| Table of contents no. 2/2005 |
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Participation of the Director of SISde
Prof.Michele Bagella's conference: "Terrorism and Financial Markets..."
Participation of the Minister of the Interior |
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| Immigration between drama and resource |
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Answers by Alfredo MANTOVANO, Nicolò POLLARI, Giuseppe ROMA, Antonio GOLINI
In the globalization era, space becomes smaller, time becomes shorter ,border and customs barriers appear more and more the symbols of out-of-date confrontation lines between nations. Merchandise, information, capital and ‘know-how’ are exchanged with an unimaginable rapidity - unthinkable of a few decades ago. However, such liberty and freedom does not apply to men and work today. Man, when he attempts to relocate to reach new work or residences, he meets with countless barriers or filters which are interposed both by the country of origin and by the state to which he intends to migrate. Notwithstanding this fact, tens of millions of people, from undeveloped areas, try to relocate every year (legally or illegally) towards countries where conditions of work and the quality of life is better guaranteed.
(Photo ANSA) |
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| Essays and articles |
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 | In the collective imagination, particularly after the bribe scandals in Italy (tangentopoli), ‘lobby’ is synonymous with a pressure group which operates in the dark, in a grey area between right and wrong, to favour (“grease the wheels”) hidden interests of financial groups and banks. In this article, ‘lobbying’ is presented in a completely different light. There is no pressure ‘behind the scenes’, but there are contributions to the political decision process. These contributions take the form of information and analyses, supplied by specialists who, in this way, make the final choice more adequate and targeted.
It is a thesis that originates from the American experience where lobbies are legally credited in both branches of Congress. It sets out to prove that to render transparent, through modern regulations, a mechanism of correct information and not political pressures, can improve –with appropriate choices of industrial policy based on secure data – national security.
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 | We consider Sardinia as a sort of modern political laboratory because it appears to us as a country where people debate and discuss. A country where the high level of political culture allows phenomena(which is too often considered by ‘continentals’ as expressions of popular unrest or crimes), to be evaluated and analysed in a wider context, taking into account the historical and cultural roots of the island.
Sardinia is a country where extremism attempts to try the experiment, which has failed on the continent of Italy, of convoying into a single ‘river bed’ the most diverse 'anti-system' instances. These instances all have one thing in common – liberation from the colonizing state of Italy.
(Photo www.indipendetzia.net) |
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 | To discuss the Balkans in times of peace, beyond the emergencies and conflicts: this is the objective indicated by Emanuela Del Re, who describes in this article what has changed, what is changing and what is still to change in the Balkan peninsula. All this without forgetting our contribution – as Italians and Europeans – is one of the fundamental ingredients in the recipe for stability and equilibrium in the region. (Photo ANSA) |
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 | Through the media propaganda, Bin Laden demonstrates perfectly well his knowledge of ‘psychological warfare’ and ‘ manipulation of the masses’ and thus, inaugurates the ‘terrorism in franchising’ system, where the operative cells have an independent life within the guidelines issued by the leadership. Essential to this strategy, addressed for different reasons both to the Western audience and to the Arab World, is the revelation of his work of camouflage. The Saudi Sheikh transforms himself into a myth and the flesh into symbols. This article documents the most salient moments of such a process, running photographs of Osama’s metamorphoses from Mujahedin military chief to strategic advisor of Allah’s Army, to political leader of a universal Caliphdom, to the most recent figure of ideologist of the ‘civil war’ in Iraq between Sunnites and Shiites. (Photo www.jsonline.com) |
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 | To grasp and oppose the challenge of fundamentalist terrorism, it is vital to have adequate, effective and coordinated judicial instruments. The careful examination of the innovative rules introduced in Italy after the 11th September attack; the comparison made with other European legislations; the examination of the problems arising in international cooperation; the recognition of specific problems – e.g. the undercover activities and the use of collaborators, all show that many things have been accomplished, but, at the same time, points up certain weaknesses of the system. The author strongly hopes that these handicaps can be promptly overcome through a more functional harmonization of the anti-terrorism legislation within the European community.(Photo ANSA) |
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 | As we are used to exporting our Mafia abroad, perhaps with a sort of complacent shame, (please forgive the contradiction), we have come rather late to the realization of the risks posed by foreign crime in Italy. The dangers of drug trafficking, illegal immigration, prostitution exploitation and black labour have certainly been perceived, but the more general and transnational risks have probably been somewhat underestimated. We present here some aspects of the Nigerian threat. Many analysts maintain that the structural glue of such a crime is the submission to a superstitious fideism, synthesized in the voodoo and ju-ju. A careful exploration into the main aspects of the phenomenon shows instead a much more complex and dangerous nature. Our analysis, therefore, aims to identify and qualify the risk factors using our knowledge of the social, political, economical, religious and cultural foundations of the Nigerian Republic. These elements are contained in a densely entangled context, warped locally by criminality and then extended to the international level. This organized crime reaches Italy through an impenetrable and indefinable network conveying integralist topics, illegal lobbies’ interests and criminal activities. (Photo ANSA) |
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 | An inedited informative report on the phenomenon of globalization comes to us from a highly developed debate among Chinese intellectuals. It concerns an ‘inside view’ which, for the first time, allows us to examine the situation from the viewpoint of a country which is trying to identify an original and alternative path able to satisfy the requirements of modernization and, at the same time, respect tradition.
The outcome of this debate, moreover, will not be only ‘internal’. The models of globalization and economical development adopted by the Chinese cannot but have, in fact, repercussions on the economies of other countries, including Italy.(Photo ANSA) |
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 | This article, intended to be of a divulging nature, proposes to offer an explanatory overall view on graphology with particular reference to the support that it can offer in the war on criminality. It does not aspire to cover all aspects of such a vast and complex discipline. We intend, at the most, to give a rough outline of the material, in order to fire the reader’s curiosity about a little known, but fascinating subject.
Some graphology samples of notorious criminals are given in the appendix. |
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| Surveys |
ALL-ITALIAN STORIES  |
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 | This short story, without any literary or lexical pretensions, depicts, in a setting of sheer fantasy, some of the distinctive traits of the ‘camorra’ recuperated from anti-criminal memoirs and integrated with the emerging aspects of the complex criminal scenario of Campania.
It suggests a ballet of voices and shadows of a camorrist Naples, which does not represent ‘tout court’ the Neapolitan society, but is, nevertheless, part of its history, drawing from that history hagiographic aspects of inadequate social and political theories.
Behind the character of each actor one recognizes the thousand possibilities for being a member of the camorra – criminal evolution and the progressive divergence of the two camorra models. The traditional one, strategically tied to the social and economic territory and the modern, devoted to excess and to the hypertrophy of gangster violence and competitiveness.
In the background stands a versatile Naples; evocations of Neapolitan plays and intimate dramas, rich in atmosphere and emotions. A city which guards secret anxieties, uneasiness and a desire for recovery.(Photo www.sibcol.com/images/cardneap) |
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| FROM THE ARCHIVES TO HISTORY |
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 | It is well known that Italy has, for a long time, been a country of emigration (as has often been cited in the current debate on the phenomenon). However, what is less known, perhaps, is the existence, since the early 1900’s, of an immigration ‘problem’ which was the subject of close attention from the Political Authorities and the Police.
The two documents presented here – which in this number act as a kind of counterpoint to Forum - contain some historical curios on the phenomenon at the beginning of the 1900’s and on the strategies adopted, at that time, to counteract it.
The first one is a circular ordinance issued on the 10th of July, 1909 by Giovanni Giolitti, then in office at the Ministry of Home Affairs, addressed to the “Prefects of borders provinces and provinces where sea-ports are situated”, inviting Police Authorities to keep the “most attentive watch” on the borders, to impede entry into the Kingdom of foreign citizens without subsistence means and with no fixed address.
The Home Secretary had calculated, in fact, that the phenomenon would have “serious consequences”, both for public security and for the State coffers, ”which must later carry the burden of the considerable expenses necessary for the expulsion or for the forced repatriation” of the foreigners.
The second document is of equal interest; a letter of July, 1904, addressed to the Home Office from the Prefect of Genoa to which is attached a list of immigrants’ names, omitted here, for reasons of privacy.
Some years after the Giolitti order, the Prefect of Genoa seemed to want to draw a synthetic balance of the local situation and of the activities conducted by the Police, to face “ the exceptional conditions in which this city found itself”. Conditions which impose procedures of “mass arrests” and the “embarkation of foreigners to return abroad”.
The Prefect’s report seemed to be motivated also by the necessity of replying, on the one hand, to protests by certain foreign countries for the expulsion policies adopted by the Italian Authorities, and on the other, to protests from citizens, often taken up by the public press. Among the most awkward of the problems was the fact that the foreigners “being completely without documents, they assume whatever nationality which they feel best suits them, often stating on subsequent occasions, to be of a nationality different from the one originally declared.
Certainly in those years the “non EU citizen” did not exist, the foreigners travelled aboard steamships and not “old sea-wrecks”, the flow of migrants was not comparable to that of today and they came from different areas, (the Prefect’s report supplies more details in this regard), but some of the problems raised in these documents - also from the viewpoint of public opinion – appear to be extraordinarily current.(Photo www.filef.info) |
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| BOOK REVIEW |
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| The halo of legend and mystery which has always surrounded the secret services does not save the sinister OVRA and the official police and the parallel police of the Fascist Regime who were engaged in repressing dissent at all levels.
Historians have access to original documents which, quite often, disclose upsetting discoveries. The last, which are due to the work of Mauro Canali have unleashed new controversy. Contrary to Donald Gurrey, who has the merit of conducting us along a little known road; the Ital-German espionage, the saboteur network and the subversive organization of a liberated Italy. |
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| CHRONOLOGY OF TERRORISM |
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| It is understood that an act of terrorism is a violent action, politically motivated, intended to strike objectives of symbolic value and destined also to intimidate a ‘targeted audience’leading back, socially or politically to the primary objective.
The act of terrorism, unlike that of ‘political violence’ (ascribable to individuals or groups who tend to act ‘in the open') and that of the ‘guerrilla ’(carried out with instruments and paramilitary logistics) is usually performed by individuals or groups who operate in secrecy or undercover, or in any event, under disguised conditions within the threatened societies”. |
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| BI-ANNUAL REPORT
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By the CESIS General Secretariat |