sam, Andrew H., Caz, Cat, Uncle John, Andy, Sarah, Charles, Irina, Rosie, Rosa, Naomi. I owe both Radoyka Miljevic and Robert Gordon a special debt of thanks for reading a complete final draft at very short notice. Sarah Penny cast an astute eye over the proofs. I was also lucky enough to be able to draw on the expertise of Mark Donovan, Christopher Duggan, Lucy Riall, Melvyn Stokes and Michael Woodiwiss. Gaia Servadio, Pino Adriano and David Critchley also provided useful information.
Ombretta Ingrascì did some fantastic work tracking down the illustrations. Her advice and criticism during the writing process have also been very precious. Readers should keep an eye open for her fascinating work on women and the mafia.
Since I first sat down to work on this book I have had almost constant discussions with John Foot. Whatever its faults,
Cosa Nostra
is far better than it could ever have been without his input and support.
The Italian Department at UCL and the Editorial Committee of
Modern Italy
deserve my gratitude for allowing me some time to write. The friendly and professional staff in Humanities 2 of the BL deserve a massive pay rise.
My editors at Hodder—Roland Philipps, Helen Garnons-Williams and Rupert Lancaster—have all been a joy to work with. Helen deserves particular thanks for some perceptive interventions at a crucial stage in the book’s development. Everyone in the team at Hodder has been a model of cheerful professionalism. Catherine Clarke, my alchemical agent at Felicity Bryan, has helped make the whole process fun.
All the translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
This one’s for Oscar and Beth.
* * *
Every reasonable effort has been made to acknowledge the ownership of the copyrighted material included in this volume. Any errors that may have occurred are inadvertent, and will be corrected in subsequent editions provided notification is sent to the author.
I would like thank the following for granting permission to quote from various published works: Rubbettino Editore for Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sul fenomeno della mafia e sulle altre associazioni criminali similari,
Mafia, politica, pentiti;
Enrico Deaglio for the interview with Andrea Camilleri in
Diario;
R.C.S. Libri S.p.A. for Giovanni Falcone and Marcelle Padovani,
Cose di Cosa Nostra,
and for Saverio Lodato,
Venti anni di mafia;
Tullio Pironti Editore S.r.l. for Lucio Galluzzo, Franco Nicastro, Vincenzo Vasile,
Obiettivo Falcone;
Edizioni La Zisa S.r.l. for Alessandra Dino,
Mutazioni. Etnografia del mondo di Cosa Nostra,
and for Dino Paternostro,
L’antimafia sconosciuta. Corleone 1893–1993;
Editori Riuniti for Corrado Stajano,
Mafia. L’atto d’accusa dei giudici di Palermo.
1. Reproduced by permission of
La Repubblica,
Rome, and the British Library (Newspaper Library). 2. Copyright unknown. 3. Olympia, Milan. 4. John Dickie. 5. Reproduced by kind permission of Baron Alessandro de Renzis Sonnino. 6. John Dickie. 7. From
L’Ora,
3–4 May 1901 reproduced by permission of the Biblioteca Nazionale, Rome. 8. Private collection. 9. Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan. 10. Archivio di Stato, Palermo. 11. Palladium/Tipografia Ferdinando Cortimiglia, Corleone. 12. Rubettino, Soveria Mannelli (CZ). 13. Copyright unknown. 14. From the
New York Herald,
16 April 1903, reproduced by permission of the General Research Division, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. 15. Copyright unknown. 16. Dario Flaccovio Editore, Palermo. Reproduced by permission of the British Library, YA1990.a.12670. 17. Olympia, Milan. 18. S.A.C. spa, Milan. 19. Labruzzo, Palermo. 20. Labruzzo, Palermo. 21. Copyright unknown. 22. John Dickie. 23. Labruzzo, Palermo. 24. Labruzzo, Palermo. 25. Copyright unknown. 26. Labruzzo, Palermo. 27. Labruzzo, Palermo. 28. Labruzzo, Palermo. 29. Reproduced by kind permission of Giovanni Impastato. 30. Labruzzo, Palermo. 31. Olympia, Milan. 32. Copyright unknown. 33. Copyright unknown. 34. Labruzzo, Palermo.